Fugue Workshop 2013

Welcome back, Geppino!

Frank wrote:

Regarding the Bianca escape, I can only say for now that the starting material is always recognizable and more often than not revisited; I listened to 3 others on the tracks and I find myself agreeing with what their stylistic goals might be. Recognizability is always important in my opinion... obviously, for something more precise, I am waiting for a score.

I am glad that you jumped into the initiative right away.

Thanks Frank, in effect I arrived at the last moment, but it was a tempting opportunity.

The score shortly....

geppino12575 wrote:

This subject is rather difficult

Welcome back Geppino, in fact it turned out to be a bit of a 'difficult' subject, at least we have a couple of master examples ...

@RStrauss

I will tell you that it would have been better to indicate the registration if there was a desideratum... let's say that if there were only a 16-foot stop in the pedal, you would adjust some parts slightly, but in my opinion, the structural limits remain... but you are aware of that.

Two curiosities:

- you also write

> considering that we are on the organ perhaps adding a 16' stop sounded better

Had you foreseen this or not?

- One curiosity, can you indicate to me where the CS is, apart from what you define as such at measure 5? In short, try to mark in the score where it can be recognizably found; you will see that it will be useful to you.

Frank wrote:

@RStrauss

I will tell you that it would have been better to indicate the recording if there was a desideratum... let's say that if there were only a 16-foot stop on the pedal, you would adjust some parts slightly, but in my opinion, the structural limits remain... but you are aware of that.

Two curiosities:

- you also write

> considering that we are on the organ perhaps adding a 16 stop sounded better

Had you foreseen it or not?

syes and no ... before indicating it, I wanted to try on the organ on which I usually play on Sunday evenings ... adding a 16 stop in a higher voice is dangerous.

Frank wrote:

- A curiosity, can you indicate to me where the CS is, apart from what you define as such at measure 5? In short, try to mark in the score where it can be found recognizably; you will see that it will be useful to you.

i have highlighted in gray the parts that should be the CS.

geppino12575 wrote:

Hello guys, good to see you again, I am also trying to challenge myself with this fugue, I hope I am still in time. This subject is quite difficult, I am sticking to the scholastic scheme of the fugue. Yesterday I wrote the exposition, in the coming days I will tackle the episodes. Stylistically I have remained tied to a baroque context, the subject doesn't inspire too much fantasy in me and then I felt like doing something "composed", "measured", "rigorous", not too daring.... Anyway, I don't promise anything extraordinary, I hope to manage to write something correct in a short time, given the not-so-happy period I have gone through in recent months....

I downloaded the versions from the other users but I haven't listened to them so as not to be influenced...

It is a pleasure to have you back among us.

Welcome back.

I uploaded the score to the compositions topic. I thought I had already done it last night in this one, but clearly something didn't work.

Greetings to all.

The Bianca score is beautiful and substantial... it will require a lot of work

Bianca wrote:

I uploaded the score to the compositions topic. I thought I had already done it last night in this one, but clearly something didn't work.

Greetings to all.

Technical question, but are the voices meant to be distributed between the 2 hands? Or were you thinking of an organ? Or something else?

Zaccaria wrote:

Beautiful, substantial score by Bianca... it will require a lot of work

Consider also that it is very "unorthodox"....

AbateFaria wrote:

Technical question, but are the voices to be distributed over 2 hands? Or were you thinking of an organ? Or something else?

Good question, as you noticed the score arrived a bit late. Previously it was on two staves and I had to do a bit of work to separate the voices and make it more understandable. If you are asking if it is playable on piano, then I would say yes (using the conditional) even if it isn't exactly simple. For organ, however, I see it as less suitable, perhaps.

Bianca wrote:

I uploaded the score to the compositions topic. I thought I had already done it last night in this one, but clearly something didn't work.

Greetings to all.

I was taking a look at the score, what are those white dots under the notes ... like on page 3?

Organista94 wrote:

I was taking a look at the score, what are those little white dots under the notes ... like on page 3?

it's the Finale-formatted agogic

I simply defined an articulation (the empty dot in this case) with a custom playback value.

I just downloaded Bianca's attachment... I must say that at first glance it is not inviting to play, as 3 staves for 2 hands written without much logic are not a great incentive. Luckily the score reading course exists...

