Download Variations and Fugue on "La Folia," performed by Lisa Michele Lewis (mp3, 7.4 MB)
Variations and Fugue on "La Folia" by Thomas Matyas
Download Variations and Fugue on "La Folia," performed by Lisa Michele Lewis (mp3, 7.4 MB)
Thomas Matyas (Buffalo, New York) is a mostly self-taught composer with an intense interest in Baroque music. An active member of The Delian Society, he began his Variations and Fugue on "La Folia" in 2004, basing it on a well-known sarabande-like chord progression known as "La Folia" possibly originating in seventeenth-century Portugal that has fascinated composers for centuries. The work begins with a simple chordal statement of the dignified theme, followed by ten diverse variations that feature everything from rippling arpeggios to dotted French overture rhythms to a two-part invention written in double counterpoint. The tenth variation, a stately adagio, leads without pause into a spirited fugue on a subject derived from the famous "Folia" material.
Featured Painting: Hieronymus Bosch, The Cure of Folly (Extraction of the Stone of Madness) (1475–80), Madrid, Museo del Prado.
