(Prelude and) Fugue in C minor

This is my Fugue (and later to be uploaded Prelude) in C minor. I would definitely appreciate any comments on my contrapuntal writing and stuff. Also, near the end, there is a perfect inversion of the subject used in a stretto. It's not something easily noticeable so I thought I'd point it out and show how awesome I am.

And I don't have any idea of what to do with the Prelude, so any ideas are welcome. Unless they suck.

Overall i like how you sequence the rhythmic motifs in the all the three voices in the fugue..but looking at the score, i think u should put the 2nd voice(middle) with their stems down in the left hand part since they seem quite impossible to play with the right hand(stretches more than one octave). Other than that, cool piece!

-CJ

Musically, this is AWESOME. (I "liked" immediately after hearing it!)

Notation-wise, this is TERRIBLE. (I "barfed" immediately after seeing it!)

Ok, ok, it's not that bad notation-wise. But it is a pain to read at parts, and I'm sure if you took some time to look at how the voices would look if changed at parts, you could easily make it much easier to read for a performer.

Thanks for sharing! Again, this is really a very well-written piece, to my ears -- fugues are insanely difficult to write. Especially really good ones like this.

Thanks. At parts the middle voice is shared by both hands. The thing is, my version of Sibelius doesn't allow cross stave beaming. So a voice can only be entirely in the top or bottom clefs in a bar.

Glad you guys enjoyed it.

EDIT: I looked over the score and noticed how it could be improved. I changed reuploaded the score.

Hi!

This is certainly a fun little work. On the first few notes, it sounded baroque-ish. But then you got me interested with these "jazzy" rhythms and chords and such. Overall I liked this a lot :)

The score looks nicer now, but what about dynamics? I didn't see a whole lot of them, but that's mostly the first page. Maybe you could use a bit more detail there.

Good work overall! I can't wait to hear the prelude!

Heckel

I love, love LOVE the subject! A "jazzy" fugue is perfect (especially when it's tastefully done!)

In addition to the missing dynamics, I couldn't help but noticing there are accents in the recording, but none on the score. Are these intentional? If so, I'd love to see them in to help give the performer an idea. I'd also love to see this done a little bit longer; as of right now, it sounds like a section in something, rather than a movement in something.

hmmmm, I think you could extend the ending even more!

The unexpected ending is innovative - you set up a pedal and we expect an almighty buildup to a cadence...and then the piece ends. Although, maestrowick, I agree somewhat - I think it would need the performer to add some 'theatre' to make this ending really work. As you ask about counterpoint, I thought there were some moments where two parts share the same rhythm for a bit too long. The counter-subject might have more of a rhythmic contrast with the subject and be in the 'gaps'. But most of this was well-written and the interplay between parts more than provides momentum to keep the music moving forwards. A great update of a baroque idea.

I'm not sure what you mean by the ending being unexpected, siwi. I have a dominant pedal which is followed by a build up (consisting of a modified version of this often used chord progression: German 6th - Ic - V7 - I) ending in a perfect cadence in the tonic. I'm confused over what exactly is so innovative.

I'm working on making this longer as more than one person has commented on its brevity.

Can you point out the hidden fourths and fifths? I made an effort not to have them and thought I was successful.

The performance is an audio export from Sibelius. It's from a score separate from the one a got the pdf from.

Also thanks for the link you gave me the other day, John.

It seems I had the wrong idea of what a hidden consecutive was. And I was completely unaware of those straight-up consecutive fourths. I kind of disappointed now, because, after working so hard, I thought I had counterpoint down, then I find out what hidden consecutives are. Thanks for pointing them out though. I will keep it in mind on my next contrapuntal piece.

The original version of the sheet music had a lot of unnecessary performance directions. Some of them are to compensate for glitches in the playback. What I want on the score for printing often doesn't get what I want for the playback as well.

I have to say, I'm very impressed with this. I don't think there is really anything you should change to what you have here - perhaps do as some have said here and extend it a bit more. I wouldn't necessarily worry about the 4th/5th rule as much, since it's clear give your inflections here that this is NOT a common practice tonal work. Your contrapuntal lines have a clear independence to them - which a key fundamental to contrapuntal writing. Kudos, Ian. Very much enjoyable!