Jonathan Shaw

     Once more, another organ piece inspired by Bach. I had completely forgotten about this one until I listened to it again here.

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     The opening fantasia was written after the fugue, and it is incredibly cheap as you can likely tell. I do remember struggling to write it (oh dear…).

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     As for the fugue, it looks like I failed the test of invertible counterpoint here, quite substantially so. The fugal subject does not work very well in the bass. I don’t recall much about writing it, except that looking back, it falls into the same trap as the “Melodies” in that it explores too many strange tonalities. I remember that the phrase towards the end (starting bar 74) was a phrase I had used in an earlier organ piece – bar 87 of the "Fugue in E Minor" – which is worrisome that I’ve run out of ideas this early! The fugal subject itself is also remeniscent of bar 106 from my Chorus No.2 "The Star will rise once more"

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     As to why I called it the "Small" Fantasia and Fugue was probably so that you wouldn’t confuse it with Bach’s Great or Little Fugue in G Minor – because of course, that confusion was bound to happen! Oh, the youthful arrogance is astounding!