ANALYSIS: Chopin, Fugue in A minor, B.144 || Imitative Counterpoint 8

[@juliocanche7822]

I literally just checked your channel to see if you had uploaded any videos and was sad there wasn't any. Nice video

[@juliocanche7822]

@Elie why so salty lol

[@Leech-pu4jo]

Thanks for these lessons. One thing is I wish more people would write fugues in the major scale. So many fugues after Bach are written so ominously like in the art of fugue and the little fugue in G minor. But there are so many charming fugues in the major in WTC. But no one ever talks about those…

[@danielcic]

High quality, high deep understanding, exact, accurate information ( in opposite of many other channels ).

[@JacobGran]

I appreciate that!

[@DesignerBerg]

Thank you for making this!!

[@JacobGran]

Of course!

[@ddassif6697]

Great video!! Love it!

[@JacobGran]

Thank you; I'm glad you liked it.

[@VaggosWho]

Didn' t know that Chopin composed a fugue.....!!!

[@leonhardeuler6811]

Great video!!!

[@Cayres18]

Canal de música maravilhoso!

[@BigParadox]

Thanks!

[@andywalls8707]

Probably is one of the easiest Chopin's pieces for piano, because I would consider that this fugue written by Chopin haven't the same complexity than the most of the fugues written by bach, but is very beautiful. I would recommend this piece for pianists that have a pre-intermediate level, and that haven't played many pieces of Chopin.

[@danielperes9309]

Do you have a channel for your work/compositions ?

[@oibruv3889]

Well now the topic of imitation has been brought up, could I possibly recommend the writings (and music) of Sergei Taneyev? It covers complex counterpoint in a very well thought out way IMO. Anyway, great video, hats off!

[@JacobGran]

Yes actually, I"m going to be including some Taneyev along the way (especially his approach to canon) in the imitative counterpoint playlist.

Good! 👍

[@Tylervrooman]

Why people hate this fugue so much... 🥺👉👈

[@ulengrau6357]

He may have also done it for a student. He still had two or three towards the end of his life.

[@JacobGran]

I didn't want to explicitly state that in the video, but I think there is a very good possibility that you are right, considering how many of the standard fugal techniques Chopin demonstrates.

[@bargledargle7941]

Hello Mr Gran. I've got a question. To some of my music - a musical professor would say "That has no point. It's not developed, it doesn't go anywhere but just wandering around without purpose.". I accept this criticism, but I want to know why this Chopin piece wouldn't receive that criticism? In other words, what exactly "develops" here or "goes somewhere"?

[@JacobGran]

Maybe this fugue would deserve that criticism. It is hard to say exactly what people mean when they say that. I usually take it to mean that the piece lacks natural and convincing contrast. One of the first lessons I was taught in composition class is that composition is primarily about striking the right balance between contrast and continuity, and I believe that is true. A fugue in particular runs the risk of too much continuity (i.e. boring the listener) because its basic design requires the frequent repetition of the fugue subject and answer. It strikes me that Chopin probably composed this fugue very rapidly to demonstrate certain fugal tricks to one of his piano students. I would not say it is a masterpiece.

[@bargledargle7941]

@@JacobGran Thanks a bunch man. You really clear up a lot of things. I have a lot of questions because I receive a lot of ambiguous criticism that I'm not sure about.

[@DeeCeeHaich]

it's best to try to develop an instinct with form. There's a great deal of difference between *knowing* form and *understanding it* and the latter can only come from extensive auditory analysis, and experience through simplicity. Start with simple things, like writing a single phrase, and don't just do that once, do it hundreds of times. Ebenezer Prout's "Harmony: its theory and practice" has many exercises suitable for a beginner. Then go to simple forms which complete a full piece of music, AABA, AABB, short preludes, chorales, etc. rinse and repeat and go up from there. it should, and will take you years, don't rush, as that is a fast-track to failure. And always try to understand things auditorily, never be satisfied that it looks unified on paper, as the ear may tell a completely different story.

[@bargledargle7941]

@@DeeCeeHaich I am not really looking for advice on how to achieve it. I want a target and then I'll figure out by my own choices how to get there. And if you say there's no way to create such a target then there's also no way to criticize any piece I create. For example "I can clearly feel through your piece that you haven't gone through my rigorous practice methods" I can just say to that "I actually did." and the criticism would lose its point. Good criticism addresses objective properties of a piece, not an assumption about the composer's past. Your advice is probably good and I may or may not have done it already for years. When I listen to some Bach pieces I say to myself "Well, there's no way this is developed - this really goes nowhere" and I love those pieces and Bach. But I really do believe they go nowhere. The pieces I mention, no one has ever explained to me why they are considered developed. And when people do they say it's a matter of feeling - well my feeling is some Bach pieces are extremely under-developed and I feel they really go nowhere. An example of a piece like this is his famous C major prelude. To me this is just a bunch of chords really, I don't see why people say it's brilliant. Only with fugue I ever got clearer answers as to how a piece develops.

[@antoniocastello725]

👏👏👏🥰

[@roeesi-personal]

8:23 Why don't you resolve this? You have a sixth between the second and the leading tone, and you don't need to be a music theory professor to know that these notes, especially together, need resolution. It also bothered me when you played the tonal subject alone, but with the countersubject it just yearns for resolution. I don't know whether Chopin resolves this to an octave or whatever or it depends, but at least when you play this isolated segment, resolve this, in any way that makes it sound resolved. You don't have to show the resolution on screen or to play anything after it, but the fact that there is a bar line there doesn't mean you can't continue a little more.

[@TheJohnblyth]

Things I love: Chopin’s music; Bach’s music; fugue. Not this piece though. So much for that Venn diagram. It was an interesting presentation though, so thanks.

[@codonauta]

Interesting that this is the unique fugue (or fugue study ) that we have by Chopin. Or he destroyed all other similar studies or this the unique. And this show us how Chopin considered not important to develop the art of composing fugues. In fact we don’t find many signals of counterpoint procedures in his works.

[@garrysmodsketches]

This Chopin fugue is kinda awful tbh. If you look at the subject, it has quarter notes on beat 4, preceded by eighth notes. This destroys rhythmic momentum and has an awkward sound. This shows that you can't just take any melody and make it into a fugue. A fugal subject must be carefully and thoughtfully crafted.

[@JacobGran]

I agree its not a very good fugue, but it is instructive (some would say pedantic), which makes me think he wrote it for one of his students, probably in a single lesson or afternoon. It gives some insight into his education at the Warsaw Conservatory and his contemporaneous review of Cherubini's counterpoint textbook. In other words, it is a good example of a "textbook" fugue because there isn't much else to it other than the formulas. He'd be mortified to know we were paying this much close attention to it.

[@DeeCeeHaich]

you can't just say "it breaks this rule" you must actually understand the rule, and when it applies, there's no rhythmic momentum being destroyed, while it's corny to say this, Chopin knew better. The form of the phrase is 3+3 measures. The first measure of the second half is a variation of the first measure in the first half, It needs to follow a similar rhythmn, as if it were to say, start on eigth notes, the measure would end up weak and the form would be destroyed, being a broken mess like 3+1+2. The fugal subject is perfect, you're not making any point.

[@garrysmodsketches]

​@@DeeCeeHaich I don't know what you mean by "Chopin knew better". Was Chopin a good or even marginally competent fugue writer? No, he wasn't. So no, he probably doesn't know better. As for the second half of your comment, I have to ask: do you have some kind of intellectual disability or something? Did you even read my comment, and if so, are you able to understand what it says? I said that the subject has an awkward sound because the last beat of m.2 has two 8th notes followed by a quarter, which sounds like a hiccup. I don't care about phrase symmetry. Your whole tirade about phrase structure is entirely irrelevant. "The fugal subject is perfect, you're not making any point". Wow, so you are not even willing to concede that, for example, this subject is less than perfect but still good. No, it's literally perfect! Amazing. Well, Bach would disagree. Schoenberg would disagree. Basically anybody who understands fugue would disagree, but go ahead and keep worshipping this failure of a fugue. And I'm not even sure why Chopin fans want to die on this hill, defending this fugue. Chopin was an amazing composer, his music has so many virtues. It's just that fugue writing wasn't his strong suit. Why is it so difficult for you to admit? This is just dumb.

[@jonathanjones6657]

The mobility of relativity is in fact quite asinine in its lugubriousness.

[@phenomenologicalparadox5216]

what

[@bachagain1685]

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[@17thstellation]

I will countenance no furtherance of this obstreperous espieglery