23 down, just the 24th to go

I've been working on 24 preludes and fugues for solo guitar for a number of years now.  The 24th and final piece in the series still needs to get finished.  Even though D minor would seem like an easy key in which to compose a fugue for solo guitar I have spent a long time getting this last piece prepared.  There are times when just doing the easy thing doesn't seem appropriate or satisfying. Add to this that I am anything but a virtuoso guitarist and it's not a big surprise (to me, at least) that this is a project that has taken a long time to get finished.  I'm no longer surprised my creative spurts were for the works in the unusual and unfriendly keys.  E flat major? Gotcha.  C minor? Knocked the prelude and fugue out in two weeks.  G major?  That took a loong time.  If anything the easier the keys the more slowly and carefully I have worked.

I have made some progress on the D minor fugue but new progress introduces new challenges. There's never just the textural or purely contrapuntal concerns in a fugue, there are also those big structural considerations. Most of the fugues I have composed are fairly short and for simple, obvious reasons.  You don't want to compose something outlandishly long in the key of F sharp major any more than you would compose something in three voices in such a key.  You could if you were Nikita Koshkin or Igor Rekhin writing for Vladimir Tervo but I'm not at that level of technical proficiency! 

Instead what I have leaned on, as I have mentioned at this blog a few times, is making my counterpoint fully invertible as often as possible.  There is more than one way to make a fugue a display of skill.  I'm not apt to lightning speed but I can demonstrate three contrapuntal lines that can be presented in every possible rotation.  Of course this is physically impossible in most cases but that's no reason to not create what is fully invertible counterpoint in principle.  Thanks to all those years I spent singing choral works by Byrd, Tallis, Sweelinck, Messiaen, Durufle, Mendelssohn, Bach, and Stanford I've got some practice thinking in terms of what it's like to be singing middle voice parts through the entirety of a long vocal piece.  As the old adage goes, you write what you know. 

I'm not sure how long it will really take me to finish all 24 preludes and fugues for solo guitar but my hope is to have the project finished this year.  I'm also looking into filming at least some of the works from this cycle and posting them somewhere while I'm at it.  Meanwhile long contrapuntal works by Beethoven and Bach are friends of mine.