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Chelys 7 (1977), article 4
one mood throughout. Only in the last ten bars is the brake applied to
give a wonderfully broad peroration which, in true fugal style,
simultaneously combines elements of stretto and inversion above an
augmented statement of the theme in the bass.
If Fantasia no. 2 is lively, then the third monothematic work, Fantasia
no. 3, is the most stately, a work of tremendous dignity which seems to
require a slow tempo in spite of all the long note-values. Its wide arch of
a theme, opening with an upward leap of a sixth, is unusual for Jenkins.
He perhaps sensed this because he frequently adopts a variant form in
which a descending third is substituted for the ascending sixth (Example
XI). If this variant is less striking melodically, it does allow some
wonderfully rich harmony to develop.
Ex. XI. Theme from Fantasia no. 3
During the second half of the work, Jenkins introduces a quicker countersubject
(Example XII) which, with derivatives, combines with the
principal theme—a ploy for generating new interest often, of course,
used by Bach. My experience of comparing the North manuscripts with
other sources for Jenkins’s music, especially where the four-part
fantasias are concerned, indicates that they steer something of a middle
course textually. They are likely to contain more accidentals (generally
giving a firmer diatonic reading) than the seemingly earlier sources from
owners like Browne and Merro, while at the same time largely avoiding
the corruptions of later scribes such as Hutton and the Oxford musicians
of the 1660’s. Variant readings like those of Example XIIIa suggest that
Jenkins’s original simple text has been overlaid as a result of a
generation or so of players ornamenting the cadence, their improvisation
ultimately becoming ‘frozen’ in notation.
Ex. XII. Theme and countersubject from Fantasia no. 3.
[64]
Ex. XIII. (a) bar 10, (b) bar 51, showing variants between sources