A Terrific Soporific

A Terrific Soporific is a piano piece.  I've added a critical review directly into the title.  You must use your own judgement to decide if the review is accurate.  Please try to stay awake.

One night, last week, I was really tired.  I should have gone to bed.   Instead I began this piece.  When I finished the first section I added another contrasting section.  Then, for reasons beyond my ken, I composed a four-voice fugue.  The fugue ballooned to nearly half the piece.  There's a coda too, if you care.

So, the form of this piece might be called "Prelude and Prelude and Fugue".  In this day and age a fugue will put anyone to sleep.

I've written a couple fugues before, long ago, but never one with four voices. By and large, the rules were followed - at least the rules I could remember.  I included lots of strettos.  This is the most chromatic music I have ever written.

Most likely this fugue, just like any other fugue, will remind you of J.S. Bach. The first theme of the fugue is a rip-off of Bach.  Later, there's another theme that is Bach.

Click here to hear A Terrific Soporific by David Ocker - © 2012 David Ocker 464 seconds

If you need help remembering what a fugue is or if some visuals would help you follow the different voices or if you relate more to young music students than to aging baby boomers like myself, maybe this video will be more interesting.  It's also Bach.

Thanks to OboeInsight, the blog where I encountered this video.

I Couldn't Sleep is another recent piano piece of mine with a title that references somnolence.

More information than you care to know about fugues.

I found  quotes about Bach.  Here are a few I liked:

Sun Ra:

Bach and Beethoven, all of them, they had to write something to please the upper structure, those with money and power.

Charles Mingus:

Creativity is more than just being different. Anybody can plan weird; that's easy. What's hard is to be as simple as Bach. Making the simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity.

Xavier Cugat:

I would rather play Chiquita Banana and have my swimming pool than play Bach and starve.

Isaac Mizrahi:

If you try to have a fashion show with Bach fugues and John Coltrane, it doesn't really work.

Stretto Tags: prelude and fugue. . . Bach. . . piano music. . . David Ocker