Fugue

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

Is the fugue a musical form?

A widespread view of the fugue is that it is not a musical form (in the sense that, say, sonata form is) but rather a technique of composition. For instance, Donald Tovey wrote that "Fugue is not so much a musical form as a musical texture," that can be introduced anywhere as a distinctive and recognizable technique, often to produce intensification in musical development.

Related Topics:
Sonata form - Donald Tovey

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

On the other hand, composers almost never write music in a purely cumulative fashion, and usually a work will have some kind of overall formal organization--hence the rough outline given above, involving the exposition, the sequence of episodes, and the concluding coda. When scholars say that the fugue is not a musical form, what is usually meant is that there is no one single formal outline into which all fugues reliably can be fitted.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The formal organization of a fugue involves not only the arrangement of its theme and episodes, but also its harmonic structure, a point emphasized by Ratz (1951). In particular, the exposition and coda tend to emphasize the tonic key, whereas the episodes usually explore more distant tonalities.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~