Over the past several semesters at Duquesne, I have taken the task of writing all of the sight reading exercises for the students. It’s been a lot of fun to create pieces that each have a little quirk in them to offer a small challenge as they are sight read. It has been in the back of my head to edit the best of them into something a little longer, approximately 2 minuntes or so, and throw them up on IMSLP. And I’ve finally done it! I like the four of them quite a bit, but my favorite has to be the Fugetta on D-S-C-H.
Quick story there: back in November 2021, in teaching the third semester of written theory, I took a single class to give an overview of fugue as a form and genre. I offered the class the chance to give me a subject of their choosing and I would improvise a fugue on that subject. One of the students then handed my Dmitri Shostakovitch’s musical signature and I have to say, it was an absolute delight! My improvised fugue went well that morning and it inspired me to write that as the “harder” sight-reading exercise last month. Unlike the first three, the Fugetta appears unedited from its original form. Get the score from IMSLP here!