# 20th/21st century contrapuntal music?



## Igneous01 (Jan 27, 2011)

Can anyone recommend some interesting contrapuntal music? I want to find more fugues and canons but it seems like the form has gone out of style?

I only know of a single canon by Schnittke, and the fugue from Sylvestrov's 3rd Piano sonata.


----------



## Piwikiwi (Apr 1, 2011)

Germaine Tailleferre: Fugue du parapluie (1950):


----------



## Couac Addict (Oct 16, 2013)

Vaughan Williams' Symphony no.4 
Ethel Smyth's String Concerto. 
Kodaly - Concerto for Orchestra
Tippett - Piano concerto, String quartets, Midsummer Marriage and the first few symphonies. Lots of Tippett.
Honegger - Three Symphonic Movements
Grazyna Bacewicz ...like Tippett, it's everywhere.
Boulez - Piano sonata no.2
Hindemith - Kammermusik, Viola sonata no.2, Ludus tonalis
Reich - Tehillim
Maconchy - Symphony for Double String Orchestra
Schoenberg - Chamber Symphony No. 1


----------



## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

The first movement of Bartok's Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta is as magnificent a fugue as any.


----------



## Andreas (Apr 27, 2012)

Alan Hovhaness was quite fond of fugal writing. I love the fugue from his City of Light symphony.

You can also check out Górecki's 3rd Symphony, the opening movement is a canon.


----------



## Guest (Sep 22, 2014)

For now: 

Lutoslawski: Preludes And Fugue For 13 Solo Strings


----------



## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

You want canons? This has _lots_ of canons!


----------



## JACE (Jul 18, 2014)

Don't think anyone has mentioned Max Reger. Many of his works use the fugue form.

How about his "Variation and Fugue on a Theme by Mozart"? Or his organ work "Fantasy and Fugue on BACH"?


----------



## SuperTonic (Jun 3, 2010)

Shostokovich's 24 Preludes and Fugues


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Igneous01 said:


> Can anyone recommend some interesting contrapuntal music? I want to find more fugues and canons but it seems like the form has gone out of style?
> 
> I only know of a single canon by Schnittke, and the fugue from Sylvestrov's 3rd Piano sonata.


You're only interested in imitative counterpoint? Clearly counterpoint (but not canons necessarily) is an important part of ehat Elliott Carter's about.


----------



## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Bartok Music for Strings Percussion and Celesta


----------



## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

Shostakovich's Piano Quintet begins with a prelude and fugue.


----------



## Skilmarilion (Apr 6, 2013)

_Rondo-Burleske.
_


----------



## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Couac Addict said:


> Hindemith - Kammermusik, Viola sonata no.2, Ludus tonalis


Don't forget the final movement of the 3rd piano sonata!

Or the fugue that comes back as a double fugue in the first movement of the 5th string quartet.

Actually, pretty much anything Hindemith wrote is going to have a fugue in there somewhere.


----------



## Guest (Sep 22, 2014)

JACE said:


> Don't think anyone has mentioned Max Reger. Many of his works use the fugue form.
> 
> How about his "Variation and Fugue on a Theme by Mozart"? Or his organ work "Fantasy and Fugue on BACH"?


Love Reger, but due to his style, his name isn't the first to pop into my head in a 20th/21st century discussion.


----------



## Igneous01 (Jan 27, 2011)

thanks for the recommendations, but I forgot to specify I'm looking for post-tonal / atonal contrapuntal music. I know that Shostakovitch wrote some fugues in his string quartets, as well as Gorecki's opening canon in symphony 3.

But I've heard enough tonal counter point - I want to find some fugues/canons more a long the lines of Stravinsky and Bartok's Music for strings, percussion and celesta. Possibly some serialist fugues?

Also, what about mirror canons and crab canons? Have any composers recently used these forms?



Mandryka said:


> You're only interested in imitative counterpoint? Clearly counterpoint (but not canons necessarily) is an important part of ehat Elliott Carter's about.


In this case I'm looking for music that is written in a contrapuntal form; Plenty of composers use counterpoint in their music, but I want to find some modern/contemporary music written in the form of a fugue, canon, invention, etc.


----------



## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

Give Rubbra a listen. Particularly his symphonies. He's contrapunting all over the place.


----------



## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Igneous01 said:


> I forgot to specify I'm looking for post-tonal / atonal contrapuntal music. I know that Shostakovitch wrote some fugues in his string quartets, as well as Gorecki's opening canon in symphony 3.
> 
> But I've heard enough tonal counterpoint - I want to find some fugues/canons more a long the lines of Stravinsky and Bartok's Music for strings, percussion and celesta. Possibly some serialist fugues?
> 
> ...


Well, to nitpick only a little and for a brief moment, those aren't forms as much as procedures, and anything more directly recognizable in the older forms / formats may tend to also sound 'more like the old stuff,' i.e. being a technical premise and procedure, there is no set or default form for any contrapuntal device or devices when a composer sets down to it. (Hindemith, 3rd piano sonata, Shostakovich preludes and fugues are the kind of 'sounds like Bach but with newer harmony' to a degree I don't care to bother.)

Hindemith ~ Ludus Tonalis (very much following Bach-like formats.)

