other "academic exercise" compositions like "Die Kunst der Fuge"?
  • Geremia
    Posts: 269
    Bach's Die Kunst der Fuge (The Art of the Fugue) was solely an academic exercise. Are there other compositions out there that could be described as "academic exercises"?
  • francis
    Posts: 10,828
    academic maybe, but it is one of the finest compositions of all time.
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  • ClergetKubiszClergetKubisz
    Posts: 1,912
    Bach's Orgel Buchlein that he wrote for his children. Also, The Well Tempered Clavier comes to mind.
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  • JonLaird
    Posts: 245
    Monteverdi's famous Vespers of the BVM is thought to have been composed as a sort of resume project, hence the variety of genres, textures, and compositional techniques empolyed.
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  • Britten's Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra - although I suppose that's more to teach the listener than the performer . . .
  • MarkS
    Posts: 282
    Rather than "academic exercises" I would propose the term "didactic" —that is, pieces written to demonstrate (or 'teach') particular elements of composition; certainly all the above mentioned works rise above the mere "academic exercise." (The phrase makes me think of music school, where we dutifully harmonized chorale melodies, and did our species counterpoint exercises etc... We were certainly not composing masterworks!)

    Bach's Orgelbuchlein was written fairly early in hs career (mostly at Weimar) and so he may not yet have had his sons in mind. The title page reads (in translation):

    Little Organ Book
    In which a beginning organist receives given instruction as to performing a chorale in a multitude of ways while achieving mastery in the study of the pedal, since in the chorales contained herein the pedal is treated entirely obbligato.

    In honour of our Lord alone
    That my fellow man his skill may hone.


    I love that!

    I would also add Hindemith's Ludas Tonalis to the list, and Bartok's volumes of "Mikrokosmos."
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  • Jeffrey Quick
    Posts: 2,088
    "Didactic" isn't quite the word we want re Kunst der Fuge. Maybe "Pieces showing off a compositional technique" Most of the Renaissance bicinia are didactic in purpose.

    Costanza Festa's counterpoints on La Spagna fit.
    Another case, more performer-oriented perhaps, is "Christ's Cross" from Morley's Plain and Easy Introduction, which shows off pretty much any odd mensuration possible in the notation of its time.
    We could include the 40-voice works of Tallis and Striggio here as well.
  • BruceL
    Posts: 1,072
    Frescobaldi's Fiori Musicali (esp. the toccata [?] with the sung part!) would fall into this category, I think.
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  • MarkS
    Posts: 282

    "Didactic" isn't quite the word we want re Kunst der Fuge


    From Merriam Webster:

    didactic:
    1
    a : designed or intended to teach
    b : intended to convey instruction and information as well as pleasure and entertainment


    The Art of Fugue is nothing if not an encyclopedic demonstration of the various ways of treating a subject fugally. Didactic can also be beautiful/profound! Although I'm open to another term.
  • There are those who are wont to consign the admirably didactic, the gorgeous academic exercise, the exemplars of astonishing musical craftsmanship and aesthetic worth to what are, to their pitifully clouded minds, categories of 'art music', ivory towered elitism, appeal to but a select few, and so on.

    'Art music' is, perhaps, the most ubiquitous current signifer for what certain chic types like to clobber as having no value except as 'art', meaning, of course, that, as 'art', it is of no value to those people who are considered by them to be 'real' people (as opposed to you and me, who, presumably, are not 'real'). They are astonishingly callous, indeed, it would seem, utterly senseless, to the real value of 'the artful' in the lives of the very people whom they think have no use for it. Theirs is the world of leaden utilitarianism, intellectual vacuity, and the rape of the emotions. The spirit in which these denizens refer to 'art music' (or, even worse, 'western art music') is not a complimentary one. It is fundamentally pejorative. Avoid the term, and give no quarter to those who like, with a certain silly air of authority, to bandy it about.

    All music of any worth is 'artful', is 'art', is didactic, is an academic exercise. That which isn't is that which is, actually, worthless to the human person and his and her spiritual, mental, and emotional development and maturity. If it does not achieve that artfulness which is the mark of fine and deliberate craftsmanship, it is void of value to the human soul and poison to its intellect. If it does not teach (didactic), it, then, has nothing to say and is pointless utterly.

    Most of the examples given in the comments above reveal astute judgment. I especially like the mention of the Fiori Musicali, the mentioned works of Tallis, and such. One might add the Couperin masses, and much of de Grigny's work. These are the flower of a French baroque tradition which had really sunk to academic lows. (One might even go so far as to suggest that Couperin's Messe pour les paroisses is the French Clavier-Ubung III - or, vice versa.) Mention should be made of the incredibly luscious contrapuntal skill revealed in Titelouze's hymns. Oh, and allow me to nominate certain examples of the pre-XVIIIth century English voluntary and fantasia (pronounced 'fan-ta-see-ah'), of which 'fancy' is an abbreviation, admirable in their contrapuntal intricacies.There is really no end. The compelling thing, of course, about Bach's Kunst, is that it may be the last of that genre of 'academic exercises', a genre with roots back into the late mediaeval era, which consciously set out exhaustively to treat of specific musical challenges. But then, Beethoven's Diabelli falls most surely into this category.

