[Smt-talk] Bach Quiz

[auerbach at music.umass.edu]

Greetings, Olli.

I'll play. Writing off the top of my head, I'll note that I've always  
been tickled by mm. 49.3-51.2 in the C#-minor Fugue, Book II.

It's a clear set of parallel 6/3 chords, but the upper two voices are  
stacked in fifths instead of the normative fourths. In my opinion, the  
little bit of staggering and chromaticism Bach imparts to the alto do  
almost nothing to mask the delightful // 5 effect.

I'd definitely mark it as unstylistic on a student counterpoint  
assignment. The piece definitely still merits an A+, though.

Is this more or less what you're after?

--Brent

-----------------------------------
Brent Auerbach
Assistant Professor of Theory
Department of Music and Dance
University of Massachusetts Amherst



> Dear list,
>
> Perhaps some of you might enjoy this kind of recreation. This is  
> perhaps a quiz but it might also be a query. The subject is parallel  
> fifths in The Well-Tempered Clavier (I and II).
>
> I know one example of quite unequivocal parallel fifths in the 96  
> movements of WTC. Or perhaps two, if we count those produced by  
> sixteenth-note triplets in the D-Major Prelude from WTC II. But I  
> don't mean those.
>
> If the example I have in mind is the only one, this is a quiz. Who  
> will know them or find them?! The quickest to answer gets the prize  
> of ... unfortunately nothing more than the huge honor of winning the  
> quiz.
>
> If there are more equally unequivocal examples, I am certainly  
> interested in them, too, and this turns into a query.
>
> (Dmitri T., as far as the quiz is concerned, you are not allowed to  
> use your computer program! ;-)
>
> Olli Väisälä
> Sibelius Academy
> ovaisala at siba.fi
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