What Fugue Are You Working On (or Listening To)?
In advance of our livestream —
The Great Fugues of Music: What Makes a Fugue So Powerful?
— we want to hear from you!
Are you practicing a fugue right now? Analyzing one? Or just obsessed with listening to them?
Drop a comment below and tell us:
Which fugue are you working on (or listening to)?
What’s your biggest challenge or curiosity about it?
Is there a specific moment you’d love help understanding or playing better?
We’ll highlight a few of your stories during the live stream and explore what makes fugues such an intricate and emotionally powerful musical form.
July 17 | 11am PT
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Fughetta in G Major by Bach. It's grade 6 and it feels tooooo advanced. But my Russian technique teacher insists I work on it. However for 12 weeks now she keeps telling me how badly I am doing
I still can't even play all parts at snail tempo yet. The first third goes okish and as soon as It's in the fingers sharing the counterpoint is fun... but it's soooo much work. I don't know if I will continue with it. I feel overwhelmed. Unfortunately she's not open for discussion or easier material.
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Bach WTC 21 in B flat. Doing both the prelude and fugue. Great piece and very challenging and satisfying at the same time. Also working on the fugue in WTC C major; No. 1. More difficult, at least for me.
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Stephen Hessert WTC 21 is so fun! glad you're doing it, i played it for music school auditions. also just started on WTC 1, how do you manage 4 voices?
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I’ve recently been hooked on this Prelude and Fugue in B-Flat Major on the Name BACH, where the Prelude resolve directly into the Fugue, where the Fugue is full of chromatic harmonies with exhilarating and celebratory sounds.
On the topic of Fugue itself, perhaps the most fascinating element, other than its complexity and profundity in musical structure, is the original meaning “Fuga” in Latin, meaning the passing of time. At times, it almost feels like each subject is a uniquely shaped gear with the different voices starting to spin when they are interlocked, like the gear mechanism of a watch, hence the passing of time. Listening and practicing fugues feels like how a section of time has gone through a whole circle, with wonderful storylines…
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I just started Bach's WTC No. 1 Prelude and Fugue, focusing more on the fugue. My goal is to play through the whole WTC, but one step at a time. While I'd like to be working on Godowsky's fugue at the end of his Passacaglia, I'd rather learn the whole piece rather than just covering the last 4 minutes.
I studied many fugues back when I was doing music theory in high school, but only recently I've come to appreciate them much more. Playing one properly feels so rewarding.
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Bach WTC 5 (Book I) in D major. I've been working on both the prelude and started on the fugue a couple of weeks ago. Took some time to separate out the 4 voices and have been practicing them separately and in different combinations of 2 of the voices at a time. Look forward to the upcoming livestream and would love to hear any advice on the key steps of learning Bach's fugues (e.g., identifying subjects, separating out the voices, combining voices, exaggerated dynamics when combining voices).
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The fugue from JS Bach Toccata in E min. (Love a fugue
). It’s long - and exuberant. Bit of a marathon…
