Fugue Workshop 2012

I am listening to Christian's fugue.

Am I wrong, or does it seem like a 2-voice fugue?

Anyway, it is very beautiful and varied.

Upon first listen, it is easier to follow compared to those with 4 voices.

Generally, it is developed more on harmonic variations.

It makes me think that it starts directly with a countersubject.

Technically I don't know if I said it correctly, but I understood that it is different from the others in this regard.

The countersubject is somewhat of a pattern that has no rhythmic particularity; let's say it's a barrage of sixteenth notes.

But it is still pleasant.

And the sound of the harpsichord is always pleasant to listen to.

Thank you Raffaele.

You have listened to the first fugue of my life, guys

Obviously, as a good student considering the time I have at my disposal, I have combined the useful with the delightful by trying to write in a Bachian style that I must perfect (note the various melodic leaps of 7ths and 11ths and any copying).

As a first fugue, it doesn't seem bad to me, although I require confirmation on some of my self-critical impressions:

0. The fugue scheme had been previously agreed upon with the teacher. Grades I - V - I - V - VI etc.

1a. It is boring. The use of infinite transpositions and the continuous re-presentation of subject and countersubject together becomes heavy, also because the exposition is done for 4 voices and not just 2. From this we understand why, with two voices, it is probably better to write freer inventions of shorter duration without too many constraints.

1b. I should have given more space to the episodes (divertimenti), as they are the characteristic element that breaks the redundancy of subject and countersubject, especially in the central part.

2. The barrage of sixteenth notes serves to rhythmically complete the subject to achieve a time unit of sixteenths. In any case, I admit I could have been more cautious.

3. Now I understand why in the WTC sometimes the countersubject is not always presented so schematically. Variety, Variety, Variety!

... and a wagonload of hatred for academic fugues

As far as the fugues are concerned, compliments to everyone!

My favorite remains Gozzo's, which in my opinion has something extra in terms of originality. I think this is due to the type of studies being not strictly "academic". Consequently, I read more open-minded and alternative solutions.

Something that personally I hope to never lose, having to always write in style although....

Frank, masterful as usual, and good conduct of Altieri's parts. I would have liked to see your fugue with the original response unchanged (Bach in the WTC, if I am not mistaken, doesn't care much if the first notes aren't exactly tonic-dominant and, musically, it does well).

Unfortunately, in my opinion, the academic response takes a lot away from the melodic line itself.

For the rest, the boundary between academic and non-academic always remains difficult to establish; perhaps it would be a good idea to write fugues that are a bit freer from this point of view.

Great Laboratory, thanks to everyone!

Small critique of Gozzo's fugue.

You use a very interesting harmonic language, and upon reaching the point of concluding, I find an almost "normal" cadence; I miss the element of surprise, something that puts in the final definitive word.

It seems so to me in the finale of Frank's fugue as well.

Hi Cristian, first of all, thank you for the comment and for the compliments. This will clearly facilitate the understanding of my good intentions regarding what I am about to write to you because, in a truly selfless way, your reasoning seems to me to suffer from a bit of naivety... and I thank you for taking up the subject so as to give me the opportunity to explain how I think.

I take two points to reason about:

Better Real Answer (without mutation) than Tonal (with mutation) because it is outside academic patterns? ... therefore more original and better ... to the point of wanting it in my fugue or that of Altieri (I actually didn't understand who you were referring to)

Originality also in content, I am thinking of the harmonic syntax (of some points, I'll get to that later), of Alessandro

POINT 1

Aside from the fact that the premise is wrong, because you start from a somewhat imprecise statement about Bach. Given that the subject is shamelessly baroque, Bach and any other baroque composer (the academy didn't exist in the 1700s, eh!) always mutates the head of the Subject (Bach does not do this in only one fugue of his entire surviving repertoire) and in this subject the mutation falls on the third note of the first measure, I would say it is precisely the case to mutate... at most we can blame whoever wrote the subject for not looking after what follows.

