Introduction to Music: Musical Forms & Styles Instructor: Anthony Johnson Course: Music 100

Musical Form Fugal Form (Fugue)-The word fugue comes from the Latin fuga, which means "flight" (as in "running away", not "flying"). A fugue begins with a theme, called the subject, which is usually stated without accompaniment. After this theme has been completed, a second voice enters to join the first voice in a "conversation". In music, a contrapuntal form where two or more (usually four) parts or voices (principal melodies for voices or instruments) are woven together. The voices enter one after the other in strict imitation of each other. They may be transposed to a higher or lower key, or combined in augmented form (larger note values). Often, when a new voice enters the fray, one of the preexisting voices will engage in a countersubject, which acts as an accompaniment to the subject. The fugue is the highest form of contrapuntal composition. And most busy in compositional technique.

Musical Form Fugue The fugue is believed to have developed from the canon which appeared during the 13th century. The canon is a type of composition wherein the parts or voices have the same melody, each beginning at a different time. The fugue also has its roots from the ensemble chansons of the 16th century as well as the ricercari of the 16th and 17th centuries. Chansons-In its typical specialized usage, the word chanson refers to a polyphonic French song of the late Middle Ages and Renaissance Ricercari-An elaborate instrumental composition in fugal or canonic style, typically of the 16th to 18th centuries.

Musical Form Parts of a Fugue:  Now like the sonata form movements will be divided into several sections:  The beginning of a fugue is called the exposition. After this, the fugue will go back to the original pattern of entering voices. These are called the second exposition, third exposition, and so on... in between these expositions there is likely to be some more free-flowing counterpoint. When all the voices have entered the fugue, the piece then moves on to a passage of free counterpoint.

Musical Form Ending a Fugue A fugue can end in two ways. A common method is to play the subject over a pedal point, which is a note that is "droned" over a melodic line. Lastly another technique used to end a fugue is stretto, which is a sort of exposition where each voice enters before the previous one has finished stating the subject. This is an effective way of building up climactic tension.

Musical Form Fugue fun facts Another thing you should notice about the fugue (and counterpoint) is that it sounds pretty complicated. That's pretty unavoidable when you have up to six voices each trying to say something all at once, with no one voice being any more significant than any other. This complexity is ultimately a large part of the reason for the simplified style of the Classical Period. People just got tired of all this elaborate music and reacted by going in the opposite direction, towards very simple music with only one melodic line. For this reason, the fugue began to become unpopular.

Musical Form Further Reading for Understanding Fugue: A highly evolved form of imitative counterpoint.   Counterpoint has been happening since the motet. It's when you have two (or more) musical lines going on at once. Imitative counterpoint is when both the lines are using the same theme. Usually one starts, then the second joins in (kind of like a round, when one theme starts and a few beats later the theme starts in another instrument) at the same pitch, or transposed. In the search for a definition of "fugue" - a fugal form has been concocted. Here's roughly how the fugal form works... You state a theme, reiterate the theme in a second voice, and reiterate the theme in a third voice. Then you break into an episode (that's a section where you never hear the theme). Next you go off and do a bunch of other junk, and eventually end the piece. I don't go into detail because it isn't that important; there may be a half dozen fugues which actually follow the 'fugal form'. It also didn't help that when fugues were being written, there wasn't a fugal form. The fugue was just a bunch of imitative counterpoint with some extra stuff thrown in to fend off the tedium*.

Musical Form Further Reading In the 1400's and 1500's people wrote fugues. Those pieces have been retroactively renamed 'canons'. To make things even more confusing, at the end of the 1500's composers wrote ricercars and canzonas - which sound more like (modern) fugues. And then Bach came along and completely smashed the earlier composers' works into the ground. Bach wrote a heap of fuges**. When you think fugue - you think Bach. He really was that much better.   Later, Beethoven wrote some pretty good fugal sections (which were not called fugues). Basically, he had fugue-like passages stuck in his sonatas. Folks generally stopped writing big stand-alone fugue pieces. If you've ever tried to write a fugue - you already know why. Today, the fugue is similar to Elvis Presley. You know it's gone, but every now and again, someone sees a big enough hint of it to make it interesting. It seems complex imitative counterpoint isn't dead yet.

Questions & Disscussion 1-It is derived from the Latin term fuga meaning take “Flight” . Fugue 2-An elaborate instrumental composition in fugal or canonic style, typically of the 16th to 18th centuries. Ricercari 3-What is another name for the beginning theme in a fugue? Subject 4-What are the two ways a Fugue can be ended? 1-Playing the subject over a pedal point, which is a note that is "droned" over a melodic line. 2-stretto, which is a sort of exposition where each voice enters before the previous one has finished stating the subject 5-What is another name for he form fugue? Counterpoint