Jump to content

Leaderboard

Popular Content

Showing content with the highest reputation on 02/16/2026 in Posts

  1. No invention themes/fugal subjects begin on the 4th degree of the scale. The theme does recur throughout but it also must be stated at the beginning of your piece, and here, the presence of the 4th degree is detrimental to establishing the home key of your piece. If you wanted to write an invention you would raise this note to the 5th degree instead. The themes of inventions are based on simple and common harmonic gambits (I-V-I, I-IV-V-I, I-VI-II-V and so on). This theme strongly suggests I-IV-I-IV in the first bar which I have never seen before in a theme/subject. It's nonetheless possible to write an invention here, but it'd require a few tricks. A possible solution for the countertheme is: The anacrusis has been raised by a tone, as discussed before. Note the presence of an inner pedal F in the first bar. This serves three purposes: it strongly establishes the tonic key, it introduces the semiquaver rhythm to be used throughout the rest of the piece, and it reimagines the otherwise problematic I-IV-I-IV progression as a simple decoration of the tonic chord I. The second bar uses scalic passages, and is essentially a decorated dominant chord V. Together with the first bar, what would be an otherwise very unwieldly theme (if harmonised at quaver or crotchet speeds) is now a simple I-V gambit. There is a nice phrase ending at the beginning of bar 3 with the bottom F reached by the bass. The counterpoint here is fully invertible. There's much material here that you can take for your episodes: the scalic passages, the lower mordent-like figure found in bar 2 of the main theme, and the bariolage introduced by the inner pedal in bar 1. Bariolage especially is an absolute motivic goldmine that you can and should exploit in the episodes. It's C and B-flat. Also this kind of dissonance, treated this way, is completely allowed. Take a look at BWV 773 (Invention No. 2) for some beautiful examples. There's nothing wrong with the fast passing vii6. No. Note that the imitation enters 2 crotchets earlier compared to the other solution. You can in theory not do this, and write a 2 crotchet-long continuation, but this is unnecessary for imitation at the fifth here, and therefore slightly inelegant.
    1 point
×
×
  • Create New...