But that's not the point; one can also compensate for others' distraction with musical choices, and I understand your need, having written a fugue with only 2 parts, to have two interesting lines, and indeed I share your choice in the two voices, but to save both the goat and the cabbage, couldn't you have written the fugue with 3 voices, no? Given the subject provided. The choice of the number of voices and the instrumentation can also be influenced by the starting material, not by one's own limitations, and indeed I imagine you will tell me: "but this is my first fugue".

And I ask, is it a choice, or if you were writing an 8-voice fugue could you have ignored it and respected the mutation proper to a certain syntax and, note, intended precisely to vary?

“La do mi” is objectively different from “la do re”, yet you complain about the lack of variety in your fugue.

... so the point of view is completely different, it has nothing to do with the academy. If we really want to talk about originality, then:

Tonal Answer: Raffaele, Cristian, Gozzo, R.Strauss

Real Answer: Organista, Altieri

Mine is different from the other 6... despite the mutation. Now let's not investigate the levels of awareness and why some have not considered the mutation. A conscious choice?

In the same way, look at the attack of the stretto, the scale degree of the key of the relatives (etc.), the closing of the piece, the orchestration, etc.

But all these considerations do not relate to originality anyway; I will get to that later.

POINT 2

Alessandro has an approach that I like and reminds me a lot of myself a long time ago. I can say serenely that NOT addressing the nature of content, musical in our case (the baroque character of the material), is a symptom of poor mastery of the medium; practically, our weaknesses prevail with the illusion of believing ourselves more original (...by imposing ourselves on the material) and instead it is just a matter of naivety (and said with sympathy, maximum respect for Alessandro, I am a faithful admirer of his and he knows it).

If you want to hear fugatos with more modern harmonic material (not more original, those are two distinct things), you must ask for the pieces from Tristis; there is an atonal 3-voice canon by Geppino, or one of my fugatos with decadent tonal harmonic syntax in 5 voices, and more... but all built with melodic material written for those harmonic syntaxes. Here there is little to be done, academy or no academy, the initial arpeggio is a triad and the rest is a simple descending scale, flowery and without any kind of alteration. Ah, baroque ornamentation.

Here we go, I would replace the word "original" with "interesting", because it's not certain that something original is necessarily interesting and vice versa. But what matters is that the piece, besides being enjoyable to listen to, is also interesting.

And Alessandro's fugue hides many weaknesses; I have mentioned 2, but one is also character-based. I wrote that it has overwhelming traits, but where, less so, is the aspect that did not work? Try to discover it... you will see that it is the transition from a more recent syntax to a previous one due to the models to which it is impossible to renounce and which are precisely of that repertoire, of the subject's repertoire.

If you really want to write a free fugue, participate in the workshop at the end of July (the piece for choir from 3 to 5 voices), choose a nice subject... and try your hand, I mean it seriously. The text commands it, not a pre-packaged syntax, a determined ornamentation, etc.

That being said, I didn't understand the reference to the final cadence

Regarding my fugue, when you say cadence "normal," do you mean in a harmonic sense? So if the resting situation is the tonic (T), what would you put as the cadential (C)? In relation to "the last definitive word"... in harmonic terms? (honestly, I didn't understand).

Anyway, mine is a 7-part counterpoint on pedal that exploits a free part used in the closing of the dominant pedal, treating the "type" orchestral arrangement as a double choir; honestly, did anyone expect it? ...ah, even the BC [Basso Continuo] is missing...

To understand each other, what are we talking about, Cristian?

eheh well done Cristian, not only did I like your fugue (I'm listening to it a lot, I haven't looked at it on paper yet), but it stimulated an interesting response from Frank, which I feel absolutely compelled to share, both when he good-naturedly calls you naive and when he accuses me of being crude and ignorant :lol:

Just kidding Frank! I know very well that you are right, I wouldn't even know where to begin to write in Baroque style (and many others) and this burns me not because I am interested in learning how to forge autographs but, as you say, it is all experience and training in managing the material.

