Thread: Bach's Unfinished Fugue - The Art of the Fugue

I am working on a novel where each of the chapters are inspired by unfinished works of art. This 'inspirational' work influences both the theme and the form of the chapters in question. I am currently working on a chapter inspired by The Art of the Fugue and what I would like to do is translate the three subjects in the final unfinished Contrapunctus 19 into three sentences which are repeated in different 'voices' throughout the text (ex. the Bass voice might be in caplock, whereas the Soprano voice might be in Italics).

I think that it would be really cool to follow the exact format of the Contrapunctus 19 by introducing the subjects and voices in the same order, making small changes to the sentences if there is a tonal answer, any false entries, inversions (I've chosen sentences that make sense forwards or backwards), stretto, diminutions, augmentations, ect.

My one problem is that I cannot read music. I have tried to discern these things and spent a lot of time looking at the score but for the life of me I can't figure it out. Because I think the concept is just so cool (translating music into language) I thought I would reach out to see if anyone knew someone who might be able to help.

I am willing to pay someone to help, but I'm hoping to find someone who is willing to trade expertise (I have done a lot in my career and I have various freelancing gigs at the moment where I'm paid to do the following: tutor English, copywriting or editing, content marketing and SEO, fundraising consulting, resume reviews, and college applications and scholarship applications consulting). Let me know if you know of anyone who might be able to help or if you're interested! Thanks!

The only issue is that they aren't really analogous, music is sound waves and speech is meaningful. For example, how could you express the difference between imitation at the second and imitation at the octave? What about one voice imitating at the third with rhythmic values halved, the next at the sixth with rhythmic values doubled, etc. Bach did unbelievably complex things like that sometimes. Technically, I don't think counterpoint can provide much inspiration for speech, but I can think of some great dialogue that is - in an extremely loose sense - "contrapuntal" - like most of the dialogue in The Big Lebowski.

It's a cool idea, however.

Originally Posted by Kelt

The only issue is that they aren't really analogous, music is sound waves and speech is meaningful. For example, how could you express the difference between imitation at the second and imitation at the octave? What about one voice imitating at the third with rhythmic values halved, the next at the sixth with rhythmic values doubled, etc. Bach did unbelievably complex things like that sometimes. Technically, I don't think counterpoint can provide much inspiration for speech, but I can think of some great dialogue that is - in an extremely loose sense - "contrapuntal" - like most of the dialogue in The Big Lebowski.

It's a cool idea, however.

I think she/he can still do it by having some musical understanding. I think it's possible as long as you aim for perfection in correlation (of language and the music) and not perfection in the translation (because there isn't).

Understand the music harmonically/contrapuntally/melodically and see how it could relate to language. But I think it's key that you do understand those 3 things.