Filling In the Counterpoint

Calling the 2nd movement, starting in measure 20, fugal is a bit of a stretch. There is no consistent countersubject. This two bar phrase (below) serves as a substitute, appearing in different forms in the tenor, alto, and bass after their entrances, in bars 22 through 28.




The subsequent statements of the subject are also non-standard; the alto enters on the mediant rather than the dominant or sub-dominant, for example. The first episode (bars 24-25) does not, as is common in a fugue, modulate to another key, but leads to the bass entrance using the inverted subject.

The second episode (bars 30-31) follows the second alto statement of the subject and does modulate to the dominant (C major), where the tenors take the subject and extend the eighth-note run with the altos harmonizing a third above and modulating to G major.




A longer episode of four bars (36-39) leads back to C major and an entrance by the altos. The sopranos follow their statement of the subject with a new counter subject in bar 36 that is taken up by the basses in bar 38, slightly altered. The altos take the dotted-quarter eighth rhythm of the first counter subject and use it in bars 36 and 38.



The alto entrance in bar 40 is followed by the quarter note counter subject, again altered and also extended. Having modulated back to G major, the tenors state the subject in bar 42 with no counter subject.



The stretto section starts with the altos and contains no counterpoint beyond the overlapping of the subject statements. The final statement of the subject is done by all voices.



I’m not yet convinced that the counterpoint is the best setting for this segment of text. The text isn’t meditative in nature, but those that hold the viewpoint expressed tend to lean towards a meditative life, so the counterpoint could be said to illustrate them rather than the text itself. Following that line of construction, the next section should be dance-like, and not counterpoint.

The 2nd movement so far:

A Fugue

The first movement ended too abruptly. There were only three bars after the narrator finishes (including the measure where the narrator sings only on the first beat); typically, though not always, in traditional Western tonal music four bars would follow. I extended it to five by inserting a bar (measure 31) and drawing out the last bar. The inner strings (violin 2 and viola) were also altered to rise to the end, which could suggest the Puritan looking or striving towards heaven.



Back to the second movement, my initial attempt for the vocal entrances was compact but muddy, especially considering the violin line that precedes it.



That was changed to a progressive building from the bass to the soprano. The bass and tenor enter on a half note while the alto and soprano compress it to a quarter. In addition, the alto entrance is anticipated by the tenors singing “there” on beat 3 (bar 12) and the soprano entrance is doubly anticipated by the tenors (beat 2) and altos (beat 3) in bar 14. The net effect is a building momentum through all of the entrances and a better fit with the introductory violin line.



The rest of the phrase, “who hated the dance”, gets a chordal treatment with accented emphasis on “hated” by the strings.



There follows a fugue. At this point, I have the fugue subject appearances laid out but only bare harmonic structure in the other voices (and no strings). This allows me to see the overall form and get that reasonable set before filling in the details. It begins with the tenors, then on to the altos and sopranos, the last two compressing the opening note of the subject from a half note to an eighth to give it some momentum. The tenors sing the subject on the tonic (F), the altos climb a third to A, and the sopranos progress to the dominant (C).



After a two-bar episode, the basses initiate a series of inversions of the subject. The first two (alto follows bass) are on the tonic, but the third (tenors) modulates to C and the four (sopranos) moves on to G major. The first note of the subject in each occurrence is extended from an eighth to a quarter note. The first note of the subject, when next it is heard, will extend back to the original half-note, which will probably need to be balanced by episodic rhythm to keep the momentum going. 2-bar episodes separate the subject statements and help establish the modulations.



After a longer episode, the altos and tenors begin tossing the subject back and forth, the altos in C major and the tenors in G major.



The altos take the subject again and the tenors follow with a stretto section, interrupted momentarily by the basses and finally extended to the sopranos. Harmonically, the section passes quickly through A minor and F minor, then settles in C major as the dominant prior to returning to F when the subject passes to the sopranos in bar 50.



