Jonathan Hugendubler
Fugue Bach-Shostakovich
10/10/2017
Comparative Fugal Analysis
The fugue is often regarded as a genre defined by strict procedural guidelines. It is notable that three historically important composers, Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), Georg Friedrich Handel (1685-1759), and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791), all employed a closely related fugue subject in three different works. An analysis of each of these works individually, and a comparison of these works collectively reveal numerous latent and salient features, and a reflection of the composers’ style within these works. Analyses also provide an outlook into the fluidity in certain aspects and rigidity in others of the form itself, reflected historically. The three composers analyzed fall closely together in history. J.S. Bach and G.F. Handel were contemporaries, whereas Mozart was born six years after Bach’s death and three years before Handel’s death. Analytically, the angularity of these similar fugue subjects presupposes a treatment regardless of the composer. Because of the shared intervallic content among the subjects of these fugues, despite being written by several different composers, a surprising number of similarities arise. Therefore, it is reasonable to assert that compositional choices made in the construction of the fugue subjects limit the number of results possible.
This analysis will use the A minor fugue from of J.S. Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2 G.F. Handel’s “And
Johann Sebastian Bach was a composer born on March 21, 1685 in Germany during the Baroque period. The Baroque period was a time during history when a certain style of European architecture, music, and art flourished there. Music during that specific time were often focused on lower and higher tones. Bach was able to play the organ, violin, viola, and harpsichord. As a result, he is considered one of the greatest composers of Western history, especially back in his day. Bach was influenced by his family of many musicians. For example, his father Johann Ambrosius Bach taught him how to play the violin and harpsichord, while his uncle had taught him to play the organ.
Many people compare the musical works of Ludwig Van Beethoven and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart because of the styles of music that they produced. They were also similar because of their age and the music period in which they created in. Throughout their lives these two composers had vastly different customs and behaviors. Each composer contributed to their own unique styles of music, however they continue to be a musical inspiration in today’s world. Many people of the early classical music period reacted differently to both of the musician’s works because of the unique way they chose to create and present their music. These musician’s created a lasting effect on the musical world that we see today.
Johann S. Bach was a classical composer and a very good performer. He was one of the best composers during the Baroque era and took the position of organist for many different places during his career. Bach was and is a very important person in the classical music genre.
Bauman provides a thoughtful analysis of the completion of Mozart’s Requiem by Richard Maunder. He bases his argument on the fact that
This proposal is for the composition of a piece for organ solo to be premiered at the Ronald G. Pogorzelski-Lester D. Yankee Memorial Organ. The proposed title of the piece is “Flowing Streams”. The title is a word game with the name of the composer and organ master J. S. Bach (which translation means creek). The mainstream of the proposed piece is to give a contemporary voice to the immortal work of the baroque composer through quotation of elements of his own music. Bach’s original elements will not be used in their own traditional baroque-tonal approach, but they will be a vehicle to tell a story under a contemporary polystylistic approach. These elements will be combined, compared, and opposed sometimes in a very converging way, another
When Bach was in Arnstadt when he was younger, the organ ordinarily lacked a 16-foot register on the keyboard; consequently, it sounds an octave lower than the normal 8-foot register. Accordingly, in order to create the effect, Bach used octave doubling; consequently, he continued the resounding effect of the opening bars; conversely, there is no octave doubling in any of Bach’s later organ works; moreover, the fugue sounds furious with its uninterrupted series of fast notes. Also, Bach felt embarrassed about his crude style, and he put the work aside; consequently, Bach lost a lot of his other early organ work completely. Conversely, the Tocca and the Fugue has an unstructured form, and that means that keyboard players can let their imagination run wild; as a result, Johann Gottfried Walther described the Toccata as a long piece in which both hands alternate, sometimes accompanied by long pedal notes. For this reason, Bach connected the Toccata’s freedom to the stylus phantasticus; moreover, stylus phantasticus was popular in North Germany from the seventeenth century; in addition, people described this style of composition as “freed from all constraint”. Moreover, it’s remarkable that Bach paired the toccata with the prelude and the fugue because it’s subject to strict compositional rules; nevertheless, the fugue derives its thematic material from the preceding part.
While Ludwig van Beethoven and Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky have much in common, they also have many differences. Both men are famous for their orchestral compositions and their future influence on other composers. They experienced a blend of horrible failures and great successes. Although they were from different musical time periods, they both made huge contributions to the world of music.
He began to write preludes for organs but did not cover large- scale organization, when two melodies interact at the same time. A few years after playing for the church, Bach made a visit to Dieterich Buxtehude in Lubeck. This visit reinforced Bach’s style in music with the works he has made.
During the later years of his life Bach gradually withdrew inwards, producing some of the most profound statements of the baroque musical form. Bach’s creative energy was conserved for the highest flights of musical expression: the Mass in b
Bach’s polyphonic music is full of counterpoint, the combining of two or more melodic lines into a meaningful whole. He perfected the art of the fugue, a complex composition usually written for four musical lines. “Bach’s fugues involved incredibly complex melodies that, even though they started at different times, wound up sounding good together.” The one I chose to describe is the first prelude and fugue from Bach’s second book, in the key of C major.
As noted by Robert Hughes, "Beethoven was not only the embodiment of all that was before him, but also of that which was yet to come" (Hughes 486). The truth of this may be seen by comparing Beethoven's 5th Symphony in C Minor to Haydn, the father of Symphony, and his 95th in C Minor. While Haydn's symphony is both playful and dramatic, Beethoven's symphony is grander both in terms of scale and vision. He expands the size of the orchestra to incorporate the sounds swirling around, underlying, and depicting the arrival of Fate in a rhythm-driven, thematic symphony that takes Haydn's form and runs with it as though to the top of a mountain peak. This paper will analyze the symphonies by movement, according to form, size, structure, tonalities, melodies, orchestral sound and overall mood and effect.
Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, BWV 565, is a two-part musical composition for organ, written by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 – 1750), a German composer, and musician of Baroque period, is known for its magnificent sound, classic, state-of-the-art rhythm having methodological command, with artistic splendor and intellectual gravity. Bach's abilities as an organist were respected throughout Europe during his lifetime but at that time he was not recognized as a great composer until a revival of interest and performances of his music in the first half of the 19thcentury. Nowadays he’s regarded as one of the greatest composers of all time. (Blanning, 2008)
Bach and Handel are often compared against each other as the great composers of the Baroque period. They both were masters of the Baroque music and wrote many pieces that are still part of the normal and required repertoire. However, Paul Henry Lang makes an argument against comparing these two composers together as well as an argument against the idea of Handel being a German national composer. Lang had extensive education in this field, and so he was able to argue these points with facts behind him.
Bach's "Organ Fugue G Minor" manages to sound both melancholy and lively at the same time. Although the texture of the piece is clearly Baroque in its construction, it has emotional depth that anticipates the Romantic period. The fugue is tuneful, partially because of its inventive repetition and expressive use of contrast. As in all fugues, one melody seems to repeat the other, in a kind of a musical dance. But the different voices are multifaceted and complex. The full range of the organ is represented and the textures of the music are complex.
Music is constantly changing. The Baroque period (1600-1750) and the Classical period (1750-1820) have both differences and similarities in elements such as form, texture, and dynamics. I will be comparing the first movement of Spring from the Four Seasons composed by Antonio Vivaldi and the first movement of Symphony No. 5 in C minor by Ludwig van Beethoven. I will construct a stylistic comparison of the two compositions and their musical stylings with regard to the periods of music of which they belong.