geppino12575 wrote:Look, it's not bad, it's a pleasure to listen to; in my opinion, possible improvements could have gone in this direction: the countersubject should be a bit more contrasting compared to the subject, with longer notes since the subject has short and often repeated figures.
Here and there there are rhythmic shifts that are not in style with the general baroque character of the piece; either "modernize" the rest as well or make these syncopations "baroque flourishes."
Last consideration: an important subject like this deserved greater development; in the end, it feels as if you were in a hurry to finish, but with a theme like this, you could produce a large fugue that could last even twice the current time—not that musical quality is measured in minutes, but in this case, something more imposing could have been created.
Reading your own comment, I feel like saying: forget about the famous scholastic fugue scheme, do what you feel, do the stretches after the exposition if that's how you feel like doing it; that scheme is only valid for exams and even then not in 100% of cases. Look, this "self-limitation" in your piece is perceptible and the piece as a whole suffers the consequences, becoming a bit of an "I would like to but I can't," whereas you can and you don't have to answer to anyone.....
The repeated notes are particularly pleasing to me; anyway, the fact that they are here is purely accidental. I had been thinking of this theme for a long time and couldn't decide to do something with it. Regarding the countersubject, I worked on it in the way I explained, with some problems because I am conditioned by what I have in mind but it doesn't fit rhythmically and harmonically with the subject; so I modified some points of the countersubject and went ahead anyway.
At certain points, you can hear too much that some notes are being "stopped" too early; instead, if they lasted longer, the discourse would be a bit more fluid.
This is a further problem; Frank and other people have also pointed out to me several times (regarding what I write) that I do not write correctly in baroque style,
and as you say, to do it I must be convincing or take another path, and precisely because of the desire to adhere to an idea of baroque style, I don't feel like taking [that path]; my "fear" is going too far outside the patterns (but without awareness, that is the problem, I will explain why later).
On this, I agree; I also have the feeling (confirmed also by the person who commented on it first) that the episodes could have been written better, and since the subject is 4 bars long (we are in 12/8) it could have had greater development. Regarding this particular point, I paid less attention precisely to the balance of the duration of the subject, episodes, stretches, and finale; I wrote it thinking of it in parts, but always imagining how it might turn out, and playing it in 4 parts to hear how it came across. The problem is that I play the parts quite softly (it's not that I am very good at playing, quite the opposite, and then I wrote it with old clefs, also to train the eye to immediately identify the exact note for each clef), then hearing it at the speed I imagined it could go, I realized it was too much, so that is another important point to check.
The hurry to finish, unfortunately (I can't shake off this sword of Damocles), is something I have in everything I do; in fact, here I prepared everything in a few days and not in a rush as I often do. I started it, then I stopped, then I resumed, but one thing I really cannot do is stay focused on one thing; often my head is somewhere else. It's not an excuse, it's the truth; that's why the pieces sometimes seem almost "unfinished" or end too abruptly.
I give you credit partly and partly not, because you know what you are talking about, you have a certain preparation; I do not. I cannot afford to expand in this way when approaching composition. Years ago, I thought 100% like this (and I only put this into practice in electronic music, where I do 100% what I want, but always with a certain attention to instrument writing, I don't just go randomly, so to speak), then I had a real crisis of conscience. When I write now, I am "in a bain-marie" as they say: I start with a certain program, a certain criterion, then often I set off and go astray, and there the piece is ruined or doesn't turn out as it could. The same thing happens with two-voice inventions; there is always something that doesn't add up, but it's because I am the one not finding the best solution, and practically always (out of necessity, but this "necessity"—I think in my case it clashes with a lack of full awareness of what is possible to do, and that's true since I am still behind)—the piece has correct and effective solutions, but at the same time others that are not good, which I include anyway because I feel the need to, as if to counteract a certain"}
regularity, however I feel a sensation of indeterminacy and lack of compactness every time, even on short pieces.
First I was talking about awareness, to let you understand, I am still debating some harmonic solutions, such as for example a melodic line that presents augmented 2nds without resolution in an invention, and I went to check some works by Bach to get confirmation or not; I found what I was looking for, namely that I could write a certain passage exactly as I had done initially, but the doubt remains as to why I don't have this certainty, and from there everything that follows follows in turn; in more complex parts it is as if I do not trust myself to use passages that honestly I cannot explain harmonically, do you understand what the point is? I start from the assumption that even if a passage pleases me, how do I explain it to someone if they ask me why I made this choice, besides the instinctive taste of the moment?
But even to myself, how do I explain it, in music there are many cases where exceptions occur, finding myself precisely between a style that somewhat reminds one of the baroque and somewhat being outside of it; I cannot find the right way to concretize everything, and I risk getting lost, this is one of the reasons why in recent months I have been more attentive to what I write, but not 100%, too much insecurity.
