Chords for A Piano Piece with Perfect Harmony (Fugue in A Major by Dmitri Shostakovich)

[Ab] Hi guys, so today I wanted to play for you a piece called Fugue in A Major by Dmitry Shostakovich.
It's one of the most beautiful classical pieces I've ever heard, and I want to explain to you why,
because it's actually an amazing example of constrained writing.
So, for instance, on a typical piece you'd have [C] chords like this [G] and a melody.
_ [Fm] _ [N] And within a piece like that, as simple as it is, you're actually going to have a lot of pockets of dissonance,
because, for [C] instance, when you get to this point, _ _ you have that [N] contrast between the chord and the melody.
Now, what Shostakovich did in his fugue is he [C] limited himself to only using the three notes in [N] the triad of each chord he was on
for all the melodies and harmonies.
So with a limitation like that, you get a piece that [C] sounded something like this.
_ [G] _ _ [C]
Now, a [N] piece like that has no harmonic dissonance anywhere, but it also sounds pretty simple, because that's pretty limiting.
But here's what Shostakovich was able to do within that limitation.
_ _ _ _ _ [A] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ [E] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[A] _ [D] _ [A] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [E] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [A] _ _ [E] _ _ [Gbm] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ [Dbm] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ [Bm] _
_ _ _ [E] _ _ _ _ [A] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ [E] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ [Gbm] _
_ [D] _ [Am] _ _ [Bb] _ [F] _ _ _
[Bb] _ [C] _ [F] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [Bb] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [Eb] _ [Bb] _ [Eb] _ _ _ _
[Cm] _ _ [Gm] _ _ [Eb] _ _ [Gb] _ [D] _
[A] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [E] _ [C] _ [A] _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [D] _ _ _ _
_ _ [A] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [C] _ _ [A] _ _ [Db] _ [Gb] _
_ _ [D] _ _ [Gb] _ [D] _ [A] _ _
_ _ [E] _ _ [A] _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ What I find really interesting about this [N] piece is the historical context.
Shostakovich wrote this piece in Russia in the 1950s under the Stalin regime.
And a lot of Shostakovich's work is actually very dissonant.
For instance, the set of preludes and fugues this fugue was actually a part of was panned by critics when it first came out for having all this harshness to it.
And there's some speculation that since Shostakovich couldn't publicly criticize Stalin's regime,
that he chose his dissonance in his music as a sort of subtle, rebellious, wordless way to criticize the government.
And yet in the middle of all that, there's one piece without any dissonance at all.
Why?
That's probably the sort of thing people at Juilliard write essays about.
Anyways, I know it's not typical on YouTube to do covers of obscure classical works, but I thought this piece was really cool, so I wanted to share it with you.
And I'll see you guys in the next video. _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _