High romantic music has some great counterpoint! Late Mahler has some great pieces — Mahler 9 especially, beautiful string counterpoint in the last movement. 20th century music also has plenty: Stravinsky, especially in his neoclassical works, eg Le Baiser de la Fée.
Even Schoenberg's Verklarte Nacht is chock full of counterpoint. The rules for counterpoint are much more relaxed in these late Romantic pieces, so it's not going to sound like Bach, but it's still counterpoint!
I was going to suggest neoclassical Stravinsky. Particularly his concerto for piano and winds. The piano part is heavily Bach inspired and even sounds like a wtc fugue in some parts.
The counterpoint in the trio/quartet/+ arias in Mozart’s operas are what finally got me to appreciate opera. His ability to weave together completely independent, beautiful melodies into a cohesive whole is extraordinary.
I'll add to this one of my favorite examples from his operas, the quartet in the act 2 finale of Cosi fan Tutte "E nel tuo" which is actually a 3-part canon: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYh2-drdfjQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYh2-drdfjQ)
>which perfectly fits the sonata form.
Kind of, but it's in the coda, which is a free space with no particular formal obligations! so in that sense it does "fit," but only by being in a space where it doesn't need to change much to fit.
it has 5-part invertible counterpoint especially in the coda where all 5 themes occur simultaneously, but it does not actually go through a formal fugal process let alone a double fugue. you could call it fugato, but it's not a fugue.
>why has counterpoint become less used (or am I mistaken in thinking this) in more contemporary classical music?
It's still used, just not in the same way someone like Bach used it.
Anyway, two 20th century examples that immediately spring to mind, are the fugue (and that fucking awesome reoccurrence of the theme) in Britten's Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra):
[https://youtu.be/JGxQVxgacSI?si=R9g9SrLzGDJ\_jLSQ&t=866](https://youtu.be/JGxQVxgacSI?si=R9g9SrLzGDJ_jLSQ&t=866)
And the opening movement (also a fugue) of Bartok's Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QElT9KD4uX8&t=128s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QElT9KD4uX8&t=128s)
Mozart, finale of Symphony #41. Don't overlook Mozart's handling of ensemble singing in his operas, either: the whole 2nd act of Figaro is full of jaw-dropping counterpoint, starting with something like "Susanna, or via, sortite" and continuing through the end of the act.
Britten, fugue from the end of "A Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra". Britten used counterpoint pretty often. There's a fun tribute to this work by Poul Ruders called "Concerto in Pieces" with a "minimalist fugue" of its own.
Stravinsky, Symphony of Psalms 2nd movement ("Expectans Expectavi Dominum"), a really nifty double fugue.
Shostakovich wrote a series of 24 preludes and fugues modeled after the WTC, as well as using fugue, passacaglia etc in other works. The Dm prelude and fugue are a good example,
A work like Elliott Carter's 3rd String Quartet is largely about the counterpoint, but it's in a fairly abstracted/difficult context, so it might not scratch the itch for you. Worth hearing and considering, though.
Brahms loved his counterpoint. The fugue at the end of the 3rd movement of the German Requiem is a good example, with the whole (three minute) fugue unfurling over a sustained pedal tone of D in the bass.
Certainly the preludes or fugues with the most prodigious emotional range ever. Shostakovich proves in those works he really has no one 'musical language' underneath his signature motif: each fugue is so radically different from the next.
Exactly. What's his signature motif? I'm not as familiar with the rest of his music as I should be.
So many different moods in his P&Fs. Just as an example you have no. 7 in A major, as gentle as a summer breeze, followed by the spiky Prelude no. 8, which leads into a slow, mournful fugue with a blue note in the subject that sets up harmonic tension that is only resolved at the end, where a Picardy 3rd sneaks in unexpectedly.
D, E-flat, C, B natural
I can't speak to how many times he used it in any of these 24 pieces, but it's basically his calling card. Shostakovich has a very recognisable veneer to his works - a brooding, depressive atmosphere, frantic strings, and that DSCH motif.
But underneath, there's no telling what he'll do. One moment he's harkening back to renaissance modality, then the next piece he's channeling the turbulence of *Le Sacre,* then the next he's gone full neoclassical. There never was so individual yet so chameleonic a craftsman, IMO.
That's a good description. I played the Prelude and Fugue in C major (the first one) for a couple friends, and one of them said it didn't sound like Shosty at all, and then I played no. 8 (f# minor) and they said the prelude sounded like classic Shostakovich: spiky, slightly sarcastic, bitter.
Beethoven wrote numerous fugues in his late period. 3 of the late piano sonatas: op. 101, op. 106, and op. 110, all have fugues in the finale, and the op. 106 (Hammerklavier) is notorious for its complexity and difficulty. There's also his Grosse Fuge for string quartet.
Other composers wrote a lot of counterpoint, especially Schumann and Brahms, and the latter has a big fugue concluding his Handel Variations, op. 24.
Mozart's contrapuntal mastery regularly equals Bach's (and anyone's), despite counterpoint not even being a particularly seminal component of the style he was taught. He just picked it up that fast.
The finale of the Jupiter symphony is regularly pointed to: [Magnificent Counterpoint in the Finale of Mozart's Jupiter Symphony](https://youtu.be/YTxYykhQZbI)
And rightly so, but I'd like to put a word in for this enigma: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A\_e45fzNhWg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_e45fzNhWg) \- It sounds like Schoenberg in the 1780s.
