# 2 Fugues on Schnittke's Piano Concerto Tone Row



## Igneous01 (Jan 27, 2011)

This was supposed to be a large project that I started a few months ago, but has since been put on hold for various reasons.

Initially I wanted to write 13 pieces in contrapuntal nature or form, using this tone row as the basis for the entire work.

So far, I only have the first two fugues completed. I had previously posted a mirror canon here, which would is also part of this collection.

I'm not sure what inspired me to use this tone row as a subject - I guess I wanted to attempt my own journey through counterpoint using a subject that was alien to me.

The fugues are written as a sort of pair - the first one slow, with the voices entering high to low, and recapitulating in reverse. The second one fast, with the voices entering low to high, also resolving in reverse at the end. The second is more imitative than the first.

After looking back at these works a few weeks later, it seems they lost their charm for me. I'm not sure if I want to continue working on this further.

Been having issues with writing interesting crab cannons and in general non-tonal counterpoint. I just cant seem to write anything that doesn't sound like a naive understanding of post-tonal methodology. I've looked to Hindemith for direction, but I dont understand his rules at all.

Anyway, enough rambling. Here they are, I only included part of the score for the first fugue (attachment limit is 5 per post ?)






















View attachment I - Ricercare.mp3

View attachment II - Fugue.mp3


Thanks in advance for any feedback/criticism/etc.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

I'd like to listen to these but could you please tell me me which actual work of Schnittke is involved?


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## Igneous01 (Jan 27, 2011)

elgars ghost said:


> I'd like to listen to these but could you please tell me me which actual work of Schnittke is involved?


It is the tone row that plays near the very end of his Concerto for Piano and Strings. It concludes the work in a very haunting way.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Thanks - that'll be a useful reference seeing I like that work.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

I listened to both of them. To me, in phasing and harmony, they sound more like Bach with wrong notes than any sort of contemporary style. I don't hear them as post-tonal at all. You have to accept other kinds of harmonies as stable besides triads. Once again your notation seems odd; why the double flat? Why not just use sharps instead for the second entry to make it easier to read?

The first one also seems to end in the wrong key.


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## Igneous01 (Jan 27, 2011)

Mahlerian said:


> I listened to both of them. To me, in phasing and harmony, they sound more like Bach with wrong notes than any sort of contemporary style. I don't hear them as post-tonal at all. You have to accept other kinds of harmonies as stable besides triads. Once again your notation seems odd; why the double flat? Why not just use sharps instead for the second entry to make it easier to read?
> 
> The first one also seems to end in the wrong key.


Thanks for the feedback. I probably should have clarified that yes, these particular works are very conservative in nature.

What I meant to say was that when working on the other works to the collection (with a greater focus on shifting forward towards non-tonal counterpoint) I find it difficult to work with anything that I like. These ones were pretty easy to go with the flow because the tonality is an easy guide. But I do want to break away from this in other works.

I probably should have mentioned this, I guess I kind of wanted to create a timeline - beginning with very baroque like counter point on a somewhat modern subject, and slowly progressing away from tonality.


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## dzc4627 (Apr 23, 2015)

funny, i had been thinking about that specific part of the piece for a while.


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