Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxb!mhuxn!mhuxm!mhuxj!houxm!ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes 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