# Music and performances which have interesting counterpoint.



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

There are a couple of pieces, non baroque pieces, which I've been listening to recently which have been really interesting and enjoyable just from the point of view of hearing how the voices all relate to each other.

One is a Prelude by Christian Wolff, the 8th. Sally Pinkas's performance seems to bring out this contrapuntal side of the music better that Rzewski's, by the way.

And the other is a tremendous joyful piece by Stockhausen for two synthesisers and voice called Himmelfahrt.

I wonder what other pieces are really, essentially, contrapuntal like these two. I'm really thinking of music which is post baroque - there are obviously loads of baroque fugues etc. and in some performances the voices are made to relate in interesting ways -- an example would be Bradley Brookshire's recording of Art of Fugue.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Mozart, Keyboard Concerto #19, third movement.


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## Guest (Jul 10, 2014)

Hey Mandryka, when you double-post (or multiple-post, maybe), do you get significantly different responses from different sites?

(I was tempted to simply duplicate my response on the other site.)


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

some guy said:


> Hey Mandryka, when you double-post (or multiple-post, maybe), do you get significantly different responses from different sites?
> 
> (I was tempted to simply duplicate my response on the other site.)


Well just post on one. I put it here because of you really, because you know about recent music, you were one of my targets. Are you Autonomeus? If so I had no idea!


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

Hindemith's _Kammermusik_ has loads of contrapuntal wizardry.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Have you heard Glenn Gould's "So, You Want to Write a Fugue?"?

[video]http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CB4Q3ywwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DQZM 4yxbE0ZE%26feature%3Dkp&ei=QP6-U7vHIZWpyASgkoKwCA&usg=AFQjCNH5Dz7LTYvBHkJYGZGnyBjUwCLxXA&bvm=bv.70810081,d.aWw[/video]


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## Guest (Jul 10, 2014)

Mandryka said:


> Well just post on one. I put it here because of you really, because you know about recent music, you were one of my targets. Are you Autonomeus? If so I had no idea!


Well, you got my response on the other site, so that's OK. I'm not Autonomeus. That's the current moniker of a guy who used to go by his real name, Richard Hutchinson, or something like that. I used to go by my real name there, too, Michael Karman, but changed it to Anonymouse, I don't remember why.

Anyway, other people have confused us. Autonomeus/Anonymouse. You can see why! And we are both supposedly experts on contemporary music. So we are bitter enemies as well, naturally.

For thread duty here, I will replicate my response for the TCers. Lutoslawski's Preludes and Fugue and Berlioz generally. The guy who supposedly didn't like fugues and was no good at them. All wrong. (He didn't like the fugues on the one word "Amen," it's true, finding them silly. But fugal writing generally? Well, he had high marks in counterpoint at the Paris conservatory. And he has a fugal passage or two in almost every one of his major pieces.)


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

Anyway, other people have confused us. Autonomeus/Anonymouse. You can see why! And we are both supposedly experts on contemporary music. So we are bitter enemies as well, naturally. 


I shall sign up and be Amouseymeus... son of Meus, of the clan Mousey.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Gee, there are too many to really narrow down into extraordinary cases....BUT for "non-Baroque" there's always almost every single composition from the Renaissance. 

And also Schoenberg's 3rd string quartet is incredible!


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## Chordalrock (Jan 21, 2014)

From older music, I think the early Renaissance has the most interesting stuff: Dufay, Busnois, Ockeghem, Obrecht.

Binchois Consort is superb for this music. They've recorded a few of Dufay's best masses ("Se la face" and "Padua") as well as Busnois's "Missa l'homme arme". For Ockeghem and one great mass by Obrecht ("Malheur me bat") there's the Clerks, with great contrapuntal clarity.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

some guy said:


> Well, you got my response on the other site, so that's OK. I'm not Autonomeus. That's the current moniker of a guy who used to go by his real name, Richard Hutchinson, or something like that. I used to go by my real name there, too, Michael Karman, but changed it to Anonymouse, I don't remember why.
> 
> Anyway, other people have confused us. Autonomeus/Anonymouse. You can see why! And we are both supposedly experts on contemporary music. So we are bitter enemies as well, naturally.
> 
> For thread duty here, I will replicate my response for the TCers. Lutoslawski's Preludes and Fugue and Berlioz generally. The guy who supposedly didn't like fugues and was no good at them. All wrong. (He didn't like the fugues on the one word "Amen," it's true, finding them silly. But fugal writing generally? Well, he had high marks in counterpoint at the Paris conservatory. And he has a fugal passage or two in almost every one of his major pieces.)


You one published this extaordinary list of favourite pieces, for which I am very grateful.

Maryanne Amacher, Teo! (2006)
Robert Ashley, In Sara, Mencken, Christ and Beethoven there were men and women (1972)
Crawling With Tarts,* Grand Surface Noise Opera, nr. 3 (Indian Ocean Ship) (1993)
Francis Dhomont, Le Foret Profunde
Iancu Dumitrescu, New Meteors and Pulsars (1982)
eRikm, Steme (2003)
Luc Ferrari, Unheimlich schoen (1971), Danses Organiques (1973), Les ProtoRythmiques (2007)--indeed, everything by Ferrari, before and after 1971.
Beatriz Ferreyra, l'Autre rive (2007)
Jon Christopher Nelson, objet sonore/objet cinetique (2007)
Bronius Kutavicius, Lokys (2002)
Zbigniew Karkowski, One and Many (2005)
Helmut Lachenmann, Gran Torso (1972), Harmonica (1983), Das Mädchen mit den Schwefelhölzern (1996)
Francisco Lopez, untitled #180 (2005)
Francisco Meirino, Connections, opportunities for mistakes (2009)
Michele Bokanowski, l'etoile absinthe (2000)
Martin Tetreault and Otomo Yoshihide, GRRR (2003)
eRikm, Martin Tetreault, Otomo Yoshihide, Trace Cuts (2004)
Christian Marclay, Record without a cover (1985), Records (1981-89)
John Zorn, Forbidden Fruit (with Christian Marclay and Kronos Quartet) (1987)
Parallel Lives,** Beethoven Hammerklavier conducted by Parallel Lives (2005)
Avet Terterian, Symphony nr. 7 (1987), Symphony nr. 8 (1989)


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Chordalrock said:


> From older music, I think the early Renaissance has the most interesting stuff: Dufay, Busnois, Ockeghem, Obrecht.
> 
> Binchois Consort is superb for this music. They've recorded a few of Dufay's best masses ("Se la face" and "Padua") as well as Busnois's "Missa l'homme arme". For Ockeghem and one great mass by Obrecht ("Malheur me bat") there's the Clerks, with great contrapuntal clarity.


In mediaeval music, do you ever have several lines of music all happening at the same time, with different rhythms, rhythms which don't naturally and easily complement each other? And with no one voice the main voice - all voices equal. That's what you have in Stockhausen's Himmelfahrt and in Carter's Penthode, and that's the sort of texture which I find very nice to listen to.

This is different from the way most people play baroque imitative counterpoint, baroque canons and fugues.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> And also Schoenberg's 3rd string quartet is incredible!


The part in the finale where the cello and viola play together, with the cello over the viola, is a beautiful and bizarre moment that sticks out every time.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Mandryka said:


> There are a couple of pieces, non baroque pieces, which I've been listening to recently which have been really interesting and enjoyable just from the point of view of hearing how the voices all relate to each other.
> 
> One is a Prelude by Christian Wolff, the 8th. Sally Pinkas's performance seems to bring out this contrapuntal side of the music better that Rzewski's, by the way.
> 
> ...


There are some interesting *early *Baroque works, which have interesting dissonances in them. This was after the renaissance and its 'old style' prescribed ways of handling dissonance (always on weak beats), and things started freeing-up, before tonality 'solidified' into its functions we now know. The Baroque separated the bass from the soprano, and thus, with continuo, created harmonic chordal movement with chords existing independently, rather than as a result of voice movement.

I love dissonance. Stuff like this, and some Biber violin has interesting dissonances...










For the true polyphony, like you're talking about, I love this collection:


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## Chordalrock (Jan 21, 2014)

Mandryka said:


> In mediaeval music, do you ever have several lines of music all happening at the same time, with different rhythms, rhythms which don't naturally and easily complement each other? And with no one voice the main voice - all voices equal. That's what you have in Stockhausen's Himmelfahrt and in Carter's Penthode, and that's the sort of texture which I find very nice to listen to.


Well, there's at least one passage which comes to mind:

View attachment Dufay credo 'Genitum' mixed prolations.mp3


That is a demonstration of mixed prolations in Dufay's "Missa l'homme arme" produced with Sibelius 7. I've been told that no ensemble has yet got it right in a recording (same as they haven't quite gotten the musica ficta right in this mass, which, alas, hasn't been recorded by Binchois Consort). If you want to listen to this fascinating mass though, I recommend the Hilliards.

I would also check out the other composers and masses I mentioned. They may not be exactly what you're looking for but they're rather special in being elaborate pieces with a lot of free counterpoint.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

You could also have a look at the TC thread, "Every fugal work ever written," which lists a lot, from early to modern and contemporary, of music strongly contrapuntal in nature.

I'm past irritation and now just giggle whenever the average concept of "counterpoint will sound like Bach, procedurally and rhythmically" comes up, which is why of course Hindemith and the Shostakovich Pres&Fugs come up all the time, and hundreds of other great contrapuntists go unsung.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

PetrB said:


> You could also have a look at the TC thread, "Every fugal work ever written," which lists a lot, from early to modern and contemporary, of music strongly contrapuntal in nature.
> 
> I'm past irritation and now just giggle whenever the average concept of "counterpoint will sound like Bach, procedurally and rhythmically" comes up, which is why of course Hindemith and the Shostakovich Pres&Fugs come up all the time, and hundreds of other great contrapuntists go unsung.


I'm sorry I never made myself clearer, imitative counterpoint doesn't have the the texture I'm looking for, as far as I know.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

The polyphony in Ligeti's Piano and Violin Concerti is very complex and fascinating:

Violin Concerto

Piano Concerto


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

PetrB said:


> You could also have a look at the TC thread, "Every fugal work ever written," which lists a lot, from early to modern and contemporary, of music strongly contrapuntal in nature.
> 
> I'm past irritation and now just giggle whenever the average concept of "counterpoint will sound like Bach, procedurally and rhythmically" comes up, which is why of course Hindemith and the Shostakovich Pres&Fugs come up all the time, and hundreds of other great contrapuntists go unsung.


Not a fan of Hindemith or Shosty? They've done some brilliant stuff. Hindemith, in particular, was a fugal master.









Oh, good to see you're back from time-out. :tiphat:


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