About: Permutation Fuge on 3 Subjects

Рет қаралды 1,747

2 ай бұрын

Video and Music by Michael Koch.
Trashy video on an attempt from my fugue sketchbook.
Materials on my Patreon (for free): www.patreon.com/posts/score-a...

Пікірлер: 26

@astian_sebus 2 ай бұрын

Micheal: "... this is not gonna become a keyboard fugue anymore" Bach: laughs in Triosonatas for organ

@selfreferentialhumor 2 ай бұрын

I've mentioned this before - but check out Nicola Sala's counterpoint treatise (on IMSLP and Gallica). It has subjects/countersubjects suitable for exactly this kind of counterpoint. They are labelled "Scala" or "Canto Fermo" moving across each voice in 3 or 4 voices. Generally two voices are in first species, and one is in a higher species of counterpoint, but I think the idea is to use the voice with diminutions as inspiration, and a springboard to generate imitations in the other first species voices. I've had a lot of fun with this, e.g. placing imitations in each voice successively and changing which voice has the cantus firmus mid-way through. I've also used this as inspiration to learn counterpoint from Bach chorales: I reduce the chorale to three voices, preserving the bass and soprano (cantus firmus), then selecting either the tenor or alto as the third voice (whichever forms the most imperfect consonances with the cantus firmus) or composing a different third voice altogether. Then I flip the alto/soprano, which means I have to re-write the bass in order to make imperfect consonances between the bass and new soprano. Then I move the cantus firmus chorale to the bass, preserve one of the other voices, and write a new melody. In each case I'm only ever composing a single voice, and trying to write diminutions that agree rhythmically with the original chorale. Then you can take the original chorale, together with the two new dispositions you've generated, and link them together with cadences/modulations.

@maniak1768 2 ай бұрын

I'd be interested in that... could you provide page numbers? It's over a hundred pages in handwriting... That would be great.

@selfreferentialhumor 2 ай бұрын

@@maniak1768 The Gallica copy is a better version than IMSLP, but it starts out with the cadences, then the rule of the octave in invertible counterpoint, then 2 voice counterpoints to the scale in various species. Once you get to three voices, that's when things start getting interesting. Check out the very first 2nd species counterpoint example. You'll notice that there's a cantus firmus in first species that plays against itself in canon, and then the diminutions are in second species. For an example of how this is used in practice search up "Bassi numerati per accompagnare No. 1" by Stanislao Mattei. It uses the very same second species counterpoint, except changed slightly, over a stepwise cantus firmus in the bass. Eventually the labels change from "Scala" to "Canto Fermo", which makes the structure of the treatise clearer. You can see that the "Canto Fermo" is playing against itself in canon. I guess you could take advantage of this canon, in something like an invention, but the advantage of a canon is that there's less to memorize - after you learn one voice, you know the other, leaving only the species counterpoint as something to be memorized. For the purposes of improvisation, memorizing counterpoint makes things easier. It's well known that this is something you have to do, with the cadences, e.g. 1-7-1 against 1-2-3, and the clausulae. But you can apply the same idea to the rule of the octave, and start out with the scale (cantus firmus) in the bass, then preserve one of the voices above the bass if you can, move the cantus firmus to the upper voice, and just compose a new bass. This is what Sala does anyway for the rule of the octave, so you have a version of the rule of the octave with the scale in the upper voice. But you can generalize this idea to any counterpoint you find in composition. If you are going to memorize counterpoint, it's best to memorize the highest yield counterpoints first, that are very common. The way to do this is to just go through Nicola Sala's book, because he does exactly this. After you memorize the 3 voice counterpoints, this is only the beginning - you have to elaborate on it, by adding diminutions/imitations/variations to the framework of the 3 voice counterpoint. You can change the harmonies, or keep them the same, but you use the 3 voice structure as a guide - you can depart from it, but you have to return to it.

@selfreferentialhumor 2 ай бұрын

@@maniak1768 Check out the very first second species example in 3 voices and compare it to the first bars of "Bassi numerati per accompagnare No. 1" by Stanislao Mattei (a video of this is up on youtube somewhere)

@en-blanc-et-noir 2 ай бұрын

will check

@YawpMusic 2 ай бұрын

What a great source! Looks like mine will be a busy summer.

@Nooticus 2 ай бұрын

Amazing work! And you’re right, there is definitely no hope for me anymore haha

@mastertao1179 2 ай бұрын

Beautiful Fugue Michael, great job. All of your videos are gems. Just make a video of your self-made fugue from a famous song (pop, rock, or metal) to attract more people or musicians to your channel. They will be very happy if they discover your channel.

@en-blanc-et-noir 2 ай бұрын

hahah OMG you‘ll never see me doin such thing… but Thanks 😊

@charlespattison8138 2 ай бұрын

Wow on top of the deliciously geeky theory the music actually sounds really awesome! 🎉

@MusicaAngela 2 ай бұрын

This is brilliant. I didn’t expect the music to be so beautiful!

@en-blanc-et-noir 2 ай бұрын

Thanks 🙏

@andresdaniel6711 2 ай бұрын

Functional analysis to a fugue... My eyes are bleeding. By the way, awesome music as always 👍.

@en-blanc-et-noir 2 ай бұрын

Lol I would not reject this tool per se. My impression is that some partimentisti are throwing out the child with the bathwater… and that seems not very clever. Though it‘s obvious that there is some sort of abuse going on with this device in english speaking academia, let alone music theory on youtube. Call me a partimento sellout if you want😂✌️

@hawkbirdtree3660 2 ай бұрын

Thank you😄

@Mazurking 2 ай бұрын

There is no help for me anymore...

@timothyj.bowlby5524 2 ай бұрын

Impressive. Thanks for sharing -- made my day a bit brighter.

@johannsebastianbach3411 2 ай бұрын

impressive, very nice. Let's see Wim Winters' permutation fugue? look at the subdominant harmonic coloring. The tasteful resolution of it. OMG! It even has whole beat theory tempo markings!

@en-blanc-et-noir 2 ай бұрын

haha WHY Wim Winters?