    Whatever our choices may be, it is a certainty that music is not really music unless it is an 'academic exercise', unless it teaches, unless it rises to genuine artistry and aesthetic worth, unless it is, in a word, kunstlichen. All these should be requirements for any music that is offered to the Lord in his worship, on behalf of his wonderfully chosen people, who should expect to be aedified by what they hear in his very own house. And, let it be stressed that the music at liturgy is, like incense and other 'works of human hands', an offering to God of a thing of great worth (that 'treasure', in the recent council's words, 'greater than any other') which he has bestowed upon us.

    Never 'sell' people short! Just yesterday I played for an opening voluntary at St Basil's Chapel, UST, the long, three-sectioned, G-Major canzona by Buxtehude. The silence was pregnant with the weighty air of appreciativeness. And, I played the middle section on nothing more than one quiet eight-foot flute. The acoustic is quite live, and one heard naught but the intense stillness of attentive awe and respect. This was an exercise in a genuinely didactic musical form and spiritual apprehension - one might say 'a spiritual music lesson', such as puts the music in its proper place of being a close, very close, cousin of the didactic mass lectionary. Indeed, all of us know how that Bach's music is often said to be the 'fifth gospel'. The same may be said of all music that is of academic (and, therefore, human) worth, for it most assuredly is a gift of God for the spiritual formation of the human being.

    Then (and this will certainly be controversial), there are those musics which each of us have little regard for and wonder why the composer bothered to write. In this category, for me (and I can hear already the howls of dissent) would be the likes of Sheherezade or Bolero. (I wonder, too, at the master Messiaen's love affair with the likes of the onde Martinot!)

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  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,982
    Fugues are interesting from a construction standpoint. It is sheer genius at work as to how some are put together. Listening to them is highly individualistic. I find that folks either love them or hate them. I like them, but can tire of them after a long enough exposure. I wouldn't attend a recital with nothing else on the program, but recital extremes don't have to include fugues. Other music often gets run into the ground, too.

    FWIW, I can't listen to Bolero either. Chinese water torture would be easier to endure. LOL.
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  • @M. Jackson Osborn: a beautifully articulated response, as always! I believe Ravel regretted writing Bolero...The piece is cursed I swear. Every performance I'm sadly forced to play of it has some kind of disastrous meltdown about halfway through-usually the trombone or bassoon solos. The last one was just this past spring, and the trombone entrance was so bad my eyes were burning from trying to hold back laughter.
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  • SalieriSalieri
    Posts: 3,177
    Another vote for Fiori Musicali.

    Also, would Musikalisches Opfer count as well, along with Kunst die Fuge, except exploring mainly Canonic rather than Fugal technique?

    And, based on the old legend, one could add Palestrina's Missa Papae Marcelli: "Guys, here's how you write exquisite polyphony without obscuring the text!"

    As far as le Maitre and the ondes Martinot, one never knows what new instruments will catch on, and which ones won't, he took a gamble. I'm sure there were some composers wondering what the future would be for that dreadful fortepiano thing. (BTW, that G Major Canzona is a gem, I love playing it.)
  • Chaswjd
    Posts: 269
    I would vote for Ockeghem's Missa Prolationum and his Missa Cuiusvis Toni.
  • JonathanKKJonathanKK
    Posts: 542
    This G Major Canzona - is it on IMSLP?
  • An obscure source once told me that di Lassus's Bicinia was used as a pedagogical tool for his voice students.
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  • MarkS
    Posts: 282
    I believe Mr. Osborn is referring to BuxWV 170, which is not currently available on IMSLP.
  • Torculus
    Posts: 44
    The last one was just this past spring, and the trombone entrance was so bad my eyes were burning from trying to hold back laughter.


    It takes a trombone player to appreciate how hard that solo is to play. After a gazillion measures rest you have to come in on a high Bb in one of the most exposed passages in all the literature. It takes a very accomplished trombonist to be able to pull that off consistently (although I suppose having to sit through the first three movements of Beethoven's Fifth and then come in on a high C would be worse, but that entrance is not nearly as exposed and Beethoven had an alto trombone in mind when he wrote it). There's a reason it (Bolero solo) is often included in audition repertoire. Any ensemble with a less than professional caliber trombonist programs that piece at their peril!

