Fugues....

[GranteedEV]

Sitting here studying... while listening to fugues.

I think fugues are special. You can listen to like 10 of em in a row while not paying attention and still enjoy it.

 

[jostenmeat]

Which fugues, and who was playing them? I agree that fugues are special. I think they are so special, that if there was a competition for "coolest thing, ever", they would be on the short list. They are better described as a "process" rather than "form". You can have a "completed" fugue, wrapped up with a final cadence, and the composer can revisit this later, "unwrap" the cadence, and continue along even doubling the length of the original, then wrap it up once again. It is infinite in concept or nature.

There are also double and triple fugues. I have never heard of anything beyond that, but who knows. The F# minor from WTC book II is a particularly fantastic triple fugue for 3 voices.

Of course, when it comes to fugues, there is the king, who of course is Bach. He very rarely or I think maybe even never(?) used retrograde versions of the subject, but he does invert them a lot. I think of the a minor fugue from WTC book 1. Super long subject played super fast, then all of a sudden the whole subject is flipped upside down, yet it's being played simultaneously at the same time with right side up elements, yeah it's insane.

A fugue by nature does not have contrasting elements to help out the, um, development of the music. There aren't competing themes as you might have in a sonata form. There is only the subject, and since all of the music is based on the subject, the only way to get contrast is by way of modulation or key change. And that's where the art-science insanity of Bach comes in.

 

[skizzerflake]

Is there anybody other than Bach who ever wrote a significant number of fugues? They are like musical math and JS seems to have been the ultimate savant of that form. Other composers seem to have labored through a few of them, but Bach could spew them out like a garden hose.

 

[jostenmeat]

Is there anybody other than Bach who ever wrote a significant number of fugues? They are like musical math and JS seems to have been the ultimate savant of that form. Other composers seem to have labored through a few of them, but Bach could spew them out like a garden hose.

Well, what do you call significant? It's not just fugues; well you could say Bach was the ultimate savant of ANY form he cared to write in, AND with whatever form, or thing, you might want to talk about, he was just insanely prolific, whether that was writing a full cantata per week for however many years he was at Leipzig (and elsewhere) and that's not including holidays (we have a couple hundred of those surviving, and the guess is that we have lost about 2/3 of his output on those) . . . to having twenty children was it?!? I want to know how much of the lost cantatas became sandwich paper.

So, given that most any other composer that the general public may be familiar with by name was simply never as prolific . . . most any set of fugues since then is typically some sort of tribute to Bach just by nature. Heck, forget a set of fugues, even just one fugue is almost inherently a tribute to Bach. The first large set of fugues I think of is by Shostakovich for keyboard, an obvious reference/tribute to the WTC, preludes/fugues in every key. Of the bits I've heard (I don't own this stuff), I do not recommend the Jarrett version (I am a big fan of some of his jazz though), and I do recommend Ashkenazy. I have never heard Landowska playing them. I have no idea who this guy is below, but the video is nice, and I think the fugue starts a few minutes in.

I own the complete string quartet cycle by Shostakovich as performed by the Borodin quartet, and the quintet is played with Richter there. Well, I am not familiar with the ensemble performing below, and the video is not even the entire fugal mvmt in its entirety, but anyways I enjoy not only this mvmt but the entire quintet. The recording I have, I would easily use it as a demo disc (and the quintet is a live performance). The Scherzo mvmt, I think it's called (well it should be if it isn't) kicks seriously major butt.

Here is an example of yet another reference/tribute, but this time to Bach's Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin where I heartily recommend the Szyreng recording. I've owned multiple renditions over the years, including Perlman and Milstein, if not more. Well, the Bartok fugal mvmt here will scare most people here away I fear. His string quartet cycle is considered among the most important, along with Beethoven, Haydn, Shostakovich, etc. I have a Frenchman playing this work (can't remember his name), but my favorite rendition I've heard is actually on the Naxos label, but there is no way I'll remember the performer's name.

I'll end this post with an American composer, Barber. This subject is pretty jazzy in nature, but again I fear it may be a bit challenging for neophytes. This mvmt kicks azz. I picked Horowitz, so there is no video here. The other videos, I'm not sold on the recording . . . from the little I checked out quickly.