Fugax Contrapunctus

After another seemingly unending period of stagnation and lack of inspiration, one of the fugues I had been recently working on has finally come to fruition. To be quite frankly honest, I am still not entirely sure on how I feel about this one. Admittedly, some passages might require better connectivity between them, as some of the free counterpoint sections and pedal points might sound a tad too sudden and are perhaps in need of some reworking. But for now, this is all I can provide. Enjoy! YouTube video link:

Thank you for pointing that out, it will be corrected right away. You're right actually, I did overlay the original MuseSounds choir rendition over the main Cantāmus rendering in order to further enrich the sound and add a semblance of a reverb effect. I'm still not entirely sure just how noticeable this might be to the ears, but overall it was very much intentional and I'm pleased with how it turned out.

Nearly two months after taking down the original, I have decided to re-upload a revised version of this motet, with all contrapuntal flaws present in the first video having been hopefully corrected, as well as the main key having been changed from C minor to C-sharp minor and the Cantāmus rendering accordingly modified. The soprano line stands as a nigh unadulterated version of a theme I had been working on for years now, for diverse purposes and with varying degrees of success, as this is the only piece I have managed to finish featuring it. I guess it took me a while to realise just how fitting a religious hymn such as the Stabat Mater would be for this configuration, notwithstanding the slight redistribution and duplication of certain verses which in the end does not severely modify the text, save for the metrics of the original first three stanzas. Enjoy! YouTube video link:

Honestly, it may be both, though perhaps the modification at the end (which can totally be omitted by the way, as its purpose is merely to enrich an otherwise strict, though lackluster ending) makes it more of a round, as most proper canons in strict imitation opt instead to have each voice gradually fade out in order of entrance. I cannot really recall having had classical notions of harmonic phrasing in mind when composing this one, though I must admit the longer values at the 2nd half of each measure of the original theme are quite noticeable, so perhaps a little more internal motion between voices would have been preferable. As I will most likely end up revisiting this composition in the long term, I shall take your criticism into account once I set out to do so. Thank you both very much for your reviews of this humble work of mine.

First off, I hope you do realize you are referring to a very specific kind of motet. The term has been in use at least since the very inception of the Notre-Dame school of polyphony and ever since, the form covered by the usage of this term has undergone nigh constant change and evolution. I take it you may perhaps specifically be alluding to post-Palestrina motets. Even then, I wish we could move past the nitpicking over non-contrapuntal elements in music. Like you seem to have appreciated, counterpoint is the main focus in these compositions of mine. To me, contrapuntal standards are the bare basics from which form can deviate in whichever way I see fit. If it were the case that I was studying Palestrina's motets under Fux's tutelage roughly three centuries ago, then I would have no chance but to accept said constrictions in form. Thankfully, after all the evolution that has taken place in the history of classical music, only in exercises are such strict rules expected to be upheld without the slightiest deviation, which is one of the main reasons why I refuse to accept the labels "exercise", or worse yet, "pastiche" stapled onto my compositions. Had every composer since Palestrina or Fux followed the same set of rules without letting their own originality redefine them, at best we would still be stuck in the Early Classical period. I can, to a degree, understand the formal expectations when it comes to this kind of pieces. I shall not, however, blindly acquiesce to every single one of them. In case you are interested in checking out other pieces of mine which follow your purported guidelines, you can check these out:

Dear Henry, I am deeply sorry that my remark caused you distress. I had no way of knowing there were other reasons beyond my direct statements for you to suddenly stop reviewing my works, so I assumed it had to do with disagreements over ideomatic compositional criteria, which has managed to become the trademark criticism offered towards my works. Never have I requested nor taken for granted any reviews, the same way I feel there's barely anything left for me to add almost everytime I come across pieces I could be capacitated to offer criticism for. I simply had an (ultimately wrong) inkling that the reason for this situation was of my own doing, my fault. It seems I have been wrong from beginning to end, and as such I can only apologize for the impression my words may have caused and hope to clear up the misunderstanding. Best wishes, Pablo

That could be arranged in the extremely unlikely long-term scenario of my music being performed, if ever. Still, it should be noted that my stance towards setting my compositions to actual, real performances has shifted over the last couple of years, which I supposed must be at least part of the reason why Henry Ng Tsz Kiu stopped reviewing my compositions altogether, once I revealed how my position on this matter had changed. Like I said then and I shall repeat now, computerized performances are good enough for my current intents and purposes. If actual performers in the flesh cannot pause to breathe, that poses no problem at all: the machine shall sing or play what they cannot without issue. Naturally, my usual trade-off with this approach is said sense of "artificiality" to it all. But after every time this has been pointed out without me putting the slightiest bit of effort into mitigating such aspects of my music, it should be evident by now I do not mind it whatsoever, it simply does not bother me. However, if this reasoning does clash with your own perspectives, just as I assume happened to Henry, you are free to join him in leaving me and my works alone. First things first: this is a five-voice motet. The fact that you implied both the supposed melodic "incoherence" of the soprano line and its relatively high range in the very same comment leads me to believe you should be aware of the constraints set by having five voices in a choral setup. Had I chosen to add more variety to the soprano line in particular, I would have found myself trapped between two different dead ends: either substantial voice crossings between the soprano and mezzosoprano voices, or exceeding even the most extreme ranges for soprano voices. As neither of said options were to be permitted, I had to opt for quite a limited range so as to make rooom for the inner voices. Does this somehow make the resulting melody "incoherent"? Like I have said before, what constitutes a good melody is rather subjctive. All I can point towards in my defense is the meticulous care I put into its construction so as to avoid repeated segments (for example, say, a succession of E F E F with very similar rhythms throughout), that is, the only objective metric by which to judge melodic coherence I could apply in this case.

Indeed, said modulations are the focal point of this piece, the base material from which its structure was designed and its counterpoint woven. I am unsure, however, on what you mean by "justified and needed by the music/melodic line", since the level of contrapuntal constraints required for a 5-voice setup was main guiding force behind the final resulting contours the melodies took, aside from the proper individual construction thereof. I trust that most professional choirs out there would be able to instinctually find favourably specific moments within the piece to strategically insert breathing commas, such as phrases ending in a half note giving ample space for singers to momentarily stagger their breathing, just as you said. As for the sense of breathless artificiality you mentioned, I suppose it must be a matter o subjective relevance, since it comes off neither as "artificial" nor awkward in any way for me as long as the performing choir can handle it properly, as I hope will be the case under most circumstances. Regardless of our disagreements, I can only thank you for your thoughts, criticism and kind words, as there will most likely always room for improvement in my compositions no matter how hard I try to perfect my technique and integrate all aspects in which I may find myself lacking, so as to get them as closely as possible to second-nature for me and, by extension, my art.

In spite of my last failed attempt at writing vocal counterpoint for 5 voices, I refused to give up my endeavours and thus began a new piece from scratch, though still with a similar setup, as well as part of its lyrics remaining the same, the other part being the first verse of Gregorio Allegri's own Miserere. However, with this one I decided to try out a few somewhat adventurous modulations, following a transpositional pattern of a semitone upwards between both musical phrases, as well as a rather unusual enharmonic modulation of a downward semitone mid-phrase. Enjoy! YouTube video link:

Admittedly, I may not have explained myself clearly enough. The canonic theme/melody as it currently stands necessitates said voice crossings if imitated at the unison. It has nothing to do with the text.

Unfortunately, due to the nature of the theme, the bicinium comprised by the upper voices is bound to include voice crossings, even if we inverted the voices, which I didn't consider the optimal solution due to the respective tessiture of the soprano and alto. Neither this issue nor inverting the voice ranges would really be a problem at all if this were an instrumental canon, as the soprano would have no problem being transposed an octave (thus making it a strict canon at the octave instead of this half-transposed unison) upwards if it were played by, say, a violin. Naturally such a transposition would exceed the limits of a comfortable vocal range for most sopranos, so I ultimately chose to tolerate these momentary voice crossings, as in the end, each voice returns to its due course. Interestingly, composing an accompanied canon with an independent bass was not originally on the table, as I kept going bach and forth (pun fully intended) between smashing my head against the wall with an attempted strict 4-part canon and the outcome I got instead. In the end, through trial and error I ended up realizing that the former could not provide for full chords most of the time and eventually decided against it in order to keep the harmony as enriched as possible.

A three-voice canon at the unison (except for the tenor, which starts an octave lower than the upper voices) with text from the Vulgate as placeholder lyrics. The bass constitutes its own independent line. Specifically, for the text I took the versicles from the Book of John where the famous "Quo vadis?" is uttered by St. Peter before denying Jesus three times. YouTube video link:

Here's a somewhat heterodox crab canon for three voices, which I've been composing throughout the course of this past evening. In contrast to a typical crab canon for two voices, the three melodic lines (here coloured as themes in their own right) vertically swap positions with each repetition, of which the last three are the retrograde variants. Thus, instead of there being a single mirror point to divide both halves of the canon, the whole line has to be segmented into smaller themes that cycle across registers through means of invertible counterpoint. Lastly, an ornamented cadence has been included at the end for a proper sense of conclusion. By all means this is not a strict crab canon, so I all advice on how to make it more rigorous or coherent is more than welcome. YouTube video link:

A few days ago, after a couple of sleepless nights of unbound creativity, another fugue flourished, originally composed in its entirety for string quartet almost from its very conception. The subject was derived from a transformed version of a violin theme I came up with while improvising, and throughout the fugue it undergoes subtle mutations allowing for a slightly more minimalist approach to episodic development and modulation than I am usually accustomed to with most of my other fugues. In the end, I decided to dedicate this one to a fellow classical music enthusiast, composer and overall kindred spirit I met online, with whom I have become somewhat quite a bit well acquainted with, perhaps as much as to be able to call them a friend. Enjoy! YouTube video link:

Hi again. I am extremely sorry to have missed this detailed comment of yours, I should have been more attentive back more than a year ago or so. Regarding both figures you mentioned, I too have come to dislike overly repeated notes with similar rhythms in the most prominent, cantizans-like voices, so I can understand why they might also sound a bit off to you. This fragment of the composition is perhaps the oldest within, probably dating to late 2021 or earlier, so that might explain the awkward sound these sequences may ellicit. The "typo" you claim to have spotted however, unless both my eyes and my memory deceive me, are just two naturals placed atop one another, not joined together, as it might have seemed at first. I do have to admit they could have been spaced a bit further, which should be corrected by now. Regarding the fugue, some places have since been edited to make it less repetitive and more diverse in terms of modulations, specifically by adding a passage with relative major-field harmonies right before the pedal point, as follows in the attached PDF and updated audio files: