Fugue

:For the use of the word in psychology see fugue state

History

The term fuga was used as far back as the Middle Ages, but was initially used to refer to any kind of imitative counterpoint, including canons, which are now thought of as distinct from fugues. It was not until the 16th century that fugal technique as it is understood today began to be seen in pieces, both instrumental and vocal. Fugal writing is found in works such as fantasias, ricercares and canzonas.

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The fugue arose from the technique of "imitation", where the same musical material was repeated starting on a different note. Originally this was to aid improvisation, but by the 1550s, it was considered a technique of composition. The Renaissance composer Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525?-1594) wrote masses using modal counterpoint and imitation, and fugal writing became the basis for writing motets as well. A motet differed from a fugue in that each phrase of the text had a different subject which was introduced and worked out separately, whereas a fugue continued working with the same subject or subjects throughout the entire length of the piece.

Related Topics:
Improvisation - Renaissance - Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina - Modal - Motet

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Baroque era

It was in the Baroque period that the writing of fugues became central to composition, in part as a demonstration of compositional expertise. Fugues were incorporated into a variety of musical forms. Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, Girolamo Frescobaldi, Johann Jakob Froberger and Dietrich Buxtehude all wrote fugues, and George Frideric Handel included them in many of his oratorios. Keyboard suites from this time often conclude with a fugal gigue. The French overture featured a quick fugal section after a slow introduction. The second movement of a sonata da chiesa, as written by Arcangelo Corelli and others, was usually fugal.

Related Topics:
Baroque - Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck - Girolamo Frescobaldi - Johann Jakob Froberger - Dietrich Buxtehude - George Frideric Handel - Oratorio - Suite - Gigue - French overture - Sonata da chiesa - Arcangelo Corelli

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The Baroque period also saw a rise in the importance of music theory. The most influential text was published by Johann Joseph Fux (1660-1741), his Gradus Ad Parnassum ("Steps to Parnassus"), which appeared in 1725. This work laid out the terms of "species" of counterpoint, and offered a series of exercises to learn fugue writing. Fux's work was largely based on the practice of Palestrina's modal fugues. It remained influential into the nineteenth century. Haydn, for example, taught counterpoint from his own summary of Fux, and thought of it as the basis for formal structure.

Related Topics:
Music theory - Johann Joseph Fux - Parnassus - Haydn

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Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) is generally regarded as the greatest composer of fugues. He often entered into contests where he would be given a subject with which to spontaneously improvise a fugue on the organ or harpsichord.

Related Topics:
Johann Sebastian Bach - Improvise - Organ - Harpsichord

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Bach's most famous fugues are those for the harpsichord in The Well-Tempered Clavier and the (unfinished) Art of Fugue, and his organ fugues, which are usually preceded by a prelude or toccata. The Art of Fugue is a collection of fugues (and four canons) on a single theme that is gradually transformed as the cycle progresses. The Well-Tempered Clavier comprises two volumes written in different times of Bach's life, each comprising 24 prelude and fugue pairs, one for each major and minor key. Bach also wrote smaller single fugues, and incorporated fugal writing in many of his works that were not fugues per se.

Related Topics:
The Well-Tempered Clavier - Art of Fugue - Prelude - Toccata - Canons

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Although J. S. Bach was not well known as a composer in his lifetime, his influence extended forward through his son C.P.E. Bach and through the theorist Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg (1718-1795) whose Abhandlung von der Fuge ("Treatise on the fugue", 1753) was largely based on J. S. Bach's work.

Related Topics:
C.P.E. Bach - Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg

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Classical era

During the Classical era, the fugue was no longer a central or even fully natural mode of musical composition. Nevertheless, the three greatest composers of the Classical era, Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, all had periods of their careers in which they in some sense "rediscovered" fugal writing and used it frequently in their work.

Related Topics:
Haydn - Mozart - Beethoven

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Haydn's first spell of fugue-writing occurred when he composed his Sun quartets, (op. 20, 1772) of which three have fugal finales. This was a practice that Haydn only repeated once later in his quartet-writing career, with the finale of his quartet Op. 50 no. 4 (1787). However, a second period of fugue writing for Haydn occurred after he had heard, and been greatly inspired by, the oratorios of Handel during his visits to London (1791-1793, 1794-1795). Haydn then studied Handel's techniques and incorporated Handelian fugal writing into the choruses of his mature oratorios The Creation and The Seasons.

Related Topics:
Sun quartets - Oratorio - Handel - The Creation - The Seasons

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Mozart studied counterpoint when young with Padre Martini in Rome. However, the major impetus to fugal writing for Mozart was the influence of Baron Gottfried van Swieten in Vienna around 1782. Van Swieten, during diplomatic service in Berlin, had taken the opportunity to collect as many manuscripts by Bach and Handel as he could, and he invited Mozart to study his collection and also encouraged him to transcribe various works for other combinations of instruments. Mozart was evidently fascinated by these works, and wrote a set of transcriptions for string trio of fugues from Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier, introducing them with preludes of his own. Mozart then set to writing fugues on his own, mimicking the Baroque style. These included the fugues for string quartet, K. 405 (1782) and a fugue in C Minor K. 426 for two pianos (1783). Later, Mozart incorporated fugal writing into the finale of his Symphony No. 41 and his opera The Magic Flute. Ironically, the final complete piece of music Mozart ever wrote was the Kyrie in his Requiem, which took the form of an immensely complicated double fugue.

Related Topics:
Padre Martini - Gottfried van Swieten - Berlin - Well-Tempered Clavier - Symphony No. 41 - The Magic Flute - Requiem

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Beethoven was familiar with fugal writing from childhood, as an important part of his training was playing from The Well-Tempered Clavier. During his early career in Vienna, Beethoven attracted notice for his performance of these fugues. There are fugal sections in Beethoven's early piano sonatas, and fugal writing is to be found in the slow movement of the Eroica Symphony (1805). Nevertheless, fugues did not take on a truly central role in Beethoven's work until his "late period." A fugue forms the development section of the last movement of his piano sonata op. 101 (1816), and massive, dissonant fugues form the finales of his Hammerklavier piano sonata (1818) and string quartet op. 130 (1825); the latter was later published separately as op. 133, the Grosse Fuge ("Great Fugue"). Beethoven's last piano sonata, op. 111 (1822) integrates fugal texture throughout the first movement, written in sonata form. Fugues are also found in the Missa Solemnis and in the finale of the Ninth Symphony.

Related Topics:
The Well-Tempered Clavier - Vienna - Eroica Symphony - ''Hammerklavier'' - String quartet op. 130 - Grosse Fuge - Sonata form - Missa Solemnis - Ninth Symphony

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A common characteristic of the Classical composers is that they usually wrote fugues not as isolated works but as part of a larger work, often as a sonata-form development section or as a finale. It was also characteristic to abandon fugal texture just before the end of a work, providing a purely homophonic resolution. This is found, for instance, in the final fugue of the chorus "The Heavens are Telling" in Haydn's The Creation (1798) and the final fugal section of Beethoven's piano sonata op. 110 (1822).

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Romantic era

By the beginning of the Romantic era, fugue writing had become specifically attached to the norms and styles of the Baroque. One manual explicitly stated that the hallmark of contrapuntal style was the style of J. S. Bach. The 19th century's taste for academicism - setting of forms and norms by explicit rules - found Marpurg, and the fugue, to be a congenial topic. The writing of fugues also remained an important part of musical education throughout the 19th century, particularly with the publication of the complete works of Bach and Handel, and the revival of interest in Bach's music.

