Reflections

The prelude is a joyous perpetual motion: flight of the bumblebee filtered through American novelty ragtime. Here is vehicle for Fats Waller, Zez Confry, James P. Johnson or Oscar Peterson. Shostakovich was eclectic, maniacally adventurous across genres and occasionally enamored of American Jazz. It shines through here as it does in the Prelude No.15 in D major.

The fugue in a multi-part game that humorously (and masterfully) toys with your expectations offering the primal mirth of musical surprise It begins with the subject, its opening motive and its 3/4 lilt. Once lilting, the subject interrupts twice again with the exact rhythmic motive from the head. The subject stops dead after the third repetition of the motive: ending as abruptly as it started. For a lovely touch of symmetry and a pinch of clever fun, this last incarnation of the motive is vivid sort of inversion of the first. Since both the first and last motives jump between 1st and 5th (tonic and dominant), they have carry a powerful cadential quality. While the first motive bounces to end, unresolved on the 5th (dominant), the last motive bounces back, resolved, to send on the 1st (tonic). A perfect subject. Already a smile. (You might already sense exactly how this fugue might end).

With a strong 3/4 time, staccato and accents to articulate the dance, the fugue moves into a winning countersubject that picks up the momentum of the novelty motives from the subject and runs. Well, it runs for one quick go at it, then becomes coy like a cat, pausing, and pouncing on the tail of the fast motive, perfectly interlocking with the subject so that they trade the motives back and forth in a comical folk dance. With Shostakovich's ingenuity and typical textural clarity, there is room for a second countersubject to join the fray.

The quick-step motive recurs. It always comes with the beginning and end of every subject entry. But not every occurrence of the motive is a subject entry. There are false entries, motives in every episode, always something to fake you out. Stretto escalates the fun by giving you several motives in rapid succession, moving up or down the pitch space to a new voice each time. Screwing up the timing every time, this fugue is a kind of wacky, haywire clock. A brilliant, cartoon clock complete with cat and mouse.

The final element to the fun, and the real wrench in the clockworks, is the episode. There are many episodes, but they all work as one character, the real side-kick to the subject. The first few occurrences of the episode are similar enough to establish a new layer of expectation. A twice repeated chromatic pratfall announces each episode while playing with the motive (the tail of the subject), cat and mouse style. But after two appearances, the episode character, like a jack in the box, begins to surprise. It grows longer and more outrageous. More important, it adds to the confusion by delaying the return of the subject, feinting, withdrawing, and ultimately, being suddenly interrupted in the mood of slapstick. Combined with free floating fake-out motives and the stretto, the recurring episode makes a marvelous circus. One particularly bombastic subject entry uses octave doublings in the bass (a parallel subject entry) to ensure the comic grandeur of its arrival.

How does it end? A raspberry. The final, inverted motive from tail of the subject leers once more with the unified force of all three voices. The fugue ends as quickly and neatly as the subject itself. It's all suddenly over in a flash.