    I find performances of that solo more satisfying (if Bolero can ever be satisfying) when the trombone soloist leaves out the glissandi and just plays legato. It seems as if French composers of that period had to prove they knew what a trombone was by writing in glissandi where they made no musical sense, just to prove they knew which glissandi were possible and which were not. (I have heard that Ravel wrote this as an orchestration exercise, so from that point of view, it might make sense to write the glissandi in, but I would prefer they be left out in performance.)
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  • Liam
    Posts: 5,094
    Great comment. Musicians often lack the ability to read a score to map out There Be Dragons passages for divers instruments they don't know how to play. (For horns, it can be almost anywhere - by reputation, it's the horn section that produces the most number of errors in orchestral recording sessions. Why - well, among many things, it's the cunningly evil little mouthpiece, very unlike those of other brass instruments. When I was in middle school and had to play a cornet for marching band, the cornet mouthpiece was a revelation of Oh That's Why They Rarely Miss A Note!! I felt like I had moved from doing gymnastics in a tiny interrogation room to a proper gymnasium. But I digress.)

    Yet, musicians with finely honed skills of musicianship - or who are born with the talent - know how to deal artfully with Failure. (And here I get to repeat something I've shared once before here, about a concert in the 1970s by noted Australian hornist Barry Tuckwell that my horn teacher shared with me: Tuckwell flubbed a very exposed held high note - he paused, pointed his finger up into the air - and the four hornists in the orchestra hit it for him. *That's* musicianship. It was contrasted by the behavior at different concert of a Continental horn player who flubbed a high note and, after the concert, hurled his Alexander down the stairs to the sub-stage area.)
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  • SalieriSalieri
    Posts: 3,177
    As an aside, related to Liam's comment about Tuckwell, I wonder if the abilities of (especially young) musicians, and even audience members, to deal with errors appropriately in live performance have diminished in the age of recordings?
  • francis
    Posts: 10,828
    btw... Bachs Musical Offering is also right up there under his Art of Fugue

    Actually this may arguably be the most beautiful fugue on the face of the earth

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5MknvHSNZ8s

    a stunning recording:

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OSm9LEYixvA

    then again, THIS!

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?list=PLfdMKJMGPPtzjkrNvo_mige4TIjnZ4cAf&v=JbM3VTIvOBk
  • @Torculus and Liam: The trombonists in that particular orchestra are of the kind who show up loaded to rehearsals (if they show up at all), and the bassoonist is in his 80s now. Fun.Times. :-D
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  • jefe
    Posts: 200
    After playing bass and contrabass trombone on 22,000 services with the LAPhil (1968-2006), I have a slightly different perspective on the Bolero trombone solo than FideminFidebus. See part of my part below: I was in the section on maybe 75 performances of 'Blaro' and only heard a couple that were not great. This is with 4 different principal players, all with completely different solo styles; some gliss-happy slurpers, and some neat and tidy purists. Secondly, one of those principal players, a Bach lover named Ralph Sauer, took it upon himself to transcribe the entire Art of the Fugue for brass quintet. Asked why, he said, "It's an educational experience, not unlike R. Wagner hand copying all the Beethoven Symphonies to find out how he did it". For me, it is not unlike copying and engraving 45 or Peter Hallock's Genius Psalm settings. I wanted to know how he did it. It WAS an educational experience. jefe
    untitled 2 - Full Score.pdf
    9K
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  • ...hand copying...

    I have done this a few times. It is an incredibly time consuming, but a wondrously intense and astonishingly fruitful way of learning a piece, be it an organ, choral, piano, or any kind of work. There is no practice method or study regimen by which the mind absorbs the content and method of a composition as organically as it does with such copying.. I have even had students hand copy passages that gave them particular trouble, and was gifted with praiseworthy results. When doing this one actually becomes a vicarious composer of the very music that he is copying.

    This is what 'they' did before they had affordable printing sources, copiers, and fingertip computers - all of which have resulted in relatively lazy minds which learn relatively less of substance.
    Thanked by 2Torculus jefe
  • jefe
    Posts: 200
    Osborn, if you make it a habit, especially if you are music software literate, the pace picks up over time. In my early days I was a music copyist (for money) and used a clumsy special music pen, usually on Ozalid reproduction paper or velum. Now that was time consuming. But the pace picks up. In my days as the director of the Moravian Trombone Choir, I had to arrange or compose most of the music as there was so little for the full Konsort of Posaunen, namely Eb sopranino, Bb soprano, alto (F, Eb and alto clef), tenor, bass, and KontrabaB. This was all done in pencil as the most expedient way. I was out of that biz by the time music software was available. In addition, i believe hand copying music is a good way to better your sight reading and conducting skills. It's the tactile learning. jefe
  • jefe
    Posts: 200
    Salieri, my experience hears that the newer generations of brass players have raised the bar. Experience also shows that there are still the same number of musicians at the highest level. The next tier down musician group is just larger.