Bach's preludes, some of considerable length, need their fugues,... Each of Chopin's Preludes is self-sufficient, but they were composed, like Bach's, with one for each major and minor key. Since nothing follows them, one may ask what these works are a prelude to...
Excellent article, but this little bit is inaccurate. The article gets the above almost exactly backwards, because one could make a case that it is the fugue that needs the prelude - but I say "almost" because both are self-contained pieces and neither needs the other. Rather, the prelude exists as an aid to audiences with untrained ears. That is, it is not the fugue that needs the prelude, but the audience who "needs" it, for it was intended to help them make better sense out of a fugue, which were considered to be sufficiently complex to warrant a little extra context prior to listening.
The prelude helped them by being a less complex piece but in the same key as the fugue it precedes. Listening to the prelude prior to hearing the fugue helped to "establish the key". By the time the prelude was finished, it would have taken the listener's ear on a brief journey around the notes of the piece's scale, resolving to (and thereby drawing the listener's attention to) the note that serves as the key's tonic, and also to whether the 3rd was a major 3rd or a minor 3rd. Once the ear was calibrated in this manner, it was thought that the interweaving lines of the fugue would be easier to follow.
Excellent article, but this little bit is inaccurate. The article gets the above almost exactly backwards, because one could make a case that it is the fugue that needs the prelude - but I say "almost" because both are self-contained pieces and neither needs the other. Rather, the prelude exists as an aid to audiences with untrained ears. That is, it is not the fugue that needs the prelude, but the audience who "needs" it, for it was intended to help them make better sense out of a fugue, which were considered to be sufficiently complex to warrant a little extra context prior to listening.
The prelude helped them by being a less complex piece but in the same key as the fugue it precedes. Listening to the prelude prior to hearing the fugue helped to "establish the key". By the time the prelude was finished, it would have taken the listener's ear on a brief journey around the notes of the piece's scale, resolving to (and thereby drawing the listener's attention to) the note that serves as the key's tonic, and also to whether the 3rd was a major 3rd or a minor 3rd. Once the ear was calibrated in this manner, it was thought that the interweaving lines of the fugue would be easier to follow.