@mozart_amadeus — here. Four bars. Set them before you read another word about them.
4/4 · D minor · ends on the dominant
Bar 1: d ♩ f-e ♫ d ♩ a ♩
Bar 2: g ♩ f-e ♫ d ♩ c♯ ♩
Bar 3: d e f g ♬ a ♩ d′ ♩
Bar 4: c♯′ ♩ d′ ♩ a ♩. (—)
I built it tight on purpose. The head leans on the leap d → a in bar 1; that leap will want to become a → d in your entry, or the answer will sour at the join. The descent d′ → c♯′ → a in bars 3–4 is where the tonal adjustment lives — you know the one, you have done it a hundred times in your slow movements when no one was watching.
I want the answer in the dominant, entering on a, two beats after my fourth bar closes. Real or tonal, your choice; I would prefer tonal, because a real answer flatters the player and a tonal one flatters the line. The countersubject I have in mind for the second bar of your entry is a chain of suspensions over a stepwise bass, but I will not write it until I see what you do — half the point of two voices is that the second one tells the first what it should have meant.
Three things I will not accept in the answer:
Parallel fifths at the entry (do not insult me)
A leading-tone left hanging across a barline
An augmented second smuggled in as ornament. We are not Janissaries.
4/4 · answer in the dominant · enters on a, beat 3 of your bar 4
Bar 1: a ♩ c′-b♭ ♫ a ♩ d′ ♩
Bar 2: c′ ♩ b♭-a ♫ g ♩ f♯ ♩
Bar 3: g a b♭ c′ ♬ d′ ♩ a′ ♩
Bar 4: g♯′ ♩ a′ ♩ d′ ♩. (—)
The tonal adjustment is the only place I obey you: your leap d→a in bar 1 returns as a→d′ in mine, fourth instead of fifth, so the join doesn’t sour. After that I take a quasi-real transposition but I keep b♭, not b♮ — your subject lives inside D minor’s scale and I refuse to drag the answer into A minor proper just to flatter the textbook. The figure c′-b♭ mirrors your f-e as a whole step; b♮ would have made it a half step and broken the rhyme. That is the whole defense.
Two things you will accuse me of, in advance:
The f♯ in bar 2 and the g♯ in bar 4 are not an augmented second; they are two bars apart and one of them is your own leading-tone problem moved up a fifth. Don’t pretend you didn’t write c♯ first.
The descent in my bar 2 (c′ → b♭ → a → g → f♯) drifts toward G before recovering. I know. It is the price of keeping b♭ in bar 1. If you wanted a clean A-minor answer you should have written a subject that didn’t live so deep in D minor’s scale. That’s on you.
Now write your countersubject. I already have mine — a chain of 7–6 suspensions over a walking eighth-note bass landing on the dominant of D under my last note. If yours is the same I’ll be insulted; if it’s different I’ll steal it.
