About that Requiem... (enter the "3D fugue")

I just discovered a level of fugal polyphony that, as far as I know, not even Bach attempted. (But Mozart did, or was beginning to at least.)

This is a variation of the multiple fugue (double, triple etc.). However, instead of developing the first subject, than the second later, and so on, this is a fugue with the subjects being developed at the same time. In other words, a "three-dimensional fugue", with fugues layered on top of fugues. If the fugue is the musical equivalent of chess, than this is the music equivalent of 3D chess.

It just so happens that a two-by-two fugue has been written: the Kyrie from Mozart's Requiem. Here it is again; start at 4:46:

I'm writing a three-by-three example in the Second Symphony, fourth movement (Massachusetts), and the final reprise of the Ouverture in the First Symphony has a two-by-four-voice fugue.

(It's not quite the same as the twelve-part "group fugue" in the sixth movement of my First Symphony--that's a four-voice fugue, with each voice harmonized in three parts, but it is another example of a 3D fugue.)

Also, what I'm talking about would be an example of what could be called "hyperpolyphony". The best established example, from the Renaissance, would be Thomas Tallis' Spem in alium:

This isn't a fugue, but it's still 40-voice polyphony.

But does this mean that someday I have to write a 40-part fugue?

What if he had lived longer?

I am convinced that Mozart, had he not died so tragically young, could've done for music what Beethoven did later.

Anyway, one more post: his unfinished Requiem. Specifically, the Kyrie.

A couple things to notice:

• the use of basset horn (marked by the gold diamonds) in the introduction; the basset horn is an alto/tenor clarinet in F with a low range extended to C (in modern instruments)--and remember, Mozart was the first major composer to write extensively for clarinets in general
• the double fugue in the Kyrie--I told you he was getting good at this counterpoint thing

I am planning on writing a Mass someday, maybe a Requiem. So I'll be studying this tonight, another thing I wish I had done when I was much younger.

The "Jupiter" Symphony: when Mozart challenged the musical gods

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg, Austria on this day in 1756.

I have had an obsession with the finale of his 41st and final Symphony for many years now.

This is when the composer triumphantly goes all out with all of his techniques. It's almost a fugue worthy of Bach himself, working five different themes together. He had used Baroque counterpoint in other works late in life: the Requiem, the Magic Flute (especially the Overture) and of course the Adagio and Fugue, K.546.

His music was also becoming heavily dramatic, especially in his unfinished Requiem. Had he not have died much too soon, he would've started the Romantic era of music decades before Beethoven did. (He already was part of the Sturm und Drang movement since the 25th Symphony, in G minor.)

Also, the chromatic stuff that began the development in the final movement of the 40th symphony? (See Leonard Berstein's commentary, beginning at 7:48.) He uses note of the chromatic scale except G, since it was a symphony in G minor and he had used the note enough. Almost a tone row à la fellow Austrians Arnold Schoenberg and company, but with a few repeated notes. And he had done it at other times.

I mean it; Mozart was really getting good near the end.

The Rite again, and what it did to me

The beginning of the still-unfinished First Symphony was 35 years ago, when I first heard The Rite of Spring on vinyl in my bedroom. It was part of a compilation (one of those boxed "best-of" classical compilations); I don't remember what orchestra recorded it, or what year.

I consider that event when and where I, the composer, was born. I had heard Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Tchaikovsky, the rest, but it was Stravinsky that made me decide I wanted to be like them all, and innovate in my own way. The first ideas of the First Symphony came to me around that time. The ideas came to me in little pieces, from movies, television, video games, everything I was exposed to.

I didn't start writing and recording any of it until about ten years ago. I wasn't ready until then. I would have rather been a bassist for a metal band somewhere. This was even long after I went to college to study musical composition and theory, but dropped out my freshman year due to illness. (I'm entirely self-taught after that.)