Gilberto Guarino plays (temperament: Werckmeister III/A=443)Bach's short chorale prelude BWV 614, one of the three ornamental works inserted in "Das Orgelbüchlein". <br />"Das alte Jahr vergangen ist" may well be understood as evoking the transitoryness of human experience. <br />Composed in the key of A minor, it employs "passus duriusculus" (twice up; twice down), as if the composer was eagerly endeavouring to convey the sense of the inevitable, at the same time suggesting a subtle inversion of time flow. It is inquiring and disturbing... Life is transitory, the old year has passed away, but consciousness stays aware of it... <br />The masterpiece ends up in a kind of defying "interrogation mark", which is achieved thanks to the use of "figura suspirationis", both in the soprano and alto parts, moving up through emphatic parallel motion. <br />Sebastian seems to pose a question that rises, rises, and rises, and... is never answered (the trillo seems obviously not to gain a suffix...) <br />Actually, Bach's musical mind was absolutely beyond limits.
