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June 6, 2022 By Aron Bernstein 6 Comments

Weekly Music Challenge: 6/6/22

Test your theory chops with my weekly challenge! You’ll find a new question here every Monday. Please comment to post your reply.

This Week’s Challenge:

This is the beginning of Contrapunctus V from J.S. Bach’s Die Kunst der Fugue (The Art of Fugue). As opposed to a more conventional fugue, this one has an unusual answer…why?

Contrapunctus V, Die Kunst der Fugue by Johann Sebastian Bach
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Post your reply and come back Friday, June 10th for the answer!

ANSWER for 6/6/22

While a typical fugal answer is more or less a literal restatement of the subject, this answer is the inversion of the subject. It also remains in the tonic key, a further departure from conventional practice; fugal answers usually bring the music into the key of the dominant. It isn’t until later in this fugue that Bach employs a more typical answer–a tonal answer in the key of v….but still inverted!

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Filed Under: music theory challenge Tagged With: bach, breakingbarlines, classicalmusic, counterpoint, fugue, music, musiclessons, musictheory, musicvideo, popmusic

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Comments

  1. Steve Cohen says

    June 6, 2022 at 10:55 am

    The answer is a mirror image of the subject.

    Reply
    • Mike Hudson says

      June 7, 2022 at 8:52 pm

      The answer is the subject backwards.

      Reply
      • Aron Bernstein says

        June 8, 2022 at 8:31 am

        Hi Mike, retrograde is certainly something that J.S. Bach would do (and certainly did). But in this case, the answer isn’t backward, but a closely related device 🙂

        Reply
    • Aron Bernstein says

      June 8, 2022 at 8:33 am

      I love a good inversion!

      Reply
  2. Paul K says

    June 7, 2022 at 7:09 pm

    Inversion

    Reply
    • Aron Bernstein says

      June 8, 2022 at 8:33 am

      Right you are! It’s Stranger Things, and Bach takes us into the “upside–down!”

      Reply

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