So yeah, just as it sounds like, I will be composing a sonata. It will be in the style of Beethoven. The first movement will be slow and quiet mostly. Of course I will be using dissonance such as a diminished 7th just like Beethoven did in his sonatas.\n\nAnd there are several ways I could add drama to the sonata(which is crucial for a Beethoven style sonata) besides dissonance. Here they are:\n\n - Crescendo and diminuendo\n\n - Change in rhythm but tempo kept the same\n \n - Change in tempo\n \n - Change of key\n \n - Counterpoint\n\nNow I was thinking of maybe doing some counterpoint in the development of the first movement. Like having the development be a fugetto(little fugue) for example. But counterpoint is so rarely used these days in compositions. It sort of died off when Bach died.\n\nOf all the pieces I have heard, most pieces using counterpoint are by Bach. I mean Beethoven did compose a fugue for a string quartet and there have been instances when I heard a fugatto in 1 of Mozart's pieces but mostly, it was Bach who composed famous pieces using counterpoint.\n\nI believe counterpoint needs a revival. It's so amazing how much you can get out of a single melody. And even quite a few simpler pieces by Bach use counterpoint. In counterpoint you can have just 2 melodic lines or you can have 4 or more. \n\nBut if I want to write a fugue, even if it is just a fugetto for a sonata, how would I go about doing that on just 2 staves? I don't know of any fugues with just 2 melodic lines(doesn't mean that couldn't be possible though). I think 1 of the reasons it was easy for Bach to write fugues is that a lot of them he composed for the organ which uses 3 staves(and at the time was 2 keyboards + foot pedals, some modern organs have way more than just 2 keyboards). I only have a piano and have rarely seen an organ in person. So I only have 2 staves to work with, 1 for the right hand and the other for the left hand. I'm probably going to have to use the sustain pedal in my sonata composition, but especially in the fugetto.\n\nBut how would I write in counterpoint? It seems so complicated even though you are using simple melodies to make a complicated piece.
You say that "counterpoint is so rarely used these days". This not true. Contemporary music employs a great deal of counterpoint in various styles - some very much unlike Bach but also much that is similar in style to Bach - and you will find this in contemporary piano music. Counterpoint simply refers to independence of voices and is basic part of most sophisticated composition. Since you used Back as an example, here is a link to a video that shows the score to Bach's Preludes and Fugues 1-12 from The Well tempered Calvier (now performed on Piano). This is a good example of counterpoint in multiple voices written for piano: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oFjk0HynY4
