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Marianna von Martines's Dixit Dominus

Perhaps the most unusual aspect of Martines’s fugues mic intervals between entrances are equally varied: oth-
is their overall form. Both fugues have three major er than the expositions, in which a new voice enters ev-
sections, each of which essentially follows an “exposi- ery four bars, each section features a diff erent rhythmic

tion-episode” template: all five voices state the subject spacing of entrances. Whereas many Baroque fugues
once (in its original key or original real-answer transposi- take their subjects on a modulatory tonal journey—or
tion), and a contrasting episode follows. At the beginning constantly transform their subjects through inversion,
of the second and third sections, the subject entrances retrograde, augmentation, and diminution—Martines’s
overlap but are otherwise unaltered from their original fugues focus on presenting their original subjects and an-
statements and real answers; these subsections thus have swers in as many diff erent contrapuntal permutations as
the contrapuntal dynamism of the traditional stretto, yet possible. While this unusual quality can hardly be con-
feel quite “expository” (Table 8). Nearly every section- sidered galant, it is clear that Martines’s fugues represent
al division is marked by a tutti rest with a fermata, the her own take on the time-honored form, rather than an
only exception being the boundary between the second attempt at replicating Baroque style.
and third sections of movement 7 (m. 36). These ferma-
tas and rests create a sense of continually stopping and
starting over, which heightens the expository quality of Orchestral and Choral Texture
each set of entrances. Throughout the piece, Martines establishes a variety
Within this tonally and motivically repetitive structure, of textural relationships between the orchestra and the
Martines creates contrapuntal variety by constantly al- choir. The majority of movement 1 features choral ho-
tering the order and temporal spacing of the various en- mophony accompanied by orchestral fl ourishes (mm.
trances. As the chart below reveals, all six subject-based 26-54); only when the choral writing is imitative does

sections have the voices entering in a different order, and the orchestra engage in some doubling, and even then
aside from the expositions, no two sections even present frequently jumps away to more characteristically instru-
the same sequence of subjects and answers. The rhyth- mental gestures (mm. 68-77). On the other hand, the

Table 8. Tripartite Structure of Martines’s Fugues (Movements 4 and 7)

Section Subsection mm. Entrances mm. Entrances
(mvt. 4) (mvt. 4) (mvt. 7) (mvt. 7)

Exposition 15-35 S1(subj.), A(ans.) 1-21 T(subj.), A(ans.),
I S2(s), B(a), T(s) S2(s), B(a), S1(s)

Episode 35-41 n/a 21-26 n/a

Expo/stretto 42-53 B(a), T(s), A(a), 26-32 S2(s), B(a), A(a),
II S2(s), S1(s) S1(s), T(s)

Episode 53-62 n/a 32-36 n/a

Expo/stretto 62-75 S1(s), S2(s), A(a), 36-43 B(a), A(a), T(s),
B(a), T(s) S2(s), S1(s)
III
Episode 75-87 n/a 44-50 n/a
Coda -- -- 51-54 n/a

14 CHORAL JOURNAL April 2021 Volume 61 Number 9