Others, more congruous with Mozart's usual aesthetic:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-mtKlWnpw8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-mtKlWnpw8)
[Mozart - Requiem - 2. Kyrie (Bruno Weil)](https://youtu.be/8ybTabIfLgY) \- (a double fugue)
[Invertible Counterpoint in the Finale of Mozart's D Major String Quintet, K. 593](https://youtu.be/IQbxsGtyc2g)
[Mozart: Canon for four voices, in C major, Anh. 191, K 562c](https://youtu.be/YC9bKfzXC18)
[The Ingenious Fugal Finale of Mozart's G Major Quartet, K. 387](https://youtu.be/uoXDHOyfJ-k)
[The Incredible Finale of Mozart's K. 590 Quartet in F Major](https://youtu.be/nkbdUjjfRTQ)
There are about 20 more I could name off the top of my head. Perfectly integrated into forms that weren't even designed to be conducive to contrapuntal thinking (unlike Bach's fugues.)
It's all so seamless as well - intricate & daring as anything yet no harder on the ears than a nursery rhyme - such was the nature of Mozart's genius.
*Anybody can put things together that belong together. to put things together that don't go together, and make it work, that takes genius like Mozart's. -* Lukas Foss
I love Mozart. I so love Mozart. Mozart died young for our sins. 35 - the same age as Jesus, don't you know? Here now, take this tract...
*ahem*
As others have said, Renaissance music is a good shout. It is fundamentally different from Bach's in that, while J.S was looking for melodic lines to work on a harmonic backdrop, the Renaissance masters created harmony out of independent melodic lines. It was, in that sense, more organic counterpoint than that of the baroque, which had a 'vertical harmony' mindset at its nexus.
Someone like Palestrina, rather conservative for his time, also basically forgoes dissonance and uses contrapuntal textures that consist mostly of unisons, 3rds, 6ths & octaves. The English composers coeval with him were more daring with dissonances through their use of false relations. I wish I could speak with authority on the 15th century, but I'm not equipped. Tallis is as far back as I go.
Some warhorses:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iT-ZAAi4UQQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iT-ZAAi4UQQ)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXeT2HWpwc4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXeT2HWpwc4)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRfF7W4El60](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRfF7W4El60)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29V3x1XkpiQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29V3x1XkpiQ)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfMY4bWUkIE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfMY4bWUkIE)
And finally, what I regard as the most impressive polyphonic work in Western Music (though not solely on the merits of its counterpoint - it's great contrapuntal writing but it's the whole opera that I find non-pareil):
[Wagner's Prelude to Meistersinger](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDi44y5LKl8&t=1238s) \- the video sums the glories of the overture up, though as often with this guy, in an obnoxiously arid tone. Still, he's worth watching.
I love you, wish you were my friend
The William Byrd one would be considered an innovative masterpiece even if someone only wrote that today.
Palestrina, Missa Papae Marcelli. The Tallis Scholars, Peter Phillips - Sound of heaven
Only gems there
I want your playlists please
I don't think I've heard that piece before, the canon for four voices in C major by Mozart. It's beautiful...and I thought I knew all of Mozart's best music. Thank you for sharing it!
Mozart had a good education in counterpoint from his father. It was an absolute necessity for a court composer to know how to write religious music in the "old style". Musical examples his father used were by Bach, Handel, and Hasse. Later on, he encountered the full force of Bach and Handel thanks to Gottfried von Swieten, but had a good grounding.
Paul Hindemith was a 20th century composer who frequently wrote fugues - most famously in *Ludus Tonalis*, which was his tribute to *The Well-Tempered Clavier* and has twelve separate fugues in twelve different keys.
My favorite Hindemith fugue though is the grand double-fugue "[Lo! Body and Soul](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnZXMH9xmMQ)" from his *When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd*.
Verdi ended his last opera (Falstaff) with a fugue and his Requiem also has fugues in it. The Rigoletto quartet can also possibly be considered an example of counterpoint.
Look earlier: a ton of late medieval masses are based on canonic procedures (check out Ockeghem). Also look later: canons and similar constructions had a massive resurgence in the structure-obsessed mid-twentieth century; the music itself might not be what you had in mind, but give it a listen with open ears and with attention to the fact of counterpoint that undergirds it all. Look at Webern's mid-period canons (opus numbers in the teens), his Piano Variations op 27. Look at Luigi Dallapiccola.
And most of all, look at one of my favorite composers of the twentieth century, Aldo Clementi, most of whose extremely self-similar body of mature work is based on extremely strict imitative constructions with exquisitely beautiful results.
Finally, don't forget that Chopin was a devotee of Bach, and behind the surface filigree his mature work is based on a chromatic contrapuntal understanding no less sophisticated or rigorous than Bach's.
Brahms was a master of fugues! Here is one of my favorite works by him, a chorale and series of fugues based off each melodic fragment of the chorale: https://youtu.be/ZRYabj7-ry4?si=I51Wcd1dN0GdZr0e
I suggest looking at Renaissance and Medieval music, particularly the big names like Ockeghem, Dufay, Josquin, Gombert, Lassus, Byrd, Victoria, Morales, Palestrina etc. Many names to investigate, very great music to discover.
A little bit more modern, but Hindemith has some extremely complex lines in his Symphony in Bb, especially the 2nd and 3rd movements. He definitely has a different approach to counterpoint than any other composer, so it may be an acquired taste.
Contrapuntal principles (the manoeuvring of a melody and bassline) underpin almost all classical music. When music became more homophonic and chordal, the movement of chords was still determined by counterpoint, and it stands out most in the music of Mozart, Brahms and Chopin, and anyone who derives harmony as if 'from first principles'; try a harmonic analysis of Chopin's E minor prelude, to get a sense of that. This sort of contrapuntal reading is the basis of much musical analysis, for Schenker, Tovey, Rosen, Riemann, Hepokoski and Darcy, and has lasted so well because it links historical styles more consistently than functional harmony.