Schoenberg: _Pierrot Lunaire_ ~ Der Mondfleck (atonal -ish, not yet serial)

Berg: Wozzeck, Act II scene ii, triple fugue. (serial)

Stravinsky (again):
The _Concerto per due pianoforti soli_ ends with a great prelude and fugue -- the work is one of his finest, and is very much in his neoclassical style. 
_Double Canon in memoriam Raoul Dufy_ (serial, very terse / brief, and lovely) / 
_Threni_, a large0 scale piece already pointed out by Mahlerian, uses canons rather extensively. 
_Cantata_, the segment _Tomorrow will be my dancing day_ is 'partially serial,' it is a Ricercare, replete with crab cancrizans. (the contrapuntal elements are all marked and labeled by the composer, and appear in the printed score.) / 
_In Memoriam Dylan Thomas_, for string quartet and tenor, is framed by a canonic prelude and postlude for trombone quartet, those sections titled 'Dirge Canons.' This score is also marked by the composer, showing the inversion, retrograde, etc.





"none of the above," but for a delightful contrapuntal piece, Bach /Stravinsky; Von Himmel Hoch Variations:





Darius Milhaud: There is a fugue movement in his La Creation du Monde, and in the Petit Symphonie de Chamber No. 4 (string dectet) third movement, fugue (@ 4'08'')





Messiaen routinely used non-retrogradeable rhythms, canon, and cancrizan canons. His multi-layered counterpoint will, of course, not sound anything like older use of the techniques, in form or shape -- to repeat myself, there is no set form for any music using the contrapuntal devices (and it seems many reflexively expect just that, a fugue must sound, in 'form' or layout, like Bach, for example.)

Samuel Barber: Piano Sonata, iv: Fuga: Allegro con spirito. 
Use of high chromatic and 'based' on tone rows though not at all by means in the manner of earlier 20th century second Viennese school serialism.

William Schuman ~ Symphony No. 3, four movements in two bipartate sets, the first half _Passacaglia and Fugue_





All of the above are pretty 'tonal' in my book, but none are any more common practice tonality, the harmonic arena named, it seems by the application of some highly unimaginative attention, as 'Post Tonal.'

ADD:
Thomas Adès ~ In Seven Days. (segments V. Fugue: Creatures of the Sea and Sky; VI. Fugue: Creatures of the Land) starter links for these movements are under 'see more' in the link.





P.s. Mandryka has an implied point I think worth elaborating; she asked if you were looking for _imitative_ counterpoint, which is all older fugues, the subject / countersubjects entering at schemtically conventional pitch levels. In earlier common practice harmony, the effect is also very dependent upon that scheme to bring this heard and reheard and yet again reheard recognizable thematic material to different areas of modulation.

I would say that by the latter half of the 20th century (where a noticeable lack of composers writing fugue begins to become evident) that the good old-fashioned fugal procedures just do not work for many a composer who was writing post ca. 1975. Sure, almost every music major (not just composition majors) have to pass a counterpoint class where they write an invention and a fugue in 19th century contrapuntal style -- meaning that about every composer who is worth their salt can compose a fugue of some sort -- but, if you think of, say, Ligeti's _Lontano,_ or later pieces from the more / most contemporary of composers, the old fugue procedure just does not fit the direction that music takes. The older forms where counterpoint can be deployed, from around for four hundred years prior the Baroque, the Passacaglia, Chaconne, ricercare, and the canon, the canzrizan, are all still highly flexible, and not as 'locked' in as tonal fugue.


----------



## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)

Not already mentioned:
Ravel's Le Tombeau de Couperin
All those massive canons by Ligeti and Nancarrow. The Kyrie from Ligeti's Requiem is a five-part double fugue.
Pretty much anything by Strauss, Glazunov, Rachmaninoff... is often contrapuntally saturated. Rachmaninoff's Symphony No. 3 (1936), the only one of his I care about, has a fugue in the final movement.


----------



## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Igneous01 said:


> thanks for the recommendations, but I forgot to specify I'm looking for post-tonal / atonal contrapuntal music.


Then look for the music of composers like Ruth Crawford Seeger, Carl Ruggles (the expression "dissonant counterpoint" is often used to describe their music) or Matthijs Vermeulen.


----------



## Igneous01 (Jan 27, 2011)

norman bates said:


> Then look for the music of composers like Ruth Crawford Seeger, Carl Ruggles (the expression "dissonant counterpoint" is often used to describe their music) or Matthijs Vermeulen.


I'm enjoying Seeger's String quartet right now, very interesting textures indeed!


----------



## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

Andreas said:


> Alan Hovhaness was quite fond of fugal writing. I love the fugue from his City of Light symphony.


The one in the second movement of his symphony no. 2 ("Mysterious Mountain") is also pretty neat.



SuperTonic said:


> Shostokovich's 24 Preludes and Fugues


Lovely works, though apparently the Party frowned upon these too, seeing as they were inspired by the work of a German composer...


----------



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Note also by Hovhaness: Prelude & Quadruple Fugue, op. 128.






Never heard that DSCH's 24 Preludes and Fugues drew any party disapproval. They were widely performed from the beginning. A panel of the Union of Composers criticized them (for being archaic and dissonant) but they forged ahead nonetheless.


----------



## Torkelburger (Jan 14, 2014)

> But I've heard enough tonal counter point - I want to find some fugues/canons more a long the lines of Stravinsky and Bartok's Music for strings, percussion and celesta.


