Fantasia and Fugue in f# minor

fantasia in f sharp minor.pdffugue in f sharp minor.pdf

an old piece from two years ago that i still enjoy.

Hi @mossy84,

I love this fantasia and fugue. Your counterpoint skill is accurate and mature, congrats on that!

What I am not quite satisfied with is the lack of timberal change. There's no dynamic marking as it keeps within p range throughout the whole piece. Even there's contrast in the texture with the thickness of chords in the prelude and number of voices in the fugue, I honestly nearly fall asleep after attentively listening to quiet music for 11 minutes. I wish there are more variations on the use of stops for the organ, since it will provide much more variety in the sound and timbre, and can also provide dynamic contrast.

For the fantasia I personally find it too long. I say it's long since the material itself is not quite varied. For example in b.27-40 the texture is the same with the top two voices in sixths. Maybe the dynamic and timbre also make me feel this way.

I love your fugue much better actually! The texture is more varied here and the subject developed. Very nice suspension in b.14, I always love suspension when it's used accurately. Good second part with a new countersubject to add motions to it. I personally think that to end with plagal cadence works better with a picardy third ending. I will also suggest you to use materials from the subject for your episodes since it will make the piece more coherent!

Thanks for sharing! I really enjoy your arrival to the forum as you bring many great pieces here! If OK please also take your time to review our fellow members' works, since with your knowledge it will be invaluable for us!

Henry

Hi.

Very good work!

In the Fantasia, I only have an observation, and it is the closed intervals in the low part that, here and there, are too close ande the result is a blurred sound.

The Fugue is delicious, I love it's quiet mood, even in the more animated part. I like the work with the pedal line. Perhaps the timbre is not the best for me, sometimes it has odd resonances (to my ear).

14 hours ago, Henry Ng Tsz Kiu said:

What I am not quite satisfied with is the lack of timberal change... I wish there are more variations on the use of stops for the organ, since it will provide much more variety in the sound and timbre, and can also provide dynamic contrast.

For the fantasia I personally find it too long. I say it's long since the material itself is not quite varied. For example in b.27-40 the texture is the same with the top two voices in sixths. Maybe the dynamic and timbre also make me feel this way.

I personally think that to end with plagal cadence works better with a picardy third ending. I will also suggest you to use materials from the subject for your episodes since it will make the piece more coherent!

 

to address point 1, this is an older piece, and i just found it inconvenient to have to add new instruments on musescore to add new stops. 

you definitely make a fair point about the fantasia not being that varied, but this piece is too old for me to feel like addressing any of that.

i personally don't agree that the episodes include subject material because the subject really only has an ascending sixth as an important motif, which does not in my opinion fit the more flowing nature of the piece. furthermore, i didn't really know what i was doing until i began the second half of the piece, and by the time i started, i wanted to focus more on the running sixteenths rather than the eighth note rhythms. and the piccardy won't work here unless i change all of the other a's in the previous measure to a#'s, which does not work for this ending, since the plagal cadence is a restatement of the third and fourth to last bars. if instead the ending had looked like this, then i would definitely agree with you.

also, i listen to this piece when i want to sleep in a long car trip or plane flight.

2 hours ago, Luis Hernández said:

In the Fantasia, I only have an observation, and it is the closed intervals in the low part that, here and there, are too close and the result is a blurred sound.

Perhaps the timbre is not the best for me, sometimes it has odd resonances (to my ear).

 

the fantasia was at the time more of an experiment in sound, which is why a lot of the harmonies are very odd, even for myself nowadays.

i think the resonances that you hear in the fugue are an artifact of both my terrible mixing skills at the time, and the terrible software i used at the time to add reverb.

I didn't mean the harmonies, which are nice.

There are guides showing how much specific intervals should be wide or open in the low register so that the sound doesn't become muddy and unpleasant.

This has to be understood this way: "don't use each interval below the image".

Sorry it's in Spanish, but the image is the same:

For example, here (and with the organ, so rich in sound, the effect is amplified).

Since I learnt about it, I never write "harmonies" in that low register (for example: double bass, tuba, contrafagot, etc....  always in unison). Or in the piano or organ, I try to follow this chart.

Is a recommendation. Just that. Of course, you can skip it for a purpose...

7 hours ago, Luis Hernández said:

Is a recommendation. Just that. Of course, you can sip it for a purpose...

 

i've never seen this concept formalized before, so i appreciate your response.

Edit: i remember experimenting with fifths many years ago on the piano, and found the limit of clarity to be around F#1 and C#2, so perhaps the limits are also dependent on timbre and instrumentation.

I love the fantasia!  You use many line cliches, sometimes over a tonic or dominant pedal in the bass.  At other times you use a perpetually descending line cliche in the bass which goes on for quite some time and even has to reset an octave higher.  Yet the harmony is very interesting.  I also like the contrast between the mostly middle and low range fantasia and the fugue which spends more time in the higher registers.  Thanks for sharing.