Fugue

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A "Bach Fugue"

In music, a fugue (pronEng|ˈfjuːg) is a type of contrapuntal composition or technique of composition for a fixed number of parts, normally referred to as "voices". [1] In the Middle Ages, the term was widely used to denote any works in canonic style; by the Renaissance, it had come to denote specifically imitative works.[2] Since the 17th century, the term fugue has described what is commonly regarded as the most fully developed procedure of imitative counterpoint. A fugue opens with one main theme, the subject, which then sounds successively in each voice in imitation; when each voice has entered, the exposition is complete; this is occasionally followed by a connecting passage, or episode, developed from previously heard material; further "entries" of the subject then are heard in related keys. Episodes (if applicable) and entries are usually alternated until the "final entry" of the subject, by which point the music has returned to the opening key, or tonic, which is often followed by closing material, the coda. In this sense, fugue is a style of composition, rather than fixed structure. Though there are certain established practices, in writing the exposition for example,[3] composers approach the style with varying degrees of freedom and individuality.

The form evolved during the 18th century from several earlier types of contrapuntal compositions, such as imitative capriccios, canzonas, and fantasias. Middle and late Baroque composers such as Johann Pachelbel (1653–1706) contributed greatly to the development of the fugue, and the form reached ultimate maturity in the works of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750). With the decline of sophisticated contrapuntal styles at the end of the baroque period, the fugue's popularity as a compositional style waned, eventually giving way to Sonata. Nevertheless, composers from the 1750s to the present day continue to write and study fugue for various purposes; they appear in the works of Mozart (e.g. Kyrie Eleison of the Requiem in D minor) and Beethoven (e.g. end of the Credo of the Missa Solemnis), and many composers such as Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847), Anton Reicha (1770–1836) and Dmitri Shostakovich (1906–1975) wrote cycles of fugues.

The English term fugue originates in the 16th century and is derived from either the French or Italian fuga, which in turn comes from Latin, also fuga, which is itself related to both fugere (‘to flee’) and fugare, (‘to chase’). "fugue n." [4]] The adjectival form is fugal.[5] ] Variants include fughetta (literally, 'a small fugue') and fugato (a passage in fugal style within another work that is not a fugue).

Perceptions and aesthetics

Fugue is the most complex of contrapuntal forms and as a result, gifted composers have used it to express the profound. The philosopher Theodor Adorno, a skilled pianist and interpreter of Beethoven's music, expressed a sense of the arduousness and also the inauthenticity of modern fugue composition, or any composing of fugue in a contemporary context, i.e., as an anachronism. Adorno's conservative and historically bound view of Bach is not found among most modern fugue composers, such as David Diamond, Paul Hindemith or Dmitri Shostakovich. The most classicist fugues that have appeared after Beethoven are those of Felix Mendelssohn, who as a child impressed Goethe and others with his mastery of counterpoint while improvising at the piano.

In the words of Ratz, "fugal technique significantly burdens the shaping of musical ideas, and it was given only to the greatest geniuses, such as Bach and Beethoven, to breathe life into such an unwieldy form and make it the bearer of the highest thoughts."

In presenting Bach's fugues as among the greatest of contrapuntal works, Peter Kivy points out that "counterpoint itself, since time out of mind, has been associated in the thinking of musicians with the profound and the serious" (Music Alone: Philosophical Reflections on the Purely Musical Experience ISBN 0-8014-2331-7) and argues that "there seems to be some rational justification for their doing so." (Music Alone: Philosophical Reflections on the Purely Musical Experience. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, p210. ISBN 0-8014-2331-7.) Because of the way fugue is often taught, the form can be seen as dry and filled with laborious technical exercises. The term "school fugue" is used for a very strict form of the fugue that was created to facilitate teaching.

Others, such as Alfred Mann, argued that fugue writing, by focusing the compositional process actually improves or disciplines the composer towards musical ideas. This is related to the idea that restrictions create freedom for the composer, by directing their efforts. He also points out that fugue writing has its roots in improvisation, and was, during the baroque, practiced as an improvisatory art.[6]

