Bach in Leipzig is currently playing in Glencoe at Writer's Theater. It's a clever production of a clever riff on the western classical music form known as a fugue. I plan to prose on here about the how the form dictates the content (browse ahead if you are a musician, or better yet, pick a fight on whether I have my facts correct)--more facts coming to a blog near you. 6 players represent each voice part (in music this can be actual singing voices, but it is more often a sort of 'character' in musical terms in keyboard realisation. Ah ha, Bach's the only dude recognized for being able to use 6 vox in counterpoint, damn he was good. And he's the never seen character who will get the job without actually auditioning (we know this from the title - I'm not spoiling anything here).
This bit of goofball writing is a critical work in progress, so commentators, here's where I could use some input from you. Any thoughts on pictoral representation of subject, counter subject, new versions of these, some additional fun facts on fugue devices? I will try for a textual representation as well.
So to continue, there are six characters, subject (Johann I, he will reappear as Johann II and Johann III, different characters within the play who represent the subject i, subject ii and subject iii) and then there's counter subject (Georg - same deal as subject).
I also will try to make a case for a magical device (Telemann who never actually speaks - waste of Mr. Lindner, but he strode across the stage masterfully - I hope he got paid full rate). This is a rather modern approach with terms that are not consistent with baroque styles, but I'll try to get some comment in on that too (ok, I have to do some more research).
These dudes present themselves in various forms: tonic, dominant, inversions, reminders of other devices in fugue form. In music you hear what today we would call a theme or (pop music) a melody repeated in various ways. Theatrically this means that a device like, "I will try to extort funds from the next character to enter stage left" hands action from one character to the next, moves the plot along and finally wraps it up.
All very diverting, but if you realize what's afoot early on, the show is a bit dull, or at least smirky. Was it the production? A lot of wink, wink, nod, nod. It was a Sunday matinee, the audience was justifiably proud for getting the format and the jokes. We were patting our tummies and commenting on the delicious fare. I felt like this was a good 3 stooges with each stooge assigned to 2 parts. They even looked a bit alike because of the gorgeous but not quite authentic costumes. Great detail on the set (how did they paint all that faux marble in time), but again, detail overtook the larger whole.
Ok, enough cattiness, this feeds into a larger discussion that is emerging for me about subtlety v. being ambushed. With such a new show and such a complex structure, some broad hints and a winking is perhaps not altogether overbearing. How rich is too rich?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
There are lots of goodies in this post. The problems for me is where to start--with form or with fugue. Think I will start with the notion of fugue, sort of groundwork for other things.
The word fugue as you suggest is typically associated with musical composition where one or more musical themes [motifs?] are introduced and then repeated in an ever complex pattern. This basic description/principle makes me think of those "rounds" we used to sing as kids. Although the pattern was not complex, one sees the principle at work as the old "Three Blind Mice" sing their hearts out. First one mouse would start, and then another, and another, using melody and repetitions over and over again until all the mice had their say--joining their voices at the end in a common sort of chorus. I say good for the mice, trying to catch their little fugue by the tail. Of course, they didn't quite make it. A little on the "small and skimpy and simple" side. And their tails/tales were obviously too short. But round and round they'd go.
To pursue this fugue business so that it has wider implications/applications than just baroque music, I propose that one think of the fugue idea, not just in terms of classical music, but in terms of other artistic disciplines as well. A fugue in this larger context, then, expands the word so that it becomes not just a pattern specific to one kind of music or aesthetic discipline, but more generally a way of doing things [an artistic method], offering a set of operations moving quickly and densely within a specific kind of chosen frame, all done with specified ends in mind. Here counterpoint is part of the method. In a sense the fugue has now become "universalized," thereby generating in wide-ranging contexts all sorts of connections and correlations and applications. So perhaps we need a new word for all of this--say, "fugalling!" Of course, this expansion of the word may give some musical classicists heartburn, even heart failure. Not only has the word been stolen, but its been expanded to the point of abuse. Counter point now lies splattered all over the arts. "Fugalling?" Well, my suggestion is to give all the hurting musicologists a nice little fan, have them sit up and just circulate some fresh and lovely air. Fans and fugues do go together.
The immediate example that comes to mind regarding this broadening process is jazz. By using various instruments and musical elements along with the process of improvisation, one can generate a baroque feel--even a fugue effect, especially when the music is done by great jazz players. The same is true for some modern dance groups. Not only do some use music of the baroque [including the fugue] as grounding for their choreography, they effectively translate this music into the "grammar" of dance movement, sometimes with startling results. The same goes for the use of modern/contemporary music which offers its own version of fugal choreographic effects. Again, the goal is not a strict imitation of a baroque musical pattern, but a correlation and interpretation of it. One assumes that this correlation approach is what went on at Writers' Theater, only this time the medium was playwriting and theater production. But now we have the stuff of a "potential" mess, given the complexity of all the elements involved. To pull off a dramatic fugue in the theater one surely needs a firm/steady hand plus very clear vision all round.
Given the preceding assumptions/explorations, some questions immediately spring to mind.
1.In the case of baroque music, the fugue is called a form. But what's in the label? What does the phenomenon called "form" actually mean? In practice, doesn't one get closer to the heart of the fugue and thence closer to understanding form by thinking in terms of methods operating within a set of guidelines? If the fugue is looked upon in this light, then correlating and applying the operations of the fugue to a variety of arts becomes easier. One is less dependent on the baroque musical prototype. Moreover, this approach seems a good location and/or starting point for analysis and criticism, especially of those artworks that seem to be aspiring to a baroque effect [critiquing such effectiveness is another post!].
2. This leads into the question at the end of Gillian's post: "How rich is too rich?" One answer could be when the method/form calls attention to itself rather than to the material [the larger ideas] it is supposed to serve. Sometimes in a given work there seems too much activity present [almost activity and density for its own sake], thereby suggesting possible medium ignorance, or a corollary problem of too little discipline coupled with lack of focus so that details pile up, leaving relationships among these details clouded and unclear. The work is just overloaded, and so one feels "ambushed." This means that the method/the form is just not working as it "should." It does not live up to its own potential. And the artistry is therefore compromised. Who, then, is responsible? Who or what is at fault? Composer/writer? Interpreter/actor/director? Concept or execution? Both? All of the above?
3. Given the preceding, is form then a summary concept--the coalescence of all the key elements in a work of art so that what is generated is a sense of the whole--a fugue being one model or mode of a whole?
4. Final question. Is a fugue/form ever an end in itself? It's own kind of isolated pleasure? Perhaps, in the art for art's sake school. In Bach's case, however,--most unlikely.
O.K. Now it is someone's job to trash this post. Thanks in advance for trashing. Or maybe threshing?
Post a Comment