ABSTRACT
To this day, no denitive answer has been oered to the question concerning the purpose for which The Art of Fugue was conceived and composed. Several hypotheses, each with its own supporting arguments, were proposed. Of these, two have gained popularity: the rst sees The Art of Fugue as Bach’s intended contribution to the Society of Musical Sciences, of which he was a member; the second regards the cycle as part of Bach’s pedagogical constructions, as were the Auffrichtige Anleitung1 collection of inventions and sinfonias, and The Well-Tempered Clavier.
