FUGUE

musical composition for instruments or voices, characterized by the systematic imitation of one main theme in simultaneously sounding melodic lines (counterpoint), which make up its texture. Fugue is more accurately described as a compositional procedure than a musical form, and its musical working out is traditionally in accordance with a set of fairly strict rules, though each example varies in specific form depending upon its type and the period in which it was written. The roots of the fugue may be traced to the imitative polyphony of the 13th century, although it was not until the 16th century that fugal writing in its accepted sense emerged. It reached the culmination of its formal development and expressive effect in the works of Johann Sebastian Bach. Fugue proceeds according to a certain pattern. It opens most commonly with the announcement of an unaccompanied theme, or subject, that is taken up in turn by the other parts, or voices. The range of this subject is generally contained within one octave, but it may vary in length and character from a terse motif to a florid melody of several dozen notes. This initial announcement and working out of the themes, generally in the tonic key, is known as the exposition. Its chief characteristic is the appearance of the subject at different pitches in each part. In the typical Baroque fugue, the interval of entry is normally at the fourth or fifth or at the octave to the original entry, and the second entry of the subject is often referred to as the answer. Another characteristic feature of the fugal exposition is the countersubject, the continuation of the subject that forms the counterpoint to the answer. This theme regularly accompanies the subject on its appearances throughout the fugue. Should a countersubject accompany the first entry of the subject, however, it is known as the second subject and the fugue as a double fugue. Passages between subsequent entries of the subject are called episodes. Thematically they may be derived from the subject, countersubject, or codettathe linking counterpoint between the subject and its answer. Fugues, however, sometimes exist without episodes, and by contrast they can appear with four or more expositions separated from each other by episodes. These middle expositions are often enriched by modulations to related keys with a return to the tonic key for the final exposition. This final section leads to the culmination of the music and may include such devices as stretto (the overlapping of subject and answer to increase intensity) or the pedal (where parts revolve around an elongated note, usually in the bass, to produce a series of dissonances prior to resolution). Such devices may occur in a small extension to the structure known as a coda. musical composition for instruments or voices, characterized by the systematic imitation of a principal theme in simultaneously sounding melodic lines (counterpoint), which make up its texture. Fugue is more accurately described as a compositional procedure than a musical form. Although the statement is debatable, it is often said that the fugue is the most complex and highly developed type of composition in Western music. The term, derived from fuga, the Latin word for flight, was first used about 1330 by Jacques de Lige, the author of Speculum musicae, an important medieval treatise. At that time it referred to a technique of musical writing based on strict imitation. Later, after its emergence as an independent musical form in the 17th century, the fugue became a composition in counterpoint based on a generating theme, in which different parts, or voices, enter successively in imitation, as if in pursuit of each other. The heir of all the compositional techniques that had developed earlier, it differs from its ancestors (the motet, the ricercare, the canzona) in having a more specifically tonal character, unity of form, and a greater economy. Counterpoint's laws and techniques were developed from the 10th century to the Renaissance, a period during which Western music was essentially polyphonic. One of the main problems was the harmonic aspect of the meeting of the voices, and the rules of counterpoint are always precise regarding the use of consonance and dissonance. Counterpoint deals also with movement between the parts. It includes various techniques of development, among which imitation is probably the most remarkable feature of polyphonic music. There are many kinds of imitations. The strictest is the canon, in which the melody stated by the first voice is later reproduced by the second voice. A good example is the song Frre Jacques. Other common types of imitation include inversion of all the intervals, augmentation (in which the rhythmic values are doubled), diminution (in which they are reduced), or even retrograde imitation, in which the last note of one voice becomes the first note of the next. All these techniques are used in fugal composition, which is characterized more by its language than by its form. Additional reading Major historical treatises on the study of the fugal style include: N. Vincentino, L'Antica Musica ridotta alla moderna prattica (1555); Gioseffo Zarlino, Institutioni harmoniche (1558; Eng. trans. of part 3, The Art of Counterpoint, 1968); Thomas Morley, A Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musicke (1597; new ed. by R.A. Harman, 1952); Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, Kompositionslehre (1670, reissued 1891); Johann Joseph Fux, Gradus ad parnassum, 2 vol. (1725; Eng. trans., Steps to Parnassus, 1943), part of this work ed. and trans. by Alfred Mann as The Study of Fugue, in Musical Quarterly, vol. 3637 (195051); Jean Philippe Rameau, Trait de l'harmonie (1772); Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg, Abhandlung von der Fuge, 2 vol. (175354); G. Martini, Esemplare, o sia saggio fondamentale pratico di contrappunto sopra il canto fermo, vol. 2 (1775, reissued 1965); and Johann Georg Albrechtsberger, Grndliche Anweisung zur Komposition (1790).Academic works treating the fugue as a pure fiction include: Luigi Cherubini, Cours de contrepoint et de fugue, ed. by Jacques Halevy (1835; Eng. trans., A Course of Counterpoint and Fugue, 1837); E.F. Richter, Lehrbuch der Fuge (1859; Eng. trans., A Treatise on Fugue, 1878); S. Jadassohn, Lehre vom Canon und der Fug (1884; Eng. trans., A Course of Instruction on Canon and Fugue, 1904); H. Riemann, Katechismus der Fuge (189091); and T. Dubois, Trait de contrepoint et de fugue (1901). Modern academic works marking a return to Bach are: Andre Gedalge, Trait de la fugue (1901; Eng. trans., Treatise on Fugue, 1964); E. Prout, Fugue (1891); C.H. Kitson, Studies in Fugue (1922); and George Oldroyd, The Technique and Spirit of the Fugue (1948).Modern studies on style include: Knud Jeppesen, Kontrapunkt (1930; Eng. trans., Counterpoint, 1939); Alfred Mann, The Study of Fugue (1958); and Warren Kirkendale, Fugue and Fugato in Rococo and Classical Chamber Music, 2nd rev. and enl. ed. (1979; originally published in German, 1966).