# Triple Fugue in D Major



## dzc4627

Here is a fugue for three voices (except at some cadences, where chords are filled in) played on the harpsichord, with a rather "cuckoo" like subject. I've gone ahead and done one of those score-sound video merges, so you can do both looking and listening at once.

I hope that you enjoy the music.






EDIT: Not a triple fugue as it says in the title... I just mean three voices, not three subjects... woops


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## Timothy

What compels someone to write old-style music like this in our day and age? I don't personally see what you can express through this style, but to each their own


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## Captainnumber36

Timothy said:


> What compels someone to write old-style music like this in our day and age? I don't personally see what you can express through this style, but to each their own


It does feel very derivative and lacking in individual voice and overall expression.


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## Bettina

I like the subject that you've come up with and I think it has potential. At this point, though, the piece seems too diatonic and not harmonically varied enough. Try using more secondary dominants and other types of chromatic chords (Neapolitans, Augmented Sixth chords, that type of thing). I would also enjoy hearing more modulations to distant keys - the modulation to the relative minor is nice, but I'd encourage you to branch out beyond the closely related keys in order to in enrich the harmonic palette. I know that you wanted to stay pretty close to the Baroque style, but even within that style there's room for a lot of chromaticism and dramatic modulations.


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## Captainnumber36

Bettina said:


> I like the subject that you've come up with and I think it has potential. At this point, though, the piece seems too diatonic and not harmonically varied enough. Try using more secondary dominants and other types of chromatic chords (Neapolitans, Augmented Sixth chords, that type of thing). I would also enjoy hearing more modulations to distant keys - the modulation to the relative minor is nice, but I'd encourage you to branch out beyond the closely related keys in order to in enrich the harmonic palette. I know that you wanted to stay pretty close to the Baroque style, but even within that style there's room for a lot of chromaticism and dramatic modulations.


Can you provide a review of my latest post? I like hearing your viewpoints.


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## Bettina

Captainnumber36 said:


> Can you provide a review of my latest post? I like hearing your viewpoints.


Thanks for reminding me to do that, and thanks for your kind words about my critiques! I've been meaning to post something about your Fantasy piece - I've gotten behind on reading the Today's Composers forum (I've been too busy with STI:lol.


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## dzc4627

Timothy said:


> What compels someone to write old-style music like this in our day and age? I don't personally see what you can express through this style, but to each their own


I am young and naive and inexperienced. Until I pay respect to the old masters, in the form of learning their craft and in some cases taking a try at imitation, I am doomed to parade my unrefined inspiration like it is some sort of gospel. Music to me is not just about, or even mostly about, self expression.

What can really be expressed in an elementary fugue for three voices on harpsichord? Not too much. Like Bach and those before and a good amount after, I wrote this simply to be pleasing and intriguing to the ear. To be clever, and to write something beautiful and refreshing.


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## dzc4627

Captainnumber36 said:


> It does feel very derivative and lacking in individual voice and overall expression.


This is derivative. That is the point. I am crafting something. Like any good student, I am trying to refine my capabilities. This fugue was not something written to express my individual voice. See post above for more details.


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## dzc4627

Bettina said:


> I like the subject that you've come up with and I think it has potential. At this point, though, the piece seems too diatonic and not harmonically varied enough. Try using more secondary dominants and other types of chromatic chords (Neapolitans, Augmented Sixth chords, that type of thing). I would also enjoy hearing more modulations to distant keys - the modulation to the relative minor is nice, but I'd encourage you to branch out beyond the closely related keys in order to in enrich the harmonic palette. I know that you wanted to stay pretty close to the Baroque style, but even within that style there's room for a lot of chromaticism and dramatic modulations.


Yes, I do realize that this fugue was very timid and relatively bland harmonically. I am just beginning in this contrapuntal craft and so I am starting small. Thanks for the general advice and I will definitely focus on expanding harmonically in my future fugues.


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## Phil loves classical

Personally, i found the counterpoint refreshing after being immersed in my abrasive piece for the past few days. There were some good points brought up on this thread. I doubt any of us are going to be the next big thing in music, so whether we compose something with good technical skill like this piece, or the Capt'n's hard-to-classify original music, i think there is value in both. I think a lot of the skill in composing is based on how good a listener you are of other works.


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## Captainnumber36

Phil loves classical said:


> Personally, i found the counterpoint refreshing after being immersed in my abrasive piece for the past few days. There were some good points brought up on this thread. I doubt any of us are going to be the next big thing in music, so whether we compose something with good technical skill like this piece, or the Capt'n's hard-to-classify original music, i think there is value in both. I think a lot of the skill in composing is based on how good a listener you are of other works.


Well put. Also, knowing what you are about at any given point in your life as a composer is important as well. I've always wanted to have my own unique voice, that's always been important to me.

DZC has shown me the merit of imitation, however, and where in the past I would have been against that, I understand it better.

However, in my own preferences, I enjoy works that have a strong unique voice.


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## dzc4627

Phil loves classical said:


> Personally, i found the counterpoint refreshing after being immersed in my abrasive piece for the past few days. There were some good points brought up on this thread. I doubt any of us are going to be the next big thing in music, so whether we compose something with good technical skill like this piece, or the Capt'n's hard-to-classify original music, i think there is value in both. I think a lot of the skill in composing is based on how good a listener you are of other works.


I am so glad that you might be refreshed by my music. I cannot say I personally am not driven by the notion that one day I may achieve the recognition necessary to contribute my ideas and values to the path of Western tonal music, via a vast cycle of symphonies. However implausible this is, it is certainly an aspiration of mine. I must fortify my ambitions with hope, futile as they may be!


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## paulc

Thanks dzc4627.

Post as many of these contrapuntal exercises as you like.  I am also studying imitation and fugue. IMO, it's not important that you express a personal voice while studying. I am doing lots of exercises like this to improve the structure of my pieces (previously haphazard) and focus on a smaller number of ideas that are developed extensively.

Mozart: Canon for four voices in C major, Anh. 191, K 562c


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## dzc4627

paulc said:


> Thanks dzc4627.
> 
> Post as many of these contrapuntal exercises as you like.  I am also studying imitation and fugue. IMO, it's not important that you express a personal voice while studying. I am doing lots of exercises like this to improve the structure of my pieces (previously haphazard) and focus on a smaller number of ideas that are developed extensively.
> 
> Mozart: Canon for four voices in C major, Anh. 191, K 562c


Thanks Paul! I agree totally. As Brahms once said "Without craftsmanship, inspiration is a mere reed shaken in the wind."

Oh, and I love Richard Atkinson's channel. I've seen many videos by him. Great music that you have linked. So glad that Mozart and Haydn among others reintroduced the "contapuntcus" among the classical style.


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## Torkelburger

I see no problem in composing something like this as an exercise. From my experience, counterpoint exercises greatly improves my other writing. For someone with no formal training in advanced counterpoint you have done very well. This is something you don’t learn to do until your later years of an undergraduate degree in composition. Nice job!

I have a few critiques regarding form and content:
Bar 4: there likely should be some modulatory material in the leading voice that introduces the g# (key of A) after the subject is stated and before the following voice enters with the subject in A.

Bar 6: The third voice enters with the subject before the second voice has finished stating it. Strettos don’t appear in the exposition and when they do happen later, should appear in the same key. Also the second voice’s subject here is not exact and neither is the third voice (the melody from 6-7 is clumsy). I think in the exposition you should stick to more exactness in the stating of the subject. Also you need about two bars of free counterpoint of some modulatory material in the two voices that introduce the g-natural (key of D) back after the subject in the top voice before the third voice enters with the subject in D.

Bar 10 and 40: I don’t think the sixteenth-dotted eighth rhythm is idiomatic. It definitely sounds funny to my ears.

Bar 15: The end of beat 3 and the downbeat of beat 4 is bad counterpoint (a chord on the last sixteenth of beat 3 is repeated on the next downbeat is extremely awkward and bad). In addition, the soprano rhythm is bad and you have parallel fifths in the treble clef beat 4.

Bar 34: Parallel octaves beat 3 to 4.

Overall it seems to start and stop quite a lot for how short it is, especially in the middle (episodic section). I think it should flow better by exploring more modulatory material in the episodic section that utilizes the circle of fifths perhaps, in order to get to more distant keys when restating the subject.


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## dzc4627

Torkelburger said:


> I see no problem in composing something like this as an exercise. From my experience, counterpoint exercises greatly improves my other writing. For someone with no formal training in advanced counterpoint you have done very well. This is something you don't learn to do until your later years of an undergraduate degree in composition. Nice job!
> 
> I have a few critiques regarding form and content:
> Bar 4: there likely should be some modulatory material in the leading voice that introduces the g# (key of A) after the subject is stated and before the following voice enters with the subject in A.
> 
> Bar 6: The third voice enters with the subject before the second voice has finished stating it. Strettos don't appear in the exposition and when they do happen later, should appear in the same key. Also the second voice's subject here is not exact and neither is the third voice (the melody from 6-7 is clumsy). I think in the exposition you should stick to more exactness in the stating of the subject. Also you need about two bars of free counterpoint of some modulatory material in the two voices that introduce the g-natural (key of D) back after the subject in the top voice before the third voice enters with the subject in D.
> 
> Bar 10 and 40: I don't think the sixteenth-dotted eighth rhythm is idiomatic. It definitely sounds funny to my ears.
> 
> Bar 15: The end of beat 3 and the downbeat of beat 4 is bad counterpoint (a chord on the last sixteenth of beat 3 is repeated on the next downbeat is extremely awkward and bad). In addition, the soprano rhythm is bad and you have parallel fifths in the treble clef beat 4.
> 
> Bar 34: Parallel octaves beat 3 to 4.
> 
> Overall it seems to start and stop quite a lot for how short it is, especially in the middle (episodic section). I think it should flow better by exploring more modulatory material in the episodic section that utilizes the circle of fifths perhaps, in order to get to more distant keys when restating the subject.


Torkelburger, I am very grateful for this criticism and am currently working on a second draft that incorporates the suggestions of you and others. I am so thankful that you would take the time to write this up and I will be trying to hone my modulation skills, nonexistent as they may be right now.


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## Samuel Kristopher

I admire the art of fugue writing, which for me is an incredibly difficult task. It's a shame that certain members are compelled to come and spam threads with bitterness, when it's obvious what this is and why you wrote it. Hopefully I will get to a point where I can explore counterpoint with fugue-writing, but my fugues sound terrible at the moment. This sounds legit, only I felt the double-crotchet rest at the end of measure 20 and the beginning of 21 was too long - a little jarring. I'm not sure how one could easily remedy that though without stilting or disrupting the rhythm.


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## mmsbls

Some comments in the Today's Composers area have gotten personal and off track. Please critique the music and don't use these areas to criticize members. We've deleted several posts.


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