Wednesday, May 13, 2015

Fuller's 9th Fugue in M


- for my stupendous wife Melissa and her amazing passenger

It opens with a short main theme of unique and unimaginable happiness (incredibly difficult to express in the range of sounds humans can hear, but luckily not limited to that range - ultrasound is used extensively in this fugue, as will come to make more sense later, as it expands on its theme), the subject, which then sounds successively in each voice (after the first voice is finished stating the subject, a second voice of a turnip-sized girl which lives inside your womb repeats the subject at a different pitch, and other voices of friends and family (celebrating that precious little girl) repeat in the same way); when each voice has entered, the exposition is complete and there is no possibility of imagining life existing in any other state than it has exactly at this moment, and simultaneously for the last 9 years. This is often followed by a connecting passage, or episode, developed from previously heard material; generally including subtle melodies expressing the ends of the range of joy that you have brought to your husband’s life. these further "entries" of the subject then are heard in related keys, typically in the same pure sweetness as your singing voice.. Episodes (if applicable) and entries are usually alternated, often including the voices of friends, some of who have been lost in these last 9 years (those lost are represented by the exact melody of their laughter, expressed in the chords and lightness of angel’s wings) until the "final entry" of the subject, by which point the music has returned to the opening key, or tonic of gratitude for you choosing to share your life with this (allegedly) humble man, which is often followed by closing material, the coda, which in this case invokes a very slight variation on the subject, indicating the triple helix winding of the meaning you have provided to your husband’s existence, the contentment it has given to you, and the life inside you that is growing and kicking to provide the tympanic accompaniment so long missing from the arrangement.