And mastery of the material is what distinguishes a composer from a naive amateur.

Coming to your work, my immediate judgment is very positive, but it is indeed long for 2 voices, and it becomes too repetitive especially because of the stream of sixteenth notes that never stops .... but really never....

harmonically I find it very pleasant, while the last little flaw (since you criticized my ending eheh) is that your tonic pedal is extremely short. It is a beautiful part but it interrupts itself without having even minimally exhausted its function.

View the tonic pedal as a tail.

The real thing is a solution that I "stole" from some violin pieces by J.S. that I studied, in an attempt to imitate his melodic approach.

For Frank

You're really pissed off, aren't you? :D:D But you know we love you anyway!!

In fact, I wrote a post on the fly with things I vaguely remembered.

I will try to be more precise with another post as soon as I have that damned time.

Let's say I am committing to:

1. Finding the example of J.S. where the answer is real (without mutation) in a similar case. Thank you for introducing me a bit to what correct language is. What can I tell you Frank, I just didn't digest the tonal answer, whether with or without G-sharp. It's my hostility toward the melodic line, probably a problem of mine; when I hear that returning to A, I get the instinct to create an alternative fugue with an answer that has little to no connection with the subject. I can already hear the cries of "to the stake, to the stake!!" because I know this is equivalent to going against all the principles of the fugue itself. Probably if I do it in an exam, I should write it the way you did.

2. Taking a look at previous issues by indicating in a detailed manner what doesn't sit right with me.

Unfortunately, I have to write, but I am not a "paper person"; I think music should be heard before it is read, that's somewhat my orientation.

Consequently, when something clashes with my ear, I start seeing witches and academic limitations everywhere :D

Regarding Gozzo and the interpretation of the theme in the construction of a coherent fugue.

In these workshops, must we respect a certain coherence with the material? If so, how much? To what extent?

Counter-example.

Can a Romantic or post-Romantic fugue have a subject with Baroque characteristics?

My response is CERTAINLY. It is true that the subject characterizes the entire fugue, but what if a composer wanted to derive a more complex language from a simple and basic idea by reinterpreting an A minor arpeggio in the strangest way possible?

I don't feel comfortable ruling out this possibility a priori.

From here, all my anti-academic paranoias stem, obviously with their pros and cons.

An organist who has played only Bach fugues for half a lifetime, from the moment they decide to become a composer, will be strongly influenced in the compositional process no matter how much they manage to detach themselves from that style.

That is why I envy Gozzo a little because, from what I see of his answer introduced by that line of sixteenth notes, I think: "How cool, this guy invented an introduction to the answer". Then inside I think, how many of us would have chosen this solution in a fugue? The non-mutated answer remains NO ONE. It means that he COULD think it, whereas maybe I cannot, and this personally puts me on alert in my way of engaging with music.

Then Frank, you say Baroque subject; if we consider the surviving fugues, I don't hear any that are PURELY Baroque. Everyone has their own methods of conducting parts, of thinking about harmony, etc. Even my fugue... it tries with some melodic lines but after a while it fails and doesn't even intimidate or scratch the surface of a Bach work. Have you ever met a clone of J.S. in your life? Some guy who, when writing, gives the impression of being like him?

If the answer is no, shouldn't we broaden our horizons to the extreme rather than fossilizing on a result that we probably, personally, historically, and by nature, will never have in our blood?

I've written quite a bit more... tomorrow I'll respond regarding fugues.

I can admit to being naive sometimes and writing without considering all the details, but at the core there are big questions for which I am looking for answers, obviously. Who am I as a composer? How do I want to write? How much sense does copying make? Style—what is it, who decided it, why? Why do we all study counterpoint more or less if it doesn't serve to learn any specific style? Couldn't Fux have gone for a walk that day? :D

cristiank83 wrote:

For Frank

You're really pissed off, aren't you? :D:D But you know we love you anyway!!

