Michael Talbot – Fugue Forum

The pdf and midi files of this piece may be downloaded HERE

When I write free-standing fugues, I like to give them descriptive epithets such as “meditativa” in the present case. Sometimes I think of the title first and then write the fugue. Sometimes the music of the fugue, or at least of its opening, presents itself first and I think of a suitable descriptive title later (as Debussy is known to have done in the case of his Préludes). The titles usually reflect the mood or nature of the fugue as accurately as I can make them do, but occasionally a little British irony creeps in.

Fugues, by definition, are based on one or more subjects. But how should one invent, and fix the form of, these subjects? There are two main approaches. One can start with the intention of writing a fugue in which the subject or subjects perform prescribed actions. For example, if one were intending to write a fugue d’école as if for an examination at a conservatoire one would wish to ensure that the subject was readily treatable in stretto, in inversion and perhaps in augmentation and/or diminution. This would probably entail the making of preliminary experimental sketches. And, indeed, this is exactly what most pedagogues recommend and many composers have done. In the second approach, one simply invents a subject like a short theme of any other type, making it as intrinsically attractive or memorable as possible, and then accepts the consequences: if stretto or any other fugal device is impossible or hard to make musically convincing, one renounces it on this occasion. Both approaches have their respective advantages and drawbacks, and I commute freely between them. Very often, having invented a subject freely according to the second approach, I “sense” – perhaps from my memory of other subjects or my musical instincts – that it has possibilities of treatment in stretto or otherwise, and this untested intuition is strong enough to encourage me to proceed immediately with the composition without making sketches.

The Fuga meditativa was composed according to the second approach. In strictly fugal terms, it is perhaps not very ambitious. But – and one cannot stress this enough – fugues are also music, and the normal processes that make non-fugal compositions convincing and enjoyable still apply. Indeed, “moderating” the purely fugal processes sometimes gives added scope for musical expression or for the superimposition of other formal elements that may contribute to the overall interest.

I will now make some comments on this fugue. This will not be a complete analytical commentary, but will highlight some features that I think are of special interest.

First, the key. I believe that, even without taking into account the effects of tuning systems and pitch standards, all keys have a traditional character (or set of characters). This character is perhaps not so much intrinsic as acquired – and is especially related to the properties of instruments in the pre-modern age and to the practices of musical pedagogy, in which one starts from the simple and proceeds towards the complex. Every C major piece “remembers”, as it were, all preceding C major pieces. The Fuga meditativa was conceived in G sharp minor, traditionally a “dark” and difficult key – “difficult” to read, if nothing else. This suits the meditative, brooding character of the piece. The principal subject itself reinforces the fugue’s “obsessive” character by (a) being exactly four bars long, (b) allowing notes of the tonic chord to dominate, (c) repeating bar 2 as bar 3 (an instance of the redicta frowned on by Renaissance theorists but so beloved of musicians!), and (d) giving the subject a near-chiastic (ABBA) structure suggesting circularity and stasis.

The first exposition (bars 1–26) has a formation of entries that makes a “hook” pattern (here, ATBS). This less common than a “top down” (SATB) or “bottom up” (BTAS) formation, or even than a “zigzag” formation such as ASBT, but is a perfectly valid option. After the third entry the listener will wonder whether the final entry (assuming that he/she remembers that the fugue is in four parts) will be above or below the preceding three, and this brings about an interesting moment of suspense.

Connoisseurs of fugue will notice in bar 5 that the answer is real, not tonal, as might have been predicted. Here, a real answer works, because bar 4, rather like a codetta, takes the music firmly into the dominant, D sharp minor, and, more importantly, because the whole subject up to that point is only an elaboration of a single, tonic, chord.

In this fugue, as in most that I write, I employ a regular countersubject, invertible with the subject at the octave. Contrary to what one might imagine intuitively, employing a regular countersubject actually makes composing the rest of the fugue easier, not harder. It provides a stronger framework against which to compose the “free” parts and contributes extra primary thematic material that may be very useful for episodes. A countersubject needs in the main to complement rather than to mirror the subject: it often proceeds in contrary motion to it and is rhythmically differentiated. But it can also be useful and effective if a countersubject has elements in common with the subject, as occurs in bar 7, where the countersubject borrows the rhythm and, to some degree, the shape of the subject in bar 2.

In a four-voice fugue, should the final entry be succeeded, perhaps after a short closing passage, by a cadence in the dominant or be led back to a cadence in the tonic? The first option is the more traditional, but the second can also be used, particularly when one wishes to give the fugue a strong “ternary” character. Indeed, in extreme cases, the first exposition can be repeated with no or minimal alteration to conclude the movement like the ritornello of a Vivaldi or Bach concerto. In the Fuga meditativa I retain the dominant cadence (bar 26) but precede it with a closing passage that I deliberately make harmonically striking (the rather Franckian ultra-slow C sharp passing note in the bass in bar 24), thereby signalling to the listener that it will recur.