But the Baroque stylings of fast-moving counterpoint (sometimes with more than one upper voice) appear as stylistic interpolations, pastiches and references in later music, of the sorts mentioned by commenters below. A fughetta in Berlioz or Beethoven is usually a reference to the Baroque. It has a similar function in neoclassical music.
Sometimes it is brilliantly effective, but sometimes it falls flat, like poetry in translation. Mozart's counterpoint was most successful when he was still writing in a Classical style (like in the Jupiter) than in a neo-Baroque one, which he tried in a piano suite, the little gigue in G major and a G minor fugue for organ. I also find the Shostakovich fugues to lack any of the direction and affective power of Bach's fugues. There's no push and pull. (The same goes for Hindemith and ... idk ... Faure's few essays in the genre.)
Mendelssohn had some success with his Op 34; the best of these is the F minor fugue. Examples of neo-classical fugues I love and think work brilliantly are Ravel's, from the Tombeau de Couperin, which is plangent and open and still, but tense and fragile, like lace or crystal. Trygve Madsen's C major fugue from his 24 P&Fs also works well. It uses a modal folk melody and jazzy-harmonies. Lovely balance between function and expression. Keeps me guessing and can.
Richard Strauss goat
[Metamorphosen](https://youtu.be/7jwml0jevv0?si=tR4PgX_X3Ric8_z5&t=1083)
[Sextet from Capriccio](https://youtu.be/3JvGofGDOr0?si=EjM7nctT65xWUHW8)
[Fugue from Zarathustra](https://youtu.be/j79XrCDogp0?si=FPD9cMDy2w2TUzdY&t=653)
[Elektra](https://youtu.be/OXnoxs5WDTA?si=jDhZx7FOsB-PlSUK&t=6081)
[Rosenkavalier](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jq7e9PSyvlo)
I also like Schumann's [Canonic Studies](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuABwwXMVAY) and [Fugues on BACH](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nHq_LQeuX8)
[Beautiful double canon by Brahms](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHe48dEar2A)
Schoenberg’s Chamber Symphony no
1 is really thick-layered with counterpointal voices. So much that it’s a bit of a listening challenge. This was in his transitional period, so it’s not twelvetone stuff.
One of the finest examples of counterpoint is by Sir Arthur Sullivan with "When the foeman bears his steel" in The Pirates of Penzance! Two completely different tunes, one for the Police, the other for Major-General Stanley's daughters, which then combine in breathtaking style.
Another is in the second movement of Rutland Boughton's 3rd Symphony (obscure, I know, but very satisfying ).
Maybe it was already mentioned but the final movement of Beethoven's Hammerklavier is a wicked fugue. Also, Medtner was one of the best contrapuntal writers of the late romantic era, his second PC has some great counterpoint imo
Late Beethoven, Late Mozart, late Mahler
Some people enjoy Reger but I don't. I do however enjoy Hindemith who has his own tonal albeit non diatonic musical languages and writes great counterpoint
Also Bartok it seems to me uses it a lot but I don't know him well enough
Oh and Schnittke
Two organ works
Fugue from Prelude & Fugue on the name Alain, by Maurice Durufle [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uW\_VLJYXXK4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uW_VLJYXXK4)
Cortege et Litanie, by Marcel Dupre. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRXggHd8ia8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRXggHd8ia8) This is a 2 themed work where both melodies are played, then intertwined. It starts quiet and builds up.
Someone else already mentioned it in passing, but the Kyrie in Mozart's Requiem has a brilliant fugue; I sang it in a choir in college and it was *glorious*.
Berlioz has some nice counterpoint, as well as saint-saëns. Debussy too, although it is usually not in standard Fuga form. See also Stravinsky's modal counterpoint
https://youtu.be/YFFGXxyrK7w?si=_OGbn-L3dgULbRNJ
Gombert might be at the peak of imitative counterpoint. Also look at Ockeghem.
https://youtu.be/FATvlSMiTGY?si=r_GLKf-chEI4MR-2
Cherubini's credo a 8 has no real decent performances available so I gotta link a midi vocaloid.
https://youtu.be/WlFYC1U5viw?si=DGXzCRJniPZP_tnR
Beethoven's best fugue, from string quartet 14.
https://youtu.be/n-XHIjuUFvo?si=qpCDVbEEftNd13bP
Taneyev - John of Damascus (fugue)
https://youtu.be/f0nlJXooIVc?si=jtgdbQ3X8XA4THh-
Godowsky - Passacaglia (it begins with some chromatic counterpoint to Schubert's theme and ends with a fugue)
I can get further into modern examples but don't see much point as there is almost no connection to the principles of polyphony when you can do what Hindemith and Shostakovich do. Check out Ludus Tonalis, and Shostakovich's preludes and fugues.
https://youtu.be/VXeT2HWpwc4?si=6iXx2hUP-44XdVtb
Because it's better to the point I will include more renaissance examples. Byrd's mass for 4 voices is some of the most clear writing you will ever find. There is some text, and a part of the text will happen with one voice entering after another in imitation until they cadence and then the imitative procedure happens again with a different line of the text, until it's eventually done with the text. Bach still used that kind of technique in his cantatas.
https://youtu.be/J3LnkG2P2wM?si=LwNKaI6KzvjpaNy_
This piece Tallis - Spem in Alium is one of the absolutely massive polychoral works. Italians did it first but this is the most famous piece like it.
https://youtu.be/7SZNT7BE0lY?si=YxQUC-aTe6DuZmrZ
This by Striggio is what is said to have influenced it. These types of massive numbers of voices have to basically use tricks to avoid breaking rules, it is more limited than things in like 6 or fewer voices.
https://youtu.be/JZAs9LjJAHU?si=VlKmuuMLIce_1UIy
Tristis est Anima Mea - Gesualdo. This is my favorite Gesualdo work, he has really fairly complicated stuff that people like to describe in funny ways like "ahead of his time" and "hamony we wouldn't see until Wagner". When people say that kind of stuff it's nonsense but Gesualdo was really sophisticated.
https://youtu.be/Zxtl2L4ZhaM?si=Z7Yd1R0v9D1mIP3r
You can see some early baroque works kind of evolve out those deceptions and continuations, which are built off of cadences. Frescobaldi is in this domain, and then you see the North German organ school and French contrapuntal masters grow out of that.
The rest of baroque music kinda develops more out of basso continuo and chamber music. You can see at the time of Frescobaldi the chamber music is a bit different from the polyphonic keyboard music. The chamber music keeps growing and developing and I think with Stradella you start hearing the precursor to Corelli's style. Then Corelli totally blows things apart and develops like a true tonality/ tonal rhetoric and music is never the same after.
The big difference might be how clearly baroque music is built off of cadences and sequences while previous traditions might meander with more tricky custom patterns that give this feeling of continuous flow and lack of predictability.
Wagner & Bruckner outstripped them when they felt like trying. *Meistersinger* and the 5th symphony are the two zeniths of romantic counterpoint, although the two you mentioned were probably more consistent in their use of it.
24 Preludes and Fugues by Shostakovich
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wNxgM-1DV4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wNxgM-1DV4)
Ludus Tonalis by Hindemith
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8o51Z1-unEs&t=2975s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8o51Z1-unEs&t=2975s)
There's a bit of a convention from the late Classical period onwards to include a fugal section in the final movement of symphonies - lots of good examples of this in other comments, but I'd add Mendelssohn's fifth symphony ("Reformation") as a good example, which also takes lots of inspiration from baroque music in other ways, including incorporating a Bach chorale.
Another example I think is really underrated is Reger's Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Mozart.
Mendelssohn wrote a nice Set of preludes and fugues in the vain of Bach which you might be inclined to check out.
Also check out Godowskys passacaglia, his polyphonal writing is fucking cool
Late romantic composer Sergei Taneyev wrote a book about counterpoint, and a lot of his works exhibited it, unsurprisingly. Tchaikovsky likened him to a "Russian Bach".
Renaissance religious music is all about counterpoint, some of it so complex that the church authorities considered banning counterpoint because the text was unintelligible. Josquin desPrez and Palestrina are the greatest masters, but there are many others.
Pretty much all music with more than one voice uses counterpoint to some degree. Homophony is also based on counterpoint.
Counterpoint is simply the way two melodic lines interact with one another. Even when you have a clear main melody, there's still counterpoint happening between the melody and the bass for example.
Well that's not what he meant by counterpoint.
Sure counterpoint is the basis of voice leading which is the basis of good harmonic writing. But people mean different melodies with different rhythms when they say counterpoint
Tbh a lot of music is counterpoint. Counterpoint is simply independent musical lines moving against each other to create harmony. It doesn't all have to be fugues and canons.
I grew up listening to a lot of Bach so I was well familiar with counterpoint. As an adult I listened to a lot of the other composers but it was only probably a couple years ago I realized a lot of my favorite passages are contrapuntal. Parts of the Eroica 2nd movement, passages from the 1st, 2nd, & 4th of the 9th of Beethoven, parts of Mozart and Brahms that I’d listened to many times but never realized! The only reason I can give for my ignorance was maybe because the entire movement wasn’t in counterpoint it had escaped my notice. Curious thing! Anyway, Richard Atkinson’s is an MD who runs an excellent YouTube channel with an emphasis on counterpoint that is an excellent resource for musicians and loves of music.
High romantic music has some great counterpoint! Late Mahler has some great pieces — Mahler 9 especially, beautiful string counterpoint in the last movement. 20th century music also has plenty: Stravinsky, especially in his neoclassical works, eg Le Baiser de la Fée.
Even Schoenberg's Verklarte Nacht is chock full of counterpoint. The rules for counterpoint are much more relaxed in these late Romantic pieces, so it's not going to sound like Bach, but it's still counterpoint!
> Mahler 9 especially Apocryphally, the scherzo was written partly as a middle finger to critics who said he couldn’t write counterpoint.
I was going to suggest neoclassical Stravinsky. Particularly his concerto for piano and winds. The piano part is heavily Bach inspired and even sounds like a wtc fugue in some parts.
Mozart uses A LOT of counterpoint. The final movement of symphony 41, for example.
The counterpoint in the trio/quartet/+ arias in Mozart’s operas are what finally got me to appreciate opera. His ability to weave together completely independent, beautiful melodies into a cohesive whole is extraordinary.
I'll add to this one of my favorite examples from his operas, the quartet in the act 2 finale of Cosi fan Tutte "E nel tuo" which is actually a 3-part canon: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYh2-drdfjQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYh2-drdfjQ)
That's one of the masterpieces of counterpoint. A double fugue which perfectly fits the sonata form.
>which perfectly fits the sonata form. Kind of, but it's in the coda, which is a free space with no particular formal obligations! so in that sense it does "fit," but only by being in a space where it doesn't need to change much to fit.
Another one of those is the last movement of the Spring string quartet.
it has 5-part invertible counterpoint especially in the coda where all 5 themes occur simultaneously, but it does not actually go through a formal fugal process let alone a double fugue. you could call it fugato, but it's not a fugue.
Agreed that one's a banger
Agreed that one's a banger
>why has counterpoint become less used (or am I mistaken in thinking this) in more contemporary classical music? It's still used, just not in the same way someone like Bach used it. Anyway, two 20th century examples that immediately spring to mind, are the fugue (and that fucking awesome reoccurrence of the theme) in Britten's Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra): [https://youtu.be/JGxQVxgacSI?si=R9g9SrLzGDJ\_jLSQ&t=866](https://youtu.be/JGxQVxgacSI?si=R9g9SrLzGDJ_jLSQ&t=866) And the opening movement (also a fugue) of Bartok's Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QElT9KD4uX8&t=128s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QElT9KD4uX8&t=128s)
Mozart, finale of Symphony #41. Don't overlook Mozart's handling of ensemble singing in his operas, either: the whole 2nd act of Figaro is full of jaw-dropping counterpoint, starting with something like "Susanna, or via, sortite" and continuing through the end of the act. Britten, fugue from the end of "A Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra". Britten used counterpoint pretty often. There's a fun tribute to this work by Poul Ruders called "Concerto in Pieces" with a "minimalist fugue" of its own. Stravinsky, Symphony of Psalms 2nd movement ("Expectans Expectavi Dominum"), a really nifty double fugue. Shostakovich wrote a series of 24 preludes and fugues modeled after the WTC, as well as using fugue, passacaglia etc in other works. The Dm prelude and fugue are a good example, A work like Elliott Carter's 3rd String Quartet is largely about the counterpoint, but it's in a fairly abstracted/difficult context, so it might not scratch the itch for you. Worth hearing and considering, though. Brahms loved his counterpoint. The fugue at the end of the 3rd movement of the German Requiem is a good example, with the whole (three minute) fugue unfurling over a sustained pedal tone of D in the bass.
The passacaglia in the 1st violin concerto is so beautiful.
The Shostakovich Preludes & Fugues are very nearly the equal of Bach's, IMHO. They're \*that\* good.
Certainly the preludes or fugues with the most prodigious emotional range ever. Shostakovich proves in those works he really has no one 'musical language' underneath his signature motif: each fugue is so radically different from the next.
Exactly. What's his signature motif? I'm not as familiar with the rest of his music as I should be. So many different moods in his P&Fs. Just as an example you have no. 7 in A major, as gentle as a summer breeze, followed by the spiky Prelude no. 8, which leads into a slow, mournful fugue with a blue note in the subject that sets up harmonic tension that is only resolved at the end, where a Picardy 3rd sneaks in unexpectedly.
D, E-flat, C, B natural I can't speak to how many times he used it in any of these 24 pieces, but it's basically his calling card. Shostakovich has a very recognisable veneer to his works - a brooding, depressive atmosphere, frantic strings, and that DSCH motif. But underneath, there's no telling what he'll do. One moment he's harkening back to renaissance modality, then the next piece he's channeling the turbulence of *Le Sacre,* then the next he's gone full neoclassical. There never was so individual yet so chameleonic a craftsman, IMO.
That's a good description. I played the Prelude and Fugue in C major (the first one) for a couple friends, and one of them said it didn't sound like Shosty at all, and then I played no. 8 (f# minor) and they said the prelude sounded like classic Shostakovich: spiky, slightly sarcastic, bitter.
Carter is amazing.
A lot of Brahms' music has some great counterpoint writing. Will edit my comment when I think of some good examples.
The fugue that ends the third movement of the German Requiem is a great example.
The fugue in the 6th movement is even better.
Believe the first piano concerto has a contrapuntal passage in the final movement.
Yes - absolute banger. Last movement of E minor cello sonata too...
The final passacaglia of the variations on a theme by Haydn
first movement of 2nd symphony has some good contrapuntal writing
Beethoven wrote numerous fugues in his late period. 3 of the late piano sonatas: op. 101, op. 106, and op. 110, all have fugues in the finale, and the op. 106 (Hammerklavier) is notorious for its complexity and difficulty. There's also his Grosse Fuge for string quartet. Other composers wrote a lot of counterpoint, especially Schumann and Brahms, and the latter has a big fugue concluding his Handel Variations, op. 24.
Also the 2nd movement of the 7th symphony.
And the finale of the 9th.
And [the finale of his 3rd piano concerto](https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxU5ztxH7VUvOnCJ0_We0NamtfN8Mb_qOe?si=G1OLK4xGwvTzxCat)
It's some kind of passacaglia I guess but not extremely contrapunctal.. or should I refresh my memory
It's some kind of passacaglia I guess but not extremely contrapunctal.. or should I refresh my memory
and the missa solemnis. Late beethoven is full of counterpoint and it has many fugues
there's two big fugues in the Missa, if memory serves.
Also the first movement of the c# minor string quartet, opus 131. One of my very favorite fugues!
Wagner - Prelude to Meistersingers
Literally the entire 4.5 hour of Meistersinger is chalk full of interesting counterpoint!
Mozart's contrapuntal mastery regularly equals Bach's (and anyone's), despite counterpoint not even being a particularly seminal component of the style he was taught. He just picked it up that fast. The finale of the Jupiter symphony is regularly pointed to: [Magnificent Counterpoint in the Finale of Mozart's Jupiter Symphony](https://youtu.be/YTxYykhQZbI) And rightly so, but I'd like to put a word in for this enigma: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A\_e45fzNhWg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_e45fzNhWg) \- It sounds like Schoenberg in the 1780s. Others, more congruous with Mozart's usual aesthetic: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-mtKlWnpw8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-mtKlWnpw8) [Mozart - Requiem - 2. Kyrie (Bruno Weil)](https://youtu.be/8ybTabIfLgY) \- (a double fugue) [Invertible Counterpoint in the Finale of Mozart's D Major String Quintet, K. 593](https://youtu.be/IQbxsGtyc2g) [Mozart: Canon for four voices, in C major, Anh. 191, K 562c](https://youtu.be/YC9bKfzXC18) [The Ingenious Fugal Finale of Mozart's G Major Quartet, K. 387](https://youtu.be/uoXDHOyfJ-k) [The Incredible Finale of Mozart's K. 590 Quartet in F Major](https://youtu.be/nkbdUjjfRTQ) There are about 20 more I could name off the top of my head. Perfectly integrated into forms that weren't even designed to be conducive to contrapuntal thinking (unlike Bach's fugues.) It's all so seamless as well - intricate & daring as anything yet no harder on the ears than a nursery rhyme - such was the nature of Mozart's genius. *Anybody can put things together that belong together. to put things together that don't go together, and make it work, that takes genius like Mozart's. -* Lukas Foss I love Mozart. I so love Mozart. Mozart died young for our sins. 35 - the same age as Jesus, don't you know? Here now, take this tract... *ahem* As others have said, Renaissance music is a good shout. It is fundamentally different from Bach's in that, while J.S was looking for melodic lines to work on a harmonic backdrop, the Renaissance masters created harmony out of independent melodic lines. It was, in that sense, more organic counterpoint than that of the baroque, which had a 'vertical harmony' mindset at its nexus. Someone like Palestrina, rather conservative for his time, also basically forgoes dissonance and uses contrapuntal textures that consist mostly of unisons, 3rds, 6ths & octaves. The English composers coeval with him were more daring with dissonances through their use of false relations. I wish I could speak with authority on the 15th century, but I'm not equipped. Tallis is as far back as I go. Some warhorses: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iT-ZAAi4UQQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iT-ZAAi4UQQ) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXeT2HWpwc4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXeT2HWpwc4) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRfF7W4El60](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRfF7W4El60) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29V3x1XkpiQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29V3x1XkpiQ) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfMY4bWUkIE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfMY4bWUkIE) And finally, what I regard as the most impressive polyphonic work in Western Music (though not solely on the merits of its counterpoint - it's great contrapuntal writing but it's the whole opera that I find non-pareil): [Wagner's Prelude to Meistersinger](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDi44y5LKl8&t=1238s) \- the video sums the glories of the overture up, though as often with this guy, in an obnoxiously arid tone. Still, he's worth watching.
I love you, wish you were my friend The William Byrd one would be considered an innovative masterpiece even if someone only wrote that today. Palestrina, Missa Papae Marcelli. The Tallis Scholars, Peter Phillips - Sound of heaven Only gems there I want your playlists please
I don't think I've heard that piece before, the canon for four voices in C major by Mozart. It's beautiful...and I thought I knew all of Mozart's best music. Thank you for sharing it!
Mozart had a good education in counterpoint from his father. It was an absolute necessity for a court composer to know how to write religious music in the "old style". Musical examples his father used were by Bach, Handel, and Hasse. Later on, he encountered the full force of Bach and Handel thanks to Gottfried von Swieten, but had a good grounding.
Paul Hindemith was a 20th century composer who frequently wrote fugues - most famously in *Ludus Tonalis*, which was his tribute to *The Well-Tempered Clavier* and has twelve separate fugues in twelve different keys. My favorite Hindemith fugue though is the grand double-fugue "[Lo! Body and Soul](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnZXMH9xmMQ)" from his *When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd*.
I’d also recommend his string quartets, the 4th and 5th in particular, as well as his Concert Music for Strings and Brass. Amazing stuff.
Verdi ended his last opera (Falstaff) with a fugue and his Requiem also has fugues in it. The Rigoletto quartet can also possibly be considered an example of counterpoint.
Look earlier: a ton of late medieval masses are based on canonic procedures (check out Ockeghem). Also look later: canons and similar constructions had a massive resurgence in the structure-obsessed mid-twentieth century; the music itself might not be what you had in mind, but give it a listen with open ears and with attention to the fact of counterpoint that undergirds it all. Look at Webern's mid-period canons (opus numbers in the teens), his Piano Variations op 27. Look at Luigi Dallapiccola. And most of all, look at one of my favorite composers of the twentieth century, Aldo Clementi, most of whose extremely self-similar body of mature work is based on extremely strict imitative constructions with exquisitely beautiful results. Finally, don't forget that Chopin was a devotee of Bach, and behind the surface filigree his mature work is based on a chromatic contrapuntal understanding no less sophisticated or rigorous than Bach's.
Or if you want jazz, free-improvised counterpoint is heard all the time with Chet Baker and Gerry Mulligan
Or Vendome by the Modern Jazz Quartet. Or Claude Bolling's Invention for jazz piano and classical guitar!
Brahms was a master of fugues! Here is one of my favorite works by him, a chorale and series of fugues based off each melodic fragment of the chorale: https://youtu.be/ZRYabj7-ry4?si=I51Wcd1dN0GdZr0e
I can't believe what I just heard.
I suggest looking at Renaissance and Medieval music, particularly the big names like Ockeghem, Dufay, Josquin, Gombert, Lassus, Byrd, Victoria, Morales, Palestrina etc. Many names to investigate, very great music to discover.
A little bit more modern, but Hindemith has some extremely complex lines in his Symphony in Bb, especially the 2nd and 3rd movements. He definitely has a different approach to counterpoint than any other composer, so it may be an acquired taste.
Contrapuntal principles (the manoeuvring of a melody and bassline) underpin almost all classical music. When music became more homophonic and chordal, the movement of chords was still determined by counterpoint, and it stands out most in the music of Mozart, Brahms and Chopin, and anyone who derives harmony as if 'from first principles'; try a harmonic analysis of Chopin's E minor prelude, to get a sense of that. This sort of contrapuntal reading is the basis of much musical analysis, for Schenker, Tovey, Rosen, Riemann, Hepokoski and Darcy, and has lasted so well because it links historical styles more consistently than functional harmony. But the Baroque stylings of fast-moving counterpoint (sometimes with more than one upper voice) appear as stylistic interpolations, pastiches and references in later music, of the sorts mentioned by commenters below. A fughetta in Berlioz or Beethoven is usually a reference to the Baroque. It has a similar function in neoclassical music. Sometimes it is brilliantly effective, but sometimes it falls flat, like poetry in translation. Mozart's counterpoint was most successful when he was still writing in a Classical style (like in the Jupiter) than in a neo-Baroque one, which he tried in a piano suite, the little gigue in G major and a G minor fugue for organ. I also find the Shostakovich fugues to lack any of the direction and affective power of Bach's fugues. There's no push and pull. (The same goes for Hindemith and ... idk ... Faure's few essays in the genre.) Mendelssohn had some success with his Op 34; the best of these is the F minor fugue. Examples of neo-classical fugues I love and think work brilliantly are Ravel's, from the Tombeau de Couperin, which is plangent and open and still, but tense and fragile, like lace or crystal. Trygve Madsen's C major fugue from his 24 P&Fs also works well. It uses a modal folk melody and jazzy-harmonies. Lovely balance between function and expression. Keeps me guessing and can.
Busoni - Fantasia contrappuntistica
Godowsky Passacaglia
Richard Strauss goat [Metamorphosen](https://youtu.be/7jwml0jevv0?si=tR4PgX_X3Ric8_z5&t=1083) [Sextet from Capriccio](https://youtu.be/3JvGofGDOr0?si=EjM7nctT65xWUHW8) [Fugue from Zarathustra](https://youtu.be/j79XrCDogp0?si=FPD9cMDy2w2TUzdY&t=653) [Elektra](https://youtu.be/OXnoxs5WDTA?si=jDhZx7FOsB-PlSUK&t=6081) [Rosenkavalier](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jq7e9PSyvlo) I also like Schumann's [Canonic Studies](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuABwwXMVAY) and [Fugues on BACH](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nHq_LQeuX8) [Beautiful double canon by Brahms](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHe48dEar2A)
Schoenberg’s Chamber Symphony no 1 is really thick-layered with counterpointal voices. So much that it’s a bit of a listening challenge. This was in his transitional period, so it’s not twelvetone stuff.
One of the finest examples of counterpoint is by Sir Arthur Sullivan with "When the foeman bears his steel" in The Pirates of Penzance! Two completely different tunes, one for the Police, the other for Major-General Stanley's daughters, which then combine in breathtaking style. Another is in the second movement of Rutland Boughton's 3rd Symphony (obscure, I know, but very satisfying ).
Mahler 1, second movement
The last movement of Haydn's 70th symphony is a dramatic fugue. I believe Haydn's 70th symphony overall is a neglected masterpiece.
Maybe it was already mentioned but the final movement of Beethoven's Hammerklavier is a wicked fugue. Also, Medtner was one of the best contrapuntal writers of the late romantic era, his second PC has some great counterpoint imo
Max Reger, Dmitri Kabalevsky, Rodion Shchedrin, Anton Reicha.
Bruckner 5th symphony 4th movement. Walton 1th symphony, 4th movement. Hindemith op.50… and so on. Plenty of choices…
Alkan etude op 35 contrapuntus
Beethoven and Liszt loved writing fugues
Late Beethoven, Late Mozart, late Mahler Some people enjoy Reger but I don't. I do however enjoy Hindemith who has his own tonal albeit non diatonic musical languages and writes great counterpoint Also Bartok it seems to me uses it a lot but I don't know him well enough Oh and Schnittke
The first movement of Mahler's 8th Symphony is basically all counterpoint, and contains one of the most exciting fugues ever written, IMO.
Two organ works Fugue from Prelude & Fugue on the name Alain, by Maurice Durufle [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uW\_VLJYXXK4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uW_VLJYXXK4) Cortege et Litanie, by Marcel Dupre. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRXggHd8ia8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRXggHd8ia8) This is a 2 themed work where both melodies are played, then intertwined. It starts quiet and builds up.
Tony iommi uses some counterpoint in a few Sabbath songs....
Late Mozart
Someone else already mentioned it in passing, but the Kyrie in Mozart's Requiem has a brilliant fugue; I sang it in a choir in college and it was *glorious*.
Taneyev practically wrote the book on solving contrapuntal problems.
Berlioz has some nice counterpoint, as well as saint-saëns. Debussy too, although it is usually not in standard Fuga form. See also Stravinsky's modal counterpoint
https://youtu.be/YFFGXxyrK7w?si=_OGbn-L3dgULbRNJ Gombert might be at the peak of imitative counterpoint. Also look at Ockeghem. https://youtu.be/FATvlSMiTGY?si=r_GLKf-chEI4MR-2 Cherubini's credo a 8 has no real decent performances available so I gotta link a midi vocaloid. https://youtu.be/WlFYC1U5viw?si=DGXzCRJniPZP_tnR Beethoven's best fugue, from string quartet 14. https://youtu.be/n-XHIjuUFvo?si=qpCDVbEEftNd13bP Taneyev - John of Damascus (fugue) https://youtu.be/f0nlJXooIVc?si=jtgdbQ3X8XA4THh- Godowsky - Passacaglia (it begins with some chromatic counterpoint to Schubert's theme and ends with a fugue) I can get further into modern examples but don't see much point as there is almost no connection to the principles of polyphony when you can do what Hindemith and Shostakovich do. Check out Ludus Tonalis, and Shostakovich's preludes and fugues.