… not at all, quite the opposite …

cristiank83 wrote:

Let's just say I'm trying:

What can I tell you Frank, I really didn't digest the tonal response both with and without G-sharp. My hostility towards the melodic line is probably my own problem; when I hear that return to A, I get the instinct to perform an alternative fugue with a response that has little or nothing to do with the subject. I can already hear the cries of "to the stake, to the stake!!" because I know this is equivalent to going against all the principles of the fugue itself. Probably if I did it in an exam, I should write it just as you did.

That is exactly the point; in an exam I would have done something different because my piece does not test stretches, triple (or quadruple) counterpoint, various techniques in divertimenti, etc., and other technicalities more oriented toward demonstrating one's knowledge. (Especially if you have 36 hours maybe you can manage, if you have 18… well… I must say it took me a while and I don't think I've lost my touch)

My work is based on other elements.

cristiank83 wrote:

Unfortunately, I have to write, but I am not a "paper" type of person; I think music should be heard before it is read, that is somewhat my orientation.

… in reality, that is the orientation every musician should have, but I don't think it changes the terms of the discussion. Partly because you will then have to answer to yourself, to a director, a client, etc. Therefore, it might be commonplace to enhance content that is not strictly one's own.

cristiank83 wrote:

Regarding Gozzo and the interpretation of the theme in the construction of a coherent fugue.

In these workshops, must we respect a certain coherence with the material? If so, how much? To what extent?

Counter-example.

Can a Romantic or post-Romantic fugue have a subject with Baroque characteristics?

My answer would be CERTAINLY. It is true that the subject characterizes the entire fugue, but what if a composer wanted to derive a more complex language from a simple and basic idea by reinterpreting an A minor arpeggio in the strangest way possible?

I do not feel comfortable ruling out this possibility a priori.

Neither do I rule it out, quite the contrary! But then one must know how to do it thoroughly and not in fits and starts (here the limits return, namely those of detaching from the starting material and doing so always with coherence). Why then limit oneself to changing only the syntax and not the harmonic paths and remaining only in related keys? Why rotate around Baroque harmonic pillars and slip into different itineraries?

Then honestly, if I really must distort a subject, I won't do it in something outdated and anachronistic (Of course, if it's the only way I have, I return to my limits) but in something contemporary.

Contemporary does not just mean using modern harmony, but also following the canons of that aesthetic.

cristiank83 wrote:

From here all my anti-academic paranoias stem, obviously with their pros and cons.

An organist who has played only Bach fugues for half a lifetime, from the moment they decide to become a composer, will be strongly influenced in the compositional process regardless of how much they manage to detach themselves from that style.

An organist has also played Reger & C:; if they have only gone through Bach, they are either young, a mediocre organist, or they chose to. But then it has nothing to do with the academy.

cristiank83 wrote:

That's why I envy Gozzo a little because from what I see, his response introduced by that line of sixteenth notes makes me think: "How cool, this guy invented an introduction to the response". Then inside I think, how many of us would have chosen this solution in a fugue? The unchanged response :D NONE remain. It means that he COULD think it, whereas maybe I couldn't, and this personally puts me on alert regarding my way of engaging with music.

Sure, but the fugue then doesn't care about that scale; it is not an element important enough to assume its own identity … so as a whole, as proposed, it remains gratuitous.

Ale understood well what needed to be done, even before I told him; in fact, even his teacher had already reached a dead end.

I am sure that if he had changed the subject and treated it as such, no one would have said anything … in fact, no one discussed the scale itself, but rather how the scale was "mistreated" by Ale himself.

Once these macro problems are resolved, we then enter into more complex discussions related to flourishes, the tonal pillars of that syntax, etc.

cristiank83 wrote:

Then Frank, you say Baroque subject; if we consider the surviving fugues, I don't hear any of them.

Then you should look at mine and compare it with the Italian authors of the late Baroque, those written between 1680 and 1730. That is, our Baroque, the one that set the standard, the one that "spied" on Bach.

