The greatest challenge is stating the problem in a way that will allow a solution.

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Glenn Gould talks about So You Want to Write a Fugue

Uploaded by on Jul 6, 2008

Glenn Gould watches, conducts, and discusses the CBC recording of his composition 'So You Want to Write a Fugue' (and fugue writing in general). With Bruno Monsaingeon.

The full video of So You Want to Write a Fugue can be found here:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1ain4qftoM Note that there are many subtle musical references in this piece -- for example, after the "just ignore the rules and try" line, the bass and tenor blatantly do just that by singing in parallel fifths, and after the line "John Sebastian must have been a very personable guy" (and before the "never be clever for the sake of being clever" verse) the string quartet cleverly plays a brief quodlibet of JS Bach melodies.