# Favourite Polyphonic/Contrapuntal Compositions



## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)

As many as you feel like, I prefer the one per author approach but that's just me.

1. Perotin - Viderunt Omnes
2. Machaut - Messe de Nostre Dame
3. Ciconia - Le ray au soleyl
4. Ockeghem - Missa prolationum
5. Bach - Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme BWV 140
6. Mozart - Great Mass in C minor
7. Wagner - Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
8. Brahms - Nänie
9. Mahler - Symphony No. 10
10. Schoenberg - Pierrot Lunaire
10. Berg - Three Pieces for Orchestra
11. Webern - Symphony
12. Schmidt - Symphony no. 4
13. Strauss - Metamorphosen
14. Bartok - Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta
15. Nono - Variazioni canoniche
16. Stockhausen - Kontra-Punkte
17. Boulez - Le Marteau sans maître
18. Ligeti - Requiem
19. Berio - Bewegung
20. Benjamin - Three inventions


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## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

By Bach, too many to mention but:
Opening chorus of BWV 80
Six part ricercar from Musical Offering
Fugues 3 and 5 from Art of Fugue

By Mozart, the last movement of symphony 41 and the Kyrie from the Requiem

By. Beethoven, the last movements of Opp. 101 and 106


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

This recording of _Musikalisches Opfer_ BWV 1079 is probably the best to hear the fugues.

_Musikalisches Opfer_ BWV 1079





And *Mozart* plays tribute to the great theme of Frederick the Great/Bach:


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## Haydn70 (Jan 8, 2017)

Machaut: Messe de Nostre Dame
Ockeghem: Missa Mi-mi
Josquin: Missa Hercules dux Ferrariae
Corelli: Concerto Grosso, Op. 6, No.4, 1st movement (the entire Op. 6 is filled with glorious counterpoint)
Handel: Concerto Grosso, Op. 6, No. 7, 1st movement
Telemann: Wassermusik/Hamburger Ebb und Fluth, Overture
Bach: Die Kunst der Fuge
Haydn: Symphony #70, 4th movement (triple fugue)
Mozart: Fugue from Adagio and Fugue in C Minor KV 546
Beethoven: Grosse Fuge
Bartok: Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta, 1st movement
Bloch: Concerto Grosso #1, 4th movement
Hindemith: Ludas Tonalis
Lutoslawski: Fugue from Preludes and Fugue for 13 Solo Strings


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)




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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Richannes Wrahms said:


> As many as you feel like, I prefer the one per author approach but that's just me.
> 
> 1. Perotin - Viderunt Omnes
> 2. Machaut - Messe de Nostre Dame
> ...


There is a huge tradition of canonic music from American composers, for example Steve Reich's canonic processes and James Tenney's computer generated dissonant counterpoint, Be sure to hear Tenney's Spectrum Pieces.


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## GucciManeIsTheNewWebern (Jul 29, 2020)

I have a special love for Villa Lobos' fugues from the Bachianas Brasilieras. The 9th one is an astonishingly gorgeous example of such, a dancelike fugue in 11/8:


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## GucciManeIsTheNewWebern (Jul 29, 2020)

I've expressed this in other posts before, but even as a staunch Brucknerian I find the contrapuntal finale to the Bruckner's 5th incredibly unappealing. I feel it's lacking in contrapuntal clarity and the actual counterpoint itself isn't very melodic or distinct, so it just sounds like endless rambling of a bunch of bouncy dotted eighth rhythms. It has a lot of moments that I really love, but it's interspersed between too much of (what I perceive as) endless rambling for me to enjoy the movement as a whole.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Byrd: Mass for 4 Voices
Monteverdi: Madrigals Book 8
Mozart: Ave Verum Corpus
Schumann: 6 Canonic Etudes
Debussy: La Mer
Stravinsky: Rite of Spring
Bartok: Mikrokosmos Book 6
Bartok: Music for Strings... Fugue
Prokofiev: Symphony 6
Schnittke: Quartet 3
Ligeti: Piano Concerto

Kind of big gap from Monteverdi to Schumann, with nothing from Bach (just not stuff I enjoy listening to), except the minor piece by Mozart. Love Haydn's Masses, but I don't consider them very contrapuntal or polyphonic.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Listening this afternoon to Triadic Memories, it occurred to me that this is highly contrapuntal. It’ll be interesting to think about other Feldman from this point of view.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

_...t even as a staunch Brucknerian I find the contrapuntal finale to the Bruckner's 5th incredibly unappealing._

I have the opposite reaction finding it a lengthy exercise in counterpoint building mountains of sound that explode into a mighty apotheosis at the coda. The final few minutes of the finale are my idea of a great conclusion in music.

The Bruckner 5th is his most difficult work and the easiest for a mediocre conductor to mangle. I suggest you listen to Horenstein's recording and see what you think.


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## GucciManeIsTheNewWebern (Jul 29, 2020)

larold said:


> _...t even as a staunch Brucknerian I find the contrapuntal finale to the Bruckner's 5th incredibly unappealing._
> 
> I have the opposite reaction finding it a lengthy exercise in counterpoint building mountains of sound that explode into a mighty apotheosis at the coda. The final few minutes of the finale are my idea of a great conclusion in music.
> 
> The Bruckner 5th is his most difficult work and the easiest for a mediocre conductor to mangle. I suggest you listen to Horenstein's recording and see what you think.


I definitely like Horenstein's interpretation of the finale more than others I've heard, becase I hear more details he brings out in the fugues that were otherwise inaudible. It has way more depth and makes more sense to me. Even still though, I feel like there's a lot of long-winded passages of 'bouncy dotted eighths' that just go on forever and I fail to see how it develops the material the way he does in other sections of the movement. They sound more like pointilistic rambling to me than counterpoint. I'll have to listen to the the Horenstein all in one go later and reevaluate


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## SeptimalTritone (Jul 7, 2014)

Mandryka said:


> Listening this afternoon to Triadic Memories, it occurred to me that this is highly contrapuntal. It'll be interesting to think about other Feldman from this point of view.


Feldman can generate a lot of variety by taking the same cells in say two or three staves, either lines or chords, and slightly varying the individual cells' rhythms as well as the rhythm of their layering. Often he only alters the layering (the lining up) of the cells while keeping the individual cells' rhythms the same. He is very fluid with rhythm and rhythmic ratios, and I think needs to be so that his music doesn't start to develop an intrusive pulse.

This layering of cells is a kind of counterpoint. By varying the layering, he can explore a lot of musical space, seemingly endless, while not pushing his notes, that is, the pitch material for his cells, or at most by octave displacement. So he achieves a floating stasis while giving the sense of infinite possibility.


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## Roger Knox (Jul 19, 2017)

Josquin - Missa "Pange Lingua" 
Palestrina - Missa Papae Marcelli
Byrd - Mass for 5 Voices
Bach Organ Fugues: - (Toccata and) Fugue in D minor
- (Passacaglia and) Fugue in C minor
- "Little" Fugue in G minor
- "Gigue" Fugue in G major
Bach - Well-Tempered Clavier Book I (Preludes &) Fugues: #1(C+), #2(C -), #4(C#-), #6(D-), #7(Eb+), #21(Bb+), #22(Bb-)
Rossini - Gloria: "Cum sancto spiritu" from Petite Messe Solonelle
Bruckner - String Quintet in F major, Finale
Franck - (Prelude, Chorale and) Fugue for piano
Brahms - (Variations and) Fugue on a Theme of Handel
Koechlin - Offrande musicale sur le nom BACH, op. 187
Reger - (Prelude and) Fugue for piano op. 98, no. 6
- (Variations and ) Fugue on a Theme by Telemann for Piano
Ravel - Le Tombeau de Couperin for piano: Fugue
Stravinsky - Symphony of Psalms, 2nd movement


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Off the top of my head I think of composers like Machaut, Dufay, Monteverdi, J.S. Bach, Mozart, Brahms and Bartok...I have a lot of contrapuntal favorites by those guys.

