Pythagorean Preludes and Fugues

In 2012 Blake Morrison and Gavin Bryars wrote a radio play, The Pythagorean Comma, set in a remote village and based on a work by Jules Verne, in which a church organ - especially its registrations and tuning - lies at the heart of the story. Extracts from four short organ pieces were included in the play as occasional incidental music. Bryars referred to these as the Pythagorean Comma Pieces.

In January 2025, my father mentioned the idea of extending these organ works, thinking it might be nice to give them a new lease of life. On first viewing and listening, I felt they were already quite complete and wasn’t sure how to expand them in a way that would feel organic. However, I began to imagine them functioning as ‘preludes’ to a set of ‘preludes and fugues’ (in the loosest sense), and decided to use that as my working template. I then worked methodically through the four, creating ‘fugues’ in response to Gavin’s ‘preludes’. In each case I took something from the preceding prelude as my starting point and wrote the piece onwards from there — sometimes referring directly to the prelude, but often simply responding to it.

I also wanted the whole work to function as a coherent set of four pieces that could be played together, so I shaped my fugues to contrast with the preludes in timbre, feel, scope, speed, and so on. In doing this, I hoped to create a unified cycle in which each fugue grows naturally out of its prelude while contributing to the broader character of the set.

© 2026 Yuri Bryars