# What precisely qualifies something as a fugue?



## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Right, this might seem ridiculous coming from a baroque enthusiast, but I've had it explained to me before though there is still some confusion. I know intuitively what a fugue sounds like, I can usually tell one apart from 2 and 3 part imitative counterpoint, as in the Bach inventions, but I'm still not entirely sure. Some examples that come to mind of things I know are fugues: Corelli's concerto grossi in C major, the first one, with its second to last movement, entitled "fuga". I notice that a theme is first played and then in anything called a fugue, the same theme comes in, usually in the bass register or at least lower, in a different key, the Corelli starts in C and the next part of it is in F so is it always a fourth from the dominant key? There are some strange one's that I've encountered, like the Finale to Tchaikovsky's Polish Symphony, and one Handel Concerto grossi has an exceptionally long one. I'm working on a little Purcell keyboard prelude that may have a fugue in that it follows the same rule that I highlighted, but perhaps since its so puny it is a fugetta? Does a fugue have to last a certain duration to be a fugue? Or does this pattern just have to occur a few times and not cary a piece all the way through to nearly the end?

I'm sorry if this is vague...


----------



## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Hah. Not vague to me. I think I know what a canon is - Row, row your boat, right? But a fugue doesn't require a repetition of the same theme, does it? Aren't there several things going on at once, that come together occasionally?

When you get an explanation, _clavichorder_, please do your best to translate it into hillbillyese, for your old buddy here.


----------



## jalex (Aug 21, 2011)

A fugue is piece of music primarily built on a theme which is imitatively repeated at different pitches in different 'voices' (ie registers or instruments), and generally also includes development and transitory material. Usually the theme, or 'subject' will will played alone in one voice, then will enter at a different pitch (most often a fifth above I think but various situations call for other pitches such as a fourth above) in another voice while the first voice plays a 'countersubject' accompaniment and so on with voices dropping in and out all the time and material being developed after all the main entries.

A fughetta is a small fugue and a fugal passages within larger pieces are called fugatos.


----------



## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

I think there is such a wide variety of things that can be done within a 'fugue' that its hard to give a precise definition. I've always thought of a fugue as basically just a musical phrase that is repeated in different ways and layered in a 'contrapuntal web'. There are some very intricate rules layed out on wikipedia, but I find that most of the 'rules' are preceded with the word 'usually', so they don't seem very concrete, and I often wonder how much someone like Bach actually rationally thought about these 'rules' when composing his fugues.


----------



## kv466 (May 18, 2011)




----------



## HerlockSholmes (Sep 4, 2011)

This video should clear things up a bit:


----------



## Meaghan (Jul 31, 2010)

If you want more resources, this was my introduction to fugues:

(If you click on it again once it opens in the viewer, it gets even bigger, apparently, and should be readable.)


----------



## Meaghan (Jul 31, 2010)

And then we got to analyze fugues with highlighters, which was fun.


----------



## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

A fugue has a subject and a counter subject. That is the only requirement necessary to call something a fugue, in it's original sense, because the subject and counter subject belonged to the fugue (fugue being a term and not actually a form) at it's offset, thus it's important role in counterpoint.

However, the fugue does not exist in a vacuum, so we need to observe the compositional element of form in order to distinguish a fugue today, from say, any other type of piece that has a subject and counter subject. So, here is the definition of a fugue in practical terms (that is, the way you would want to anachronistically use a fugue today, as opposed to examining it in it's historical development):

A fugue is divided into exposition, development, and recapitulation. The first exposition,is when the subject is introduced (one or a few motifs), and then repeated in each voice; those other voices being called counter subjects, that are either replicas of the subject in a different mode or close relatives that take one or a few different turns. The development is entered into via an episode (a voice representing the subject, that has an augmented or diminished note), it is a new exposition of the subject and must state the subject or a counter subject answer in it's entirety before continuing on into something else or ending. The recapitulation is a section that isn't considered as obligatory as the first two, and is a final restatement of the subject in the original key of the piece.

Mind you, these elements are necessary to define something as a fugue, because the term in it's original use simply implies a subject and a counter subject. The distinctions are made only in accordance with the fugue later in history than it's first use, and really aren't that exhaustive. These distinctions are simply convenient for us today, with the range of pieces for us to look at.

Really, when it comes to appreciating all of what a fugue is, and the hardly rivaled contribution of the fugue to the composition of Western music, you'd really have to study Bach's _The Art of Fugue_, to observe fughettas, simple fugues, double fugues, triple fugues, quadruple fugues, counter fugues (where the inversion/counter is introduced first, as in Contrapunctus V and Contrapunctus VII from Bach's _The Art of Fugue_), and permutation fugues.

