Talk:Fugue

message: While the Oxford Dictionary of Music is generally authoritative, in this instance it falls short. The definition fails to mention the fugue's imitative nature. It adds says the number of parts is "fixed," which is fine but unnecessary. And it altogether fails to define the term so as to exclude rounds, canons, and inventions. However, I'm hard-pressed to find a source with an altogether best definition, but a better definition can be found on page 45 in Bruce Benward's Music: In Theory and Practice (3rd Ed. Vol. 2), published 1977 by Wm. C. Brown Publishers:
"A fugue is a contrapuntal composition in two or more voices, built on a subject (theme) that is introduced at the beginning in imitation and recurs frequently in the course of the composition. In addition to the broad general contrapuntal design, certain formal characteristics are well established. A fugue usually has three sections: the exposition, development, and recapitulation."
I think it would be even better if it specified that the imitation of the theme begins at a different pitch than first iteration of the theme, but generally maintains the same intervalic relationships as the theme. --Jordan 17:15, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Fugue definition

message: This is not a correct statement.  Nor is the following: "In most of Bach's and Beethoven's fugues this structure is analogous to sonata-allegro or A-B-A form."
Yes, fugues are ternary in that they begin in a key, digress to other keys, and return.  They are rarely ternary in the motivic sense--the exposition is repeated at the conclusion of the fugue.  Perhaps what the writer was getting at was the fact that fugues are built upon the ritornello principle.
But sonata-allegro?  A fugue is absolutely not!  Sonata-allegro requires a second "subject," exposed in a related key, and recapitulated in the home key.  This bears no resemblance to fugue.
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I respect the previous writer's view.  But it is A view.  I also respect -- and find somewhat more convincing in the case of Bach and Beethoven -- the musicologist and music theorist Erwin Ratz's view that as a form of structural and harmonic organization the fugue does have important structural resemblance to sonata form, a view he went to some trouble to demonstrate in the case of fugues in the Well-Tempered Clavier.   I don't have time to work on this now, but sometime soon I will rewrite the article to represent Ratz's view as a view and then mention the previous writer's view as a contrasting one. Jeremy J. Shapiro 03:43, 31 Oct 2003 (UTC)
thread_title:  A fugue is like sonata-allegro 

message: From the article: "Fugal writing is found in works such as fantasias, ricercares and canzonas."
Isn't ricercar just another word for fugue? -- Lament
:No. Bach used the word in that way in The Musical Offering, but previously it had been used to label various pieces which, while often having some contrapuntally imitative element, were not always fugal. --Camembert
::My understanding is that ricercar is the older word; and that a ricercar always has a single theme (i.e. no countersubjects or second subjects), and that very generally, a ricercar typically is a slower piece that will usually be reminiscent of the pre-Baroque, Palestrinan style of counterpoint.  You can have fugues done in gigue rhythms and other dance forms; a ricercar gigue is hard to imagine. -- Smerdis of Tlön 21:25, 29 Nov 2003 (UTC)
thread_title: Ricercar

message: Is this section truly necessary? Once you remove the not entirely accurate and POV statements about Bach -- "The construction of a fugue is based on taking advantage of 'contrapunctal devices' as J. S. Bach called them," Bach titled his fugues Contrapunctus XX because that is the Latin term, from Contra punctum, literally counter-point. The German term is Kontrapunkt. I doubt Bach would have used a doggerel of Latin and English to refer to bits of his fugues -- the rest is simply stating that the entries come in when they will sound good, which isn't really saying much of substance.Makemi 05:13, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree - have removed it and made major changes to the whole "musical outline" section, giving examples etc, though it is by no means comprehensive, and could do with many more examples I think. Matt.kaner 23:51, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Timing of Entries

message: Could one of you geniuses :+} take a moment and add some definitions of basic terms being bandied about in this article, please? I think this article could use definitions of things like "subject", "countersubject", "answer", "episode", etc. - or maybe these could just be hyperlinks within the fugue article to another short article about the term to be defined (for example: subject_fugue). We students will be eternally (or at least until our exam) grateful!!Dveej 19:14, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  request for some defined terms with hyperlinks 

message: I've added some information about Haydn's use of counterpoint, based on some recent research on his symphonies. Please feel free to revert to the original form if you feel it's superfluous. I'm new to Wiki, and am enjoying reading the discussion.
BlueAngel06 00:42, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Welcome to Wikipedia. Nice work; I've just wikilinked the symphonies. Graham87 04:26, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I love Haydn but compared to Beethoven, who used counterpoint in a completely essential stylistic way throughout his life, and in particular in his late-middle to late period (we already have a giant fugue in the Op. 35 variations), it is not justified to say Haydn was the master of classical counterpoint. I am quite familiar with the Haydn oeuvre and his counterpoint is both formal and tame, and mostly incidental. This is not a criticism of Haydn, who was of course a great master - for reasons that are inscrutable, no one other than Bach and Beethoven had all of these; technical, thematic, and above all emotional and spiritual mastery of fugal writing. Antimatter33 (talk) 19:35, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Haydn's use of counterpoint 