Also, the third movement (passacaille) of Ravel's Piano Trio, and the passacaglia from Rodrigo's Three Spanish Pieces.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

_...t even as a staunch Brucknerian I find the contrapuntal finale to the Bruckner's 5th incredibly unappealing._

Yes, I've listened to the piece and watched analysis videos, somehow it doesn't feel "fugal" in the conventional sense.


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## allaroundmusicenthusiast (Jun 3, 2020)

Limiting myself only to pre-1700 music

Messe de Notredame - Machaut
Officium Defunctorum à 6 - Tomás Luis de Victoria
Anything by Josquin des Prez, but the Messe Chacun me Crie was a recent find for me that absolutely blew my mind
Missa Reges Terrae - Pierre de Manchicourt
Rosenkranzsonaten - Biber
Mass for Five Voices - Byrd
Tenebrae Responsoria - Gesualdo
Missa Prolationum - Ockgehem
Missa Papae Marcelli - Palestrina
Sederunt Principes - Perotin
Psalmi Davidis Ponentiales - de Lassus
Geistliche Chormusik - Schütz
Musikalische Exequien - Schütz
Ordo Virtotum - von Bingen
Missa de Tournai - Anonymous


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

allaroundmusicenthusiast said:


> Messe Chacun me Crie


Do you have the booklet? Is this really all by Josquin?


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## allaroundmusicenthusiast (Jun 3, 2020)

I don't remember the specifics about the piece, but it is incomplete I think. I don't have a booklet sorry! Buying cds where I live is prohibitively expensive


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

allaroundmusicenthusiast said:


> I don't remember the specifics about the piece, but it is incomplete I think. I don't have a booklet sorry! Buying cds where I live is prohibitively expensive


Well, it turns out to be a fake, though not a forgery!



> The Missa "Chascun me crie... même Hercule!" was written by Maurice Bourbon based on Josquin's Credo "Chascun me crie" and themes from the Hercules mass and elsewhere. Although he states it is in the Franco-Flemish style of the period, I do not think anyone would mistake this music as by Josquin or his contemporaries.


http://www.medieval.org/emfaq/cds/arr20132.htm


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## allaroundmusicenthusiast (Jun 3, 2020)

Welp, that explains a lot! I've been duped. I realized while listening to it that some things couldn't have been written in the 15thC, but I wanted to believe that Josquin was more of a genius than what I'd already made him out to be. Anyway, don't let that stop you from listening to it, I think it's a rather amazing composition


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

The 3rd movement is great, which starts at around 6:27. I remember Prokofiev describing Stravinsky as 'Bach on wrong notes', funny but kind of true in a way.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Bach: Finale to Brandenburg No.4


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## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

Phil loves classical said:


> The 3rd movement is great, which starts at around 6:27. I remember Prokofiev describing Stravinsky as 'Bach on wrong notes', funny but kind of true in a way.
> ...


I had never heard this and don't know much about it, but it sounds like there's some pop tune being obfuscated there at the beginning. It actually sounds kind of progressive-jazzy-something.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

Not familiar enough with pre-Bach, so I will not name any token Josquin, Byrd or Buxtehude (I have quite a bit of this on the shelves, just never dug into it more than occasionally) and restrict to two max per composer.

Bach: Fugue Nr.8 from Art of Fugue, Gratias/Dona nobis pacem from b minor mass
Handel: Fugue from e minor keyboard suite, "Amen" from Messiah
Haydn: finale of symphony #103 (someone got #70 above already)
Mozart: Scene of the armed men from Magic flute, Cum sancto spiritu from c minor mass
Beethoven: 1st movement from op.131, "in gloria dei patris" from Missa solemnis
Schubert: fugal section of 4 hand fantasy f minor
Schumann: Finale of the piano quartet
Brahms: Finale of quintet op.111, Darthulas Grabgesang op.42
Bruckner "non confundar" from Te Deum; I also find the finale of the 5th a bit too demonstrative and exaggerated but still impressive
Mahler: Rondo-Burleske from 9th symphony
Reger: Telemann-Variations
Webern Passacaglia op.1
Bartok: Music for strings etc. 1. Movement
Stravinsky: Symphony of Psalms
Shostakovich: Passacaglia from violin concerto #1
Bernstein "Cool" from WSS and "Prelude, fugue and riffs"


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