Fugue in E minor No. 5

After this kind of religious period of barely two months of inactivity that seem to divide my calendar between a fugue either the next or the previous one, I have been able to finish another fugue. Even though harmonically it might not even barely match with the archetypically baroque school fugue, in terms of contrapunctal complexity it may indeed be my best so far (despite the yet pretty noticeable lack of augmentation, diminution or inversion, to name a few of the many contrapunctal strategies I have still to put to use). Please note that by saying my "best" I'm only and exclusively comparing upon previous fugues of mine, and not otherwise.

I also finally got rid of the harpsichord soundfont I was currently using upon having got to a point where I began utterly disliking it for some reason, and so I returned to the original MuseScore soundfont which turned out to be quite a relief. So, in the realm of soundfonts and artificial soundbanks: Farewell, harpsichord, and welcome, "Mellow Grand Piano"! (...I guess?). I would kindly encourage anyone taking their time to listen to this fugue and thinking on replying with their opinions and objections (likely tons upon tons of forbidden parallels, potential contrapunctal "sacrilege" of sorts (?), etc.) to also include how this new soundbank I have lately started using sounds to them in contrast to the previous one (which you can discern upon by listening to any of my previous fugues, all using that harspichord soundbank I am mentioning here). Thanks to everyone in advance.

Just skimming this fugue on the surface - it seems to have some nicely developed episodes (as well as a decent bridge).  I don't know your previous works but I like this one.  You could have included more middle entries of the subject in my opinion (and going into an episode right after a middle entry isn't mandatory).  This particular fugue seems to want to end in G major but then you force it back into E.  There's some questionable chromaticism in this as well (if you're trying for a strictly Baroque fugue) around measure 41.  Overall this is enjoyable though.  Also it seems like you're trying to fill up all the space you can in this kind of contrapuntal writing, but space can be a very nice break from the constant onslaught of rhythms that you have.  Thanks for the music!

15 hours ago, PaperComposer said:

Just skimming this fugue on the surface - it seems to have some nicely developed episodes (as well as a decent bridge).  I don't know your previous works but I like this one.  You could have included more middle entries of the subject in my opinion (and going into an episode right after a middle entry isn't mandatory).  This particular fugue seems to want to end in G major but then you force it back into E.  There's some questionable chromaticism in this as well (if you're trying for a strictly Baroque fugue) around measure 41.  Overall this is enjoyable though.  Also it seems like you're trying to fill up all the space you can in this kind of contrapuntal writing, but space can be a very nice break from the constant onslaught of rhythms that you have.  Thanks for the music!

 

Thank you very much for your review. Indeed, close to the very end it was already leaning more towards G major. Still, I decided to give ago to the idea of having it return to E with the picardy key filling both last measures. I liked it at first, yet I'm unsure which option would have been more decohesive: having the fugue end in the major relative key or using the picardy third in there. Regardless, save for some parallels I'm still sppotting here and there,  I think the fugue is mostly done. It is likely that I will probably remake it into a richer counterpoint sometime in the future though.

The chromatic stretto was intended, as I kind of implied on the original post: "Even though harmonically it might not even barely match with the archetypically baroque school fugue, ...". I must admit that chromatic progression was a bold turn, yet at the point I began leaning towards that idea, this fugue was turning out to ppotentially have a somewhat boring fine (from my perspective by the time I hadn't even got to the mid-last section where G minor is so prominent), so let's say I ended up deciding to add a bit of spiciness in that stretto.

Lastly, I would tend not to put many breaks unless a re-exposition pops up (although in those cases I normally tend to fill up the missing voice with modified augmentation of the subject or any other of the themes exposed). It's generally just me, but I'm kind of biased agaisnt allowing for phrases with an absent voice (as I normally only write for three voices, due to the lack of necessary polyphonic skills to actuallly get something out of a fugue á 4), since a great bunch of the harmony is lost to me and thus I feel compelled to try never abandoning any voice, even at the cost of rhythmic onslaught which gets considerably accentuated by the fact all I have composed so far has been played by a machine alone (hence why I ended up ditching out the harpsichord soundbank in favour of this, way less percussively earraping one).

Lastly, thank you very much for reviewing my work! 🙂

It's a very good fugue. I studied one of your earlier fugues when I wrote my own, which I'll link here as I uploaded it on youtube instead of here (shameless plug check out my channel 😉 

It's good to have you back, although I've had a lapse in creativity as well. 

Interesting fugue.  It starts off like a Bach inspired fugue but then more and more unusual (not in a bad way) chromaticism emerges that makes sound more Shostakovich-like as it progresses. 

It's unusual to have all the voices playing all the time in a fugue. Even in a 4-voice fugue, you'll have moments where it's just S+T or A+B, or three voices at once. At the very least, there should be a rest every now and then. Otherwise, it gets exhausting to have all the voices hammering away non-stop.

On 7/29/2020 at 10:54 AM, Vogel said:

It's unusual to have all the voices playing all the time in a fugue. Even in a 4-voice fugue, you'll have moments where it's just S+T or A+B, or three voices at once. At the very least, there should be a rest every now and then. Otherwise, it gets exhausting to have all the voices hammering away non-stop.

 

These were my thoughts as well. Some textural variety would do wonders with this piece. It's obvious you're skilled at counterpoint, taking away some of the thickness would catapult your music to the next level.