Most impressive passages of counterpoint?

[Bonehelm]

What are some contrapuntal themes/motives/fugal sections in any piece of any genre (symphony, quartet, sonata, suite, etc) that amazes you the most and simply struck you in awe, admiring the composer's impeccable skill of combining musical ideas together? Here are some of mine:

Beethoven symphony no.5: scherzo, fugato in the strings starting with basses 
Bruckner symphony no.5: finale, where a theme gets passed on from one instrument to the next, while strings have a perfectly placed countersubject 
Mahler symphony no.5: rondo-finale, the part immediately after the outburst of the 2nd movement brass chorale, right to the end of the piece 

That was a pure coincidence that all my examples were from a no.5 symphony. What about yours?

[Brian]

Mozart, Symphony No 41, final coda. Thread over. 

[prémont]

Any work of J S Bach

[Gabriel]

Mozart, Symphony No 41, final coda. Thread over. 

Thread not over, but I agree it is a very impressive passage.

I will mention an old favorite of mine: the finale to Haydn's 70th symphony.

[Opus106]

I was considering creating a similar thread. I love listening to fugues and contrapuntal works, and recently I realised that I can identify the use of counterpoint in a few works! (This is from someone with no knowledge of music theory.)

I have to second premont's choice. I have Mendelssohn's Prelude and Fugue, Op.35 No.1, which I like, but I really cannot say if it's "impressive" or not.

[marvinbrown]

Any work of J S Bach

  The double violin concerto in D minor comes to mind  0:)!

  marvin

[lukeottevanger]

I have to second premont's choice. I have Mendelssohn's Prelude and Fugue, Op.35 No.1, which I like, but I really cannot say if it's "impressive" or not.

It's an interesting one: it's one of Mendelssohn's finest Baroque pastiches, by which I mean, he doesn't just copy the stylistic traits of JSB etc., he actually tries to recreate, in a Romanticised way, the whole ethos and atmosphere of Bachian religious counterpoint as he saw it. This doesn't necessariyl mean actually writing real Bachian counterpoint all the way through. So one can almost see the music putting its hands together in prayer, one can hear the cadences of scripture and chorale, the organ breaks out in peals of joy at the end etc. But underneath this impressive and effective surface, and stripping away the textural and expressive underpinnings (booming octaves for the organ pedals etc. etc.) the counterpoint itself is quite straightforward and not actually always that strict - as I said, this piece is concerned with the effect rather than the substance, and often, although it sounds like a tortuous, expressive fugal working-out, it is not always truly fugal at all.

[Cato]

And the winner is...


(tension builds)




Prokofiev: Symphony #2, first movement.


(Applause)

[The new erato]

Kunst der Fuge. IMO; no contest.

Beethovens Grosser Fuge is an obvious choice as well.

For slighter works; I like Mozart Fugue from the Preludium & Fugue fror string quartet (is it a minor, I donæt have access to references here.

[Opus106]

And I still need to warm up to Beethoven's finale to his Op.130. The first time I listened to it, I realised how the audience must have felt during the première, especially after listening to the ever so beautiful 'Cavatina'.

[Kullervo]

Johannes Ockeghem's Missa Prolationum has several passages in which the voices are in canon at a certain ratio to each other, so the entrances of the different voices are so closely intertwined that it sounds like a cascade of voices. It's difficult to explain it from a layman's point of view. Is there anyone here who's studied music and knows this piece that could explain it better?

[bwv 1080]

Carter's 3rd String Quartet

[(poco) Sforzando]

The combination of the three themes midway through the Meistersinger overture deserves a mention.

[MISHUGINA]

Rondo Burleske from Mahler 9th symphony is another great contender. Also late Beethoven's fugal writing is wicked, citing Grosse Fuge, last movement of "Hammerklavier" piano sonatas as examples.

[Thom]

Michael Tippett: Fantasia Concertante on a theme of Corelli.

[lukeottevanger]

The triple-fugue-over-passacaglia-bass in Ronald Stevenson's Passacaglia on DSCH. (One subject = BACH, another = Dies Irae; passacaglia theme, of course, a triple statement of DSCH)

[BachQ]

Any work of J S Bach

Any work?  How about Sheep May Safely Graze?

[Brian]

The combination of the three themes midway through the Meistersinger overture deserves a mention.

Ooh, that is a truly fantastic moment indeed 

[prémont]

Any work?  How about Sheep May Safely Graze?

OK, almost every work - the AoF being the greatest contender.
BTW, I do not think, Bach would recognize the title "Sheep may safely grace".

[(poco) Sforzando]

OK, almost every work - the AoF being the greatest contender.
BTW, I do not think, Bach would recognize the title "Sheep may safely grace" [sic].

No, he would know it as "Schafe können sicher weiden," the soprano aria from Cantata 208.