Art Blogging Contest

Please vote for Musical Perceptions in the Art Blogging Match of Doom

Wednesday, April 06, 2005

Fugue in B-flat minor- BACH

I like this fugue alot, I guess when I normally think of a fugue, very rhythmic and structured are characteristics that come to mind, and this one was cool because I almost felt like there was rubato in some sections and more concentration on the phrasing.
The fugue has three voices, the upper voice begins in m.1 and the middle voice comes in repeating the main motive in m.3, the lowest voice comes in witht the motive in m.10 for the first time. I feel like there was definately an exposition kind of quality to this opening with the statement of the theme in all three voices and very standard motivic repetition going on everywhere.
Suddenly though, around measures 24-25, things start to change and become more dense and the texture has changed almost completely. The main motive is now split into the right and left hand, with half notes in the bass and quarter notes in the treble, its almost like its all crammed together, and the texture starts to get thicker here. This section seems to be full of expression and more of a different take on the motive, I guess I would call it the B section of the piece kind of.
There are somewhat identical cadences in m.37 and m.55 which could signal the end of small sections or phrases, they are very strong and easily recognizeable cadences so that is the biggest reason I can see to have written them.
I counted the motive 15 times, but I might be off by one or two either way, I think I might have forgotten what number I was on when I was trying to count.
Even looking at the music it was difficult at times to really identify the cut and dry motive, which I felt like were the two half notes, quarter rest and six quarter notes. Sometimes like around m.25 as I mentioned, the motive was inverted, and there were a few examples of some augmentation of the motive and retrograd which wasn't always easily identifiable for me..

No comments: