Re: GG: Art of Fugue, and 12 tone

[Bradley P Lehman <bpl@umich.edu>]

> > Out of curiosity, I worked on Contrapunctus 9, which is perhaps the most
> > popular of the 20 variations in the work.  My mother disliked it and
> > dismissed it as repetitive and arcane.  
> 
> Incredible. For my money the most dazzling fugue ever written.

My money's on #11 and #8.  #8 is the most physical of the set (only three
voices, more room to move around), and then #11 inverts its ideas and gets
almost too intense to bear.  Well, #7 is pretty incredible, too: only a
few measures of episode the entire time, and otherwise consistently
thematic in at least one voice.  Those few measures of episode are like
taking a breath in the middle of solving a huge mathematical puzzle.

I've always looked on #9 as one of my least favorite of the set: doesn't
move me as much as the others, somehow, either while playing or listening.  
That piece seems more aimed toward surface brilliance than toward musical
depth.  That would explain its more immediate popularity, though.

I heard #8 in a particularly interesting manner yesterday listening to the
Malgoire orchestration (nice performance, too, overall one of the best of
the ensemble versions).  They do this one giving the two outer voices to
harpsichord, and the middle voice to viola da gamba.  Can two instruments
be much more different from one another in terms of attack and sustain?

> > Unconvinced, I brought the work
> > to my old Russian piano teacher, to inquire on my mom's comment.  In a
> > diplomatic way, he described the work as something only a few people can
> > hear.  He made an analogy of a comment by Robert Schumann (and I'm just
> > paraphrasing this): Within the deep forest admist a gamut of noises,
> > there is this silence and this one single but soft note wavering in the
> > air.  Only a few special people can hear it and appreciate it.  

Tintinnitus?

Fluorescent lighting?  Refrigerator?

> > Lastly, he concluded that this work cannot endure repetitive hearing,
> > because it will become "annoying" and the fact it is not usually
> > performed because the audience does not appreciate such kind of work. 
> > Most of them are unable to hear that "wavering note" admist the noises.

An audience whose attention span is not ruined by TV should have no
problem with the KdF.  Whenever I've played the KdF the audience has been
right with it, whether or not there's an intermission.

> Go back and learn the score, and politely suggest to your mother that she
> is talking out of her hat. Follow your own heart and don't be duped into
> accepting the opinons of so called peers. If you want to be a musician,
> this is the only way to get there.

Agreed.  Check out the Donald Francis Tovey book, too.  

#1 and #3 are also good first ones to play.  Generally, the contrapuncti
increase in technical difficulty (performance difficulty and compositional
difficulty) straight through.  Or to please your mother, play #10: has the
longest sections in major keys and mellifluous thirds and sixths....

Bradley Lehman ~ http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bpl/ 
Dayton, VA, USA ~ 38.43N+78.98W

"Music must cause fire to flare up from the spirit - and not only 
sparks from the clavier...." - Alfred Cortot