Sunday, July 1, 2012

Fugue in D Minor


Well, I expected that Perenepsis #3 would be the next piece posted (it really is almost done; the entire structure is there, the ending is written, there's just filling in details in about the last 20% or so right before the final bars) but my Fanfare and Chorale (probably not the final title) outgrew the scope of a brass quintet into an orchestral piece and took over my attention. During a break in working on that, I took a look at this little fugue and realized how close it was to being complete (or complete enough), so here it is. Unlike my older g minor fugue, this one doesn't end with a Picardy third -- I gave it a listen, but didn't like it in this one. Like the g minor fugue, this one's also in 3/4 and three voices, but no double-stops here except for the final note in the bass. It's not much, just something to fill in while working on bigger things...

Edit: I knew I should've let it sink in a while before posting; the ending just wasn't right, but I think it's fixed now. After all that hammering on the low D, it really needed a brief detour to A before the end, and I thought that having each voice repeat the opening bar was a neat way to bring it to a close:

Edit #2: I also knew that I shouldn't have posted that first edit without waiting, too. The added material contained a seventh on a strong beat that was unintentionally jarring, so I fixed that and also changed the order in which the voices restated the opening rhythmic figure at the end. While listening to this correction, the only thing that hit me was that changing the length of one note would produce a more effective anticipation of the '2/4' pedal point stuff at the end. This is probably the final version now: