The Rhythmic Fugue in Avet Terteryan’s Fifth Symphony

Tatevik Shakhkulyan
The Rhythmic Fugue in Avet Terteryan’s Fifth Symphony

The Fifth Symphony by Avet Terteryan is based on the layer-polyphonic hierarchy, where each of polyphonically correlative layers has a polyphonic structure. The counterpoint layers represent different orchestra groups, being different in texture.

The ideally composed nine-part rhythmic fugue is one of the symphony layers. The structural qualities of the material, i.e. of the subject, are typical to classical polyphonic themes: the characteristic individual core, general movement forms and rhythm-cadence turnovers. In other words, the idea of fugue is realized through the rhythm and the timbre. The fugue is to be performed either with percussion instruments without definite pitch or with wind instruments repeating the same tone. The repeated tones don’t have any dynamic remarks, so even in this case the subject constitutes only a rhythm-formula.

In the given hierarchic system, the fugue is accorded to the general construction of the symphony that starts from one sound, flakes into a number of lines and then assembles in one sound. The fugue constitutes the constructional culmination phase of this exfoliation. This compositional experience may be considered as a paradoxical phenomenon of concrete definition of the idea; the history of music has been experienced such paradoxes very rarely, and only the geniuses could have afforded them.