Fugue

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

Perceptions and aesthetics

Fugue is the most complex of contrapuntal forms and, as such, gifted composers have used it to express the profound. The complexity of fugue has foiled lesser composers who have produced only the banal. In the words of the Austrian musicologist Erwin Ratz (1951, p. 259), "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."

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In presenting Bach's fugues as among the greatest of contrapuntal works, Peter Kivy (1990) points out (p. 206) that "counterpoint itself, since time out of mind, has been associated in the thinking of musicians with the profound and the serious" and argues (p. 210) that "there seems to be some rational justification for their doing so." Because of the way fugue is often taught, the form can be seen as dry and filled with laborious technical exercises. The derogatory term school fugue is sometimes applied to fugues (MIDI File), which have no real musical interest and have been merely written to demonstrate technical ability. The works of the Austrian composer Simon Sechter, who was a teacher of Schubert and Bruckner, include several thousand fugues, but they are not found in the standard repertory, again not because they are fugues but because of Sechter's limitations as a musical artist.

Related Topics:
Simon Sechter - Schubert - Bruckner

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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.

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The fugue is perceived, then, not merely as itself, but in relation to the idea of the fugue, and the greatest of examples from the Baroque era forward. As a musical idea with a history, which includes its use in liturgical music of Christianity, a device in teaching composition, a favored form by one of the greatest, if not the greatest, composer of classical music, and as a form which can be thought of as distinctly antique - there are a whole range of expectations brought to bear on any piece of music labelled "fugue".

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