From jasongg@aol.com Mon Jul 10 11:14:02 EDT 1995 Article: 22922 of rec.music.compose Path: zip.eecs.umich.edu!newsxfer.itd.umich.edu!europa.chnt.gtegsc.com!howland.reston.ans.net!news-e1a.megaweb.com!newstf01.news.aol.com!newsbf02.news.aol.com!not-for-mail From: jasongg@aol.com (JasonGG) Newsgroups: rec.music.compose Subject: Re: Definition of a Fugue Date: 8 Jul 1995 04:09:20 -0400 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) Lines: 18 Sender: root@newsbf02.news.aol.com Message-ID: <3tlefg$c72@newsbf02.news.aol.com> References: <3tkvk9$h5l@indy-backup.indy.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: newsbf02.mail.aol.com X-Newsreader: AOL Offline Reader In article <3tkvk9$h5l@indy-backup.indy.net>, donyboy@indy.net (Donald A. Pierce) writes: >Can someone give me the full implication and definition of a fugue? >Thanks. Wow. A full explination of a fugues form, structure and function would take a lot space. Perhaps someone else will answer in such as way, but I will just provide you this general definition, which gives you the basic idea...A fugue is a highly developed process of immitative counterpoint. Fugues require a strict number of voices, generally between two and six, but there are of course exceptions. A theme is given succesively through "subjects" and "answers" successively through the voices. Being embellished, altered, added to, etc. along the way. Answers to the subject can be "real" or "tonal" which is another fairly lengthy explination. Fugue is certainly one of the toughest tonal forms to master, and takes quite a bit of study. From fields@zip.eecs.umich.edu Mon Jul 10 11:25:23 EDT 1995 Article: 22947 of rec.music.compose Path: zip.eecs.umich.edu!zip.eecs.umich.edu!fields From: fields@zip.eecs.umich.edu (Matthew H. Fields) Newsgroups: rec.music.compose Subject: Re: Definition of a Fugue Date: 9 Jul 1995 03:13:12 GMT Organization: University of Michigan EECS Dept. Lines: 85 Message-ID: <3tnhg8$bm8@zip.eecs.umich.edu> References: <3tkvk9$h5l@indy-backup.indy.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: zip.eecs.umich.edu In article <3tkvk9$h5l@indy-backup.indy.net>, Donald A. Pierce wrote: >Can someone give me the full implication and definition of a fugue? Thanks. Hmmm, well, there's serveral layers to this. 1) Counterpoint. This is the notion of composing music as several simultaneous melodies. The notion of counterpoint connotes a body of lore developed since the 14th century on how to best make all the many melodies clearly audible at once, with none obstructing the ear's hearing of the others. At the same time, composers strive to make all the melodies meet certain criteria of "beauty" or at least "rhetorical clarity". 2) Harmony. This is the notion that the chords arising from simultaneously sounding notes follow a definite pattern. The traditional patterns are hierarchical and highly stylized; much of the drama of traditional music comes from tension between the expectation of a simple formula and the more elaborate, stretched out actualization of it. Thus music theorists speak of "prolongation" to name devices that mediate between grammar and expression. Note that harmony---the pattern of chords---and counterpoint---the interaction of simultaneous melodies---are not separable subjects, because the music is necessarily woven of both, each in its dimension. 3) Motif. This is the notion that a piece is made of a small number of highly recognizable variants of a quirky, readily-identifiable bit of music, especially a short bit of melody. 4) Canon. This is best simply summarized as rounds and their cousins-- a canon is a rule applied to the music given to one player, which computes the music to be given to another player; typically the rule is something audible, like Sing the Same Music Starting A Bar Later And An Octave Lower. "Row Row Row Your Boat" is a classic example of a canon. Classical composers wrote canons so that the composite music fulfilled not only the expectations of the canon but also those of harmony and counterpoint. 5) Transition. The act of redirecting a musical stream onto a new channel is potentially trickier than it sounds. Many classical composers felt transition such an important and separable kind of music that they applied a separate set of transformations to the basic motifs in transitions from those in the "main musics" that it connected. The main concern was that the end of transition should be clearly recognizable as a signpost, some sort of arrival point, and that musical drama and listener interest should be kept up. 6) Form. Form refers roughly to the rhyme scheme of a piece of music... it's overall anatomy in sections, and the relationship of those sections to each other. THe most familiar form, alternating verses and choruses, shares a common ancestor with the form of fugue: the alternation of odes and episodes in ancient Greek theater works. OK, I think I've got most of the tools to describe fugue. A fugue is a piece of music that begins with a bit of canon on a motif. This is interrupted by transitional material, after which the canon resumes, and is interrupted, and thus the form alternates--- well, that oversimplifies the matter, but basically fugues are works in a style that has this notion at its core. The transitional material is usually built from motifs related to the canonical material. The canonical material, whenever it appears, is called "Exposition", and the transitional material is called "Episode" (again showing the neoclassical thought of the folks who developed the style). The multi-melody clarity of counterpoint is key to both the audibility of the "Subjects" (main motifs of the expositions) and the progress of the episodes. And the rhetorical expression of harmony is key to the overall fascination and expressiveness of the music. Depending on your inclinations as a composer, fugues can be easy or hard to write. There's a burdensome machismo typically associated with them in academia that probably interferes both with folks writing them and with academics appreciating them _as music_ rather than as mere witty workings out of all the difficulties suggested by all the categorical studies I mentioned above. All of this, though, is just words. To really feel what fugues are, I suggest you listen carefully and attentively to J.S. Bach's "Art of Fugue" in its entirety, and see how much you can follow of the ways he sculpts romantic expressive shapes out of canon and transition, all built on variations of the first tune at the beginning of the piece. See if you can hear the components that I listed above. Matt From ferret@dircon.co.uk Tue Jul 11 11:54:26 EDT 1995 Article: 23012 of rec.music.compose Path: zip.eecs.umich.edu!newsxfer.itd.umich.edu!gatech!news.sprintlink.net!dish.news.pipex.net!pipex!dircon!usenet From: ferret@dircon.co.uk (M C Bucknall) Newsgroups: rec.music.compose Subject: Re: Definition of a Fugue Date: Mon, 10 Jul 1995 18:37:16 GMT Organization: (The Ferret) Lines: 77 Message-ID: <3trso7$1o9@newsgate.dircon.co.uk> References: <3tkvk9$h5l@indy-backup.indy.net> <3tlefg$c72@newsbf02.news.aol.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: ac046.pool.dircon.co.uk X-Newsreader: Forte Free Agent v0.55 [Ferret writes:] The best textbook I have read on this subject is 'Fugue' by Prout, famous editor of the Messiah. It is available in facsimile from Greenwood Press. It says there: "a Fugue is a composition founded upon one subject, announced at first in one part alone, and subsequently imitated by all the other parts in turn, according to certain general principles to be hereafter explained." After a warning that there can be more than one subject in the same fugue, Prout explaines the "general principles" by way of distinguishing fugue from canon. One distinction is that "continuous imitation of one part by another is scarcely ever met with in a fugue" , i.e. you have epsiodes (but see the first fugue in the 48); another is a longwinded periphrasis of what Jason says about tonal answers, i.e. the exact intervals change in order to fit the prevailing tonality (crude synopsis); and a third is the requirement for the answer to occur a fourth below or fifth above the subject, i.e. at the dominant pitch. There are rules which govern the relationship of the modulations in the subject to their equivalents in the answer, e.g. . Subject starts in tonic, ends in dominant - Answer (usually) other way round. There then follows pages of description relating to how the various elements of a fugue can be treated. One important maxim which should be added to the definition is that double or triple counterpoint should be employed for regular subjects and countersubjects that are to accompany each other throughout, otherwise you have no guarantee that the countersubject (for example) will make good counterpoint with the subject or answer when placed both *above* and *below* it; i.e. either can serve as the bass. The important consequence of this is that: in double counterpoint, not only must a perfect fourth sound as a dissonance which resolves into a third; so also must a perfect fifth "resolve" into a sixth (because when you invert the fifth you get a fourth). Obviously, you cannot observe this for all the counterpoint, and the trick is to know when invertible counterpoint is not required. Triple counterpoint means three subjects, any one of which can serve as the bass for the other two. Another good book is "The Technique and Spirit of Fugue" by George Oldroyd, who was responsible for an Anglican folk mass which I grew to hate at the age of 12. This book is prefaced with an apt warning from the editor: "The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life". ferret@dircon.co.uk (M C Bucknall) All views expressed in this article are my own only, unless otherwise attributed.