This is another prelude
and fugue from the cycle for which we have a video performance. In this case the prelude is melodically
simple but harmonically complex. It
makes sense to provide a schematic analysis that doesn't attempt to get too
involved in the harmonic activity of this prelude, even though a theoretical
analysis could be a lot of fun to do.
This is a series of blog posts, after all, and for blog posts it should
suffice to give guitarists and theorists a foundation for more detailed score
analysis at their leisure.
Prelude (0:06)
This block chord
chorale is 39 measures long and is predominantly in four measure phrases in
common time. Its form is probably best
described as a kind of rounded binary form that can be mapped out as follows:
A (0:06 to 0:35) measures 1-8
A' (0:35 to 1:00) measures 9-16
B (1:01 to 1:24) measures 17-24
A'' (1:25 to 2:23)
measures 25-39)
Although the phrases
are in four-measure increments the larger phrase units tend to be eight-measure
phrases. A is firmly in B minor while A'
shifts into D major with the promise of a resolution back into B minor which is
deceptively resolved not to the submediant key as would be typical, but to an F
major added sixth chord that is the dominant to B flat major that is the tonality
that the B material moves within. On the
whole all the melodic activity is reliably diatonic until we get to this B
section, even if the harmonic support is often chromatically divergent from the
"home" key. The B material
closes with a presentation of the G major chord that would be the
"expected" submediant chord of a conventional deceptive cadence--we
get the expected chord for such a deceptive resolution but it's postponed until
the end of the B material in this rounded binary form. A short chromatic rising passage leads us to
a recapitulation of the A material as A''.
The initial idea returns but the phrases are shortened and more halting,
the rhythmic values more expansive.
We're obviously winding things down.
It's worth noting, for those into this kind of analysis, that the return
of the A material at measure 25 corresponds closely to the Golden Mean of the
prelude.
As to the mood of this
prelude, which I like, it gives me the impression of a kind of Scriabinesque
take on the old American song "My Funny Valentine".
The fugue is introduced
in the film by a change from a black background to a white background in this
film, which makes it very easy to point out when the fugue begins.
Fugue (2:25)
This is a serpentine
6/8 subject that's four measures long and is dominated by a chromatic descent
that winds up into eighth notes that lead to a countersubject in the uppermost
voice as the alto enters at measure 5 with a tonal answer that affirms the
dominant (2:31). The countersubject appears in a transposed form at measure 48
(2:36). It's worth noting here that
tonal answers modify the subject in some way to adhere to the prevailing
tonality of the exposition. When a
subject starts on the dominant scale degree and you don't want to change the
character of the subject's linear activity then you may want to provide a real
or tonal answer at the subdominant, but if you want an answer at the dominant
to affirm the key of your fugue exposition and you are willing to
"bend" the contour of the subject then tonal answers are more
satisfying. It's possible to favor tonal
answers (Bach) or real answers (Handel) depending on preference. Neither is necessarily easier than the other
to master. In this case Koshkin opts for
a tonal answer at the dominant in which the subject starts on the third scale
degree. As noted previously, he has a
countersubject that is transposed for the appearance of the third and final
voice in the texture which arrives in the tenor/bass voice on F sharp just as
would be expected.
We move from the end of
the exposition into development at measure 52 (2:42) and right away Koshkin
shifts to F natural, signaling that the chromaticism of the subject opens up
possibilities for abrupt modal mutation and chromatic shifts into remote
keys. Despite the three voices of the
exposition by its completion this fugue will be characterized by two voiced
textures. This is not a weakness in a
fugue such as this, given the activity of the subject and its brevity. As George Oldroyd put it in The Technique and
Spirit of Fugue, if memory serves (and it may not) one of the mistakes music
students make in writing fugues is assuming that once all three or four voices
in a fugal exposition are introduced every last one of them must be active constantly
throughout the duration of the fugue. Anyone who has surveyed the fugues of
Bach or Buxtehude or ... just pick someone, you'll find they rarely ever did
that. So you don’t' have to, either. Koshkin demonstrates a firm grasp of
contrapuntal writing by recognizing he doesn't need all three of his voices
active all the way through this fugue.
The first middle entry
appears at 2:50 and is in the very remote key of C minor at measure 58. After another episode the second middle entry
appears at measure 70 in the key of F minor, yet another wildly remote key from
the initial B minor key we started in. A very brief transitional episode takes
place and by measure 75 (3:13) we're already in a new middle entry in E minor.
Koshkin clearly grasped that one of the things you can do with a fugal subject
like this one is move quickly from middle entry to middle entry with little
episode transition thanks to the chromaticism inherent in the subject. This
passage in the fugue is also noteworthy for the way in which the F minor middle
entry places the subject in the tenor/bass voice while the E minor middle entry
places it in the alto voice. He also features the countersubject in the earlier
middle entry and omits it in the later middle entry, which is something else you
can do when writing fugues.
By measure 3:20 we have
still another middle entry at measure 80, in G minor. This is followed up by an
extended modulating episode that downshifts with descending sequential activity
in linear terms but which culminates in an "uplift" at measure 92
(3:35) in a new middle entry in A major.
By measure 100 (3:48)
we have a new middle entry in which the subject appears to have returned in B
minor but it's not B minor. Though the F
sharp appears at the top of the treble clef just like it did at the start of the
fugue it is floating above a harmonic tenth of E at the bottom and G in the
upper part of a dyad. The fugue subject
has returned but as the ninth rather than the fifth, part of a middle entry
that is more readily identified as E minor than B minor. That's something else
that makes fugue subjects with a pronounced chromatic character so much fun,
you don't have to bring them in at the tonic or dominant if you know you can
transpose them in some other way. If you
want an example of a fugue that runs with the possibilities of a chromatically
ambiguous subject as being able to appear at any factoral relationship in a
chord (tonic, third, fifth, seventh) go over and listen to fugue no. 2 from
Rodion Shchedrin's cycle of preludes and fugues. Go over here
His fugue in A minor
starts at 2:55.
Now, back to Koshkin's
fugue.
The E minor middle
entry with the subject at the ninth leads to an extended episode that can be
thought of as a preparation for a "real" E minor middle entry that
finally arrives at measure 112 (4:02) with the subject appearing at the fifth
of the chord as we would expect. There's even a quasi-stretto going on in which
the subject in the treble strings gets a semi-canonic response by a transposed
form of the subject in the middle voice.
This overall rhetorical flourish is, by the way, almost a Haydnesque
trick, giving the subject in a middle entry at an unexpected interval in a
harmony and then preparing for a payoff in which the subject appears at the
"correct" register later in the work.
This is followed by a flurry of sixteenth note scalar runs that begin to
get support from an F sharp in the lower register. As wind ups to fugal
climaxes go this is a class decorative series of runs on a dominant pedal
point; this is exactly what makes sense for a guitarist to do in a fugue in B
minor and it makes for a satisfying climax in which the fugue subject arrives
in its original B minor as B minor at measure 123 at 4:18.
As the subject reaches
its end it gets interrupted by florid runs that preempt a full resolution of
the subject in harmonic and linear terms.
Koshkin goes through a series of evaded cadences to build suspense. He
finally gets back to the motto of his subject at 4:42 (measure 137) where the
subject becomes fragmented and the basis for winding down coda that reaches an
E major chord (though it has an added sixth and no fifth) at measure 147 that
turns into a florid scalar ascent culminating in a natural harmonic that is
followed by a subdued piano tonic chord close.
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