In bar 51, all four voices sing out the subject to bring the fugue to a close; it is followed by a chordal section (in the home key of B-flat) on the words “those who hated the dance.” It is similar to the chordal section before the fugue, but the strings add an additional punch after the choir sings “hated”.



The video below starts at the very beginning.

“There Loved Him All of Those” Gets a Start

Below is the basic rhythm of the second number, “There loved him all of those”. As before the pitches have no meaning at this point.






In the first phrase, “loved” needed some more emphasis to counter “hated”, and “those” was much too long. This version placed more weight on “hated” and “dance”, but also slows the rhythm down as the phrase progresses.



Further revision places the four principle words of the phrase, “loved”, “those”, “hated”, and “dance” on the downbeat of each bar and has a bit more rhythmic variety.



Applying the same method to the second phrase, whose four principle words are “those’, “loved”, “dance”, and “respected” yields a five-bar phrase without much rhythmic interest and which conflicts a bit with the text; these are, after all, the folks that like dancing.



Adding some syncopation resulted in a drawn-out and undanceable mess.



I’m in a coffee shop right now; the background music is a folk-dance tune, possibly Greek, wich gives me an idea: change the meter to 5/8 with a simple dotted-quarter – quarter rhythm.



I wrote this setting of the third and fourth phrases a couple of weeks ago and for now I’ll keep it. Doing so means taking the first two phrases and extending them for several more measures so that this chorale acts as a summarizing coda; I’ll do that later.



Back to the first phrase, it’s time to add pitch:



To transition from the first section I added a couple of bars after “his was a zealous life”, bringing it to a full plagal close.



And to start the second section, an introduction based on the opening figure of the vocal part:



The tale so far, from the top:

Some More Cleaning

The opening chorale (bars 1-3) had a weak harmonic progression, namely I-V-I-vi-iii-v. Changing the last two chords to I7-IV gives it a better direction and an appropriate plagal cadence.



Bars 4-7, the instrumental interlude, also were scrutinized. The voice leading in the viola part was cleaned up a bit and the harmony in bars 6 and 7 were clarified to a more definite cadence.



The strings in bars 8-10 also lacked direction. Keeping them all below the soprano line led to excessive parallel fifths and octaves so the first violin moved up to join the narrator mostly (some rhythmic exceptions). The Puritan gets the plagal treatment in bar 9.

Orchestration and Tweaking

I corrected a discordance in bar 5, where the cello plays a run of sixteenths starting on F against a run starting on G in the violin. My ears aren’t would they should be, I fear. The corrected measure is:



Another fix, a transposition error, was in bar 20. The narrator should sing an E-flat on the last beat, not an F.



The rather rough string passage in bars 20-23 has been cleaned up a bit. I left out the 1st violin to get a dark, somber sound.



The last bit of the opening number as scored for strings:



The first violin reaches for the heavens as the Puritan labors hard, then the cello descends back down to earth for the grave, zealous life.

Here are the first 32 bars:

Orchestration

I added a cello line to the introduction, contemplating two possibilities. The first has quarter notes to contrast with the choral half notes. Two difficulties with it are the break in stepwise upward motion in measure two and the discordance in beat three of the second measure. The second and third beats could be considered changing tones, but beat three is a bit too strong to be part of that. Altering beat three to an F minor or A-flat chord would muck up the voice leading for the soprano and the introductory chord progression would no longer be the same as the keys of the first six numbers. Changing the third beat from an A-flat to a D (repeating second beat) would be one way to resolve the problem. The quarter notes in the cello do add some impetus to the introduction.



The second possibility is half notes in the cello, which means it does not stand out at all until the quarters in the third bar as the choir finishes. The upward impetus of the first possibility is perhaps too subtle. The first possibility’s upward movement highlights the moral nature of the text.



So I’ll go with the first possibility:



Scored for a string quartet, the introduction and first number look like this so far(click the image to embiggen):



and sounds like this: