page_title: Stretto
section_title: Fugal stretto
hierarchical_section_title: Stretto / Fugal stretto
caption_attribution_description: English: Bach Fugue in C BWV 846 concluding bars
context_page_description: In music, the Italian term stretto has two distinct meanings:
  In a fugue, stretto is the imitation of the subject in close succession, so that the answer enters before the subject is completed.
  In non-fugal compositions, a stretto is a passage, often at the end of an aria or movement, in faster tempo. Examples include the end of the last movement of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony; measure 227 of Chopin's Ballade No. 3; measures 16, 17 and 18, of his Prelude No. 4 in E minor; and measure 25 of his Etude Op. 10, No. 12, "The Revolutionary."
context_section_description: The term stretto comes from the Italian past participle of stringere, and means "narrow", "tight", or "close". It applies in a close succession of statements of the subject in a fugue, especially in the final section. In stretto, the subject is presented in one voice and then imitated in one or more other voices, with the imitation starting before the subject has finished. The subject is therefore superimposed upon itself contrapuntally. Stretto is typically employed near the end of a fugue, where the 'piling-up' of two or more temporally off-set statements of the subject signals the arrival of the fugue's conclusion in climactic fashion.
  For example, the C-major fugue from J.S. Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1 (BWV 846) opens with an initial succession of statements of the subject, each at a distance of six beats:
  As the musical argument proceeds, the gap between the entries closes to two beats:
  In the final bars, the entries are even closer, with the upper two voices following at a distance of just one beat:
  The complete C-major fugue may be heard here:
  In other instances, stretto serves to display contrapuntal prowess, as in the Fugue No. 9 in E major, BWV 878, where Bach follows a traditional exposition (subject accompanied by countersubject) with a counterexposition in which the subject accompanies itself, in stretto, followed by the countersubject accompanying itself.
caption: Bach Fugue in C BWV846 concluding bars
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