As for your question about the fugetta, and it's duration, I would point out that a fugetta is less strict in form than it's relatives, and tends to be shorter. You could even call a fugetta an episode in the middle of a larger piece. Here's an example of a fugetta:






It's only about thirty seconds long, and the two subjects (the stacatto sixteenth notes one and the one in quarter notes and eighth notes) aren't repeated "word for word".


----------



## Norse (May 10, 2010)

Lukecash12, you seem to use a different definition of counter subject than what I'm used to. Is this some old, 'original' meaning of the term?

The way you describe counter subjects is basically what I would call 'answers', comes (latin) or maybe generally speaking 'subject entries'. To me a counter subject is what is set against the subject as counterpoint. Fugues can have a fixed counter subject, where the CS always (or almost always) appear together with the subject, or they might be without a fixed CS, meaning that the counterpoint is 'free'. This is one basic way of differentiating fugues, which made me react when you said that a counter subject is a requirement for calling something a fugue.


----------



## Meaghan (Jul 31, 2010)

More stuff about fugues, again courtesy of Form & Analysis class.


----------



## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

Norse said:


> Lukecash12, you seem to use a different definition of counter subject than what I'm used to. Is this some old, 'original' meaning of the term?
> 
> The way you describe counter subjects is basically what I would call 'answers', comes (latin) or maybe generally speaking 'subject entries'. To me a counter subject is what is set against the subject as counterpoint. Fugues can have a fixed counter subject, where the CS always (or almost always) appear together with the subject, or they might be without a fixed CS, meaning that the counterpoint is 'free'. This is one basic way of differentiating fugues, which made me react when you said that a counter subject is a requirement for calling something a fugue.


The counter subject of a fugue is where counterpoint first became popular, Norse. You are right that another term for it is "answer". It was the fugue that established counterpoint as a dominant composition element, and the counter subject of a fugue is derivative of the term "counterpoint" that we use today.


----------



## Norse (May 10, 2010)

Lukecash12 said:


> The counter subject of a fugue is where counterpoint first became popular, Norse. You are right that another term for it is "answer". It was the fugue that established counterpoint as a dominant composition element, and the counter subject of a fugue is derivative of the term "counterpoint" that we use today.


So you _are_ saying that counter subject used to mean something completely different than what we mean by it now. Interesting how a term can change like that. I guess I can see how imitation is also a sort of "counter", though.


----------



## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

Norse said:


> So you _are_ saying that counter subject used to mean something completely different than what we mean by it now. Interesting how a term can change like that. I guess I can see how imitation is also a sort of "counter", though.


I suppose that you could say that. What's interesting about the fugue is that, unlike other dance forms and religious chorales, masses, credos, etc. before it, it was not only incidentally contrapuntal because it was polyphonic. It made counterpoint an "institution" of it's own.


----------



## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

A lot of very thorough answers above. From my listening experience, I noticed that fugues were often used as a means of composition rather than say, like many of Bach's fugues, thoroughly works out "musical-scientific" pieces. Take the well know _Amen_ choral fugue that closes Handel's _The Messiah_ (i.e. the last movement of the whole work). Is it a relatively complicated fugue? I don't think so. We all recognise it is a fugue and yet while acknowledging that, we can still appreciate it as a sublime and majestic way to close that oratorio (yes, even an atheist like myself admit it is a religiously uplifting close, fittingly so for a "scared" oratorio). The point here is, I don't think it's the most complicated fugue around but it was used fittingly as a means to round off a grand oratorio, as a compositional means.


----------



## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

tdc said:


> I think there is such a wide variety of things that can be done within a 'fugue' that its hard to give a precise definition. I've always thought of a fugue as basically just a musical phrase that is repeated in different ways and layered in a 'contrapuntal web'. There are some very intricate rules layed out on wikipedia, but I find that most of the 'rules' are preceded with the word 'usually', so they don't seem very concrete, and I often wonder how much someone like Bach actually rationally thought about these 'rules' when composing his fugues.





Lukecash12 said:


> A fugue has a subject and a counter subject. That is the only requirement necessary to call something a fugue, in it's original sense, because the subject and counter subject belonged to the fugue (fugue being a term and not actually a form) at it's offset, thus it's important role in counterpoint...


I think what you both say above is that this is a very flexible form (or term as you say, Lukecash), and it's based more on convention than any strict rules. In Latin this word in various forms/contexts means either "flight" &/or a "chase." So it's a bit like one person running away from another person who is chasing them.


----------