Ah, just what the doctor ordered:


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Babbitt's Canonical Forms sounds like some sort of imitative counterpoint to me. Wonderful music IMO.


----------



## Igneous01 (Jan 27, 2011)

PetrB said:


> Well, to nitpick only a little and for a brief moment, those aren't forms as much as procedures, and anything more directly recognizable in the older forms / formats may tend to also sound 'more like the old stuff,' i.e. being a technical premise and procedure, there is no set or default form for any contrapuntal device or devices when a composer sets down to it. (Hindemith, 3rd piano sonata, Shostakovich preludes and fugues are the kind of 'sounds like Bach but with newer harmony' to a degree I don't care to bother.)


Yes, they are very much regarded as techniques to be explored in composition rather than a composition be based on a technique. But I'm curious for works of the latter half.

Let's just say my curiosity comes from the art of the fugue and the musical offering, I want to find some modern 'equivalents' of these works. I absolutely adore the AOF and listen to the entire thing fairly frequently, as well as the musical offering. Surely composers other than Bach explored ideas such as mirror fugues and augmented canons? Or maybe some fusion of passacaglia, fugue, canon, and serial procedure all in one form?



> Hindemith ~ Ludus Tonalis (very much following Bach-like formats.)
> 
> Schoenberg: _Pierrot Lunaire_ ~ Der Mondfleck (atonal -ish, not yet serial)
> 
> ...


thanks for the list, I'm particularly interested in the serial fugue by Berg.



> P.s. Mandryka has an implied point I think worth elaborating; she asked if you were looking for _imitative_ counterpoint, which is all older fugues, the subject / countersubjects entering at schemtically conventional pitch levels. In earlier common practice harmony, the effect is also very dependent upon that scheme to bring this heard and reheard and yet again reheard recognizable thematic material to different areas of modulation.
> 
> I would say that by the latter half of the 20th century (where a noticeable lack of composers writing fugue begins to become evident) that the good old-fashioned fugal procedures just do not work for many a composer who was writing post ca. 1975. Sure, almost every music major (not just composition majors) have to pass a counterpoint class where they write an invention and a fugue in 19th century contrapuntal style -- meaning that about every composer who is worth their salt can compose a fugue of some sort -- but, if you think of, say, Ligeti's _Lontano,_ or later pieces from the more / most contemporary of composers, the old fugue procedure just does not fit the direction that music takes.


I wasn't sure what to expect with modern works (as you said, imitative counter point is not widely used for modern composers) so I didn't want to specify. Although I do tend to lean more towards imitative counterpoint.



> The older forms where counterpoint can be deployed, from around for four hundred years prior the Baroque, the Passacaglia, Chaconne, ricercare, and the canon, the canzrizan, are all still highly flexible, and not as 'locked' in as tonal fugue.


I find it rather strange that you are comparing the flexibility of a ricercare to a tonal fugue; a tonal ricercare will stall fall into the same limitations as a tonal fugue. Also, isn't a ricercare a fugue using longer note values?

I would love to know of some works that employ the old forms like Passacaglia; but not strictly adhering to baroque rules regarding the form. What is the modern 'interpretation' of these forms?


----------



## Chordalrock (Jan 21, 2014)

I think the whole point of the impressiveness of imitative counterpoint came from the strict limits within which the composer had to make that imitation sound acceptable. If you take those limits away - and go post-tonal - it's no longer impressive or interesting as a compositional procedure. 

For example: avoidance of unresolved dissonance on strong beats - this makes contrapuntal composition much like a difficult puzzle that you want to solve. What happens when you go post-tonal? All you're left with is an empty shell. Another example: the interval of the fourth being seen as a dissonance - this means that you can't invert just any counterpoint because your consonant fifths will become dissonant fourths - all things like this are lost in post-tonal counterpoint. 

What used to be a formidable intellectual undertaking becomes a shallow textural effect.


----------



## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Igneous01 said:


> Yes, they are very much regarded as techniques to be explored in composition rather than a composition be based on a technique. But I'm curious for works of the latter half.
> 
> Let's just say my curiosity comes from the art of the fugue and the musical offering, I want to find some modern 'equivalents' of these works. I absolutely adore the AOF and listen to the entire thing fairly frequently, as well as the musical offering. Surely composers other than Bach explored ideas such as mirror fugues and augmented canons? Or maybe some fusion of passacaglia, fugue, canon, and serial procedure all in one form?
> 
> ...


The other formats are still 'more open' to the procedural entry of voices as established for baroque fugue, i.e. the various aspects under the definition are nearly as ambiguous as the difference, after centuries of practice, between a passacaglia or a chaconne. (You are focused on Bach, _a great master of but one variety of counterpoint, that the north European manner which in its own time was only one variety._ Many people mistake that 18th century contrapuntal manner as the only kind of counterpoint, with its procedures as used by Bach as 'the only way.' (Not that you have mistaken it as such, nor like some, think that Bach invented counterpoint out of thin air and was its sole practitioner, lol.) 

*There is a TC thread devoted to listing Passacaglias (or is it Chaconnes?), including modern and contemporary ones.* 
There is an early pre-serial Passacaglia by Webern. 
Berg, again, loved all these old forms, I'm certain there is at least one passacaglia in _Lulu._ The 'middle' scene, with the silent film, is a palindrome, or cancrizan.

