Music and Texts of GARY BACHLUND
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Prelude and Fugue in B major - (2010)
for organ
The lesson from the Baroque era forward has been one of making contrapuntal lines, even when highly dissonant, consonant by reason of their inherent and independent musical logic. For this, seconds appear throughout the prelude as the tenor and bass lines in measure one illustrate -- B against C sharp and E against D sharp. Measure two follows in like manner. The melodic shapes and contours obscure the dissonance into a linear sense which deems them thereby consonant. At measure six the tenor and bass lines switch places, each cadencing in the tonic at different beats.
The fugue subject and accompanying countersubject take the rising diatonic steps and half steps as their framework. The second statement is in the dominant, the pedal adding its longer-lined comment. A quixotic stretto allows the head motive of the fugue subject in three voices at the interval of a measure.
5 pages, circa 3' 30" - an MP3 demo is here:
The score is available as a free PDF download, though any major commercial performance or recording of the work is prohibited without prior arrangement with the composer. Click on the graphic below for this organ score.
