Fughetta in B major.

A revised version of one of the earliest fugues I ever finished, back in early December 2019. Given I had only started composing a few months prior to that point, this fughetta was previously riddled with contrapuntal flaws and mistakes, the vast majority of which have all hopefully been corrected while leaving the melodic upper voice almost intact (for the most part).

Enjoy!

YouTube video link: 

It sounds quite nice. I like it. I like the counterpoint really much. You definitely really spiced up the major which I’m really happy about as that just using the major scale by itself can be really bland. Sometimes I also heard some theme that sounds a bit like “deck the Halls.”

Hey Pabio @Fugax Contrapunctus!

I have never heard of your first version but this revised sounds nice for me. Just beware of b.71 to 73 when there are tenths which would not be playable for most pianists!

It sounds amazing to me that you already tried to compose a Fugue while only composed for few months; I never had that courage until composing for 10 years or so! And I’m sure my counterpoint back then was worse as shxt. Thx for sharing!

Henry

11 hours ago, Henry Ng Tsz Kiu said:

Hey Pabio @Fugax Contrapunctus!

I have never heard of your first version but this revised sounds nice for me. Just beware of b.71 to 73 when there are tenths which would not be playable for most pianists!

The main issue with transposing the bass an octave upwards between said bars so as to avoid the excessive distances found between all three voices is melodic coherence: in order to keep the bass line as melodically stable as possible in order to avoid uncomfortable leaps or clashes with the middle voice, the whole line had to stay in the lower octave. Still, I should probably look into it again so as to maybe find a potential workaround.

11 hours ago, Henry Ng Tsz Kiu said:

It sounds amazing to me that you already tried to compose a Fugue while only composed for few months; I never had that courage until composing for 10 years or so! And I’m sure my counterpoint back then was worse as shxt. Thx for sharing!

Henry

For context, here's a link to the version first published in the original post:

As you can most likely tell, my counterpoint back then was simply just deplorable. The last commenter was exceptionally kind with their review, given how terribly the rules of counterpoint and mandatory resolutions were handled, plus how awfully disappointing the structure and scant usage of actual contrapuntal devices both were (a general trait unfortunately carried over into the final revamp, save perhaps for the last-time addition of a false entry in b. 81~82).

If I recall correctly, I was barely 14 at the time, and after listening to Bach's Kunst der Fuge in its entirety during the late Summer, I decided to try my hand at writing something in his style, perhaps as a way of channeling the mind-bending awe and admiration I felt for the Master's work, or maybe as a rather childish experiment that wouldn't carry over beyond the realm of first-time mediocrity. In spite of how bad my first pieces were, I decided to press on, still knowing my "music" at the time was far less than subpar at best, with a sense of humility, receptiveness and self-improvement to which I owe the place my skills currently stand at.

And believe me, as evident as it is from the score in the original post from that year, if you think your counterpoint after composing for 10 years was "worse as shxt", then mine must have been at least 10 times worse than that! As much as I now absolutely loathe the lack of skills in counterpoint my pieces used to display back then, and usually (for the most part) can't stand to look back at my oldest compositions, I still cherish the innocence and naivity from which it all started and came from, which is why I still keep those fugal abominations in a dedicated trash folder instead of deleting them for good: to always keep reminding myself that I too was once nothing but a humble and ignorant novice in the myriad complexities of this vast world that is musical composition.

13 minutes ago, Fugax Contrapunctus said:

I still cherish the innocence and naivity from which it all started and came from, which is why I still keep those fugal abominations in a dedicated trash folder instead of deleting them for good: to always keep reminding myself that I too was once nothing but a humble and ignorant novice in the myriad complexities of this vast world that is musical composition.

That’s the most important thing: every composers must be much less skilled in their first compositions, and noticing how bad they are actually prove how much you have improved, instead of having the same work as your “masterpiece” in all those years.

