Reflections

This fugue is worthy of Bach: it sounds like Bach. But it is Shostakovich. The intimacy, the delicacy, the sweetness, and simultaneously the might of this fugue calls from time past and to all time future. It is a wistful poem, a tribute, a new beginning, a declamation, a touchstone touched again. All words gently unwrap like dry husks that crumble and blow away on the whisper of this fugue.

The subject is, alone, a sweet song. The dominant (fifth) and the tonic (first) intone the beginning, the opening of Op. 87 in a traditional tonal universe. A subdominant warms the cool clarion call and the melody settles on the 3rd, radiant with charm.

Shostakovich speaks to Bach in a sacred language both understand.

As the answer moves from its traditional remote outpost on the fifth, its repetition inscribing the gold subject in the mind's heart, a countersubject descends, conjunct, a bit faster like running water. It falls twice, then undulates up and down and circles, like water, around two stones in the stream: a twice repeated motive that is the signature of the countersubject. The two stones are, in fact, the moments of rest in the subject, and as they stand, the watery countersubject flows around, creating patterns that will accompany the subject for the remainder of this journey toward the sea. The exposition of all four parts moves gracefully from bass to treble in an unbroken ascent, strongly enhanced by the upward leap at the beginning of the subject. It is grace elevated into exaltation, filling the whole environment with aural light, intricately decorated.

The texture unfolds exquisitely: the voices all rise and fall and flow, individually and yet together, a stately procession of voices that is the sine qua non of great fugues. There is very little episode is this fugue: at each and every point throughout its entire duration, you are hearing the subject and its faithful garland of counterpoint. The light shifts as the fugue moves into minor keys, a reflective melancholy that always seems to accompany music of a divine grace. The light returns again. The subject returns with the emphasis of stretto, the golden subject accelerating in time and density, the cross-patterns leaping in fifths across the whole pitch spectrum of the sonic universe, recalling the soft clarion call at the head of the subject's song. There are two pairs of stretto, together engaging all four parts. The fugue gently winds down, a trickle, a pond, a still watershed, hidden and omnipresent.

Shostakovich. Bach. Perhaps even a Ravelian dream.

Fugue No.13 in F sharp major marks the opening of the second half of Op. 87, has a similar nature, though it is infinitely unique. Both fugues are reverent doorways from the past into the future, and portend the unique treasures within, within the brilliance of Shostakovich's musical personality.

If you look at the printed page of music notation for this fugue, you might find it amazingly plain. The page looks sparse and clean, the notes even, equal, nestled within a prosaic range, the phrases look square, the whole thing so simple and ultimately static. It has been pointed out before that this modern fugue (written in 1951) opens Op. 87 without a single accidental note (sharp or flat) throughout the entire piece. The key is C major and the entire fugue stays within its diatonic compass, using only the white keys at the middle of the piano. But the musical experience that these unremarkable technical details produce when rendered by great pianist is of the highest sensual and spiritual value: it is timeless and precious musical poetry.