2 Fugues

Fugue in A Minor.pdfFugue in A Major.pdf

• Fugue in A Major: definitely a pleasure to listen to. I am really a fan of this style and while it is true that the more fugues I listen here the more nit-picky I get, the only thing that didn't convince me in this one was the very last bar before the end which felt to me a bit dry or "empty" in comparison with the whole rest of the piece, and while this is usual practice this time I felt it harsher, perhaps because of the sudden stasis of the first and two voices (perhaps a small ornament in the last beat would have sufficed to my taste). Nonetheless it is a very solid job in my opinion.

• Fugue in A Minor: I cannot decide which one I prefer. The main sentence of the first one is more of my liking but this one takes more time and gets developed very nicely, plus the end was more satisfying to me.

In summary, great and solid works you brought, thank you and congratulations Nazariy. The scoring, from a first glance while reading seems to be flawless too and everything is playable (which is to say something, since sometimes beautiful but unplayable 2-hand fugues do appear here and there).

Kind regards,
Daniel–Ømicrón. 

Hi @Nazariy

I like your fugue in A major as it's funny and light, and you use the fugal technique greatly without making it learned. I like in b.14 when there's a sttetto when it comes on beat instead of offbeat as this create rhyhmic variety there. I esp. like b.22 when you use 2 noymte values of the head of the subject for the episode!

For the ending I agree with Daniel @Omicronrg9 though that's not a serious problem at all: I think of the C minor fugue from WTC I when Bach adds additional voices there for thickness while having the tonic pedal.

For the A minor one I find it less enjoybale since it's more serious in tone and have some parallel motions. There's a p.5 in b.6 btw. subject and countersubject, thus there's a p.5 in all of the subsequent passages when the subject is in the top voice and countersubject in lower voice. There's also p.8 in b.49 and 50 btw the top two voices, and p.8 in b.54-56 btw soprano and bass. 

Also I feel like many repeated notes can be tied instead played twice but that's personal.

Thanks for sharing!

Henry

Thank you for your comments!! @Omicronrg9 @Henry Ng Tsz Kiu
I've corrected the passages in the A minor fugue, that were just some mistakes that i overlooked. 
About the ending of the first fugue, it actually was my intention to make the ending lighter and reduce the speed and density of the music. Maybe it is not as natural as I would like it to be but that is the way I tried to do it.
About the second fugue, it actually was less enjoyable to compose because it felt more "like an exercise" than the first but I wanted to force myself to complete this one too, and I am satisfied with the result.

the themes for these two, quite Bachian in some respects, are not so adventurous which is not at all a problem, great constructs can be built on simple ideas and the end results here are impressive. 

i would be interested to see what you could come up with if you chose themes somewhat more esoteric, as it were. perhaps a la Bach's e minor fugue book 2 with it's somewhat unexpected turns? i mean like it in spirit but not so much its exact construction.

Great job!  I enjoyed the shifted version of the subject in the first fugue as well!  (As @Henry Ng Tsz Kiu mentioned).  I think both fugues were very interesting and a pleasure to listen to and the lines were very clear despite being played by an instrument without much differentiation in timbral color.  I think you're in a great place for using fugal techniques in other, larger works, as a way of further developing your material in fugato passages that aren't fully drawn out fugues!  Thanks for sharing.

A fantastic pair of fugues.

I particularly like the A major fugue - I feel like fugue form is used here not as the whole argument, but as an ingredient - to thoroughly explore a few fun musical motifs. The episodes in particular are almost seamless joined with the subject entries, and are wonderfully written: you've chosen to stick with the motifs and developed them in diverse and imaginative ways, creating a real sense of unity throughout the whole work!

The articulation also helps so much to add character and "zing" to the fugues. Well done!

Edited April 27, 20232 yr by muchen_