A "Proto-Theme" in Some of J. S. Bach's Fugal Works

This article focuses on a pattern of harmony and voice leading that appears, elaborated, in several fugue expositions (and generically related passages) by J. S. Bach. I contextualize this pattern in examples of "schematic" Baroque fugal writing and suggest that for Bach it functions as a sort of "proto-theme," with respect to which certain expositions stand as "variations." These expositions eschew normative I V I progressions of Stufen and thus offer a challenge to William Renwick's exhaustive methodology for fugue analysis. Bach's variations may respond motivically and energetically to a sense of retrogression implicit the proto-theme, as I demonstrate with an analysis of the Fugue in A minor from Book H of The Well -Tempered Clavier, BWV 889.