Bach - Mendelssohn - Shostakovich: 3x6 Preludes An

Worms, Marcel

In the nineteenth century, and certainly in the twentieth, the fugue was already not so common as in the preceding centuries, and today composers choose this form even less often. Perhaps we need the fugue, precisely in these times, more than ever. In public discourse, the willingness to listen to each other is often minimal and it seems that presenting one's own unbending point of view is the primary goal. In a fugal conversation, each voice can present in peace its own version of the theme. After that the speakers may stay autonomous, but they listen to each other and they react respectfully to the statements of their fellow-speakers. The musical discussion, wherein the speaking time is fairly divided, can get quite heated, but, sometimes with a bit of effort, remains able to be followed by the listener. Conflicts, in the form of violent musical dissonance, are not shunned, and the parties in their eagerness sometimes don't let each other finish their sentences (the stretto). Should the voices not reach a harmonious conclusion, the musical discourse still never ends in a quarrel or worse yet, a divorce, but there follows at the very least a summing-up by all the involved parties: we agree to disagree. The fugue is above all an abstract form of music, but in addition, everyone is free to draw insights from the music of Bach and from the composers he inspired.

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