References

  1. "fugue" The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music. Ed. Michael Kennedy. Oxford University Press, 1996. "Oxford Reference Online, subscription access". Retrieved on 2007-03-16.
  2. "Fugue [Fr. fugue; Ger. Fuge; Lat., It., Sp., fuga]." The Harvard Dictionary of Music, (New England, 2003), "credo Reference". Retrieved on 2008-05-06.
  3. ee Walker, Paul. "Fugue", Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy (accessed 16 March 2007), grovemusic.com (subscription access). for discussion of the changing use of the term throughout Western music history.
  4. Walker, Paul. "Fugue, §1: A classic fugue analysed", Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy (accessed 16 March 2007), grovemusic.com (subscription access).
  5. G. M. Tucker, Andrew V. Jones "fugue" The Oxford Companion to Music. Ed. Alison Latham. Oxford University Press, 2002. King's College London. "Oxford Reference Online, subscription access". Retrieved on 2007-03-17.
  6. Walker, Paul. "Fugue", Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy (accessed 16 March 2007), grovemusic.com (subscription access).
  7. Walker, Paul. "Fugue, §6: Late 18th century", Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy (accessed 16 March 2007), grovemusic.com (subscription access).
  8. Walker, Paul. "Fugue, §8: 20th century", Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy (accessed 16 March 2007), grovemusic.com (subscription access).
  9. "fugue n." The Concise Oxford English Dictionary, Eleventh edition revised . Ed. Catherine Soanes and Angus Stevenson. Oxford University Press, 2006. "Oxford Reference Online, subscription access". Retrieved on 2007-03-16.
  10. "fugal adj." The Concise Oxford English Dictionary, Eleventh edition revised . Ed. Catherine Soanes and Angus Stevenson. Oxford University Press, 2006. King's College London. "Oxford Reference Online, subscription access". Retrieved on 2007-03-16.
  11. G. M. Tucker, Andrew V. Jones "fugue" The Oxford Companion to Music. Ed. Alison Latham. Oxford University Press, 2002. King's College London. "Oxford Refence Online, subscription access". Retrieved on 2007-03-16.
  12. Verrall, John W., Fugue and Invention - In Theory and Practice (Pacific, California, 1966), p.12
  13. PAUL WALKER: 'Fugue, §1: A classic fugue analysed' "Grove Music Online". Retrieved on 2007-02-18.
  14. "invertible counterpoint" The Oxford Companion to Music. Ed. Alison Latham. Oxford University Press, 2002. King's College London. "Oxford Reference Online, subscription access". Retrieved on 2007-03-16.
  15. Drabkin, William. "Invertible Counterpoint", Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy (accessed 16 March 2007), grovemusic.com (subscription access).
  16. Verrall, John W., Fugue and Invention - In Theory and Practice (Pacific, California, 1966), p.33
  17. Walker, Paul. "Counter-exposition", Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy (accessed 19 March 2007), grovemusic.com (subscription access).
  18. BACH, Johann Sebastian, 'Fuge Nr. 2', Das Wohltemperierte Klavier I, G. Henle Verlag, ed. Ernst-Günter Heinemann, (Munich, 1997)
  19. Verrall, John W., Fugue and Invention - In Theory and Practice (Pacific, California, 1966), p.33
  20. See, DREYFUS, Laurence, 'Figments of the Organicist Imagination', Bach and the Patterns of Invention (Cambridge and London, Harvard Univ. Press, 1996), p. 178
  21. Verrall, John W., Fugue and Invention - In Theory and Practice (Pacific, California, 1966), p.12
  22. Walker, Paul. "Stretto (i)", Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy (accessed 16 March 2007), grovemusic.com (subscription access).
  23. Verrall, John W., Fugue and Invention - In Theory and Practice (Pacific, California, 1966), p.77
  24. Walker, Paul. "Stretto (i)", Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy (accessed 29 March 2007), grovemusic.com (subscription access).
  25. Walker, Paul. "Double Fugue", Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy (accessed 29 March 2007), grovemusic.com (subscription access).
  26. "double fugue" The Oxford Companion to Music, Ed. Alison Latham, Oxford University Press, 2002, "Oxford Reference Online, subscription access". Retrieved on 2007-03-29.
  27. "double fugue" The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music, Ed. Michael Kennedy, Oxford University Press, 1996, "Oxford Reference Online, subscription access". Retrieved on 2007-03-29.
  28. Walker, Paul. "Counter-fugue", Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy (accessed 31 March 2007), grovemusic.com (subscription access).
  29. Wolff, Christoph. "Bach, §III: (7) Johann Sebastian Bach, §20: Canons, ‘Musical offering’, ‘Art of fugue’", Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy (accessed 31 March 2007), grovemusic.com (subscription access).
  30. Walker, Paul. "Permutation Fugue", Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy (accessed 31 March 2007), grovemusic.com (subscription access).
  31. Ratz, Erwin (1951). Einführung in die Musikalische Formenlehre: Über Formprinzipien in den Inventionen J. S. Bachs und ihre Bedeutung für die Kompositionstechnik Beethovens ("Introduction to Musical Form: On the Principles of Form in J. S. Bach's Inventions and their Import for Beethoven's Compositional Technique"), first edition with supplementary volume. Vienna: Österreichischer Bundesverlag für Unterricht, Wissenschaft und Kunst, p259.
  32. Kivy, Peter (1990). Music Alone: Philosophical Reflections on the Purely Musical Experience. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, p206. ISBN 0-8014-2331-7.
  33. Kivy, Peter (1990). Music Alone: Philosophical Reflections on the Purely Musical Experience. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, p210. ISBN 0-8014-2331-7.
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