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Prelude and Fugue in G Minor


Noah Brode

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This is one of the two prelude/fugues I offered to write for the sitewide project. I am not very good at writing fugues, so any helpful comments would be very much appreciated. Im sure there are plenty of mistakes.

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Prelude: 
A couple weird measures. Most notably 3 and 12. For 3 and 7, the use of the German +6 is really nice in terms of building tension, but are followed by confusing chords, C˚ and Eb˚7, respectively. I kind of see what you're going for on 7, which is why I think that one is okay; it seems like you're eliding a cadence which is clever. 3 doesn't have the same treatment.
Measure 12 is just a bit awkward because of the tritone leap to the top note. 
In general, I think the fact that this entire Prelude sounds like one voice makes it sound more like the first period in a two-period structure with something else added the second time. Just feels a bit empty.

Fugue:
In two voices, parallel dissonances (where two non-standard intervals are consecutive) are not "wrong", but they do sound awkward (they would be wrong in Renaissance counterpoint, however). Places like beats 3 and 4 in m. 20 just sound out of place because of it. 
The same rule applies with parallel 4ths. Beats 3 and 4 in m. 31 are an example of this. 
Speaking of m. 31, why did you go back to two voices at m. 30? The episode isn't super long, but it kind of unnecessarily loses a voice.
m. 26's first beat confuses me, mostly for the major 9th between the bottom two voices.
The fugue's general structure is also a bit weird:
Subject - m. 15
Answer - m. 19
Codetta - m. 22 (this is too early; you have one more measure of subject to get through).
3rd Voice - m. 26 (why does the soprano suddenly have the answer again?)

I could go on, but it seems like it needs a little more direction.

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Thanks @Monarcheon and @aMusicComposer. I have a lot of trouble with this form. It doesn't help that there are no really clear online resources that help one construct a fugue from start to finish (there are several that show how to write an exposition, but nothing I've found tells how to plan out episodes and coda). Thanks again. I may do an overhaul of this one.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Fugues are a pain to write. I never write them. It hurts my brain. Respect to you for writing one!

 I like the prelude, for the reason aMusic mentioned.

The fugue was entertaining, and personally I don’t mind your 2nds as long as there’s a third following (I actually really liked measure 20),  but parallel fourths and fifths are generally to be avoided in most cases. And Monarch’s right about the codetta being one measure too short. 

That’s the thing about fugues — stylistically, the structure usually has to be rock solid, and fugues are less forgiving of freeform choices. It’s just the nature of the beast.

You did really well writing this prelude and fugue, there’s just a little more polish needed. Great job!

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