message: I second the above comment that the sentence: "
Béla Bartók opened his Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta with a fugue in which the tritone, rather than the fifth, is the main structural interval."  is at best confusing.  While the large-scale organisation of the movement involves the trip from A to E-flat and back, the entrances are organised in ascending and descending cycles of 5ths.  Certainly the piece should be cited in some way, however.
Loesser's "Fugue for Tinhorns" really doesn't belong in the article, since the piece itself, title aside, isn't a fugue at all, but rather a round.  (unless one wants to include a note of the common use of "fugue" to describe all imitative counterpoint.)
Turangalila (talk) 22:23, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bartok and Loesser 

message: I've really been working hard at the musical outline and opening sections, and added many examples etc - basically given them a complete rewrite. But I need help with the history section, of present it is completely without citations and I think I may get very depressed without any help sorting it out! Matt.kaner 01:28, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Help Needed 

message: i added an "original research?" tag to the sentence where Sechter is referred to as a "limited musical artist" in the "Perceptions and Aesthetics" section, not because i care about defend his compositions, but because it implies that music within "the standard repertory" has made it there only because of its unlimited, eternal and supreme artistic integrity - an assumption, by the way, that a writer on fugues should have been more aware of, given Bach's reputation before Mendelssohn et al.
if this "research" was Kivy's, as the beginning of the paragraph's is, this needs to be made more clear in the sentence itself. as someone decided to secretly write within the article itself: "Unless the author is very familiar with Sechter's actual fugues, instead of passing on opinions of someone who perhaps actually was, this violates so many of WP's NPOV rules as to begin to perhaps be amusing. This can be much better put." Hjijch 03:43, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hey I totally agree - To be honest I think the whole paragraph is rather biased. It was me who spent ages and ages overhauling the theory section of this page and I've just had enough, and haven't got round to fixing the rest! Someone else should do it, using recent and unbiased sources and get rid of these sorts of statements which are pretty much irrelevant to a general article on fugues. One could name many composers who supposedly fall into this category but it's got nothing to do with the general aethetics and perception of fugue writing.
Matt.kaner 11:21, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I must also agree - whole parts of this article read as though someone has lifted text from an opinionated source, or pasted in their own Musical BA thesis. Some of it probably make sence in that context, but not in a wikipedia article. An interesting topic ruined by bad writing, especially in the overuse of parentheses.  Major Bloodnok 20:40, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sechter 

message: :: Made a start on copyediting of the article, and where possible removing parentheses to tidy the text. I've been wondering whether the History section should go before the music theory section, so that the importance of the Fugue in musical development can be explained before the structure of fugues in general. What does the comminity think?Major Bloodnok 13:38, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The usual procedure in articles on fugue is to give a musical outline first. (see Oxford Dictionary of Music or Grove Music Online for example) Matt.kaner 16:16, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Have just looked at your edits - after leaving a message on your talkpage. Your new revisions all seem fair. One of the main inaccuracies was within caption for the Bach Fugue in G; I adjusted it because the previous version was confusing. Thanks for amending it so that it is correct! Major Bloodnok 21:04, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Just had another look at the History section. I can see it needs a proper overhaul, but without access to good reference material, I'm not in a position to do anything about it currently. Merely copyediting the language is not enough, since the whole section is unreferenced and probably will change (it seems to be copied or lifted from a source, or am I being too suspicious?). The final two sections need work as well, although they seem to be about a controversy from the more specialised end of musical analysis, and are thus outside my area of knowledge. Is this debate a small academic spat, or does it reflect an actual, and  major theoretical discussion? If it is a very minor part of Fugal theory, then I'd have to wonder why it should be included at all, especially as it might therefore fall foul of official policy, WP:NOT, as it is insignificant to the topic as a whole. Major Bloodnok 10:05, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It is - sort of - a major area of controversy among music analysts and historians, but to be honest, I don't think that the section really adds anything at all. To do the topic justice would take pages and pages and at the moment it's really just a bunch of opinions thrown around without making any coherent statements. I think that for now it could really be deleted, and then when the history section is finished, or at least improved, it will become apparent whether or not this sort of thing needs to be mentioned. It is a major theoretical discussion, but the paragraph doesn't really reveal anything about what the discussion really is. No one talks about Sechter on a regular basis when discussing fugue for example. Matt.kaner 22:42, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

text: Since it is a major debate in the field, perhaps there is merit is cutting down the penultimate section radically so that it merely mentions the debate, and perhaps some of the major voices within it. That way, anyone interested it getting further information could go to the sources via the footnotes, and this very complex issue won't clog the page. Obviously once the academic discussion has come to a conclusion in the future then maybe the article can be updated. There is an argument for starting a new page specifically for the Fugue Texture / Technique debate of course, which might be an elegant solution.Major Bloodnok 13:31, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Structure - Should History go first?

