Prelude & Fugue for Harpsichord

Yes, uh.. I wrote this in the last couple of days, because I'm on vacation and I'm taking a break from more serious-business pieces.

And since writing this type of music is very relaxing (to me), sorta decided to write a prelude and a fugue. The fugue came first though, and the prelude pretty much tacked on after I figured I could as well write a prelude for it.

On the technical aspects of it, there's a bunch of harmonic passages which probably wouldn't fit very well in the 18th century, and progressions which sound out of the 19th. Though, honestly, I don't really give a flip. This isn't meant to be a recreation of style, Bach's or anyone else's.

The structure of the Prelude is pretty simple, it modulates into the dominant and then to the relative major of both the dominant and the tonica. There's a reverse modulation, and lot of stuff happens in between. There's a lot of progressions I can't explain the I-V-? system since I don't know how that works, and I use mostly function harmony so the names are also all in German lol.

For anyone who DOES understand or wants to help me translate, there's a bunch of interrupted cadences, both in the fugue and the prelude. Specially obvious is the semi final cadence in the Fugue before the fast passages at the end, but it happens as early as in the prelude in various sections, the first proper cadence is interrupted (with the 2 in 1 technique in the left hand) but the effect is lessened because I'm not using chords and the melody sort of lends to an almost sub-dominantish sound so I avoid going through that and instead go directly to dominant and such. There are also different types of interruptions that I use, such as simple position changes instead of leading-note resolution, etc. It's more modern stuff surely, but hey what the hell. Though in the case where the leading note isn't paid attention to, the progression of the passage doesn't really indicate that the leading note really sounds like one, so it's not really an error technically either. I'd give proper measure numbers, if anyone cares, but right now I'm feeling sort of lazy. So if anyone wants a more detailed explanation, just say so, no problem.

As far as the counterpoint here, well, I may have a parallel 8th somewhere, I think. There's also a chance there is some weird counterpoint stuff specially in the fugue, though the subject was surprisingly easy to work with.

In the fugue I make the answer a tonal one with the altered 5th jump so it jumps a 4th and repeats the note, but because of the character of the subject I decided to try to modulate right into the dominant so this is a sort of in-between thing. It's a real answer if you consider that I have to reverse-modulate to introduce the third voice, so there's a lot of junk going on that it's best seen rather than explained.

My only problem is that, considering the above, I'm thinking the jump alteration wasn't even necessary, lol. But either way, it sounds nice anyways so I don't care.

Both follow a pretty similar line of thinking, though the Fugue is considerably longer due to a lot of episodes cadencing into more episodes rather than another exposition. I chose to follow subject-answer model only in the relative major exposition, since a lot of the times I didn't feel like the answer was interesting enough.

One thing I did in the Fugue was that the complexity of the counterpoint increases as the fugue goes on, chord-wise and progressions get more complicated later on. I tried to give it a more urgent feel at the end with the diminished chords and obviously the sharp dissonance-resolution...thing.

Here are the files:

01-Prelude&FugueinDminor-Prelude.mp3 (Prelude)
02-Prelude&FugueinDminor-Fugue.mp3 (Fugue)

PS: Oh, the subject of the fugue is original mine. Though, uh, if someone did something like before, I have no idea.

This is fantastic! Am I right in guessing that Bach, rather than others of the Baroque, was your model in terms of texture and rhythm? I see his influence (not that this sounds derivative or anything), but of course you've given the harmony in particular your own personal twist. Truthfully, I think you could have gone even further with this, using more modern chromatic progressions (though not necessarily dissonant ones). Otherwise the counterpoint is very well done! Never worry about a couple of parallels; even Bach allowed an occasional hidden parallel here or there, and earlier composers wrote very nice music using entirely different standards of what was parallel or not.

I like your harmonic ideas. Keep on developing your individual style with counterpoint! Very well done.




