Art of the Fugue

As we discussed in class, let's plan on a couple of weeks to tackle the Art of the Fugue. I don't want to get too far behind schedule, so it might be more like a week and a half; we'll see how it goes next Friday.

As Will did for the 3-part Ricercar from the Musical Offering, and Dakota and I did for the 6-part Ricercar, please label subject and answer wherever they appear, as well as false entries. Remember, the exposition is finished once all voices have entered. For Art of the Fugue, most pieces have four voices. Also try to do a little bit of harmonic analysis: what are the main key areas?

Any place where there is no subject or answer is known as an episode (or development, or "developmental episode); these passages are often sequential, or feature strettos, etc. One of my favorite fugue scholars, Tim Smith, has a terrific (old but still very useful) website at Northern Arizona University, with a handy glossary.

Finally, if you are interested you can download midi files for each fugue from imslp.org. These need a little bit of cleaning up, but overall they can be useful tools. Have fun!

Tori, Contrapunctus 1
Elisa, Contrapunctus 12
Mike, Contrapunctus 3
Guillermo, Contrapunctus 4
Will, Contrapunctus 5
Dakota, Contrapunctus 6
Qi, Contrapunctus 7
Ralph, Contrapunctus 8
Matt. Contrapunctus 9
John, Contrapunctus 10

Guillermo, Contrapunctus 11
Elisa, Contrapunctus 2
Mike, Contrapunctus 13
Tori, Contrapunctus 14
Ralph, Contrapunctus 15
Dakota, Contrapunctus 16 (inversion fugue)
Matt, Contrapunctus 18
Will, Contrapunctus 19
Qi, Contrapunctus 19