I have listened to the original piece, and believe me it isn’t as bad as you think, it’s a great effort for a blossoming composer. Trying with tons of error will be much better than trying to be perfect in your head and afraid to have a single error in your work, because only writing with errors and spotting them help you improve, which your present day compositions prove it.

Henry

2 hours ago, Henry Ng Tsz Kiu said:

That’s the most important thing: every composers must be much less skilled in their first compositions, and noticing how bad they are actually prove how much you have improved, instead of having the same work as your “masterpiece” in all those years.

I have listened to the original piece, and believe me it isn’t as bad as you think, it’s a great effort for a blossoming composer. Trying with tons of error will be much better than trying to be perfect in your head and afraid to have a single error in your work, because only writing with errors and spotting them help you improve, which your present day compositions prove it.

Henry

 

Indeed, that is how I feel about it. Had I got discouraged by my initial lack of skill and abundant contrapuntal mistakes from the get go, I would have ended up disheartened and giving up on composition entirely. My career would simply had died before it could have even started, and I wouldn't have enjoyed composing so many of my fugues, as I set out to do from the very beginning.

Regarding the 10ths in b. 71~73, the latest edition has those corrected alongside some minor voicing changes here and there as well.

Thank you for your criticism and kind words, Henry 🙂

It sounds really delicious.
The baroque counterpoint is fantastic. I love that you like to compose in that style.
Sometimes there are fugues that “tire me out” but sometimes the opposite. Of course, I don't get tired of those of the great composers, haha. 
This one either, to be honest.
Regarding what has been said about the tenths, I think it is common practice (and one of the difficulties in the interpretation) to cross the hand notes, although it is not indicated in the score, probably because in baroque the clarity of each voice predominates, not so in romanticism where these things are noted due to the density of texture. 
Greetings.

2 hours ago, Luis Hernández said:

It sounds really delicious.
The baroque counterpoint is fantastic. I love that you like to compose in that style.
Sometimes there are fugues that “tire me out” but sometimes the opposite. Of course, I don't get tired of those of the great composers, haha. 
This one either, to be honest.

Thank you very much. I find it surprising that I've managed to make it more palatable to the ear than some other denser fugues of mine, but like you say it is only the masters that know how to manage contrapuntal density, Fortspinnung and diversity of approaches towards the simplest materials to grant their usage in each given piece the pinnacle of transformative richness. Those are abilities I still need a long time of honing and perfecting my craft and skills in order to acquire, let alone take them to the same level of greatness as our mighty forefathers.

2 hours ago, Luis Hernández said:

Regarding what has been said about the tenths, I think it is common practice (and one of the difficulties in the interpretation) to cross the hand notes, although it is not indicated in the score, probably because in baroque the clarity of each voice predominates, not so in romanticism where these things are noted due to the density of texture. 
Greetings.

 

To be honest, I'm not so sure I agree with you here. Let's assume we did in fact exchange and cross voices at the points you noted: just in the first measure, we would have to make a descending tritone leap, and the rising bass from the lower F-sharp to the higher G-sharp in the 3rd beat/1st part of the 2nd beat in what is currently the middle voice would gives us a span larger than an octave in a continuous rising melody, which makes even less sense to me. Even if we take the twist the bass makes in the 2nd beat (rising to B and then descending to A-sharp before rising again) we would still have the melodic span of a major 7th in a non-chordal arrangement (A# C# D# G# instead of A# C# E G#, as would be more expected and acceptable in my opinion).

Just now, after revising it again, I have made some changes to the bass and middle voice in b. 73 as follows (as well as adding an A-sharp so as to avoid parallel fifths between the middle and upper voices in the weak 16th-notes of the 2nd beat). I also slightly altered the upper voicing of the supertonic dominant chord before the finale for slightly more rhythmic variety.

Regardless, thank you for your remarks, for even if the ones you made didn't make it into this (hopefully final) version, it certainly did make me come back and check for other potential mistakes, which I did end up finding and thus, correcting. 🙂

This sounds great. It sounds like a piece we would hear at a luxury party. Excellent counterpoint all around in this piece.