The middle movement of John Adam's _Violin Concerto_ is a Chaconne, titled _"Body through which the dream flows."_

The William Schuman Symphony no. 3, the first of two bipartate movements I listed, is Passacaglia and Fugue (I can add an interesting footnote now on that fugue -- it is seven-part counterpoint, the entries coming in at the interval of a half-step.)

The two fugues I listed in Thomas Adès' _In Seven Days_ may be less to your liking precisely because they are, while bona fide fugues, not sitting in that more recognizable ala Bach mode you seem to be craving.

There is nothing 'wrong' with any sort of conservatism, at least not taken to an extreme, but almost any of this modern-contemporary of the nature you seek will be, de facto, 'conservative,' just like any new work which is still in symphonic form, ala the 'old way,' is acknowledged as 'new,' but is technically not 'contemporary' by style or definition.

I've already listed, off the top of my head, works very much in the vein you desire. Being of that nature, what you seek will very much tend to be 'on the conservative side' of 20th century music, exactly because they are new harmonic vocabulary but follow older forms and procedures. I wouldn't expect nearly as many citations when it comes to works in later modern and contemporary veins, say post 1975, though lord knows, now and then some composer will always revisit the baroque variety of fugue and do their thing (Shostakovich's '24' and Hindemith's _Ludus Tonalis,_ two works in which I have little or no interest, and no great admiration, either. (I was, like you, briefly fascinated in something akin to 'new-old Bach-like, but it my time-line that was a now long ago early youth, and that fascination has since waned to the degree I cannot even see a point to the existence of the Shostakovich _Preludes and Fugues_.) I did name what I could think of that was not previously mentioned in this thread, but am far less intrigued with that which most intrigues you at the moment


----------



## meredull (Aug 8, 2014)

Check out Matthijs Vermeulen's symphonies and his Passacaglia and Cortege from The Flying Dutchman. Most of his symphonies are atonal and contrapuntal quite enough. I recommend that you start with his 4th symphony:


----------



## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Chordalrock said:


> I think the whole point of the impressiveness of imitative counterpoint came from the strict limits within which the composer had to make that imitation sound acceptable. If you take those limits away - and go post-tonal - it's no longer impressive or interesting as a compositional procedure.
> 
> For example: avoidance of unresolved dissonance on strong beats - this makes contrapuntal composition much like a difficult puzzle that you want to solve. What happens when you go post-tonal? All you're left with is an empty shell. Another example: the interval of the fourth being seen as a dissonance - this means that you can't invert just any counterpoint because your consonant fifths will become dissonant fourths - all things like this are lost in post-tonal counterpoint.
> 
> What used to be a formidable intellectual undertaking becomes a shallow textural effect.


So...what you're saying is, music has to have been written as if doing a Sudoku puzzle or it's not good music?


----------



## Chordalrock (Jan 21, 2014)

violadude said:


> So...what you're saying is, music has to have been written as if doing a Sudoku puzzle or it's not good music?


I didn't say anything about good. You might want to read more carefully. I'm actually making insightful points there if you're interested in that sort of thing.


----------



## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Chordalrock said:


> I think the whole point of the impressiveness of imitative counterpoint came from the strict limits within which the composer had to make that imitation sound acceptable. If you take those limits away - and go post-tonal - it's no longer impressive or interesting as a compositional procedure.
> 
> For example: avoidance of unresolved dissonance on strong beats - this makes contrapuntal composition much like a difficult puzzle that you want to solve. What happens when you go post-tonal? All you're left with is an empty shell. Another example: the interval of the fourth being seen as a dissonance - this means that you can't invert just any counterpoint because your consonant fifths will become dissonant fourths - all things like this are lost in post-tonal counterpoint.
> 
> What used to be a formidable intellectual undertaking becomes a shallow textural effect.


I see what you mean and maybe counterpoint is not the right word to describe melodic lines played together (if those lines does not follow a set of rules), but the effect can be very impressive in a different way. After all, using the logic of your comment the music of Debussy (of every other composer who doesn't follow the strict rules of functional harmony) would be completely worthless and sound necessarily as random notes.


----------



## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Chordalrock said:


> I didn't say anything about good. You might want to read more carefully. I'm actually making insightful points there if you're interested in that sort of thing.


Oh, I'm sorry. The INCREDIBLE nuance in your post just went way over my head. I must be too dumb for this sort of thing.


----------



## Chordalrock (Jan 21, 2014)

norman bates said:


> I see what you mean and maybe counterpoint is not the right word to describe melodic lines played together (if those lines does not follow a set of rules), but the effect can be very impressive in a different way. After all, using the logic of your comment the music of Debussy (of every other composer who doesn't follow the strict rules of functional harmony) would be completely worthless and sound necessarily as random notes.


If you're going to write free-form music, you should write free-form music. Writing fugues without adhering to the rules of counterpoint just doesn't make any sense. It's like you can't decide which you want to do. Do you want to write freely flowing music or not? Maybe you should resolve this basic question for yourself before you begin to compose.


