# Counterpoint Composers



## Jord (Aug 13, 2012)

I've recently discovered counterpoint and fell in love with it, what's everyones favourite composers that write counterpoint other than J.S Bach, as he's the only one i know


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## jani (Jun 15, 2012)

L.V Beethoven


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## Jord (Aug 13, 2012)

Never realised somehow, any pieces you'd recommend me to check out?


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## jani (Jun 15, 2012)

Check out his piano sonata called " The hammerklavier"


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## Renaissance (Jul 10, 2012)

Try Zelenka and Handel as well.


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## kv466 (May 18, 2011)

Dodecaplex started a thread about this a while ago and it became a very nice list. I'll throw Mozart's fantasy in C as one of my favorite counter works of all time.


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## Taneyev (Jan 19, 2009)

Max Reger (any of his string trios and quartets)
Sergei Taneyev (Any of his chamber works)
Leopold Godowsky (any of his original piano works)


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## Ramako (Apr 28, 2012)

*Palestrina* (not really a favourite but this piece is)





*Haydn* (preferably at 3:50)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03pFjO2jU2U#!

*Josquin Des Prez*





*Guillaume Dufay*





I should really stop now, this could go on and on..

EDIT: Ok, I can't resist one of the best fugues ever written
*Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart*


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## Andreas (Apr 27, 2012)

R. Strauss
Mahler
Brahms
Schoenberg
Hindemith
Barber
Wagner
Sweelinck
Hovhaness
Honegger
Cherubini
Shostakovich

For most of these composers, it seems to me, counterpoint was the basis of their musical thought process.


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

I don't know anything about counterpoint, but I often see Nancarrow and Tippett called contrapuntal composers, so I guess I'll post them.


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## hocket (Feb 21, 2010)




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## ErinD (Sep 20, 2012)

It's really sad JL Krebs never gets mentioned or Buxtehude.....


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Schoenberg. Definitely Schoenberg. Schoenberg has written some amazing counterpoint and I rank him up next to Bach because of his incredible technical skill.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

The last movment of Bruckner's 5th symphony has cool counterpoint.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Manxfeeder said:


> The last movment of Bruckner's 5th symphony has cool counterpoint.


I will listen to that today then.


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## Clump (Sep 5, 2012)

Jord said:


> Never realised somehow, any pieces you'd recommend me to check out?


Grosse twatting Fugue


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

kv466 said:


> Dodecaplex started a thread about this a while ago and it became a very nice list...


It must be this one?:
http://www.talkclassical.com/16933-every-fugal-work-ever.html


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## Andreas (Apr 27, 2012)

Jord said:


> Never realised somehow, any pieces you'd recommend me to check out?


Most of Beethoven's late works, from 1818 onward, include outbursts of very profound and spiritually charged polyphony:

String quartet op. 131, first movement
Piano sonata op. 110, last movement
Missa Solemnis, Gloria and Credo

The finale of the Hammerklavier sonata and the Great Fugue were already mentioned.


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## Llyranor (Dec 20, 2010)

Clump said:


> Grosse twatting Fugue


I love the Grosse Fuge soooo sooooo much. I can't believe I didn't 'get it' at all when I first heard it (it almost sounded unpleasant or something!)


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Llyranor said:


> I love the Grosse Fuge soooo sooooo much. I can't believe I didn't 'get it' at all when I first heard it (it almost sounded unpleasant or something!)


To enjoy it first time you have to discover Xenakis' quartets beforehand.


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## pjang23 (Oct 8, 2009)

Brahms Cello Sonata No.1


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## drpraetorus (Aug 9, 2012)

Most of the suggestions I agree with, but note with dismay the omission of Jaromir Weinberger. Probably the most famous and most dismissed work of counterpointe of the 20th century is his Polka and Fugue from his opera Schwanda the Bagpiper. Weinberger had a great talent for counterpointe and it is a major musical factor in the entire opera. The polka and fugue are actually very good counterpointe that has been sneered at because it is a "pops" item now. Not worth "serious" consideration. Well, I say Bull Shoes to that. There are a large number of recordings out there but the best is from the only full recording of the opera on Columbia. That's because you hear it in it's place and you hear it with the chorus. Having the voices in place makes a huge difference.

Without chorus





With chorus


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

ErinD said:


> It's really sad JL Krebs never gets mentioned or Buxtehude.....


Bach's student and Bach's teacher, respectively. His eldest son Wilhelm Friedemann Bach was quite brilliant at it too.

Going back, we have dozens of English masters, the most prominent being Purcell, Byrd, Gibbons, Bull, Tallis, Dowland, Lawes, Blow, and many more.

One that I am especially fond of and is very high in my estimation, is Nikolai Medtner. One of those to whom counterpoint was second nature.

And I am especially fond of Bruckner's counterpoint, so I'm glad he's been mentioned.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

My favourite piece of music has some dazzling counterpoint as well as ingenious timbral effects:


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## Andreas (Apr 27, 2012)

Some of my favourite contrapuntal piece for orchestra:

Mahler, symphony no. 8, Veni creator spiritus
Bach arr. Schoenberg, St. Anne Fugue
Górecki, symphony no. 3, first movement
Hovhaness, symphony no. 20, finale & symphony no. 50, first movement
Hindemith, Mathis der Maler symphony, Engelskonzert
R. Strauss, Sinfonia domestica, finale & Metamorphosen
Wagner, Meistersinger prelude
Bartok, concert for orchestra, first movement
Pärt, Cantus in memoriam Benjamin Britten
Schoenberg, Chamber symphony no. 1
Cherubini, symphony in d minor, first movement


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## Jord (Aug 13, 2012)

Did Liszt or Chopin write any counterpoint pieces if anyone knows?


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Ockegehem's Missa Prolationum is an absolutely incredible example of counterpoint.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missa_prolationum


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## etkearne (Sep 28, 2012)

Bartók went through a counterpoint phase from around 1929-1936 which is incredible IMO. Amazingly complex yet easily perceived material. I also second Paul Hindemith and Arnold Schoenberg. Hindemith's Piano Sonatas (he wrote three, well at least that are popularly known) are great...very cerebral stuff.


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## Philip (Mar 22, 2011)

Sid James said:


> It must be this one?:
> http://www.talkclassical.com/16933-every-fugal-work-ever.html


TCFI is down temporarily.


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## drpraetorus (Aug 9, 2012)

chopin wrote ar least on fugue, early work. There is contrapuntal writing in some liszt works. Check out Les Preludes.


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## Guest (Sep 29, 2012)

Hmmm. I looked at the last list that appeared on the TC thread. Three pieces by Berlioz, Harold in Italy, Symphonie fantastique, and a forgettable choral piece.

I wonder sometimes if anyone actually listens to music! Somehow, Berlioz has gotten saddled with the reputation of not liking fugues and of being generally a non- or even anti-contrapuntal composer. This is spite of the persistently contrapuntal nature of his musical thought,* with a fugue or two or three (and sometimes a double fugue) in almost every piece he wrote. But because of that reputation, no one thinks of Berlioz when they hear the word fugue, even though there are fugues in the Missa solennelle, the Requiem, the Te Deum, the Romeo et Juliette symphony, La Damnation du Faust (a hilarious fugue spoof), Benvenuto Cellini, L'enfance du Christ, Beatrice et Benedict. That's in addition to Harold in Italy and Symphonie fantastique (which has some interesting counterpoint in the third and fourth movements as well as the double fugue in the fifth). 

*He frequently juxtaposed melodies, for instance, so much so that the conductor Weingartner called it a hallmark of Berlioz' style. (And Koechlin called Berlioz' genius "contrapuntal by nature." An easy conclusion to come to if you simply listen to the music, ignoring the reputation.)


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## Cnote11 (Jul 17, 2010)

kv466 said:


> Dodecaplex started a thread about this a while ago and it became a very nice list. I'll throw Mozart's fantasy in C as one of my favorite counter works of all time.


Dodie and his contributions are sorely missed.


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## Jord (Aug 13, 2012)

some guy said:


> Somehow, Berlioz has gotten saddled with the reputation of not liking fugues and of being generally a non- or even anti-contrapuntal composer.


I don't see how it's possible to not like fugues or counterpoint, i can't stop listening to them!


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