message: The article claims that 'most' fugues have middle-entries seperated by episodes of one form or another. Whilst this seems to be bandied around all over the place, having analysed the 48 I'm slightly baffled as to where this statement comes from. The middle-entries are essential developments (taking expositional material and then 'developing' them through rearrangement and all manner of mutation and transformation - canon, inversion etc. etc.) - yet approximately half of the Bach 48 seem to pass directly from from set of middle-entries to the next . . . why do episodes appear to be considered more important than the middle entries? Aren't they essentially extended transitions?  CharlieRCD (talk • contribs) 10:48, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Episodes?

message: Is this really necessary? It doesn't seem to illustrate anything and the notation is close to unintelligible. If it is to be included it has to be notated properly. Matt.kaner (talk) 01:10, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: At the very least the statement should be corrected. The fugue is in 8 parts (some parts are doubled in octaves/thirds). 198.166.17.247 (talk) 06:08, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  With further part, if you do count the part doubled in thirds/sixths then the fugue can be said to be in 8 parts. How about the other two voices doubles in octaves?  Can those also be counted as parts?  If so, then is it also correct to say the fugue is in 11 parts?  Doesn't seem so.  A music theorist here could certainly help this discussion. 198.166.22.74 (talk) 07:53, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  It's generally accepted that in tonal practice, a voice doubled at the octave is simply 'doubled' without creating a new voice. - That's one of the reasons that consecutive octaves is forbidden in contrapuntal textures - it's not part writing! CPE Bach, in his treatise advised players to double parts in octaves to bring them out - it's a strengthening device to add weight to a single voice, it doesn't introduce any new pitches... --Matt.kaner (talk) 19:00, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Alkan fugue 

message: Not sure if they merit a mention (because the article is already big), but Reicha, who was a contemporary of Beethoven, did write fugues with up to 6 subjects, fugues in 5/8 time, and many other innovative things that Beethoven and Schumann considered "too innovative". See Anton Reicha and specifically 36 Fugues (Reicha). I can produce an illustration of any of the fugues in Sibelius 4, if it is decided that Reicha should be mentioned here. --Jashiin (talk) 14:47, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reicha fugues? 

message: It's hopeless, and doesn't explain anything. A reader coming here to find out what a fugue is will leave none the wiser.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.125.90.238 (talk) 21:42, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Introduction needs rewriting

message: Contrapunctus IV of Bach's  Art of Fugue is cited as a counterfugue. When I listen to it, it sounds like its subject is the inversion of the Contrapunctus I subject, and its answer is a standard tonal answer. Is this correct? Does anyone know an example of a true counter-fugue? Cmelby (talk) 06:27, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Looking at the score shows the above to be right. Contrapunctus IV is not a counterfugue, although its subject is inversion of the subject of Contrapunctus I. Contrapunctus V's answer is its subject inverted (and transposed, naturally). The score I have has a table of contents that says fugues 1-4 are "simple fugues" and 5-7 are "counterfugues". I don't have access to Grove so cannot check the citation given, but it is clearly wrong. I will see if I can figure out how to cite a score and edit the information. Pfly (talk) 07:25, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Counter-fugue example? 

message: Is anyone who is not a random tagger sticking by the "citation needed" tags and templates attached to this article? I will remove them (perhaps with an attempt to attribute certain material more precisely) unless there are specific arguments. There has been no related discussion on this talk page since the templates were added. Outriggr (talk) 09:56, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: There is a large section which does not cite any sources, according to its template, and there are a few citation needed tags. Hyacinth (talk) 20:32, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  I'm not sure that answers my question.  Do we need to call attention to it with templates? The original purpose of such templates was to deal with exceptional issues with articles. Outriggr (talk) 05:41, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

text: I've noticed that there's a particularly inordinate amount of "citation needed" tags in the History section of the article. It's used in places when the text declares that there's a fugue used in a certain movement of a piece. It seems rather ridiculous to have to provide a citation for something that you can easily find in a score, or even listen for during performance. If there are no objections, I'd advocate for the deletion of these tags.--Hilsa 08:38, 24 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Citation needed tags/templates 

message: There must be a expansion of the section about fughettas, as they are also an important part in music. Yuan Lin (talk) 23:23, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Fughetta