Anyway, I'll give it a try

Frank wrote:

I just downloaded Bianca's attachment... I must say that at first glance it is not inviting to play, as 3 staves for 2 hands written without much criteria are not a great incentive. Luckily the score reading course exists...

Anyway, I'll give it a try

And just think, I even went through the trouble of distributing it over three staves to make it more understandable

Let me know if you manage to play it...

Bianca wrote:

And think that I even went through the trouble of distributing it over three staves to make it more understandable

Let me know if you can play it...

Dear Bianca, if I may say so from my point of view, if you decide that there is a piano in the ensemble, the most understandable thing is to write the notes on 2 staves ... and indeed, when I said it was uninviting, I was referring to the pianist's eyes.

As a "3-part" polyphony (everything to be seen), you might certainly give one hand [the part], but you must consider that since the piece is intended for a pianist, the combination of the 3 staves does not always lead to excellent results.

Some examples of unplayability:

measure 36, last notes (aside from the fact that in the first 2 staves some parts of the measure are missing, pauses).

Measure 43, first chord

But this is the least [problematic] in my opinion, in the sense that even if the notes fit on 10 fingers, it doesn't mean that at certain points the pianist will have the possibility to highlight anything; see cases like measure 32... if you were to start refining the score, for example by writing out the phrasing ... you would realize that it would be very difficult to respect them.

Constructing the piece taking into account the 2 staves and the instrumental gesture (in short, the pianism) would make you realize that in points like measure 26, the F# on the third staff clashes with the F# on the second staff ... but there are other examples where the subject is in such an intricate web that it could hardly be highlighted ... grant it its deserved space; it is the subject.

Aside from these aspects, I would also work on points like measure 15, where you have an enormous space between the bass and treble parts ... I don't know how much you would like it live, but anyway there are solutions that would make the passage more engaging in terms of sonority.

In my opinion, in a language like the one used in the piece, it would also be good to indicate the sustain pedal ... if you have a certain result in mind, the pianist will hardly achieve it this way.

... besides, the pedal could help you with writing from an executability perspective.

These are the first things, in my opinion. I close by insisting on the instrumental gesture because it is important to respect it, especially if one wants to use traditional instruments ... otherwise, a sequencer is better, so one can definitively get rid of the problem.

Bianca wrote:

It's exactly as you say. Probably the sequencer is the instrument for which it was written (and in truth, it is also what it was produced with). As I mentioned above in response to AbateFaria, I didn't think of either the organ or the piano when I wrote it down. The fact that the sound is that of a piano is mainly due to the fact that it's the only VST instrument I have that sounds decent. On the other hand, reducing it for piano is something feasible even following your suggestions, but it requires a bit more time than the little I could dedicate to it.

I also find your consideration on the possibility of highlighting or not the subject very interesting. I believe this could open up a very broad discussion, but outside the objectives of this topic.

You don't know how much pleasure it gives me when someone tackles a piece that I write, but usually, as you know, right now unfortunately for me that isn't the case. Consequently, instead of correcting the indicated things, yesterday I started rewriting it in a new version, with Corelli's countersubject.

In any case, I am also attaching a first attempt at a piano reduction, very rough.

sorry for intruding Bianca but as a pianist (ok the term is exaggerated, better to define myself as a key-smashing machine) the distribution of voices on the score is still quite improvable, at least so as not to drive someone reading at sight crazy; seventh intervals are not very beautiful to grasp immediately when they can become fourths (if I'm not mistaken) if one note is taken with the other hand

antares86 wrote:

sorry to intrude Bianca, but as a pianist (okay, the term is exaggerated, it's better to define myself as a key smasher), the distribution of voices on the score could still be greatly improved, at least so as not to drive someone reading at sight crazy; seventh intervals are not very beautiful to grasp immediately when they can become fourths (if I'm not mistaken) if one note is taken with the other hand

Of course, as I said, it is very raw

Bianca wrote:

Sure, as I said it is very rough

ah enough working on it a little bit is a small thing compared to the writing at least in my opinion ihihihihi

Hot comment on Geppino's fugue

Very introspective and interesting, beautiful sonorities and like the first fugue you presented, I really like the suspension before the stretto.