----------



## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Chordalrock said:


> If you're going to write free-form music, you should write free-form music. Writing fugues without adhering to the rules of counterpoint just doesn't make any sense. It's like you can't decide which you want to do. Do you want to write freely flowing music or not? Maybe you should resolve this basic question for yourself before you begin to compose.


I guess that your problem is that we're calling that kind of music "fugues" and "counterpoint". But those are just terms to suggest an idea, I don't think it's a big problem to use another word for it.


----------



## Igneous01 (Jan 27, 2011)

Chordalrock said:


> If you're going to write free-form music, you should write free-form music. Writing fugues without adhering to the rules of counterpoint just doesn't make any sense. It's like you can't decide which you want to do. Do you want to write freely flowing music or not? Maybe you should resolve this basic question for yourself before you begin to compose.


That's not true. There is more to a fugue than the rules of 19th century counterpoint. The exposition and development are specific structures one can use in a 'free-form' piece of work. Do you discredit the idea of polytonal counterpoint as not being 'real' counterpoint? Composers have created their own set of rules for writing polyphonic music many times before, why should a fugue be any different?


----------



## Andreas (Apr 27, 2012)

I've, some time ago, tried some contrapuntal writing, just as a means of understanding the rules and applying them. I felt that the rules were incredibly restricting, since there are so many things you can't do. It felt like a crossword puzzle-like thing to me. I managed to observe the rules, but only by playing it really safe, as it were.

Yet, when I listen to Bach's fugues, I'm blown away. I presume he was able to create extraordinary musical lines and still make them work within the rules of counterpoint. I remember reading a quote by Beethoven, saying it's easy to write a correct fugue, but difficult to inject it with inspirational music.

Now, the rules of counterpoint strike me as a fool-proof way, if you like, to produce "good-sounding" polyphonic music. Of course, this was from a time when certain combinations of simultaneous notes were considered dissonant and therefore only to be used passingly, some even not at all.

Once dissonance, as a concept, is gone, writing counterpoint is no longer a mine field. It may make it easier to write counterpoint, because there are no "wrong steps" according to a certain set of rules. But making the counterpoint truly interesting might be just as difficult as before.


----------



## Jobis (Jun 13, 2013)

Igneous01 said:


> That's not true. There is more to a fugue than the rules of 19th century counterpoint. The exposition and development are specific structures one can use in a 'free-form' piece of work. Do you discredit the idea of polytonal counterpoint as not being 'real' counterpoint? Composers have created their own set of rules for writing polyphonic music many times before, why should a fugue be any different?


I agree somewhat with Chordal Rock, in the sense that now we have no real criteria on which to judge the quality of an atonal fugue beyond what our ears tell us sounds good, but if we're only concerned with what sounds good why bother to restrict oneself so much?

It just doesn't make sense to use that rigid method unless one is trying to nod to the past. That is not to say that an atonal fugue cannot work well as a piece of music, but the context is so different that it just doesn't make sense to compare it to any fugue written before modernism.


----------



## Andreas (Apr 27, 2012)

Jobis said:


> I agree somewhat with Chordal Rock, in the sense that now we have no real criteria on which to judge the quality of an atonal fugue beyond what our ears tell us sounds good, but if we're only concerned with what sounds good why bother to restrict oneself so much?.


I guess since much music, back then, was for church use, dissonances were limited in order to not confront the congregation with too much musical ambiguity. Similar, perhaps, to the way the orthodox church didn't allow instruments to be played in church (their word-less lines maybe being too ambiguous?).


----------



## Igneous01 (Jan 27, 2011)

Jobis said:


> I agree somewhat with Chordal Rock, in the sense that now we have no real criteria on which to judge the quality of an atonal fugue beyond what our ears tell us sounds good, but if we're only concerned with what sounds good why bother to restrict oneself so much?
> 
> It just doesn't make sense to use that rigid method unless one is trying to nod to the past. That is not to say that an atonal fugue cannot work well as a piece of music, but the context is so different that it just doesn't make sense to compare it to any fugue written before modernism.


then why would Bartok choose to use fugal form in music for strings percussion and celesta? Or Hindemith in his string quartet? I hardly consider a fugue a strict form (not nearly as strict as a canon) so why would you need 19th century criteria to judge the merits of a work that uses fugal form? Why do composers still write 'sonatas' when the word and form is so far removed it serves no purpose what so ever? Clearly there is still something left to explore in these 'forms' or 'procedures' / 'techniques' of writing. Adding a modern spin on something old is not a bad thing.


----------



## Jobis (Jun 13, 2013)

Igneous01 said:


> then why would Bartok choose to use fugal form in music for strings percussion and celesta? Or Hindemith in his string quartet? I hardly consider a fugue a strict form (not nearly as strict as a canon) so why would you need 19th century criteria to judge the merits of a work that uses fugal form? Why do composers still write 'sonatas' when the word and form is so far removed it serves no purpose what so ever? Clearly there is still something left to explore in these 'forms' or 'procedures' / 'techniques' of writing. Adding a modern spin on something old is not a bad thing.


Bartok and Hindemith didn't consider themselves 'atonal' composers, that might have something to do with it. I don't know why they composed them, it seems a bit strange to me, but I suppose they just felt like it; that and/or they liked the discipline of that 'form'.


