We found ourselves today quite impressed upon noticing the beautiful balance in contrast in the setup of a fugue of Nikolai's (here), where both subject and countersubject manage to keep on an equal footing with eachother. 

A certain Rodion (e.h. here; prelude left intact) also has, we feel, quite a good sense of balance, his subjects and countersubjects usually being contrasting in character, though his individual parts tend towards the motivic and episodic more than the melodic and linear, as others' might.  We also feel that he has a very healthy conception of what a prelude aught to be: one generally finds them functioning as truly adequate pre-fugue aperitifs in his works.

We cannot help but feel, however, that dear Mario (e.g. here; prelude left intact) doesn't quite get it.  A fugue, for Mario, seems to consist of a catchy melody with some 'polyphonic'-sounding accompaniment.  This idle dittifying of the most austere of musical forms is something what we have little time for.  Poor old Mario, is what we say.

Oh my!  We do feel foolish.  We had inadvertently uploaded an AAC file and changed the extension to MP3.  You should find that if you try to download it again that this highly characteristic piece of his again, that this time it will be in mp3 format.

Well-well, it's rare that our dear Rodion makes an appearance in any discussion of serious music    One of his better works, I must agree, and rather well-constructed.  Proof that he could do it if he wanted to.  I wonder why he so often didn't?

Ok – let’s discuss the E minor fugue (Book 2) then.

The first thing to say is that being an Alla breve movement in which the minims divide into 6 quavers, the tempo should be something approaching that which Mr Grew wrongly proposed for the C# Minor fugue (Book 2) recently. That, instead of being Alla breve (2 beats per bar) was marked 12/16 (and should have been in 4 beats per bar – rather more steady than he proposed).

It is interesting to note that this fugue caused Bach to do quite a bit of rethinking – it obviously did not come to him with the spontaneity that most others did. We can note, for example, that the entire closing section from bar 70 was later added in a revised version (now the one generally published). The following original ending is that found in the London BL autograph, which picks up the music half way through bar  62:




A rather different, and quite poor conclusion is here forced at bar 70 – the bar which in printed editions has the pause on the dominant chord. Bach later (wisely) thought this a poor ending, and actually added a further 16 bars to provide a more definitive Coda section. So this fugue was clearly not a fully-formed structural entity from the outset – even allowing for the detailed working out of counterpoint that always must have been part of the compositional process. He did not, let us face it, have intellectual control of the overall form from the outset, but had to rethink it. That is fine – good composers bother to do this, while poor ones don’t care any more!

You imply TF (and I hope I am not putting words into your mouth) that in this fugue there is ‘no regular countersubject’ and  ‘no invertible counterpoint’. You also suggested that in this example ‘texture’ becomes less important than the supremecy of the main theme.  Let us look at the opening bars then:



The countersubject (whether or not it is to become a ‘regular’ one) begins in the highest voice in bar 7, and consists of 2 ideas: a) three rising arpeggio figures followed by a descending scale (bars 7 and 8 ), and b) a slower scalic melody in minims and crotchets (bars 9-12). It must first be noted that this appears in invertible counterpoint with the Answer (voice 2). Try playing the two melodies in inversion (i.e. perhaps with the higher voice transposed down 1 octave), and you will find that it still makes just as good harmonic sense. So the first observation (pace your previous assertion) is that Bach indeed does contrive double counterpoint. In fact most of Bach’s counterpoint in two voices (like all good counterpoint) usually is invertible, whether or not it ever actually needs to be structurally.

The previous extract, with the Subject entering in the LH, continues (from bar 15) with...



From bar 13 (previous extract) a very interesting thing happens to the countersubject. First we can observe that it IS indeed a ‘regular’ one (despite what you suggest), but that its presentation here is shared between the two highest voices! The first three minims in v. 2 provide the first notes of the rising arpeggios which then continue in v. 1, and in bar 14 the downward scale figure (from bar 8 ) is taken over in v. 2. This ‘splitting’ between the two voices – which is unusual – can only have been done for purely textural purposes (and included in this is the harmonic outcome of this texturing).

The fugue continues with...



