Music and Texts of GARY BACHLUND
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Prelude and Fugue on E - (2012)
for organ
The prelude opens in the minor, and slips quickly through a number of related harmonic domains by repetition of the opening gesture. Moving farther afield, a homophonic texture touches on many more distant tonal regions, leading to the dominant and a return of the opening theme. Additional episodes lengthen the work and bring it back to the tonic major in happy contrast to the oft-restated tonic minor.
The fugue subject's opening gesture outlines the E major triad, as it alters with the bottom note dropping by half steps against an accompagnato background. The first answer comes in the dominant, and thereafter the subject's shape also contributes to the episodes with their light harmonic twists. A lengthy last episode pits the subject against itself in stretto at more distant relationships before a final restatement and cadence which ends quietly in a light-hearted manner.
7 pages, circa 5' 20" - 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.
