Stephen Smith
Vancouver pianist, composer/arranger, choral conductor, teacher, and writer on music
Fuga enigmatica
SM-000579493
| Composer | Stephen Smith |
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| Publisher | Stephen Smith |
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| Genre |
Classical / Fugue |
| Instrumentation |
Piano, Organ, Keyboard |
| Scored for | Solo |
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| Type of score | For a single performer |
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| Duration |
2'0" |
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| Difficulty |
Advanced |
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| Year of composition |
2020 |
| Description: |
Not your "standard-issue" fugue, this one departs from baroque norms in several ways. For one thing, the harmonies are more adventurous. While the fugue is far from a "twelve-tone" composition, the subject does consist of twelve notes, and it does undergo all the transformations usually applied to tone-rows (inversion, retrogradation, and retrograde inversion).
Rhythmically, the subject consists entirely of half-notes, and even when the subject is not present, the voices tend to move in half- and whole-notes, so the texture is more homophonic than that of a typical fugue.
Another unusual feature is the "unwinding" at the end: as each of the four voices finishes stating the retrograde form of the subject, it falls silent, until only a single voice remains. I say "at the end," although the piece has no final cadence--only a repeat sign directing the player back to bar 1, suggesting the possibility of an infinitely-repeating cycle... Is enigmatic, no? ;-) |
Upload date: 16 Apr 2023