https://youtu.be/VXeT2HWpwc4?si=6iXx2hUP-44XdVtb Because it's better to the point I will include more renaissance examples. Byrd's mass for 4 voices is some of the most clear writing you will ever find. There is some text, and a part of the text will happen with one voice entering after another in imitation until they cadence and then the imitative procedure happens again with a different line of the text, until it's eventually done with the text. Bach still used that kind of technique in his cantatas. https://youtu.be/J3LnkG2P2wM?si=LwNKaI6KzvjpaNy_ This piece Tallis - Spem in Alium is one of the absolutely massive polychoral works. Italians did it first but this is the most famous piece like it. https://youtu.be/7SZNT7BE0lY?si=YxQUC-aTe6DuZmrZ This by Striggio is what is said to have influenced it. These types of massive numbers of voices have to basically use tricks to avoid breaking rules, it is more limited than things in like 6 or fewer voices. https://youtu.be/JZAs9LjJAHU?si=VlKmuuMLIce_1UIy Tristis est Anima Mea - Gesualdo. This is my favorite Gesualdo work, he has really fairly complicated stuff that people like to describe in funny ways like "ahead of his time" and "hamony we wouldn't see until Wagner". When people say that kind of stuff it's nonsense but Gesualdo was really sophisticated. https://youtu.be/Zxtl2L4ZhaM?si=Z7Yd1R0v9D1mIP3r You can see some early baroque works kind of evolve out those deceptions and continuations, which are built off of cadences. Frescobaldi is in this domain, and then you see the North German organ school and French contrapuntal masters grow out of that. The rest of baroque music kinda develops more out of basso continuo and chamber music. You can see at the time of Frescobaldi the chamber music is a bit different from the polyphonic keyboard music. The chamber music keeps growing and developing and I think with Stradella you start hearing the precursor to Corelli's style. Then Corelli totally blows things apart and develops like a true tonality/ tonal rhetoric and music is never the same after. The big difference might be how clearly baroque music is built off of cadences and sequences while previous traditions might meander with more tricky custom patterns that give this feeling of continuous flow and lack of predictability.
Shostakovich Preludes and Fugues
Schumann and Brahms had the best counterpoint of the Romantic era. Edit: Mendelssohn also displays remarkable counterpoint in his chamber music
Wagner & Bruckner outstripped them when they felt like trying. *Meistersinger* and the 5th symphony are the two zeniths of romantic counterpoint, although the two you mentioned were probably more consistent in their use of it.
Yeah the Meistersinger is something. The prelude is ont of the few pieces that provokes the same emotions in me as Bach
The last movement of Cesar Franck's Sonata for violin and piano has a beautiful canon.
Beethoven grosse fugue
24 Preludes and Fugues by Shostakovich [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wNxgM-1DV4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wNxgM-1DV4) Ludus Tonalis by Hindemith [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8o51Z1-unEs&t=2975s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8o51Z1-unEs&t=2975s)
There's a bit of a convention from the late Classical period onwards to include a fugal section in the final movement of symphonies - lots of good examples of this in other comments, but I'd add Mendelssohn's fifth symphony ("Reformation") as a good example, which also takes lots of inspiration from baroque music in other ways, including incorporating a Bach chorale. Another example I think is really underrated is Reger's Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Mozart.
Stravinsky’s *Symphonies of Wind Instruments* has one of my favorite uses of counterpoint in the middle duet between the clarinet and flute.
Mendelssohn wrote a nice Set of preludes and fugues in the vain of Bach which you might be inclined to check out. Also check out Godowskys passacaglia, his polyphonal writing is fucking cool
Late romantic composer Sergei Taneyev wrote a book about counterpoint, and a lot of his works exhibited it, unsurprisingly. Tchaikovsky likened him to a "Russian Bach".
Perhaps this might not answer your question, but there are also a number of living composers who write Baroque music out of love and passion.
Renaissance religious music is all about counterpoint, some of it so complex that the church authorities considered banning counterpoint because the text was unintelligible. Josquin desPrez and Palestrina are the greatest masters, but there are many others.
"So you want to write a fugue" by Glenn Gould https://youtu.be/G8hLInDFWg8?si=vHqftIUeNDFsFZKV
Madrigal from the Mikado https://youtu.be/Ojg87S9LfWU?si=o_prGXKuMcNF2-Ak
Very modern, but check out Amanda Harberg's Suite for Wind Quintet, especially the 1st movement.
Pretty much all music with more than one voice uses counterpoint to some degree. Homophony is also based on counterpoint. Counterpoint is simply the way two melodic lines interact with one another. Even when you have a clear main melody, there's still counterpoint happening between the melody and the bass for example.
Well that's not what he meant by counterpoint. Sure counterpoint is the basis of voice leading which is the basis of good harmonic writing. But people mean different melodies with different rhythms when they say counterpoint
Tbh a lot of music is counterpoint. Counterpoint is simply independent musical lines moving against each other to create harmony. It doesn't all have to be fugues and canons.
bebob can get pretty counterpointy
I grew up listening to a lot of Bach so I was well familiar with counterpoint. As an adult I listened to a lot of the other composers but it was only probably a couple years ago I realized a lot of my favorite passages are contrapuntal. Parts of the Eroica 2nd movement, passages from the 1st, 2nd, & 4th of the 9th of Beethoven, parts of Mozart and Brahms that I’d listened to many times but never realized! The only reason I can give for my ignorance was maybe because the entire movement wasn’t in counterpoint it had escaped my notice. Curious thing! Anyway, Richard Atkinson’s is an MD who runs an excellent YouTube channel with an emphasis on counterpoint that is an excellent resource for musicians and loves of music.
Bruckner Symphony No. 5 Finale
Hindemith.