----------



## Guest (Sep 23, 2014)

Has anyone written a strict serial/12-tone fugue? Theoretically, wouldn't it have 12 voices? (Each row would be a voice.) I think it would be rather ungainly, and impossible for a solo instrument to play.


----------



## Igneous01 (Jan 27, 2011)

Jobis said:


> Bartok and Hindemith didn't consider themselves 'atonal' composers, that might have something to do with it. I don't know why they composed them, it seems a bit strange to me, but I suppose they just felt like it; that and/or they liked the discipline of that 'form'.


thats just it though : I'm not saying I'm looking for only 'atonal' fugal writing. I'm just using the above as examples because they do not follow traditional tonal rules regarding counterpoint. Of course they are not atonal, but that doesn't mean that an atonal fugue is without purpose.



> Has anyone written a strict serial/12-tone fugue? Theoretically, wouldn't it have 12 voices? (Each row would be a voice.) I think it would be rather ungainly, and impossible for a solo instrument to play.


Would be interesting to hear, but wouldn't it be more practical to create a subject out of a tone row?


----------



## Chordalrock (Jan 21, 2014)

Andreas said:


> I've, some time ago, tried some contrapuntal writing, just as a means of understanding the rules and applying them. I felt that the rules were incredibly restricting, since there are so many things you can't do. It felt like a crossword puzzle-like thing to me. I managed to observe the rules, but only by playing it really safe, as it were.
> 
> Yet, when I listen to Bach's fugues, I'm blown away. I presume he was able to create extraordinary musical lines and still make them work within the rules of counterpoint. I remember reading a quote by Beethoven, saying it's easy to write a correct fugue, but difficult to inject it with inspirational music.


I've had this same experience. That said, Bach did sometimes break the rules when the note value of the offending voice was short enough that the dissonance was trivial enough (and the surrounding harmony strong enough - long note values).


----------



## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Kontrapunctus said:


> Has anyone written a strict serial/12-tone fugue? Theoretically, wouldn't it have 12 voices? (Each row would be a voice.) I think it would be rather ungainly, and impossible for a solo instrument to play.


There are non-serial fugues involving subjects with all 12 notes of the chromatic scale in Strauss's Also Sprach Zarathustra and Ligeti's Musica Ricercarta (the final movement).

As for more strict 12-tone pieces, there's a fugue in the finale of Boulez's Second Piano Sonata.


----------



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Mahlerian said:


> There are non-serial fugues involving subjects with all 12 notes of the chromatic scale in Strauss's Also Sprach Zarathustra and Ligeti's Musica Ricercarta (the final movement).


I _think _the subject of the B-minor fugue from Book 1 of Bach's WTC has all 12 notes of the chromatic scale as well.


----------



## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Chordalrock said:


> I think the whole point of the impressiveness of imitative counterpoint came from the strict limits within which the composer had to make that imitation sound acceptable. If you take those limits away - and go post-tonal - it's no longer impressive or interesting as a compositional procedure.
> 
> For example: avoidance of unresolved dissonance on strong beats - this makes contrapuntal composition much like a difficult puzzle that you want to solve. What happens when you go post-tonal?


What 'you're left with' is the relativity, and reality, of dissonance and resolve being still very much present, but very much thought of -- though in less emotionally charged (it seems) words like dissonance or resolution -- _in terms of relative tensions_. Actually, this was the approach to dissonance within academe, at least 'my' academic surrounds, and that included early music and the baroque. Yea, that point of view on relative tensions was even in the counterpoint classes while of course realizing (having to know, actually) 'how they thought of dissonance back then' was very much part of the rules of their game.

Tonal _or_ atonal, one weakness of high chromatic music or being systematically dodecaphonic is there is not one pitch, even one lesser emphasized in context, left over to 'surprise the ear,' or sound at least a bit new within the flow.

Composers of tonal, post-tonal and atonal music know that too, the serialists hovering on a cell, group, or set (interval) group before moving on to the next set in a row / interval series... this works very much like modulation, giving surprise, a change at least, and a relief, after a while, where a piece has been using the same pitch groups. (Not all serial music uses rows of all twelve tones, another way to get around that particular weakness. [Any 'musical system' or harmonic practice has weaknesses and strengths.])

_The better and best of the second Viennese school composers knew this very well (after all, they were steeped and extremely canny about music, all the older and up to the moment more current rep, and 'how it works.'_ Schoenberg is somewhat to blame for stating 'all the pitches were equal,' where of course, he nor Berg or Webern never really treated music that way. Further repetitions of that 'new order manifesto' and people taking it wholesale as literal don't help! One of the most near egregious commentators on that being Adorno, whom Thomas Mann consulted when he wrote his _Faust,_ wherein you find one of the more extreme of the misunderstood (and misrepresented, and prejudiced in the extreme) 'explanations,' of serial music anyone could dream up.

Keeping the rather typical misconception of serial music as perpetuated by Adorno via Thomas Mann in mind, the 'proclamation' that all pitches are equal and could be treated equally was very much necessary, especially necessary within the context of its own time. I would not take it literally, because none of the good and great composers, then or now, who compose using those means 'treat all twelve tones equally,' Lol.

BUT, if you are not aware of where and how those composers very much paid attention to that same aspect of dissonance / lesser dissonance as relative tensions, you will neither hear it when listening to music made this way, or find it via doing an analytic of a score.