message: Fugue is listed in the Polyphonic category and states that it often ends with "leaving the fugal form, becoming just homophonic." I think it should state a little more clearly that it is polyphonic. I had to Ctrl-F and search for "phonic" to find those two sentences. It is a large article, and nowhere does it explicitly state that fugues are polyphonic. I suggest someone make that more clear somewhere, as it is - as far as I'm aware - part of the definition of a fugue. -- Charles Stover 02:31, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: The very first sentence begins: "In music, a fugue (/fjuːɡ/ fewg) is a contrapuntal compositional technique". The words "contrapuntal" and "polyphonic" are largely synonymous, and in fact the situations in which they may be distinguished would leave fugue defined as contrapuntal but not polyphonic. However, this is a very specialized distinction. Is it really necessary to add "(=polyphonic)" after the word "contrapuntal"? That word is after all linked to the article counterpoint, which itself is defined in the opening sentence as "the relationship between voices that are interdependent harmonically (polyphony) yet independent in rhythm and contour".—Jerome Kohl (talk) 22:32, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Polyphonic 

message: Prominent dominant?  Isn't that redundant?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:7:8500:982:D921:EC93:412E:4843 (talk) 20:24, 15 October 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: No, not at all. (You do understand that "dominant" is the name given to the fifth scale degree, when that degree is a perfect fifth above the tonic, don't you?)—Jerome Kohl (talk) 23:43, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

text: But the dominant gets its name from plainsong, where the dominant of a mode is either the most common note in the chant (oldest meaning) or a center about which the chant seems to revolve. Still, we've come a long way since Pope Gregory, Bach essentially marks the ending of the modal period, and "dominant" is now just a name like "supertonic", so I have to concede your point.D Anthony Patriarche (talk) 22:07, 31 August 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Prominent dominant 

message: Missing: definition of "prolongation" and "diminution" (other synonyms are used, e.g. "augmentation").  These are covered under Canon (music) but are an important part of the structure of many fugues, e.g. Bach passim, Britten The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, last movement. D Anthony Patriarche (talk) 22:07, 31 August 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Musical outline 

message: "In music, a fugue (/fjuːɡ/ fewg) is a contrapuntal compositional technique in two or more voices, built on a subject (a musical theme) that is introduced at the beginning in imitation (repetition at different pitches) and which recurs frequently in the course of the composition."
What does "a subject [...] that is introduced at the beginning in imitation" mean?
"in imitation" of what?  If it's at the beginning, there would seem to be no subject preceding it to imitate.  Gwideman (talk) 23:40, 15 May 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps you did not notice that the words "subject" and "imitation" are displayed in blue. This means that you can link from them to articles that explain more about the terms. I think you will find there also the explanation of how a subject is introduced in imitation (it means there are at least two statements of the subjects, the second one in a different voice, "imitating" the first statement).—Jerome Kohl (talk) 23:44, 15 May 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: So your interpretation of my remarks is that I might not understand how hyperlinks work? Perhaps you didn't notice that the element I'm highlighting for scrutiny is that the intro's discussion claims that the subject at the beginning of the piece is already an imitation. How can that be?  I get that a repetition of that subject could be an imitation, but I don't see how the very first iteration of the subject could be an imitation.Gwideman (talk) 08:35, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, it looks like the lead has been fixed since Gwideman was confused by the wording, since it now reads "introduced at the beginning in imitation (repetition at different pitches)". Or is it not clear that the introduction of a subject may refer to more than one statement of it (in this case a double statement)?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 23:12, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

text: It still says "introduced at the beginning in imitation". In imitation of what? Or does "in imitation" have some technical meaning, short for something like "in imitation style", or "as the start of an imitation pattern" or some such? In plain English it doesn't make sense. Gwideman (talk) 16:40, 27 May 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, there is no such thing as an "imitation style" (in the sense of imitation meant here). Imitation is a contrapuntal device. It sounds to me like you are assuming "imitation" is not a technical musical term, but rather the ordinary English word meaning something along the lines of "counterfeit". I suppose the phrase could be re-written to say "introduced at the beginning using the contrapuntal device of imitation (repetition at different pitches)". This is a bit clunky, but at least it adds a third layer of explanation (in addition to the blue link and the phrase "repetition at different pitches", which is not actually a good definition of "imitation", which can be at the same pitch). Would that do the trick?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 19:40, 27 May 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Confusing intro 

message: "Mozart then set to writing fugues on his own, mimicking the Baroque style. These included the fugues for String Quartet, K. 405 (1782)" — This is incorrect. K. 405 is transcriptions from Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier Book II. See https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Arran/OT-Mozart-WA.htm. Doctroid (talk) 02:27, 3 April 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mozart fugues