Why I write fugues (Part I)

Introduction

For those visitors of my website, Audiomuse, you may have noticed that the last blog post was written nearly half a year ago all the way back in August of 2009. I had mentioned that I was going to blog more often, and write interesting articles on certain music-related topics, but yet again, I have not kept my word. For that, I apologize. “Why,” you ask, “am I posting now all of a sudden?” Well, due to some interesting circumstances, I now have an incentive to blog; one of my university courses requires me to keep a regular blog, so I thought: What better opportunity to write articles on topics of personal interest without feeling guilty of procrastinating than this one?

(Before I begin, note that this article assumes of the reader some general knowledge in music terminology and fugue. However, I will try my best to express my ideas in a way that the material will make an interesting read for any audience.)

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The fugue form has always been a great interest to me, ever since encountering my first Bach fugue in my teen years. Two things I find interesting about the fugue form are:

1. the systematic approach and recursive nature of fugue writing
2. its potential for cross-genre innovation.

(I will talk about the first point in this post and save the second point for a later time.)

The systematic approach and recursive nature of fugue writing

While I have studied counterpoint (adj. contrapuntal) several years ago, I admit that I have forgotten many of the rules. (Counterpoint is a technique of polyphonic writing, in which two or more voices maintain interdependence in harmonic structure and independence in rhythm and melodic contour.) While I still adhere to things such as proper voice leading, priority in note doubling, and the avoidance of parallel fifths and octaves (those are the main ones that I can recall off the top of my head), much of what I write is based on what I think “sounds good.” In some ways, this can be a good thing, because it allows me to focus more on the actual composition than to be bogged down by rules. I guess what I’m trying to say is that while I am conscious of the rules of strict counterpoint, I am also conscious about musicality. Having said all that, I think it’s time to delve into the composition process.

Fugue writing is definitely a systematic process. In most cases, fugues are based on a single melodic idea, known as the subject, that is complete on its own. The subject serves as a starting point for the rest of the composition.

In addition to the subject, one may choose to also incorporate a countersubject. (A countersubject is another subject that is regularly, but not necessarily always, heard with the main subject. If the countersubject is featured prominently enough and treated like the main subject, it can be considered as a second subject, and the fugue is then referred to as a double fugue.) The countersubject is often tested for invertibility, that is, its ability to be contrapuntally logical when heard above the subject and heard below the subject (Fig. 1). I generally try to work in a good invertible countersubject, but sometimes it is not possible because of the intervallic constraints with the main subject. In this situation, I will either choose to modify it or to keep the main subject as it is because it just “sounds good.”

Fig. 1. Excerpt from Fugue for Sycra (Op. 35), an original piano solo, showing various elements in the exposition of a fugue. The fugue subject makes its first appearance in mm. 1 – 2. Then the countersubject appears in the middle voice (mm. 3 – 4) and again in the top voice (mm. 6 – 8) demonstrating invertibility when heard together with the fugue subject.

If one wishes to compose a “stretto fugue” he or she may choose to plan the subject such that it is possible to be heard in canon with itself in one or more ways. (Canon refers to a style of polyphonic composition where one or more voices strictly imitate the first voice at some interval, usually diatonic, and at some delayed duration, while still maintaining harmonic sense. Stretto, then, refers to the canon texture within a fugue composition.)

Fig. 2. Excerpt from Fugue for Sycra (Op. 35), showing an example of stretto in mm. 12 – 13 between the upper voice (leader) and the middle voice (follower).

This can be a frustrating experience, but once a stretto is established, it can be used over and over again to one’s heart’s content. The stretto may appear later on in various configurations. Either the leader or the follower may be above the other, and additional voices may be oriented to be above or below a voice. (Some configurations may not be possible due to excessive voice overlapping and other contrapuntal constraints.) I find the notion of stretto to be very fascinating because of its property of being strictly self-referential.

So far, I have briefly talked about two fugal features: the countersubject and the stretto. As you can see, both are closely related to the composition as a whole. I typically choose to focus on one feature more than the other, simply because it would be too time consuming to consciously integrate several features simultaneously. Because of this, my fugues usually have either a highly-developed stretto basis and a less-developed countersubject or vice versa.

From these observations, I perceive the process of fugue writing as a puzzle, where the composer discovers more and more as he progresses. It is like a puzzle in many regards:

• Contrapuntal devices are closely and firmly integrated, and so, there is a great deal of recursive dependency.
• Contrapuntal devices develop simultaneously as the composer writes the fugue, which makes fugue-writing suspensful and full of surprises.
• Harmonic relationships are not always apparent at first glance, so there is much trial and error involved.

The idea of a puzzle is even more apparent when the fugue subject is based on pre-existing material (such as references to popular culture) which I will be discussing in depth in my next segment.

I will leave it at that for today. In my next post, I will be discussing the notion of cross-genre innovation and how I relate this to the fugue.