Certain masterpieces provide exciting examples of the interaction of linear and periodic structures in the music of Bach. The Well-Tempered Clavier, The Art of the Fugue, the organ fugues, and many other examples of fugal writing present a superficially linear structure interacting with a powerful overarching cadential structure, which is essentially periodic. His variation forms range from the highly linear examples of the passacaglia and the chaconne to the essentially periodic Goldberg Variations.
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