The first episode, or divertimento (bars 26–40), is launched by a sequential extension of the cadential phrase that takes the music to F sharp major in bar 28. To have a thematic connection between the end of an exposition and the start of an episode is an old fugue-writer’s trick. Sequence (progressione in Italian) is a very useful device in fugue, as in Baroque-period composition generally. It gives the pleasure of repetition while at the same time being dynamic (many essential modulations are effected by chromatic alterations made in the course of sequences). All that one has to take care about is that it is not over-used and that different kinds of sequence (rising by step, falling by step, rising by thirds etc.) are employed so as to prevent monotony and predictability.

The first episode is in three parts throughout. In a keyboard fugue, the listener, as opposed to the score-reader, will not be aware of which “virtual” voices have dropped out, but the lightening of texture ought to be perceptible. This reduction to three parts creates variety, sharpens the formal contours and enables the lines to become more mobile by making more fingers available (note the continuous running semiquavers in bars 29–38). The thematic material of the first episode is not overtly dependent on the material of the subject and countersubject, except for a reminiscence of the subject, with widened intervals, over the bass pedal in bars 36–38.

The second exposition (bars 41–54) contains two entries of the subject: in bass (bars 41–44) and alto (bars 46–49). The entries are respectively in B major and F sharp major – i.e., in the area of the relative major and its satellites, as is standard in post-1700 fugues (in earlier fugues subjects are rarely altered in mode). The entry in bar 41 overlaps the last bar of the episode, introducing a deliberate effect of surprise. An even greater surprise occurs in bar 55, first bar of the second episode, where a regular cadence is replaced by a “deceptive” cadence (cadenza d’inganno). Such surprises are needed from time to time, especially in a fugue whose primary material is so regular and repetitive.

The brief second episode (bars 55–61), remaining in four parts (and therefore perceived as an extension of the second exposition), leads to C sharp minor, the subdominant key, in which the subject, without its countersubject, is next heard.

The third exposition (bars 62–65) consists solely of this single entry in the bass and a concluding passage leading to a cadence, still in C sharp minor. Note that the opening note, G sharp, is extended (back into bar 61). This is a traditional licence of fugue subjects, known and practised since the Renaissance.

The third episode (bars 66–84), the longest, is structured in two distinct sections. The first (bars 66–71) is sequential in nature, using a thematic particle taken from the countersubject, and employs imitation between outer parts in a three-part texture. It effects the vital modulation back to the tonic, G sharp minor, and the rest of the episode reinforces this tonality, using, from bar 76 onwards, a pedal-note. (I am influenced by the Classical and Romantic tradition of dominant preparation using pedal notes and often employ the device in my fugues, and particularly to signal the return of the subject in its original key between two thirds and three quarters of the way through the movement. In a way, this is anachronistic – but my aim is not to create a perfect imitation of this or that composer’s (or even this or that period’s) type of fugue, but to write as a “normal” composer in a congenial and coherent musical language.) The second section of the episode (bars 72–84) recalls the material of the first episode, which it “plays with” in a semi-bravura manner. Fugal pedagogues from Cherubini onwards often state a preference for making the episodes thematically distinct, but I like to inter-relate episodes thematically in order to add an extra layer of interest. In bar 76 four-part texture is restored, with a climactic effect. In bars 80–81, where the rhythm slackens, I intensify the harmony through chromaticism.

The fourth and final exposition, which leads seamlessly into a coda, begins with the alto entry in bar 65. In bar 64 the bass has an (aborted) entry suggesting canonic imitation – but this is not carried through. This is not a capitulation but a recognized musical technique, which can be made attractively playful. Such “feigned” entries (entrate finte, in Padre Martini’s language) are very common in Baroque fugues, including those of Bach. Up to bar 107 the fourth exposition mirrors the first exposition (with thickening in its opening bars through added counterpoints), reaching a cadence in the dominant in bar 108. This very obvious simple recapitulation is something that began to occur in a few late Baroque fugues influenced by ritornello form. But I rarely like to end with too literal a recapitulation, even in a frankly concertante fugue. Bars 108–112 steer the music back to C sharp minor, with material adapted from that immediately preceding, and in bar 113 the characteristic cadential phrase with the “ultra-slow” passing note in the bass is heard for the first time in the tonic. A tonic pedal is reached in bar 116, and the music winds down gently to the sound of scraps of the subject and countersubject (with some use made of inversion) and the expected tierce de Picardie.

I would describe this as one of my “character” fugues, as distinct from my fughe d’invenzione or my “novelty” fugues. My aim is here to use fugue as a means rather than as a self-sufficient end. However, I love and respect the whole fugal tradition from Sweelinck and Cavalli (or whoever are chosen as the founding fathers) to Hindemith and Shostakovich and like to situate myself clearly within it, so there is a limit on how much freedom I permit myself.

This fugue, like most of mine for keyboard, is not conceived for, say, piano rather than harpsichord, or the reverse. With judicious migration of inner parts from one hand to the other, it should be possible to perform it successfully without use of a sustaining pedal – which means that piano, harpsichord, clavichord and organ are all equally possible options. I have refrained from adding marks of expression, leaving the finer points of interpretation to performers themselves to decide.

The pdf and midi files of this piece may be downloaded HERE