# Will there be a TC Top Recommended Fugues list?



## HerlockSholmes (Sep 4, 2011)

Since we're all searching for new material to make lists about, and since I'm fascinated with the concept of fugues, I thought this could be done in the near future. Although I'm already starting to see _some_ difficulties with a list like this (e.g. will works with small fugal sections be allowed in the list as well? Will enough people participate?). But then again, all the other lists had difficulties as well and stretching the rules wasn't that big of a problem.
Anyway, back to the main point, what's the likelihood of a fugue list happening?


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## Artemis (Dec 8, 2007)

The main problem with this suggestion is that some of the best fugal writing was not conceived as a fugue throughout its duration but as part of larger work which is mainly homophonic. An example is the famous last movement of Mozart's Jupiter Symphony. To list this movement as one of the best fugues might look strange, when it's really part of a symphony conceived primarily in sonata form. Absent the symphony, and the quality of the fugue, however good this may be, rather evaporates.


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## Ravellian (Aug 17, 2009)

It might be a good idea if we could include the predecessors of the fugue, namely the Renaissance-era ricercares, fantasias, canzonas, etc. However, I doubt many TC posters are aware of this music. If we just did fugues, the entire list would basically be made up of Bach's WTC, with a few examples by Beethoven mixed in.. pretty boring.


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## HerlockSholmes (Sep 4, 2011)

Artemis said:


> The main problem with this suggestion is that some of the best fugal writing was not conceived as a fugue throughout its duration but as part of larger work which is mainly homophonic. An example is the famous last movement of Mozart's Jupiter Symphony. To list this movement as one of the best fugues might look strange, when it's really part of a symphony conceived primarily in sonata form. Absent the symphony, and the quality of the fugue, however good this may be, rather evaporates.


Yes, that's one of the first problems that I saw with this idea. There are three solutions: 1) Change the title to TC Top Recommended Fugal Works. 2) Make a rule that says larger works that have small fugues or fugal elements in them are also included. Or 3) Simply ignore works like the 41st symphony and only focus on works that are fugues in themselves.
What do you think?


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## HerlockSholmes (Sep 4, 2011)

Ravellian said:


> It might be a good idea if we could include the predecessors of the fugue, namely the Renaissance-era ricercares, fantasias, canzonas, etc. However, I doubt many TC posters are aware of this music. If we just did fugues, the entire list would basically be made up of Bach's WTC, with a few examples by Beethoven mixed in.. pretty boring.


Not necessarily. There are many different places to choose from. There's Buxtehude, There's Bach's other works (Art of Fugue, Musical Offering), there are all the other Baroque composers (Handel, Pachelbel, Rameau, Telemann), there are the fugues from the Romantic era (Liszt and the Schummans wrote quite a few), there are Mozart and Haydn fugues, there's Glenn Gould's fugue etc.
As for the Renaissance composers, how about if we changed the title to TC Top Recommended Fugal Works? (A title which, I think, would encompass anything with fugal elements in it).


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## Artemis (Dec 8, 2007)

Ravellian said:


> It might be a good idea if we could include the predecessors of the fugue, namely the Renaissance-era ricercares, fantasias, canzonas, etc. However, I doubt many TC posters are aware of this music. If we just did fugues, the entire list would basically be made up of Bach's WTC, with a few examples by Beethoven mixed in.. pretty boring.


You are right. If the list were to be confined to fugues in that strict sense, it would be dominated by those by J S Bach, but most people already know which works they are. As well as some by Beethoven, I reckon that Mozart would scrape in a few as well. Buxtehude and Pachelbel and Handel might also get an entry or two.

But I would still maintain that some of the better fugues, in terms of appeal to a wider section of the classical music loving community, feature in later classical and romantic works as part of bigger orchestral contructions. To this extent, the list based on fugues alone would be deficient, but then you run into the problem I mentioned earlier if it is extended.


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