Being able to compose fugues well is notoriously difficult.
Mozart was never able to.
Beethoven on the other hand...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grosse_Fuge https://youtu.be/hUaziUz4jx0
Mozart was never able to.
Beethoven on the other hand...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grosse_Fuge https://youtu.be/hUaziUz4jx0
* ending of the last movement of the Jupiter Symphony
* Introitus of the Requiem (four-voice ricercare in the instruments, then cascading upward in SATB choral writing, both combined with an operatic-style accompaniment)
Here's a mind-blowing one-- at the end of his String Quartet K. 387 in G major. This is a modified rondo-sonata form where the rising figure of the rondo theme-- normally just a simple, catchy, tune-- is actually the subject and answer of a fugue! I'm fairly certain Mozart is the only composer of his era to substitute a fugal exposition for the rondo theme in a modified rondo-sonata form[1].
Even more impressive, the 2nd theme is a different fugue which continues into the rondo theme for-- you guessed it-- a double fugue.
All of this is so fast, effervescent and seamless that someone like OP could be forgiven for not even noticing the fugue. So now OP must ask-- how many other examples are there of Mozart subtly shifting into and out of first-rate Bach-like contrapuntal textures?
It's a question Beethoven undoubtedly knew the answer to, at least for all the Mozart scores he could get his hands on.
1: Haydn has a great musical joke at the end of the so-called "Lark" quartet-- in the middle of a fast, old-school Rondo he switches to minor and plonks down a thick four voice fugal exposition and development against the fast-flowing figuration from earlier. It disappears as quickly as it came, like Carl Stalling but before the era of cartoons!
It's like that with a lot of jokes. If they don't make you grin and laugh, it's hard to "get" what's so special about them. Bach you can kinda just zone into and gradually uncover what's special (or not), and just keep uncovering, or fuguing out, or whatever. Mozart, the joke is here and gone, and if you missed it, the whole thing just kinda doesn't seem all that special.
Like a joke, you can have the punchline explained to you, but it won't make it funny, and you'll question the taste of those who do. But if you find yourself grinning, you'll only find more things to grin at the more you listen. As a kid and young adult I kinda hated Mozart. I was really surprised when I started liking it, more and more, and now I can't get enough.
That's been my experience with Mozart, anyway.
https://www.youtube.com/@cedarvillemusic/videos
He can improvise fugues on the spot. A lot of earlier composers could do so as well because their training from the get-go was improvisation.
We should all listen to the Jupiter and decide for ourselves if 'Mozart was never able to'.
https://interlude.hk/fugues-and-other-musical-charms-from-ba...
Second, what I mean by "composing a fugue well" is to be able compose a piece or movement whereby three or more, usually four, voices are heard in a contrapuntal, not harmonic, manner for an EXTENDED PERIOD OF TIME (i.e., maintaining this for many measures).
I looked closely at some of the examples people brought up like the last movements of both the Jupiter Symphony and his String Quartet No. 14 and nowhere do I see 4 voices simultaneously acting contrapuntally for more than just a handful of bars. Mozart would often write a given voice contrapuntally, but would often quickly revert that voice to a harmonic function. If you look at measures 91 to 106 in the last mvt of Quartet No. 14, that writing is a joke if you say he can write fugally. The second violin, viola, and cello are all mainly serving a harmonic function; they're just playing chords. One part that might look truly fugal would be in measures 112 to 117, but that's just one small part and not extended, as in the great fugues of Bach and Beethoven. Measures 61 to 90 kind of look truly fugal, but he really only has 3 voices going contrapuntally here at any given time, not 4. Look at measures 63 until 68 where the cello is playing an extended rest, for example.
Yes, Mozart wrote fugues. Did he write truly sophisticated, truly "fugal" fugues? I still think not.