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In music, a fugue is a type of piece written in counterpoint for several independent musical voices. A fugue begins with its subject (a brief musical theme) stated by one of the voices playing alone. A second voice then enters and plays the subject, while the first voice continues on with a contrapuntal accompaniment. Then the remaining voices similarly enter one by one. The remainder of the fugue further develops the material using all of the voices.
The word fugue comes from the Latin fuga (flight) and fugere (to flee). Variants include fughetta (a small fugue) and fugato (a work or section of a work resembling a fugue but not necessarily adhering to the rules of one). The adjectival form of fugue is fugal.
( Johann Sebastian Bach's C-minor fugue from the Well Tempered Clavier I, in 3 voices). See the music for this fugue (external link, requires a Macromedia Director plugin).The number of voices in a fugue generally ranges from three to five, but eight or even ten voices are possible in large choral or orchestral fugues. Fugues in fewer than three voices are rare, because with two voices the subject can only jump back and forth between the upper and lower voice. The best-known example of a two-voice work is the E minor fugue from Book I of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier. Two part works which are written in a fugual manner are sometimes called "inventions".
The term "part" is often used in the context of the fugue as a synonym for "voice." Use of the term "voice" does not imply that the fugue in question is necessarily composed for voices rather than instruments.
The beginning of the fugue tends to be written to definite rules, whereas in the later portions the composer has considerably greater freedom.
A fugue begins with an exposition of its subject by one of the voices. After the subject, a second voice "answers" the subject. The answer mimics the subject at a different pitch ( interval), usually a fifth or fourth higher or lower. In a tonal answer, some of the intervals may be altered to keep the answer in the same key. In a real answer, the subject is literally transposed to another key. As the answer is passed to each new voice, the prior voice will sometimes accompany the subject with a counter-subject. It is customary for the exposition to alternate subjects (S) with answers (A) as follows: SASA. But in some fugues the order is varied: e.g. SAAS of the first fugue in Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier. The fugue's exposition concludes when all voices have stated or answered the subject.
The fugue rarely stops after its initial exposition, more often continuing to one or more developmental episodes. Episodic material is usually based upon some element of the exposition - for example, a melodic motif may be taken and repeated sequentially. There may also be middle entries: these are entries of the subject by fewer than all the voices in the fugue, often varied in some way. They are often given in keys other than the tonic or dominant, or in a different mode (minor instead of major, or vice versa).
The episodes may also vary the subject by giving it in inversion (upside-down), retrograde (back-to-front), diminution (with shorter note values) or augmentation (with longer note values; the subject in augmentation entering in the bass is a common at the end of fugues). Sometimes the voices appear in stretto, with one voice entering with the subject before the last voice has finished its entry. There also may be false entries, which begin the fugue subject, but do not give it in full.
Episodes may be interspersed with repeated expositions in which all voices give subjects and answers as at the beginning of the fugue, though these may be also be varied, for example by having the voices enter in a different order.
Various devices are used to form the conclusion of a fugue. A fugue may end with a recapitulation, in which the entries of the subject are repeated in the manner it was first introduced. Stretto entries of the subject often are found near the end, usually at the point where the fugue reaches its climax of tension. The final section often includes a pedal point, either on the dominant or the tonic note. At the very end of the fugue there may be a codaCoda, in music, is a passage which brings a movement or piece to a conclusion. Coda is also a linguistics term for the final consonant of a syllable. Coda is also the name of a 1982 album by rock group Led Zeppelin. Coda is also the name of an experimenta section, which follows a strong CadenceIn Western musical theory a cadence (Latin cadentia "a falling") is a particular series of intervals (a caesura) or chords that ends a phrase, section, or piece of music. Cadences give phrases a distinctive ending, that can, for example, indicate to the l on the tonic chord.
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