Could it be that perhaps a young organist only knows Bach?

I would like to hear how you would conduct my Basso Continuo, because you know there are musicians who by profession have exactly that sensitivity that it seems to me you are unable to have; in fact, you write “historically and by nature we will never have it in our blood”.

“We will have” is a bit general; continuo players exist and they are quite good too.

cristiank83 wrote:

PURELY baroque. Everyone has their own methods of conducting parts, of thinking about harmony etc. If the answer is no, it wouldn't be appropriate for us to broaden our horizons to an implausible extent rather than

Excuse me, but do you know how many people wrote in the Baroque era... they are all recognizable because they indeed had their own methods of conducting parts, of using harmony etc.

What does a historical era have to do with one's own dialectic?

cristiank83 wrote:

Who am I as a composer? How do I want to write? How much sense does copying make? What is style and who decided it and why? Why do we all study counterpoint more or less if it doesn't serve to learn any style? Couldn't Fux have gone for a walk that day? :D

> Who am I as a composer?

Perhaps you have only been studying for a short time, so when the entire existing panorama is clear to you, you will find an answer... (maybe you won't like it and you'll feel constrained. Maybe you will like it)

> How do I want to write?

Not very different from the previous point

> How much sense does copying make?

It depends on the meaning you want to give to the word copy

> What is style and who decided it and why?

A complex discussion, but it is a retrospective one, so it's tangible

> Why do we all study counterpoint more or less if it doesn't serve to learn any style?

> Couldn't Fux have gone for a walk that day?

Precisely to answer your first two questions. Counterpoint is only one dimension of music; you are too tied to the content.

Once you have understood how to exploit counterpoint, regardless of the content, you can do whatever you want in any field.

Regarding Cristian's fugue, I agree with Alessandro; mine is too short, yours is too long... but perhaps, by using another instrument like the organ and playing with timbres, you could have broken the monotony.

Of course, you should have left space for the change of registers and thus let the semi-chromatic machine breathe a little

Real sounds are beautiful (right?)

Anyway, compliments.

I saw organista94's fugue and I must say that :

- if you used three voices, you wouldn't have complicated your life too much and you would have had at least one free part to play with. And maybe use it at the end on a pedal.

- Since the answer is tonal, it works; personally, having made it real, I added the coda. Since there was little material in yours (only 2 voices), perhaps the coda added something.

- Bar. 17: I find the reb out of context.

- the ending could have been a bit longer and there you could have played a nice long pedal note, given the brevity of the composition.

Anyway, it flows and is pleasant to listen to.

On Raffaele's fugue

We are much better compared to the past, but there are a few notes:

- the coda alone can stand, but when it is together with the other instruments in mm. 7 - 12 - 17 - 27, the monotony of the parts' rhythm becomes a bit much.

- the free part that starts in the flute at m. 11 and more A la I find too similar to the subject with eighth-sixteenth-sixteenth-eighth-eighth notes. It would be fine in strict sections or divertimenti.

- the countersubject, on the other hand, I like; it is sufficiently different and incisive.

- from m. 31 it seems like a stretto repeated at 35.

- At m. 30 the coda is missing; in fact, oboe and clarinet do not resolve, and the thing seems a bit truncated there. This happens again at 34-35 and 42-43.

- At the end there is a bit of ambiguity between stretti/divertimenti, in the sense that it's unclear whether we are facing one or the other.

- I do like the somewhat atonal aura of the finale, however.

At an instrumental level, let's pretend this fugue were being performed:

single instruments

Oboe mm. 17 - 19 - 28 - 30: the natural A below the staff does not exist.

mm. 33-34: the Cl above Ob and Fl covers them in this register.

m. 50: I find the doubling of the leading tone quite annoying, especially if done with two different instruments in octaves.

Instrumental texture and treatment of voices.

