So you want to write a fugue?

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Glenn Gould

So you want to write a fugue? is a satirical vocal piece for four voices and string quartet or piano accompaniment by the Canadian pianist Glenn Gould and was composed as the final piece for the television program The Anatomy of Fugue , which was broadcast on March 4, 1963 by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation .

context

The work is in the context of Gould's intensive preoccupation with the compositions of Johann Sebastian Bach , in particular with his late work The Art of Fugue , excerpts of which Gould recorded in 1962. The structure of the piece is based on a similar Bach fugue ; the text, meanwhile, is about creating a fugue (“ So you want to write a fugue?” ). Both the text and the music thematize and parody the handling of rules and composition techniques from the fugue genre, but also the relationship between intellectual work and artistic intuition in the creative process (“ Just forget the rules and write one ”). The decision to finally begin composing the fugue is only made with the final chord (“ We're going to write a fugue right now ”). The piece contains numerous quotations from various works by Bach - including the famous sequence of notes BACH and the Second Brandenburg Concerto - but also a quotation from the Meistersinger prelude by Richard Wagner, modified from a minor key .

expenditure

  • Glenn Gould: So You Want to Write a Fugue? New York: Schirmer, 1964.

Discography

  • The Glenn Gould Edition: Gould, Schostakowitsch, Poulenc , Scl (Sony BMG), 1997.
  • The Glenn Gould Silver Jubilee Album , Scl (Sony BMG), 1998.

literature

  • Glenn Gould: So you want to write a fugue? (In: From Bach to Boulez. Writings on Music I) . Piper, Munich 1986, ISBN 3-492-03008-4 , pp. 337-346 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The work may be performed with piano or string quartet accompaniment. Glenn Gould: So You Want to Write a Fugue? New York: Schirmer, 1964, p. 2.
  2. ↑ cf. Glenn Gould: So you want to write a fugue? (In: From Bach to Boulez. Writings on Music I) . Piper, Munich 1986, ISBN 3-492-03008-4 , pp. 338 .