Counterpoint
Fugue Subjects and Answers
A fugue's opening notes commit the piece to more than a tune. The subject's shape and the answer's adjustment decide what can happen next.
Fugue
A contrapuntal piece built on a subject that enters in each voice in turn, developed through episodes, with answers and countersubjects.
Also called: Fuga
A fugue is a contrapuntal composition in which a short theme, the subject, enters in one voice and is answered in another, usually a fifth above or a fourth below. While the answer sounds, the first voice continues with a countersubject. Entries follow until every voice has stated the subject. Between entries, episodes develop motifs from the subject in new keys. The exposition is the opening round of entries, and later sections return to the subject in related keys before a closing section that reaches the tonic. Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier contains preludes and fugues in all twenty-four major and minor keys, and his Art of Fugue explores the form systematically.
Related terms
- ImitationA technique in which a melody or motif is restated in another voice after a short delay, often at a different pitch, creating a dialogue between parts.
- CanonA form in which one voice imitates another exactly after a fixed delay, creating a continuous chain of entries, as in a round.
- CounterpointThe writing of two or more independent melodic lines that sound together, linked by rules for consonance, dissonance and voice leading.
- ExpositionThe opening section of a sonata-form movement or a fugue, in which the main themes or subject are presented before any development.
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Counterpoint
Imitation and Invertible Counterpoint
Imitation makes one idea serve two lines. Invertible counterpoint makes those lines interchangeable, and the arithmetic behind it is small enough to check.