If it had been a fugue for organ, I would have accepted the large distance between the voices encountered at various points, as this could be compensated for with 4' and 2' stops,

but with solo instruments, the emptiness in the middle is felt:

mm. 11 - 17 - 18 - 36 - 48 etc.

I note with pleasure that you are improving visibly, and this is excellent news.

let's move on.

Regarding Roberto Altieri's fugue, I must say I liked it very much.

Formally solid, CS sufficiently different from the S ... but what I like most are the divertimenti and free sections, which are written with a great awareness of the fugue.

Only doubt is the ending: perhaps because I like it, I would have held the pedal longer ... but this is an evaluation of a purely personal nature.

The initial tempo seems slow, but it is amply compensated for by the second part.

Compliments Roberto.

After much talk, here is the commentary on Cristian's fugue. Aware that I am writing this to someone on their first fugue... perhaps it will be useful.

In my opinion, you underestimated some aspects, primarily the registers where the voices enter; indeed, the subject only arrives in a truly tenor register after several times. Despite the two parts, it is good for the entries to always be varied in pitch.

Another thing: when the important fragments enter, they are always preceded by a stepwise interval, often fast. You could have had them preceded by wider leaps or pauses to emphasize and highlight the entries better.

I'm sorry, but (not as a reflection of our conversation) I am increasingly convinced that the same beautiful melody proposed repeatedly in the same way is less effective than one beautiful and one almost acceptable melody proposed alternately.

Therefore, with the aim of saving the real response, I would have used other levers to differentiate... for example, procedures like augmentation or diminution (given the sixteenth notes).

A thread of rhetoric is missing, but this is also present in other works... that is, there are no points where you feel compelled to say: something is happening, or rather, points where the music pulls and creates great expectation. The most successful part in this regard is measures 53 and 54, even if you cut it short from there.

It's as if you were embracing a beautiful woman, in a moment of passionate excitement, and then you just took off and left... perhaps even without a goodbye kiss.

I hope the metaphor makes sense.... throw yourself into that tonic pedal point, a bit like Alessandro said, and let out what can be let out.

One last thing is related to the pace of the subject: it's not true that it is in sixteenth notes, but in eighth notes. The sixteenth notes are only a flourish, to be recalled in the piece but without abusing them.

This doesn't mean your solution isn't good, but it is more difficult and, in my opinion, should have been conducted differently...

The first element presented (the initial A-A) I find insignificant and ineffective.

These are the very first thoughts while they are fresh, but in a first work (and self-taught), it's to be expected.

Frank, what can I say ... nothing ... this time you really did an excellent job.

The conducting and treatment of the instruments flow well, the countersubject is very apt.

The pedal is also beautiful.

Compliments.

For Frank:

Mainly, you confirm everything I was already self-criticizing about my work.

The initial 'la' in the left hand is stolen from two-voice inventions. I put it there because, in reality, my countersubject enters with the third which, if I am not mistaken academically, is incorrect since the first note should be the octave and normally the fifth.

I am sorry but (not as a reflection of our conversation) I am increasingly convinced that the same beautiful melody proposed repeatedly exactly the same way is less effective than one beautiful and one almost acceptable melody proposed alternately.

I am of the same opinion. If I hadn't imposed continuous sixteenth notes on myself, I would probably have done a better job.

It is always a pleasure to hear your points of view. The previous issues remain difficult to discuss through forum posts; it would require a dialectical reasoning along with examples.

For the moment, let me clarify one point:

my "Baroque feeling" is unfortunately limited to Bach's style, which is generally the most suitable author for study in conservatories.

Therefore, everything I try to do must take this into account.

Perhaps your fugue is in perfect Italian Baroque style, which is unknown to me.

Furthermore, a few curiosities I am asking the forum members:

1. Have you ever met any "madman" who manages to falsify Bach in an almost unrecognizable way?

2. What software have you generally used for the realization of the laboratory? I see Finale and Sibelius for score writing. As far as the performance part is concerned, which sample libraries did you choose?

My harpsichord is from Komplete 7 - 12 pleasant DVDs with a lot of synth software and samples. Very interesting, I recommend it to you.

Cristian83's fugue

aware that it is your first fugue, I still want to tell you a few things:

- the first measure of the left hand la-la, I wouldn't even have put it there. It would have been better to start the CS from the eighth notes.

- meas. 18 and 46, the first of the two notes was sufficient to resolve.

- the CS with all those eighth notes right at the beginning feels a bit too much to me, in the sense that you fire all your cartridges immediately and then you are only left with repeating it. You could have used the same non-ornamented CS and made it ornamented only at the

end to provide variety, since it is for 2 voices.

- being short and for 2 voices, you should have used the final pedal to exploit the material 100%, perhaps also combining the ornamented CS. You would have created nice variety and you would still have had the

solution of the intensification of the S.

For a first one it's not bad, and the CS treated properly could have given much more.

cristiank83 wrote:

For Frank:

I am always pleased to hear your points of view. These matters remain difficult to discuss in post hits on a forum; it would require a dialectical reasoning complete with examples.

Exactly, here I need to have a credit of trust, it is a journey

cristiank83 wrote:

For the moment, I will clarify one point:
my "feeling of Baroque" is unfortunately limited to the style of Bach, who is generally the most suitable author for study in conservatories.

You see how you slowly answer yourself... so what is scholastic and academic about my fugue? Do you see that you consciously use the word "limit"? Your feeling of the baroque is not all of the baroque, an excellent fragment.

Anyway, he is not just the most suitable; chronologically, he is the second greatest master in the history of music.

But inside, one must read all his contaminations; it is not easy at all and a few years of courses are not enough. In the end, school provides bases, tools to reach a point of developing one's own autonomy and to be able to choose and follow one's own path. No one can replace the individual in this.

cristiank83 wrote:

So everything I try to do must take this into account.

Perhaps your fugue is in perfect Italian Baroque style, which is unknown to me.

So how do we put it? The baroque is not just Bach or rather, not only... from Monteverdi upwards, a long list that Bach knew, studied, transcribed, "photo"copied (by hand), and even plays.

cristiank83 wrote:

Have you ever met any "madman" who manages to falsify Bach in an almost unrecognizable way?

Making historical forgeries can be easier than it seems, by observing and making the right things one's own.

The great masters, and not only in the field of music (first and foremost painters), knew how to do reconstructions well. A very useful job because it is proof that we have truly understood the reasoning of another musician... and when this musician is Bach, then one grows a lot.

But I am only saying that what is needed is to value the starting material; we can talk about all the strokes of genius we want, but if they result in being stuck together... in the end, one chooses coherence (but coherence in a broad sense and applied to the direction taken in the piece). Then the context is managed and can be carried forward, but the "how" makes the difference.

rstrauss wrote:

Frank, what can I say ... nothing ... this time you really did an excellent job.

Since you always say it, either I am improving or you are usually lying. Jokes aside, thank you

I listened to your Frank Fugue again. The characteristic that strikes me most upon listening is the very natural smoothness.

In the last measure, that dotted quarter... don't you feel the rhythmic need to have 4 sixteenth notes during the rallentando and then close beautifully with the final chord?

This is the thing that wasn't making sense to me.

cristiank83 wrote:

In the last measure, that dotted quarter note... don't you feel the rhythmic need to have 4 sixteenth notes on the rallentando and then close beautifully with the final chord?

Too abrupt.

Actually, there is an area for improvement, but I had decided not to apply it and I don't think I will. Written and erased.

> The characteristic that strikes me most upon listening is the very natural smoothness.

...I am in the hands of the continuists, let's hope they don't ruin it

I curiously noticed that in the exposition, the entries of all the passages are cyclic every 3 measures.

Could it be an option to add some rhythmic variety (playing across the beat) or to widen them to avoid having all the entries at the same distance? Would this improve the passages?

Compliments also on Altieri's fugue that I have started listening to.