Prelude and Fugue in B minor "Der sterbend Sommer".

Having transposed, yet again, one of my earlier fugues from C minor and coupled it with a previously unfinished suite movement, I now present this 2nd installment in my series of preludes and fugues in all major and minor keys. In spite of my current overconfidence, this project, the most ambitious I have as of yet undertaken in my compositional experience, will probably take an extensive while to fully complete, so any specific prospects on that regard should be taken with a grain of salt. It's easier said than done, and after all, since my fugues in minor keys thoroughly outnumber those in major ones by something of a tragic margin, breaching that gap will require time and effort aplenty. This one in particularly reminded me of the waning days of summer, and the following turbulent period in which most of us have to fall back into routine and working day customs.

YouTube video: 

SoundCloud link: 

Enjoy!

Beautiful. I love the pace of the prelude and the contrast of the fugue.

me encanta

Hi @Fugax Contrapunctus,

I always enjoy your pieces, and this is no exception. I love that two part structure in the prelude. I find that you love using the spread octave for the bass, e.g. in b.44 and 58 to provide a more homophonic texture, and in othet pieces as well. Thanks for sharing!

Henry

Hi again Pablo. Going straight to the point:

♫ Prelude: I am just going to state the parts that didn't convince me since as far as I remember, I have sincerely liked all your works up to now and there's little useful overall criticism I can put. Let's dive into it:

•  This figure  has nothing wrong but it sounds a bit off to me for some reason I don't think I fully understand. I get a similar feeling with this one .
• In my honest opinion I believe I have listened to better works from you (this would be an example). Don't get me wrong, this one is good too, and perhaps it's the harpsichord soundfont and not the music itself what throws me off at some points. In any case, I would say I liked the second part of the prelude more. 
• To conclude, I think I have detected a typo at M30 if I'm not mistaken: 

♫ Fugue: much less complaints if any in this case, perhaps there's some over-dense passages like M17-19 but there are 4 voices there after all. I like the subject very much and the ending is superb.

As always, thank you for sharing your work here regularly, as I have mentioned countless times already I always enjoy listening to fugues and other genres developed in the baroque period that make use of heavy counterpoint, specially in minor tonalities.

Kind regards,
Daniel–Ømicrón.

On 2/26/2023 at 5:48 PM, Omicronrg9 said:

Hi again Pablo. Going straight to the point:

♫ Prelude: I am just going to state the parts that didn't convince me since as far as I remember, I have sincerely liked all your works up to now and there's little useful overall criticism I can put. Let's dive into it:

•  This figure  has nothing wrong but it sounds a bit off to me for some reason I don't think I fully understand. I get a similar feeling with this one .
• In my honest opinion I believe I have listened to better works from you (this would be an example). Don't get me wrong, this one is good too, and perhaps it's the harpsichord soundfont and not the music itself what throws me off at some points. In any case, I would say I liked the second part of the prelude more. 
• To conclude, I think I have detected a typo at M30 if I'm not mistaken: 

 

♫ Fugue: much less complaints if any in this case, perhaps there's some over-dense passages like M17-19 but there are 4 voices there after all. I like the subject very much and the ending is superb.

As always, thank you for sharing your work here regularly, as I have mentioned countless times already I always enjoy listening to fugues and other genres developed in the baroque period that make use of heavy counterpoint, specially in minor tonalities.

Kind regards,
Daniel–Ømicrón.

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: