Most impressive passages of counterpoint?

[jochanaan]

I think I'll definitely have to hear that Kyrie sometime, MDL.  But you've just reminded me of the last movement of Hovhaness' Mount St. Helens Symphony (#50), in which the apparent volcanic (literally) chaos in the last movement is actually tightly organized into canons.  Very impressive!

[mn dave]

Counter-point

http://www.medwaypvb.com/images/atari/CIMG0137.JPG

[MDL]

I think I'll definitely have to hear that Kyrie sometime, MDL.  But you've just reminded me of the last movement of Hovhaness' Mount St. Helens Symphony (#50), in which the apparent volcanic (literally) chaos in the last movement is actually tightly organized into canons.  Very impressive!

If you've seen Kubrick's 2001, you'll have heard the Kyrie. It's played each time the black monolith makes an appearance.

[scarpia]

The Kyrie from Mozart's Requiem always impressed me.  Other favorites are the fugue in c minor from Bach's well tempered clavier I, the 3 part fugue from Bach's Art of the Fugue, the Alle Breve for organ (also J.S. Bach) the Fugato from Beethoven's 9th, 4th movement (just after the turkish march), the first Kyrie from Bach's mass in b minor.  Lot's of others, just hard to remember them all.

[jochanaan]

If you've seen Kubrick's 2001, you'll have heard the Kyrie. It's played each time the black monolith makes an appearance.

Oh, that!  Why didn't you say so?

[Kullervo]

Counter-point

http://www.medwaypvb.com/images/atari/CIMG0137.JPG

Impressive... most impressive...

[Saul]

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.

Its a stunning work.

Here's another example of fine counter point from a different Mendelssohn Prelude and Fugue

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnMX2oeZMDU

[anasazi]

  Well J. Sebastian Bach kind of rules I think.  It is difficult to pick a single work.  I have just recently been trying to learn the Busoni piano transcription of Bach's BWV 541 (a Prelude and Fuge in G major).  Even before I got as far the fugue, I was SO impressed with the counterpoint in the prelude. 

Now counterpoint is not really my big thing.  I appreciate it enough, but the fact that Bach can do it and still make entertaining music is in itself such an amazing feat.   

[karlhenning]

Where do we draw the line between counterpoint as something impressive, and counterpoint as dry exercise?

We all know that Carl Philip Emmanuel Bach (I think it was the Prussian Bach) had a slide-rule-like contraption which could generate counterpoint, yes? ; )

[bwv 1080]

I think I am repeating myself from eariler in this thread, but Carter's 3rd SQ is at the pinnacle here

[Cato]

The symphonies of Ernst Toch are most exquisite examples of counterpoint. #3, #6, and #7 are especially recommended.

Surely mentioned already, but if not:

Prokofiev's Symphony #2.

Bruckner's Symphony #5