Jonathan Shaw

     Yet another fugue! – Oh this is getting tiresome! Though I suppose I do owe a lot to fugues for teaching me counterpoint (to a greater or lesser degree!)

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     This one, another written during college, was originally scored for brass instruments so that I could learn how to better score for brass, but I later rescored it for string instruments as well, so it can be performed by either a brass or string quartet. I enjoy this one far more than my earlier brass fugue, "C.41", again likely because of the swift counterpoint – which, as I have said, I truly enjoy.

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     Towards the end of the piece, the fugal subject moves in canon through each voice from top to bottom before concluding, which is a rather clever distribution of the subject for such an inexperienced composition. I think this might also be the first fugue where I actually retain the countersubject I first introduced – at least for some time – whereas I usually forget to reuse the countersubject alongside the fugal subject statements (as is typical of a traditional fugue). I never was good at invertible counterpoint, so perhaps that was the reason.

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     Nevertheless, here are both versions of this fugue, first for brass quartet and then string quartet.