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| Accompanied fugue | A fugue in which the subject is partnered from the beginning by an accompanying voice. In Baroque-period fugues this is typically a continuo bass part. |
| Andamento | A longish passage constituting the whole of a fugue subject or its concluding portion (following an initial soggetto). Sequence is a device frequently used in an andamento. |
| Answer | The second entry of a subject, presenting it at a pitch a fifth and/or a fourth away from the original pitch. Answers may be real or tonal, dominant or subdominant. |
| Augmentation | A presentation of the subject or a countersubject in notes longer than the original ones. This device is used to produce an effect of grandeur, generally near the end of the movement. |
| Canon | Canonic imitation at the octave or unison is sometimes applied to the subject in the middle entries or the concluding part of a fugue. |
| Codetta | A short linking passage used to connect consecutive entries of the subject or to lead an entry to a cadence. |
| Counter-exposition |
A ‘second’ exposition immediately following the first. This is not a common feature, but is used in some longer fugues to strengthen the effect of the opening. It is most common in seventeenth-century fugues. |
| Countersubject |
A recurrent theme that partners the subject. Countersubjects are normally invertible at the octave with the subject. There can be more than one countersubject in a fugue. Countersubjects are not obligatorily present, but are an important part of the technique and tradition of fugue. |
| Diminution | A presentation of the subject or a countersubject in notes shorter than the original ones. |
| Dominant answer | An answer a fifth higher, or fourth lower, than the subject (discounting any modifications arising from making it tonal). |
| Double fugue | There are two distinct meanings of this term. The first is a fugue with two equal-ranking subjects heard together from the start. The second is a fugue based on two subjects introduced consecutively in separate initial sections and then brought together in a final section. Similarly triple fugue, quadruple fugue etc. |
| Entry | The presentation of a significant theme (subject, countersubject etc.). In the initial exposition the sequence of entries may be ‘top down’ (e.g., S, A, T, B), ‘bottom up’ (e.g., B, T, A, S), ‘hook-shaped’ (e.g., A, T, B, S) or ‘zigzag’ (e.g., A, S, B, T). In the rest of the fugue entries may occur singly or in groups. |
| Episode | A passage of music following a statement (or statements) of the subject in which the subject and countersubject do not appear directly, even though the episode may draw on elements of their thematic material. Episodes often make copious use of sequence, and are used to steer the music to a desired key in preparation for the next entry of the subject. |
| Examination fugue | A fixed formula for writing fugues once widely practised in conservatoires. This formula takes no account of the enormous variety in form and procedure observable in ‘real-life’ fugues (including Bach’s fugues) and the highly selective manner in which they employ such devices as countersubject, stretto and pedal-point but insists instead on including them all. |
| Exposition | A group of linked entries in two or more voices. British usage reserves the term for the complete set of entries heard at the start of the fugue, whereas American usage (which I prefer) uses it also for later groups. |
| Final entries | A general term referring to the last entries occurring in a fugue – i.e., those following the definitive return to the home key. ‘Special’ devices (e.g., stretto, canon, augmentation, diminution, pedal-point) are more likely to occur here than previously. |
| Free part | A voice may be described at any point in the movement as a free part if it does not present the subject or a countersubject. |
| Fugato | A fugal section within an otherwise non-fugal movement. |
| Fughetta | A short fugue – typically one consisting of no more than a single exposition. |
| Inversion | Turning a series of notes (e.g., those of the subject) upside down, so that a rising interval becomes the corresponding falling interval, and vice versa. |
| Invertible counterpoint | Sometimes called ‘double counterpoint’, invertible counterpoint is a form of counterpoint between two voices in which the two lines making up the counterpoint can be presented successfully at the distance of more than one interval. In counterpoint invertible at the octave, for instance – this is the kind normally used for a subject and its countersubject – each of the voices can act, after octave or double-octave transposition, as a ‘bass’ to the other. Writing invertible counterpoint at the octave may entail avoidance of the fifth, which inverts to become a potentially dissonant fourth, or of consecutive fourths, which invert to become consecutive fifths. Invertible counterpoint at other intervals (e.g., the tenth or twelfth) imposes further restrictions. It is possible to have three or more themes in invertible counterpoint with each other, a fact that makes permutation fugues possible. The coda to Mozart’s “Jupiter” Symphony is a remarkable demonstration of multiple invertible counterpoint. |
| Key structure | Fugues of the late Baroque period, including those of Bach, normally operate within a restricted tonal ambit comprising the tonic, dominant and subdominant keys, together with their relative major or minor keys – six keys in all. Classical and later fugues widen the tonal ambit, but it is safest to begin writing fugues by observing the Baroque limits. |
