Contrapunctus 17
Interested in purchasing “Contrapunctus 17”? Contact the artist here.
Contrapunctus- 17″ (rectus @ inversus) is the second of 2 mirror fugues. Here, the fugue in its entirety is inverted so that what is the top voice (right side) in the rectus, is inverted and on the bottom (left side) in the inversus. The whole fugue in its entirety is inverted across the whole range of notes.
I chose to weave both “mirrors” together but also chose to truncate the mirror effect so that it hints at the complete mirror while showing the intricate way it is constructed.
When one hears the fugue and its mirror performed, hints of the mirror might be heard but do not become prominent until one gets toward the end. There, the sound patterns and the visual patterns are more obvious. What ascended in the rectus is now descending in the inversus. What’s more, the voices are reversed left to right and the thematic content is inverted melodically. Coming on the heals of the 4 double-triple fugues, these mirror fugues offer a kind of summation of Bach’s skill and craft.
It is this fugue that holds a special place in my appreciation of this fugue cycle.
Interested in purchasing “Contrapunctus 17”? Contact the artist here.
Contrapunctus- 17″ (rectus @ inversus) is the second of 2 mirror fugues. Here, the fugue in its entirety is inverted so that what is the top voice (right side) in the rectus, is inverted and on the bottom (left side) in the inversus. The whole fugue in its entirety is inverted across the whole range of notes.
I chose to weave both “mirrors” together but also chose to truncate the mirror effect so that it hints at the complete mirror while showing the intricate way it is constructed.
When one hears the fugue and its mirror performed, hints of the mirror might be heard but do not become prominent until one gets toward the end. There, the sound patterns and the visual patterns are more obvious. What ascended in the rectus is now descending in the inversus. What’s more, the voices are reversed left to right and the thematic content is inverted melodically. Coming on the heals of the 4 double-triple fugues, these mirror fugues offer a kind of summation of Bach’s skill and craft.
It is this fugue that holds a special place in my appreciation of this fugue cycle.