Related Topics:
Romantic - Marpurg - Bach - Handel

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Examples of fugal writing in the Romantic era are found in the last movement of Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique, and Wagner's Meistersinger overture. The finale of Giuseppe Verdi's opera Falstaff is a ten-voice fugue. Robert Schumann, Felix Mendelssohn and Johannes Brahms also included fugues in many of their works. The final part of Schumann's Piano Quintet is a double fugue, and his opus numbers 126, 72 and 60 are all sets of fugues for the piano (opus 60 based on the BACH motif). Brahms' Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Handel ends with a fugue, as does his Cello Sonata No. 1. Towards the end of the Romantic era, Richard Strauss included a fugue in his tone poem, Also sprach Zarathustra, to represent the high intelligence of science. Sergei Rachmaninoff, despite writing in a lush post-romantic idiom, was highly skilled in counterpoint (as is highly evident in his Vespers); a well known fugue occurs in his Symphony No. 2. Alexander Glazunov wrote a very difficult Prelude and Fugue in D minor, his Op. 62, for the piano.

Related Topics:
Romantic - Berlioz - Symphonie Fantastique - Wagner - Meistersinger - Giuseppe Verdi - Falstaff - Robert Schumann - Felix Mendelssohn - Johannes Brahms - Piano Quintet - BACH motif - Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Handel - Cello Sonata No. 1 - Richard Strauss - Also sprach Zarathustra - Sergei Rachmaninoff - ''Vespers'' - ''Symphony No. 2'' - Alexander Glazunov

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20th century

The late Romantic composer Max Reger had the closest association with the fugue among his contemporaries. Many of his organ works contain, or are themselves fugues. Two of Reger's most-played orchestral works, the Hiller variations and the Mozart variations, end with a large-scale orchestral fugue.

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A number of other twentieth century composers made extensive use of the fugue. Béla Bartók opened his Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta with a fugue in which the tritone, rather than the fifth, is the main structural interval. He also included fugal sections in the final movements of his String Quartet No. 1, String Quartet No. 5 and Piano Concerto No. 3. The second movement of his Sonata for Solo Violin is also a fugue.

Related Topics:
Béla Bartók - Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta - Tritone - String Quartet No. 1 - String Quartet No. 5 - Piano Concerto No. 3 - Sonata for Solo Violin

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Igor Stravinsky also incorporated fugues into his works, including the Symphony of Psalms and the Dumbarton Oaks concerto. The last movement of Samuel Barber's famous Sonata for Piano is a sort of "modernized" fugue, which, instead of obeying the constraint of a fixed number of voices, develops the fugue subject and its head-motif in various contrapuntal situations. The practice of writing fugue cycles in the manner of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier was perpetuated by Paul Hindemith in his Ludus Tonalis, Kaikhosru Sorabji in a number of his works including the Opus clavicembalisticum, and Dmitri Shostakovich in his Preludes and Fugues, opus 87 (which, like the Well-Tempered Clavier, contains a prelude and fugue in each key, be it ordered along the cycle of fifths rather than chromatically). Benjamin Britten composed a fugue for orchestra in his The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, consisting of subject entries by each instrument once. Leonard Bernstein wrote a "Cool Fugue" as part of his musical West Side Story, and the musical comedy composer Frank Loesser included a Fugue for Tinhorns in his musical Guys and Dolls. Jazz musician Alec Templeton even wrote a fugue (recorded subsequently by Benny Goodman): Bach Goes to Town.

Related Topics:
Igor Stravinsky - Symphony of Psalms - Dumbarton Oaks - Movement - Samuel Barber - Paul Hindemith - ''Ludus Tonalis'' - Kaikhosru Sorabji - Opus clavicembalisticum - Dmitri Shostakovich - ''Preludes and Fugues'' - Benjamin Britten - The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra - Leonard Bernstein - West Side Story - Frank Loesser - Guys and Dolls - Alec Templeton - Benny Goodman

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20th Century fugue writing explored many of the directions implied by Beethoven's Grosse Fuge, and what came to be termed free counterpoint as well as dissonant counterpoint. Fugal technique as described by Marpurg became part of the theoretical basis for Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique.

Related Topics:
Grosse Fuge - Free counterpoint - Dissonant counterpoint - Twelve-tone technique

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