This is going to be one of those audience participation days (I hope).
So, let's all POST YOUR FAVORITE FUGUE! (Or sort-of-like-a-fugue thing).
Here's one of my favorites.
Polka and Fugue (from Schwanda), by Weinberger. Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Fritz Reiner.
First comes the kick ass polka. At 2:22, the polka ends, and a very interesting fugue begins based on a subtheme from the bass part of the polka. It starts out soft and subtle and becomes BLOATED with postromantic brass and drums... and just when you think you've forgot it, the polka theme comes back in ON TOP OF ALL THAT. It's both kitschy and hallucinogenic at the same time.
Are you thinking of your favorite fugue? Don't even know what that is? Don't know how to post youtube clips? I'll explain all that below.
First, though, you may be asking, "Dumbo! Why is this a post your own day? Shouldn't this be part 2 of Berlioz?" And the answer is yes, it should be. But for two things: A doctor's appointment and my own frustration at figuring out a new video editor, Adobe Premiere, which I was told was better than Windows 7 Movie Maker Live. I stand here before you to tell you with authority that they both suck.
What the hell is a FUGUE?
Google does my work for me:
1. A contrapuntal composition in which a short melody or phrase (the subject) is introduced by one part and successively taken up by others and developed by interweaving the parts
I like definition (2) even more.
2. A state or period of loss of awareness of one's identity, often coupled with flight from one's usual environment, associated with certain forms of hysteria and epilepsy.
I suppose (1) is the appropriate one. However, a really, really good fugue just might push us into (2)! Let's hope so.
Fugues are a form of polyphonic music, music that has more than one serial line of music going on at the same time. The way this is usually done is that there is a main theme presented, afterwards, the other instruments take it up in what's called imitation, usually out of phase. One instrument group gets to play the main theme, and before they are through, another group comes in playing it too, out of sync and on top of it. And then another... and then another...
The simplest example of this is a round, like Row, Row, Row Your Boat. If you sang it at school, they had you do it by having one half of the class start out, and when they got to the words "Gently down the Stream," the other half of the class would join in, singing "Row, Row, Row..." on top of you. And strangely enough, the two parts mesh together well, which works out very nicely. Not always so.
A fugue is a more complicated form based on the same concept. The theme of the fugue is often varied in little ways. There is often a theme and countertheme, a second half to the theme that meshes well with the first half, but can take on a life of its own. Usually, new material is introduced at some point to create some variety and help build it up to a climax.
Dumbo's primer on how to post Youtube clips
This isn't that hard. Youtube makes it easy for you.
Step 1: Find the clip you like on Youtube. (You can do this at Vimeo as well, although the instructions are slightly different). It has to be AT the youtube site, not something you saw embedded in another diary. A good way to find a clip you like is to just search for a title in google, and then click for "video" at the top. It will take you straight to Youtube and a list of candidates.
Step 2: Below the video, you'll see a button that says SHARE. Click that. It pops up some new choices underneath, one of them being EMBED. Click that. A box will then appear full of funny HTML gobbledygook. That's your prize. Click on that box, and copy it using right-click COPY.
Step 3: Start a post like you normally would somewhere in the diary, either a new one or a reply to somebody else.
PASTE the stuff you copied into the diary. right-click PASTE will do that job. You'll see a bunch of gobbledygook in your post.
Step 4: Click PREVIEW on your post, as you always must do. Look at the preview. Do you see an embedded video there? If so, then you're fine and can go to step 5...
Step 5: POST it.
Now let's try some Bach.
This is usually an organ piece, and that's how it was originally composed. Stokowski made a number of famous Bach organ fugues into orchestral arrangements like this. He's not the only one to do so.
The piece begins with a passacaglia, which is a baroque form based on the idea of a simple chord progression that is elaborated on repeatedly. The example of a passacaglia you might be most familiar with is Pachelbel's Canon, although we could probably argue about that.
The passacaglia part is long (longer than I thought). The FUGUE, however, starts at 8:29, based on the passacaglia's theme, and that's where it starts to really rock and make us lose our identities and to send us into epileptic seizures. Or maybe that's just me!
Here's a Beethoven fugue.
Variations and Fugue by Beethoven, Opus 35, Glenn Gould on piano.
I'm only playing the first part, not the fifteen variations leading up to it. The underlying theme might sound familiar to you if you're a Beethoven fan but have never heard this piece before. The theme the work is based on is the one used for the finale of Beethoven's Symphony #3, the Eroica Symphony.
Some Mozart now. Some years ago, somebody found a missing part of Mozart's Requiem that had not been included in the score. I did a diary on the whole subject of this last year. One completion that was made of this new material, called the Amen Fugue, is this one completed by Maunder.
Mozart's Requiem, Amen Fugue, completed by Maunder.
You notice how they all have some rhythmic similarities. That may be necessitated by the fact that they must be able to pile on top of themselves nicely. Even romantic composers start to sound like Bach when they do fugues. Like this one by Romantic and Bach fan, Mendelssohn:
Mendelssohn Prelude & Fugue in E minor performed by Rudolf Serkin
The prelude ends at 2:10 and the fugue (on the prelude's theme) begins.
It starts out very slowly, very cold and intellectual. That changes around 4:43 when it begins to accelerate, then becomes frantic and panicky. By 7:00, it has crashed into a wall, and changes again, becoming stable, rock solid, reassuring. This is the first time I've listened to this in a while and I'm becoming impressed all over again. The mood changes again, slowing, slowing, becoming gentle and contemplative as it reaches the end.
Here's a more modern fugue -- not really a fugue, but a fugal composition, the final movement of the Bartok Concerto for Orchestra.
Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra. Pierre Boulez and the Orchestre de Paris.
As I said, not a fugue in the formal sense, but it's fugal, and you can identify many separate parts of it that are based on the fugue technique.
I think I'll stop here. POST YOUR FAVORITE FUGUES NOW!
Next week: Berlioz part 2 for SURE!