The Fugue

Fugue, in music, a compositional procedure characterized by the systematic imitation of a principal theme (called the subject) in simultaneously sounding melodic lines (counterpoint).

The term fugue may also be used to describe a work or part of a work. In its mathematical intricacy, formality, symmetry, and variety, the fugue holds the interest of composers, performers, and listeners of Western art music in much the same way as the sonnet engages English-language poets and their readers.

The earliest and most rigorous imitative technique in Western polyphony is the canon, in which each successive voice (the term for a musical line that is sung or played) has the same melody. Canons appeared in the 13th century and have been an important resource in Western counterpoint to the present day. (Folk music includes many examples of repeating canon, called round: “Frère Jacques” and “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” are familiar examples.)

A fugue can be thought of as a later stage in the evolution of canon. The name fuga was applied to canonic pieces as early as the 14th century, but the logical ancestors of the fully developed fugue are the closely imitative beginnings of late 16th-century ensemble canzonas, such as those by Giovanni Gabrieli, as well as the related ricercare.

ANIMATION: Bach’s Little Fugue in
G-Minor BWV 578

Bach’s The Art of Fugue BWV 1080

The Art of Fugue, monothematic cycle of approximately 20 fugues written in the key of D minor, perhaps for keyboard instrument, by Johann Sebastian Bach.

The number and the order of the fugues remain controversial, as does the work’s date of composition. Bach did not indicate which instruments were to be used to perform the work, but experts surmise that he would have chosen the organ and harpsichord or a small string or chamber orchestra. The work has been performed on a wide variety of instruments, including the piano, and by string quartets, chamber orchestras, and saxophone ensembles.

The Art of Fugue reveals Bach’s preoccupation with counterpoint and the canon. The theme, which is introduced in the first movement, is transformed and elaborated on in the same key in powerful and hypnotic ways until the climactic four-part final movement, which, in Bach’s original, ends abruptly in mid-line. What happened to the remainder of the composition, if indeed it was written down, is unknown. The unfinished nature of this composition continues to spur musicological speculation. Bach’s contemporaries concluded that The Art of Fugue was his final composition, but modern scholars believe that it may be an earlier work (likely completed in 1742) that Bach continued to tinker with and whose editing for publication was simply left unfinished upon his death. Also debated is the question of whether the fugues were really meant to be performed or whether they were more pedagogical in intention. His The Well-Tempered Clavier (1722 and 1742), after all, was intended for harpsichord instruction; The Art of Fugue may have been meant to serve the same purpose. So too, some speculate that Bach may have deliberately left the final movement incomplete, perhaps to invite a performer’s own creativity.

Bach’s plan was apparently to forge a sequence of fugues, each slightly more complicated than the preceding one, so that a student working through the fugues in order would gradually learn the characteristic elements of the form. In 1749 the 65-year-old Bach sent the first portion of the manuscript to a respected publisher with whom he had worked before. Because the composer died before the proofs were ready for inspection, finalization of the collection fell to Bach’s surviving sons, four of whom were also composers; they guessed as best they could about their father’s intended ordering.