Klarinet Archive - Posting 000104.txt from 2006/09

From: Bear Woodson <bearwoodson@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] hello again
Date: Sun, 10 Sep 2006 23:30:43 -0400

Hello, Everyone.

I've done little or nothing about all the Instrument
List E-Mails for over a year, which is why I now
have nearly 5,000 of them on my computer. Since
I'm finally reading and storing some recent Klarinet
Digests, I might as well say 'hello'.

In the last 6 months I have been working on a
huge First Symphony, which I hope will be over an
hour long, when all 4 movements are done. The
First Movement is done at 29 minutes, and contains
2 examples of one of my Newly Invented Fugues:
the "QDS Fugue".

Since the Renaissance it has been possible to write
melodies in Four Directions: Original, in Inversion
(Upside-Down), in Retrograde (Backwards) and in
Retrograde-Inversion (both Backwards and Upside-
Down at the same time).

The Renaissance Master Johannes Ockeghem (ca.
1410-1497) was famous for writing "Cancrizans
Canons" or "Retrograde Canons" by "strettoing"
("straddling" or "overlapping") an Original melody
with its own Retrograde at the same time.

Bach and Mozart wrote a few "Inversion Canons"
by overlapping the Original with itself written Upside-
Down.

But NO ONE could overlap ALL FOUR
DIRECTIONS of a melody at the SAME TIME in
Functional (Tonal or Modal) Harmony, until I did it
in 2003. I call it the "QDS Fugue" or the "Quadruple
Directional Stretto Fugue". It was my Ninth Category
of Newly Invented Fugue, and have done it 8 times
in various works, with 2 at the end of the First Move-
ment of my First Symphony. I am also making it to
be somewhat of a Concerto for Orchestra, so there
are already a few good solos for each of the 2 Bb
Soprano Clarinets and the Bb Bass Clarinet.

I had to suspend work in the middle of the Fast
Second Movement, because I'm trying to do a feat
of Counterpoint that's difficult, even for me. In the
process I've invented my TENTH Category of
Fugue just last month, with the possibility of more
on the horizon.

I gotta get back to the Happy Farm. I hope all of
you are happy and well.

Bear Woodson
Composer in Tucson, Arizona, USA

(Fact: In Medicine a "Fugue" is a type of short-
circuited brain seizure, brought on by stress. In
Music a "Fugue" is a complicated contrapuntal
work, that interlocks melodies, according to
complicated rules.)

"If you work too long at writing a Musical
Fugue, you can end up having a Medical
Fugue!" - Bear Woodson (1990)

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