----------



## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

KenOC said:


> I _think _the subject of the B-minor fugue from Book 1 of Bach's WTC has all 12 notes of the chromatic scale as well.


Yes, but they appear with repetitions out of sequence, so it's not treated as strictly as a tone row (or at least as a tone row is in theory).

Similar segments can be found in Mozart, Beethoven, and Liszt as well.


----------



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Mahlerian said:


> Yes, but they appear with repetitions out of sequence, so it's not treated as strictly as a tone row (or at least as a tone row is in theory).
> 
> Similar segments can be found in Mozart, Beethoven, and Liszt as well.


My comment was in reply to a post speaking of "non-serial fugues involving subjects with all 12 notes of the chromatic scale." Any examples from Mozart, Beethoven, or Liszt would surprise me.

Oh wait, better check the Hammerklavier...


----------



## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

KenOC said:


> My comment was in reply to a post speaking of "non-serial fugues involving subjects with all 12 notes of the chromatic scale." Any examples from Mozart, Beethoven, or Liszt would surprise me.
> 
> Oh wait, better check the Hammerklavier...


True, true. I was thinking outside of the context of fugues.


----------



## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

KenOC said:


> My comment was in reply to a post speaking of "non-serial fugues involving subjects with all 12 notes of the chromatic scale." Any examples from Mozart, Beethoven, or Liszt would surprise me.
> 
> Oh wait, better check the Hammerklavier...


LOL. It was, and I guess still is, a common mistake finding '12 tone rows' in music prior Schoenberg's codifying of serial theory 

People love to point out the (breathtaking) passage, an extraordinary single line gesture made up of a series of intervals using eleven of the twelve tones, in Mozart's G minor Symphony No. 40. The omitted tone out of the twelve, as usual for Mozart, utterly canny and shrewd in planning, is the tonic. The rhythm he chose is an equally brilliant part of this gesture.







Still, extracting that without modification to the pitch array, work it as a tone-row, draw out all the matrix, and you will immediately run into a(n eleven tone) row rife with 'tonal implications' at odds with the atonal / serial aesthetic.

Darius Milhaud 'found' a twelve-tone line somewhere in Don Giovanni, pointed it out to Robert Moran, who used it in the last movement of his _Requiem: Chant du Cygne_. Moran uses it in the _missa parodia_ manner though, i.e. deployed as the long slow bass-line over which other activity moves. (Great piece, not at all 'serial,' which I promote whenever I can fit it in.)
Robert Moran ~ _Requiem: Chant du Cygne_ 





Of course, none of these examples or any others from pre-serialism were at all thought of as 'tone rows,' or 'atonal' by the composers of the past who wrote them. That is the hindsight / imposition of a modern mind, just as another post has early medieval modal music questioned as being able to be heard as 'tone-centric,' which can be heard by current listeners as such but was really not in the thinking of those making it when it was new.

It is near impossible to forget or erase our current listening habits and modes of how we think of music when looking into music of the past, but I think there is a real caution there, i.e. where more than often it is easy enough to find the then in the now (a form of accumulated past time in memory vs. time-travel to a past) at least try to think to not bring the now to then


----------



## Piwikiwi (Apr 1, 2011)

Chordalrock said:


> I've had this same experience. That said, Bach did sometimes break the rules when the note value of the offending voice was short enough that the dissonance was trivial enough (and the surrounding harmony strong enough - long note values).


Dissonances were accepted btw in the Baroque era. There are plenty example of 7th chord sequences and even diminished chords on a strong beat.


----------



## Igneous01 (Jan 27, 2011)

Piwikiwi said:


> Dissonances were accepted btw in the Baroque era. There are plenty example of 7th chord sequences and even diminished chords on a strong beat.


yes, including ascending/descending perfect fourths in the musical offering.


----------



## Chordalrock (Jan 21, 2014)

Piwikiwi said:


> Dissonances were accepted btw in the Baroque era. There are plenty example of 7th chord sequences and even diminished chords on a strong beat.


Do you mean untreated dissonances (as opposed to dissonances that are resolved) on strong beats in Bach's fugues? That would be news to me. (I don't know about his other works and wasn't really interested in this context.)


----------



## Igneous01 (Jan 27, 2011)

Chordalrock said:


> Do you mean untreated dissonances (as opposed to dissonances that are resolved) on strong beats in Bach's fugues? That would be news to me. (I don't know about his other works and wasn't really interested in this context.)


well if you look at the art of fugue, Bach likes to use a diminished triad on the downbeat to suspend the music, with resolution occurring after a rest on the next strong beat. The dissonance is resolved, but not in the 'theory textbook' way. (for example, beat 3 of measure 70 in Contrapunctus I, is a C# diminished 7 (vii/V), resolving to Dminor (I/V), then G# diminished 7 (vii/V/V) on a strong beat, and concluding in A major (Tonicization of V/V or II in G minor) ).

Best example of unresolved dissonance, would be Contrapunctus XIV starting at measure 222, which does not resolve until measure 226 (A Suspension being on the downbeat of the measure, resolving to C major on the weak beat). In fact if you listen to these measures on their own it almost sounds post-tonal.

The dissonance resolves, but for 4 measures the music is in a state of chaos according to the rules of counterpoint.


----------



## Piwikiwi (Apr 1, 2011)

Chordalrock said:


> Do you mean untreated dissonances (as opposed to dissonances that are resolved) on strong beats in Bach's fugues? That would be news to me. (I don't know about his other works and wasn't really interested in this context.)


It's still very restrictive but late baroque "allows" for quite bit a of dissonance, it suprised me as well. I bought a practical approach to 18th century counterpoint this summer and it was interesting but really quite difficult but I recommend it if you are interested in learning behind Bach's music.


----------



## Chordalrock (Jan 21, 2014)

Piwikiwi said:


> It's still very restrictive but late baroque "allows" for quite bit a of dissonance, it suprised me as well. I bought a practical approach to 18th century counterpoint this summer and it was interesting but really quite difficult but I recommend it if you are interested in learning behind Bach's music.


There's a lot of dissonance in some mid-Renaissance composers like Gombert as well. I never claimed dissonance isn't used, simply that it's used according to the rules with only a few exceptions (there are always a few exceptions when we're talking about great composers composing living music).


----------



## Piwikiwi (Apr 1, 2011)

Chordalrock said:


> There's a lot of dissonance in some mid-Renaissance composers like Gombert as well. I never claimed dissonance isn't used, simply that it's used according to the rules with only a few exceptions (there are always a few exceptions when we're talking about great composers composing living music).


Don't forget about Gesualdo!


----------



## science (Oct 14, 2010)

PetrB said:


> LOL. It was, and I guess still is, a common mistake finding '12 tone rows' in music prior Schoenberg's codifying of serial theory
> 
> People love to point out the (breathtaking) passage, an extraordinary single line gesture made up of a series of intervals using eleven of the twelve tones, in Mozart's G minor Symphony No. 40. The omitted tone out of the twelve, as usual for Mozart, utterly canny and shrewd in planning, is the tonic. The rhythm he chose is an equally brilliant part of this gesture.
> View attachment 51836
> ...


I really appreciated this post!

Bravo!

Give us more of this!


----------



## Guest (Sep 24, 2014)

Mahlerian said:


> There are non-serial fugues involving subjects with all 12 notes of the chromatic scale in Strauss's Also Sprach Zarathustra and Ligeti's Musica Ricercarta (the final movement).
> 
> As for more strict 12-tone pieces, there's a fugue in the finale of Boulez's Second Piano Sonata.


Oh, I know, but a chromatic subject is a long way from a fully developed serial fugue, which Boulez does not do in that 2nd Piano Sonata fugue--at least it doesn't seem as if he uses every permutation of the subject. I'll ask Pierre-Laurent Aimard when I see him play it next spring!


----------



## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Kontrapunctus said:


> Oh, I know, but a chromatic subject is a long way from a fully developed serial fugue, which Boulez does not do in that 2nd Piano Sonata fugue--at least it doesn't seem as if he uses every permutation of the subject. I'll ask Pierre-Laurent Aimard when I see him play it next spring!


In this context, it's not a full fugue or anything, but the trio from the Minuet of Schoenberg's Suite for Piano is still an incredibly ingenious segment. A single page where all four forms of the row, plus their transpositions at the tritone, are presented in turn for a short binary form.


----------



## QuietGuy (Mar 1, 2014)

Stravinsky: Symphony of Psalms: 2nd Movement (Double Fugue)


----------



## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

PetrB said:


> That is the hindsight / imposition of a modern mind, just as another post has early medieval modal music questioned as being able to be heard as 'tone-centric,' which can be heard by current listeners as such but was really not in the thinking of those making it when it was new.


News flash: Recently,Taggart and I (on that other thread) have both agreed that chant* is* tone-centric; it's just not "tonal" in the old _major/minor/harmonic function_ sense. If you use the _expanded_ definition of tonality as "loyalty to a tonic," then chant is "tonal" or "tone centric" in that broader sense.


----------



## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Regarding "Non-serial fugues involving subjects with all 12 notes of the chromatic scale:"

"Non-serial" in this case would exclude the use of an ordered set with no repetitions. 

BUT: A non-serial fugue using all 12 notes could still be made, and it could be CP tonal (as Bach's Sinfonia 9, which uses passing tones) or "tone centric" in which all 12 notes are loyal to a single tonic, or more than one tonic in sequence.


----------



## Igneous01 (Jan 27, 2011)

Igneous01 said:


> well if you look at the art of fugue, Bach likes to use a diminished triad on the downbeat to suspend the music, with resolution occurring after a rest on the next strong beat. The dissonance is resolved, but not in the 'theory textbook' way. (for example, beat 3 of measure 70 in Contrapunctus I, is a C# diminished 7 *(vii)*, resolving to Dminor *(i)*, then G# diminished 7 *(vii/V)* on a strong beat, and concluding in A major *(Tonicization of V in D minor)* ).


I made a mistake here, the key is D minor (I for some reason thought the whole work centered around G minor) - bolded corrections (sucks I cant edit my original post).


----------



## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

millionrainbows said:


> News flash: Recently,Taggart and I (on that other thread) have both agreed that chant* is* tone-centric; it's just not "tonal" in the old _major/minor/harmonic function_ sense. If you use the _expanded_ definition of tonality as "loyalty to a tonic," then chant is "tonal" or "tone centric" in that broader sense.


This _is news?_ Really?


----------