| Keyboard fugue | In fugues for keyboard usually for 2-5 voices) middle parts are distributed between the two hands, and care has to be taken to avoid impossibly wide stretches or part-crossing that is difficult to convey successfully in performance. Keyboard writing can convey only the illusion, not the reality, of independent part-writing, and the opportunity always exists (which composers can choose to take, or not) to ‘fake’ the part-writing, freely adding and subtracting voices or reinterpreting the function of individual musical lines (as ‘soprano’, ‘alto’ etc.). |
| Middle entries | Entries, or groups of entries, occurring in the middle area of the fugue, typically in new keys such as the relative major or minor and their satellite keys. There is no rule for the sequence of keys to be employed in the middle entries or for the number of musical paragraphs they contain. |
| Modal alteration | The presentation of an originally minor subject (or other material) in the major mode, or the reverse. The modal alteration of thematic material became common only in the later part of the Baroque period (after 1700). The effect on the structure of fugues was considerable, since modally altered entries of the subject nearly always predominate in the central exposition or expositions. |
| Part-crossing | Occurs when a nominally lower line (e.g., tenor) crosses a nominally higher one (e.g., alto), thus temporarily reversing their normal relationship. In fugues where instruments and/or voices each present a single line, this presents no special technical or aesthetic problem, and can in fact become an attractive feature in its own right. In keyboard fugues, however, part-crossing is harder to make clear to the ear and should be used very sparingly and circumspectly. |
| Pedal-point | The presence of a pedal in the lowest voice, over which significant thematic material (subject, countersubject, derived motives etc.) is heard. This is a common climactic device at, or just before, the end of a fugue. |
| Permutation fugue | In this type of fugue, common in the late seventeenth century, the subject and its countersubject are as many as there are voices. The bulk of the fugue consists of repeated statements of the subject plus its countersubjects with permutations of (a) key and (b) the distribution of the themes among the voices. The fugue “Sicut locutus est ad patres nostros” in Bach’s Magnificat is a good example. |
| Real answer | An answer that is a simple transposition of the unaltered subject, usually at dominant pitch but in rare instances also at subdominant pitch. |
| Redundant entry | An initial exposition sometimes has an extra entry ‘tacked on’ at the end (thus becoming a second entry for one of the voices). The purpose of such an entry is to steer the music to the desired key (tonic or dominant as appropriate) and/or to spin out the exposition a little longer. This device is not very common. |
| Sequence | A musical device in which a portion of music is repeated immediately at a pitch different from the original. Sequential patterns can be formed by making a continuous ‘chain’ of such repetitions. Sequence is particularly useful for effecting modulation: once the sequential passage is in progress, accidentals can be altered to ‘steer’ the music towards the desired tonal goal. Sequence is used frequently in the episodes of fugues. |
| Soggetto | A form of presentation of the subject in two or more voices in which entries are made to overlap, so that a new voice enters before the previous one has finished. (Stretto is Italian for ‘compressed’.) In fugue this is traditionally a climactic device that tends to occur in the latter stages of the movement. Some licences are often taken in order to make stretto imitation work. The expression stretto maestrale (‘masterly stretto’) is sometimes used for a stretto in which all the voices participate and no modifications are made to the subject. |
| Stretto | A form of presentation of the subject in two or more voices in which entries are made to overlap, so that a new voice enters before the previous one has finished. (Stretto is Italian for ‘compressed’.) In fugue this is traditionally a climactic device that tends to occur in the latter stages of the movement. Some licences are often taken in order to make stretto imitation work. The expression stretto maestrale (‘masterly stretto’) is sometimes used for a stretto in which all the voices participate and no modifications are made to the subject. |
| Stretto fugue | A fugue in which stretto (overlapping) imitation occurs already in the opening exposition. |
| Stretto maestrale | A stretto maestrale, or “masterly stretto”, is the rather self-congratulatory name given to a stretto that (a) involves all the voices and (b) presents the subject in unmodified form throughout. Easier said than done. |
| Subdominant answer | An answer a fourth higher, or fifth lower, than the subject. All tonal answers can be viewed as dominant answers that have been modified to become in part subdominant*. |
| Subject | The main theme of a fugue, whose recurrences constitute its most important landmarks. |
| Tonal answer | An answer whose interval-structure is in one or more respects altered in relation to the original interval structure of the subject. Such alterations entail lowering the initial note (and its repetitions) by a tone and/or lowering the final note and the notes leading up to it by a tone. The purpose of making an answer tonal is to prevent the music from straying into the orbit of the supertonic major. In some cases, the dominant note, when it occurs close to the start of the subject (even when not the very first note) becomes the tonic note in the answer. |
| Voice | Because the first fugues were vocal, the tradition has grown up of referring to the separate contrapuntal lines making up even an instrumental fugue as voices. Fugues normally maintain a fixed number of voices, although in keyboard fugues supernumerary voices may be added at climactic points, and during certain passages the number of participating voices may be reduced for contrast or for technical facility. |
| Michael Talbot, 2005 | |