...showing bars 21 to 29. Obviously the main Subject (now in the relative major) appears at the end of bar 23. We can note (again) that the regular countersubject is this time shared between the two lowest voices. The only difference in presentation occurs in bar 25 (where the downward scale first noted in bar 8 is now inverted). Here the bass line – again for textural/harmonic reasons – alters the melodic shape, while retaining the original rhythm. At bar 26 the the same ‘sharing’ pattern as occurred at bar 15 is repeated. BUT – note that not only have these two voices been inverted, but also they now appear below the theme instead of above it. So here we note a 3-way inversion of the voices – i.e. ‘triple counterpoint’.

The movement continues (with bar 30)...



The previous statement of the Subject (bar 23 ff in G major) is now provided with a dominant Answer (end of bar 29, middle voice) in D major. But now must be noted that the Countersubject is ‘shared’ this time between the outer voices. The first segment (with the rising arpeggios followed by the downward scale) happens in the lowest voice (bars 30 and 31), while the second segment (with the scalic minims and crotchets) is then transferred to the highest voice. Again Bach exploits his triple counterpoint matrix to provide this newer permutation.

You will find that this triple counterpoint structure is used on each appearance of the Subject or Answer, always now ‘shared’ between the other two voices. The rest of the piece appears here...






Note the appearances of the theme, and the accompanying ‘shared’ Countersubject, appearing at bars, 41, 49, and 59 (each time with the ‘shared’ Countersubject arranged in differing vertical/harmonic permutations).

The later-added Coda (from bar 70) begins the Countersubject (bar 72) differently in terms of melody and texture (although the original rhythm is retained), although when the third voice enters (bar 73) it does so with segment b) of the Countersubject.

I think, therefore, that this demonstrates a) that the Subject is no more ‘important’ in the structural unfolding than is the Countersubject, b) that a considerable structural element in the control and handling of the material is the result of textural desire and necessity, and c) that the generating criterion for contrapuntal invention and execution was the use of invertible counterpoint (in this case rendered in three layers as triple counterpoint).

Since, therefore, all the structural elements remain audibly at the forefront of the piece’s surface, I cannot think of any reason a) to assume any ‘supremecy of the Subject’, or b) to make it in any way deliberately ‘stand out’ in performance (any more than it naturally would).

Baz

Since so many fugues have been discussed in this thread, and in the crackpot thread, we wonder Whether any Members know this interesting one? It is the work of quite a well-known composer, not Bach himself, nor Wagner, nor even Scryabine. . . .

If no one knows it we shall reveal the answer to-morrow.

That is indeed a pleasant and unexpected Fugue from Chopin Mr. Derks!

Well! It seems no one knows our mystery Fugue from the previous message or at least if they do they do not wish to say so. Although it does not sound like him, it is in fact by Mozart - the second part of his "Prelude and Fugue in C" K. 394, written in 1782 when he was twenty-six years old (just before his marriage) and at a time when he been studying Bach and had transcribed some of his contrapuntal works. Of this Fugue Mozart told his sister "I've written Andante Maestoso over it on purpose so that it won't be played quickly."

It is a little-known fact that Mozart, second only to Bach himself as a musical genius, wrote towards the end of his short life a number of works for mechanical organ (K. 594, K. 608, K. 616). He would have enjoyed all those electronic and interpreter-free fugues in the crackpot thread we think!

I have for some time meant to return to this talk of the E minor fugue.    There is a delightful book by a fellow named Groocock who provides very wholesum diagrammatical analyses of each of the fugues of the WTC (including the preludes which are also fugues).  Though I susupect the moment has passed, here is his summary of what he feels is going on in the E minor fugue (he has a couple of pages of text to accompany this also, but)



We notice that it seems from our rough comparisons to agree with member Baz's explication of the fugue.

(if anybody is curious to see the rest of this book, do considering messaging me personally)

Ah yes, and on the topic of Rejcha/Reicha (I have yet to settle upon a spelling myself), here is one of his more AMUSING fugal experiments.  The careful and critical listener will note that the subject consists of a single note repeated.  The fugue directly after this one is sillier still, but for different reasons (it consists of some repeated notes followed by a chromatic scale ascending then descending), and not so interestingly to our intellect.

If he does so, he does so from beyond the grave.  The posthumous editor was the venerable Yo Tomita who is, to our knowledge, still very much alive (though he does not, to our knowledge, frequent places such as this).