Back in 2006, I started a series titled Music to My Eyes which would be inspired by classical music forms and feature mosaic gold in a grid format. It’s been a slow-moving series that so far includes Etude, Nocturne, Sonata, Prelude, and Theme and Variations forms. This work, Fugue in Three Voices, is the sixth in the series and it might benefit from an explanation. So here goes!

*Fugue in Three Voices* (2025) 7” x 29” | 18cm x 74cm. Mosaic gold in copper, yellow, and white. Design in consultation with Hayden Iskander.

What’s a fugue?

The term fugue comes from the Latin word for flight or chase, and is a complex musical composition in which a short melody or phrase (the subject) is introduced by one voice and successively taken up by other voices in imitation, answer, or chase (as in the voices chasing each other), and then developed as independent and interweaving melodies. All fugues are composed using a technique called counterpoint which is the combining of two or more independent melodic lines in harmony.

My fugue follows a typical fugue style as found in many Bach fugues, but it certainly does not represent all fugue styles. Bach was not the inventor of the fugue but he definitely mastered its possibilities.

Voices and Subject

For my Fugue in Three Voices, each voice is represented by a color of mosaic gold. The subject is represented by the pattern of the gold pieces. Think of the pieces of gold as notes that form the melodic lines for each voice.

1st voice - copper gold

2nd voice - yellow gold

3rd voice - white gold

Understanding my Mosaic Fugue

Let’s refer to the below image in which the mosaic area is divided into six grids.

Grid 1 - The subject is introduced by the 1st voice (copper gold).

Grid 2 - The 2nd voice (yellow gold) enters with the subject (note the pattern of the yellow gold within the grid section), and the 1st voice (copper gold) plays a contrasting melody called the countersubject.

Grid 3 - The 3rd voice enters (white gold) with the subject, the 2nd voice (yellow gold) becomes the countersubject, and the 1st voice (copper gold) plays free counterpoint.

Grid 4 - In a fugue, once all voices have been introduced, the exposition of the fugue is complete and whatever follows can be quite varied. For my fugue, I’ve included a three-voice episode which does not include the full subject.

Grid 5 - The 1st voice (copper gold) enters with the subject and the 3rd voice (white gold) is the countersubject.

Grid 6 - The fugue finishes as the 2nd voice (yellow gold) enters with the subject.

Textural Effect

In reference to the two heights of the gold: There is no specific meaning as to which pieces were raised and which were not. I did this randomly in an attempt to convey the kinetic energy of a lot of Bach’s counterpoint.