Prelude and Fugue in G major

Some of those chords in the prelude seem really hard to play, but you are a good pianist, so I may be wrong. I love both the prelude in the fugue in this one. I'm wondering if you are going to compose something other preludes and fugues, but I guess i'll at some point I'll have to see. Anyway,, very much enjoyed!

Overall very good pieces. They remind me of the Mendelssohn Prelude and Fugues with the very thick organ like textures. My only reservation is your harmonic direction in the prelude though good overall I sometimes wonder about your choices - sometimes the avoidance of a cadence seems a bit too deliberate - I would have liked to have heard more suspension in the inner voices leading to or away from a cadence. Also the big flourish in the middle is a nice relief but it is a shame there is not afaint echo of it later in the prelude.

Do you know the Mendelssohn Prelude and Fugues? Try the B flat Major one for a listen.

I'll need to come back to this piece for further analysis.

Oh, to make the prelude less scary looking please halve the note values and set it quarter = 100. Keep your time sig at 4/4, you will just have doubkle the amount of bars. The 32nds make it overly complicated. It becomes obvious in measure 11 when you have to resort to 32nd sextuplets in the middle of the bar - hard to read and unneccessary.

Dear Goodness, this is an intense work O_O I was on the edge of my seat the entire time listening to it. The Prelude has pure drive and intensity, as well as an unpredictable edge to it, while the Fugue is intellectually exhausting due to its extreme complexity -- at least, it is to me. That has got to be one of your more complex fugal textures you've made so far. Sheesh.

I love it though, honestly -- both of them. Some of my favorites from you! Thank you for sharing

Both the prelude and fugue sounded pretty good. And very difficult again.

I don't think I would be able to play the right hand of the prelude alone. Do you expect a pianist to play the treble clef of bar 16 with one hand? Because wow. I would suggest you have two hands play the first crotchet of that bar. The prelude sounds like G major for a single bar before in becomes clearly E minor. I would even say the beginning is simply in E minor. It goes through many keys, including a prominent G major. And then ends in... a chord that sounds like the dominant of C major. Just my impression. If you are okay with that then it's fine.

The fugue is again hard to follow with the structure. You have both a Bb and a B natural in the subject. The Bb is given more importance. The subject head sounds like G minor, and the tail in G major.

Um... yeah.

WOAH! Write more of THIS. I have read the previous reviews and I wish I had gotten here sooner, because then I would have new things to add. My only concern, of course, is the accessibility of the piece, which I am sure you're aware of. I think you have created a VERY solid piece and a contemporary-ish sounding one at that! Great job!

I enjoy how you play with tonality like it's a tool instead of the essence that drives the work. Your motifs are strong and your treatment of them and the melody definitely determine the direction from the finished product. I am curious though, did you write chord structures first? Or, melodic ideas first? I don't really know how you came up with SUCH complex ideas. I'm left wanting to have some insight into that if you are interested in sharing.

-Connor

This really isn't as complex as the spoiler makes it to be! Theory is descriptive, not prescriptive.

Chris: I've doubled the note values; it's in the master copy, I'm just too lazy to reupload stuff, so bear with me.

Ian: The fingerings in said measure are quite spurious. I thought they would not fit into an average hand span, but in all earnestness 543 321 works better. (Now even 532 421 would be better than the fingering given, in the event that the chords do not fit, and I know this is very much possible; Scriabin wrote larger chords in his 5th sonata, demanding roughly the same speed) In fact the chords in bars 5 and elsewhere are the hardest chords in the prelude. As we have roughly the same hand span I fully expect you to be able to play the prelude, given that you do play better than I do.

Connor: If you like this piece you may want to check out the other preludes and fugues I've written which I've posted on this site (shameless self-advertising here) or Shosty's set; although his counterpoint is not as strict as mine, it's definitely much more inventive.

There are three methods which I employ in composition : The first, to take a motive and transform it as such, second, to fit a motive into a given set of harmony and textures, and third, to take a given texture which I've improvised beforehand at the piano, and to write what comes next. I used the third in the prelude. The right hand is obviously written to support certain harmonies which I want, although harmony itself is dictated by stepwise or cadential progressions in the bass (i.e. circle of fourths, or going up or down by a semitone. That is not to say the right hand is wholly dependent on the left hand; the two openly engage in counterpoint. With a structure as simple as the prelude's everything must be developed from the initial theme. No, I don't write chord structures first, although I have a reasonable grasp of theory - enough to write cadential progressions.

I use the first in the fugue. I mostly write the main contrapuntal ideas first (i.e. fitting the 1st countersubject to the subject, the 2nd countersubject to both, or fitting free counterpoint to the episodes, e.g. ms 11 where I wrote the ascending bass line first, and fitted everything else in between, using motives derived from the exposition, or 19, where I have an imitation sequence). Obviously motivic development is the priority here (as in all other fugues), and I only have so much control over harmony as to the keys I want the middle entries to be in (though I don't usually modulate to a specific key I want), and returning to the tonic in the recapitulation.

Alright, I'm done with blabbering - thanks for the compliments, everyone.

Bar 16 is indeed quite hard. But just change the fingering of the first chord from 2-3-5 to 3-4-5. It's easier that way.

Quite an unusual technically demanding piece.

oops you just mentioned that before, sorry my bad.

I've heard several works by you, and every single one of them strikes me as a very talented piano composer. I like your approach very much - somehow managing to sound innovative despite being very tonal (who said that only atonalists are innovators, anyway???)... Well done.