Fugue 5/8 is in the books. (No, it's not in 5/8 time which, come now to think about it, is a little disappointing.)
But of course, the seed was planted. As it happens, I'd encountered and recorded an unusual fugue in 5/8 time a couple of years ago. That had come about due to a strange confluence of puns as well, feeding off the connection of "May the 4th be with you" with the date 5/4. Memes about Dave Brubeck and his 5/4 "Take Five" had led me to make other memes about other music in quintuple meter, and this somehow led to friends letting me know about Anton Reicha's unusual little fugue. I mention all of this because thinking about a fugue in 5/8 time immediately seemed liked a realizable and desirable goal. So this fugue is connected in various ways to Star Wars, Dave Brubeck, Anton Reicha, and the use of fractions.
I'd already settled on using the classic Welsh hymn tune HYFRYDOL as my subject this week. I was walking along absent-mindedly on Monday, and it occurred to me that I could easily fashion a 5/8 fugue subject by condensing some rhythms in the tune, which otherwise might've been suitable for a nice jig fugue. It's worth noting as well that, whereas most of the fugues I've written so far this year have been conceived as preludes, this one was scheduled as postlude, so it needed to be lively.
I was so motivated by this idea that, unlike in previous weeks when I did most of my work on Friday/Saturday, I actually had this one mostly finished by Wednesday. I think it came out pretty well as a kind of experiment in asymmetrical perpetual motion - and having it done early was good since this required a bit more practice. The fugue subject, because of the condensed rhythm, is admittedly not the most distinctive, though the countersubject (which is a continuation of notes from the original hymn tune) has a dotted quarter which helps establish the 5/8 groove. It would probably be more accurate to say that the subject is four bars, including that dotted eighth, but the answer comes in halfway through the subject, another factor which gives this piece a sense of forward momentum.
I tried to stretch the whole fugue out to two minutes, but losing that extra 8th note every measure really keeps things moving!
This is my second 2022 fugue with a subject that is all 8th notes. In the first case, using the Gregorian chant Ubi caritas, I was intentional about not having a clear metrical feel so that the music would flow more like chant. In this quite opposite case, I found it important to establish a clear 5/8 pattern early on (partially using that rhythm which starts the countersubject) since here I wanted the meter to be quite apparent.
I was also intentional this time about writing music which works as well on organ as piano and which broke out of the slow/contemplative lane I'd fallen into for most of the previous fugues in this series. Although I don't have the pedal technique to play the bass clef voice without a LOT of practice, this quick before-church run-through on manuals give a sense of how it works that way. (It would also sound pretty snazzy on harpsichord!)
Live Organ
Synth Harpsichord
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