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From: carnes@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP (Richard Carnes)
Newsgroups: net.music.classical
Subject: Re: suggested new topic: "great stretti I have known"
Message-ID: <331@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 11-Feb-85 11:31:24 EST
Article-I.D.: gargoyle.331
Posted: Mon Feb 11 11:31:24 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 12-Feb-85 06:08:03 EST
Reply-To: carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes)
Organization: U. Chicago - Computer Science
Lines: 26

In article <> ark@alice.UUCP (Andrew Koenig) writes:
>The obvious place to begin here is with Bach's WTC I, fugue #1 (C major).
>Its theme is more than a measure long, and in the 27 measures of the
>piece appears 24 times!

The best stretto fugue I know of is the D major in WTC Book II.  It is full
of stretti and ends up with a grand quadruple stretto.  Three-fourths of the
notes are accounted for by a single four-note figure from the subject. (It
even has the same rhythm as the four-note theme [or is it a motif?] from
Beethoven's Fifth.  Beethoven fans will also be interested in the first four
notes of the subject.  It is well known that Beethoven studied the entire
WTC -- draw your own conclusions.)  In addition this is as great a fugue as
any Bach ever wrote.

There are some great stretti in late Beethoven.  In the 19th century, I
believe, the dogma was laid down that every fugue had to have a stretto,
thus disqualifying most of Bach's fugues.  

Perhaps we could start a discussion of, say, canons at the fifth, or "my
favorite recapitulations" in sonata-allegro movements.  Or "stupid things
written by writers of program notes," such as the claim that Mahler borrowed
a theme from the Hallelujah Chorus ("And He shall reign...") in the finale
of his First Symphony, when the two themes are actually dissimilar in spite
of a superficial resemblance.

Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes