Organ Fugue(?) in D# minor

My first proper attempt at writing something baroquey.

I was wondering, what's the best way to describe this piece, academically speaking. Fughetta, Fugue, Double Fugue, Counter fugue?

Thanks for sharing your well-crafted work. However, if I would be an organist, I would transpose the work down a half-tone to get rid of all those double sharps and simple sharps. It would increase playability of this score tremendously.

You concatenate two different fugue expositions, in a way that one would expect a combination of the two subjects any moment, but you don't come around to do p. Even if one is minor and one is major, as in your (rarely seen) case, it would be possible (with some tricks). I don't know if there is a specific term for your work structure, but double fugue it ain't. 

It is also interesting how you handle the keys of the subject entries. The plan of dux - comes - comes - dux is not that unusual, but rarely seen in modern works.

Thanks again and carry on composing! 

Not bad for a first attempt.  It's really more a brief fugato work since after you introduce your subjects, they don't really return or get developed since it's so short.

Watch the parallel 5ths and octaves.  If you are really striving to emulate the baroque style, these would be big no-no's.

32 minutes ago, Willibald said:

You concatenate two different fugue expositions, in a way that one would expect a combination of the two subjects any moment, but you don't come around to do p. 

I do combine them at bar 19 but I definitely ought to combine them much more.

33 minutes ago, Willibald said:

Even if one is minor and one is major, as in your (rarely seen) case, it would be possible (with some tricks). 

Forgive me if I'm being stupid but aren't both the subjects minor? Surely, it's only the answer to the 2nd subject which is major?

43 minutes ago, Willibald said:

I don't know if there is a specific term for your work structure, but double fugue it ain't. 

I agree. The only way I can think of describing it is as a binary form fugue but that definition has its own set of problems.  I'll add much more material before bar 26 so that it can be a double fugue - that's probably a better solution. 

48 minutes ago, Willibald said:

However, if I would be an organist, I would transpose the work down a half-tone to get rid of all those double sharps and simple sharps. It would increase playability of this score tremendously

That's a fair point. However, I'm probably going to end up write a fugue in every key so one of them will have to be in D# minor anyway so I might as well make it this one. :D  Thanks for your feedback!

4 minutes ago, bkho said:

Not bad for a first attempt.  It's really more a brief fugato work since after you introduce your subjects, they don't really return or get developed since it's so short.

Watch the parallel 5ths and octaves.  If you are really striving to emulate the baroque style, these would be big no-no's.

 

Thanks. I thought that it turned out quite well so I'll probably just turn it into a double fugue. 

I was pretty careful with parallels, obviously some must have slipped in :). Where did you see them?

I love it. Good work!

21 minutes ago, Luis Hernández said:

I love it. Good work!

 

Thanks :)

On 9.3.2018 at 12:21 PM, punintentional said:

I do combine them at bar 19 but I definitely ought to combine them much more.

Sorry, I didn’t recognise that. I should probably tell you (to have an excuse) that I was posting from my cell phone and squinting at the notes as displayed on the YouTube video. And just from hearing the piece, it is easily not heard.

On 9.3.2018 at 12:21 PM, punintentional said:

Forgive me if I'm being stupid but aren't both the subjects minor? Surely, it's only the answer to the 2nd subject which is major?

The phrase in m. 14 & 15 would perfectly end in an f sharp. Actually, the last two notes in m. 15 are a typically "broken chord" technique leading to a tonic, sounding the leading ton and the supertonic. You avert this by jumping to d (somewhat deceptive …). In m. 16, the subject sounds a bit strange when I did enter it in my score programme as you didn’t use a sharp on the b like a subject in the dominant key would need, according to your score. Strangely enough, when playing your video, the vertical harmonies make it sound perfectly okay.

On 9.3.2018 at 12:21 PM, punintentional said:

Thanks. I thought that it turned out quite well so I'll probably just turn it into a double fugue. 

Good idea!