By the way, the MP3 sounds great, and a harpsichordist would make the piece ten times more interesting with subtle articulations and a strong rhythmic drive. Do you play the harpsichord or know any harpsichordists with the time to learn this properly? I would learn it, but I don't even have enough time to learn my own music .

Originally Posted by echurchill

This is fantastic! Am I right in guessing that Bach, rather than others of the Baroque, was your model in terms of texture and rhythm? I see his influence (not that this sounds derivative or anything), but of course you've given the harmony in particular your own personal twist. Truthfully, I think you could have gone even further with this, using more modern chromatic progressions (though not necessarily dissonant ones). Otherwise the counterpoint is very well done! Never worry about a couple of parallels; even Bach allowed an occasional hidden parallel here or there, and earlier composers wrote very nice music using entirely different standards of what was parallel or not.

I like your harmonic ideas. Keep on developing your individual style with counterpoint! Very well done.




By the way, the MP3 sounds great, and a harpsichordist would make the piece ten times more interesting with subtle articulations and a strong rhythmic drive. Do you play the harpsichord or know any harpsichordists with the time to learn this properly? I would learn it, but I don't even have enough time to learn my own music .

First off, thanks for listening and I'm glad you liked it. This is only one of the many, many, preludes and fugues and such sort of thing that I've written. I taught myself counterpoint five or so years ago and since then I've written a lot of stuff in the same direction. ... Though right now my main interest is in modern music, I have to say that counterpoint always makes me smile regardless.

I may post more of my counterpoint stuff in the future, if anyone is interested.

Yes, I'm a huge Bach fan, but only of his organ pieces and some of the harpsichord work and a couple of concertos. So obviously, the influence here is his work but I'm also very fond of the north Germanic school altogether, Buxtehude and such people so that also plays a role.

And, yes, I could've gone much further with the harmony and extend it in a lot of directions, but I figured, it sorta wraps up nicely if the Fugue isn't so long and there aren't many contrasting musical elements.

As far as a recording of it live? Well I play Harpsichord myself, but I don't have time to study this currently. However, I can probably convince my teacher to play it, maybe! If I do get the time, I can try to see if I can play it myself though.

Yes, if I am guessing correctly... you would like Bach's harpsichord toccatas? I personally am not a fan of most of Das wohltemperierte Klavier or the Inventions/Sinfonias; only in Bach's non-pedagogical harpsichord music do I feel that that mastery he displays in his organ music shows through. I like the English Suites, but in most of the Partitas and some of the French Suites I feel that Bach is loosing touch with the old tradition of the Germanic suite. Not that they aren't good music for their own sake.

But now I must wonder, having found a couple of other composers on this forum interested in Buxtehude, why does nobody try their hand at sectional praeludia in the North German style? For me this is a goal far more immediate (and difficult) than writing individual fugues. Perhaps it's counterpoint textbooks conditioning us to become miniature Bachs. Or maybe I'm the only one interested in learning from Buxtehude and Froberger. I think the stylus phantasticus with its sectional designs is fascinating particularly from the structural standpoint. Plus the idea of varietas from Renaissance tradition is to me an appealing alternative to the motivic unity of the late Baroque.

I was wondering, what sort of pieces are you currently learning? I am finishing my senior year in high school and study the harpsichord with Maryse Carlin. Do you have a harpsichord? I have a Zuckermann Flemish. Not terribly up-to-date, but mostly authentic.

Originally Posted by echurchill

Yes, if I am guessing correctly... you would like Bach's harpsichord toccatas? I personally am not a fan of most of Das wohltemperierte Klavier or the Inventions/Sinfonias; only in Bach's non-pedagogical harpsichord music do I feel that that mastery he displays in his organ music shows through. I like the English Suites, but in most of the Partitas and some of the French Suites I feel that Bach is loosing touch with the old tradition of the Germanic suite. Not that they aren't good music for their own sake.

But now I must wonder, having found a couple of other composers on this forum interested in Buxtehude, why does nobody try their hand at sectional praeludia in the North German style? For me this is a goal far more immediate (and difficult) than writing individual fugues. Perhaps it's counterpoint textbooks conditioning us to become miniature Bachs. Or maybe I'm the only one interested in learning from Buxtehude and Froberger. I think the stylus phantasticus with its sectional designs is fascinating particularly from the structural standpoint. Plus the idea of varietas from Renaissance tradition is to me an appealing alternative to the motivic unity of the late Baroque.

I was wondering, what sort of pieces are you currently learning? ...

Well, I've never thought about writing something in more Buxtehude-esque style, I guess. I probably could try writing a prelude+fugue in that style, with the two or three subjects without being a triple/double fugue in Bach-sense. All that stuff.

I don't personally think any given style is harder than any other, it's just a matter of having a good hand for it, and that's just practice.

As far as which things by Bach I think are interesting, there's a lot of stuff on the WTK that I love, and his inventions have some really good ideas. But I think the core of his work lies in the preludes/fantasias/etc for organ solo, pretty much. He was above all an organist, and it's pretty evident when you look/play the pieces. Plus his counterpoint in something like BWV 543 (Prelude & fugue in A minor) is something entirely different from, say, art of the fugue or the later book of WTK. Partially because I think he didn't really care to make it pedagogic and just wrote whatever he wanted. There's of course the quasi-experimental stuff like the Chromatic fantasia/fugue and the Fantasia in G major for organ.

That's the impression I get, anyways.

As far as what I'm learning, the major focus of my harpsichord study has been sight-reading cyphered bass and improvising on this in the respective styles. it takes a lot of time, unfortunately. So as far as pieces, I pretty much study right now some things Schnittke wrote, but not much else.

Honestly, I'm a fan of the old-old franco-flemish(?) school with the weird polyrhythmics and stuff in france. But that is sort of hard to really get the hang of, there isn't much of it going about that I know of. I find that the further back you go in history, the more music starts to sound "modern", which is not a new find or anything. But it's still funny, given enough time and the proper context anything can sound modern, haha.

Oh, and no, I don't have a harpsichord at home. Though I have access to them when I'm not on vacation. I do have a keyboard at home, but the harpsichord sound there isn't the most convincing.

Originally Posted by SSC

Honestly, I'm a fan of the old-old franco-flemish(?) school with the weird polyrhythmics and stuff in france. But that is sort of hard to really get the hang of, there isn't much of it going about that I know of. I find that the further back you go in history, the more music starts to sound "modern", which is not a new find or anything. But it's still funny, given enough time and the proper context anything can sound modern, haha.

This is interesting; are you talking about Medieval or Renaissance music? "Weird polyrhythmics" sounds to me like isorhythm. Well, from slightly later my favorite is Obrecht and even later Lasso. Ockeghem and Josquin still don't connect to me too much, but mostly with this old music my issue is that I have very few recordings to listen to. I would like to get to know it all better. Or course if you're looking for the avant garde of this era, you must like Gesualdo and Lasso's Prophetiae Sibillarum. Most interesting to me is the experimentation with the "enharmonic genus" around Vincentino's time. They clearly never understood the fabled "enharmonic genus" but they did have some fascinating microtonal ideas.

Though if you refer to the Medieval period, certainly the composers of the ars subtilior were an avant garde of sorts. But unfortunately the only Medieval music I have heard is a bit of Machaut.

You're right, most colleges and early music groups have regrettably not gotten around to much of the earliest musics. What composers of those times are your favorites?



And sorry for hijacking your fugue thread. Back to that, I think you should post more Neobaroque things!

Hmm. Honestly, I'd have to look up the names. Let me get back to you on that.

Very good, impressive

Thanks!

oh, those lovey harpischord sounds, and this moving, always give me those ladies dancing in wide dresses, their breast squeezing into corsets
nice
will take those ones with me to norway, when i feel fucked up and lonely and overworked, just put them on and be dancing with those court ladies