Contestants were asked to create a piece around the theme of Fireworks. 11 members signed up and the contest begins NOW! Deadline to vote is July 31st at 5 pm EST. Thanks to all who signed up and good luck! Members may vote here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/5JL2WSF
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As we are not living in the baroque period I would prefer Ondib's definition too. We could call it "Polyphonic Contest".
HS, I like the intent of this as you expressed it.
I would also be a maybe if it didn't start 'til fall. RS
- I think Ondib's suggestion is worth consideration also.
Paul, It's about time you got up, where have ya been? lol
Paul Smith said:
OK...once it has been decided exactly what's wanted I would be game to try anything fugal.
While I agree that we no longer live in the Baroque era, and therefore most of us don't normally write in Baroque style, the point of this exercise (as I see it) is to challenge us to write something that's outside of our usual style, and difficult to write due to its strict requirements.
Having said that, though, I concede that some of us may not feel up to writing completely in accordance to strict fugue style, and even those of us who take up that challenge may not fully succeed (e.g., we may fail on some technicality that, according to a strict interpretation of "fugue", would disqualify our entry). One idea I have regarding this, is to have a "fugue meter" (or "fugality measure"? ;-)) as part of the voting process, whereby voters will rate each entry according to how closely they consider it to be an actual fugue, say on a scale of 0-10, 10 being completely conformant to every requirement of being a fugue, 0 being something that doesn't even resemble a fugue. This will allow some leeway in how contestants interpret the idea of "fugue", while at the same time provide a challenge to see how far up the scale they can get.
Writing a fugue in complete accordance to the the rules will make it quite impossible to write a contemporary piece of music. I'm not very interested in writing music in the style of a former era. How could we define such a contest to make it possible to write something contemporary?
One possibility is to use Ondib's suggestion for a "polyphonic contest", with a "fun" category (doesn't count toward final rating) that rates how closely the voter thinks your entry conforms to the rules of a fugue. So you can choose how closely or not you want to follow strict fugue style.
Hello Rudi.
Let me give you an example of a contemporary piece of music (and an exceptional one beautiful one at that) that happens to be a fughetta. It was written by a member of this forum, David Ostrowski, and is posted on his forum page: https://composersforum.ning.com/profile/DaveOstrowski Note that you have to be logged in to access his page.
It also happens to be one of my all-time favorite pieces of music, and one of the best rewards I've had from joining this forum.
Mariza
Rudi [Rudolf Schmitt] said:
@Mariza: Thinking again about my statement I have to correct me. It is surely possible to write a contemporary fugue. Will there be enough composers to join a "Fugue Contest"?
I had several listens to Dave Ostrowski's "Fughetta", and liked it. Thanks for the hint, Mariza!
I've written a polyphonic string quintet some time ago. Would something like that be a candidate for a "Polyphony Contest"?
https://soundcloud.com/rudolf-schmitt/rudolf-schmitt-fr-hling-spring
I counted at least about 6-7 composers interested in participating so far. There have probably been a few more since.
I think at this point it's pretty clear that we won't use the strict definition of fugue as criterion for entering the contest, since that would disqualify just about everything except replicas of Bach. Rather we should take the strict fugue as a kind of ideal the competition entries are modelled after, and it's up to the composer how closely / distantly he/she follows this model. Voters will get to rate each entry according to how close he thinks it attains to the fugue ideal. Other fun categories can probably also be included (any suggestions?).
The question now is, who will run this contest? I would like to but my work schedule is getting busier, and I have other commitments that take away a lot of my free time. Anybody else interested to pick this up?
Also, somebody has suggested to wait a month or two so that there's enough time in between contests, so that we don't get "contest fatigue". So perhaps contestants will start working on their entry in September, with a submission deadline sometime in early October? (It shouldn't get too much later than that, so that it doesn't conflict with Gav's semi-annual contests, of which the Winter contest is upcoming.)
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