DICTIONARY OF MUSIC - El Atril

FUGUE FUGUE 121
to shape themselves naturally in those cyclic
forms which were developing into the great
symphonic form of Beetlioven. Their fugues,
line as they are, seem to have been written
text-book in hand, and not to be a natural mode
of expression. The result is that the fugues of
Haydn and Mozart actually seem old-fashioned
comiiaredwith those of Bach, and more academic
in their feeling. The same may be said ol'
Cherubiui and, in spite of their splendour, of
Beethoven's fugues. Perhajis Bach was attracted
to the fugal means of expression because of its
romantic possibilities. The definite decorative
scheme of the sonata form, with its strongly contrasted
sections, is eminently fitted for absolute
music— music which stands for itself and by
itself. Absolute music depends on contrast of
mood ;
but the essence of romantic music is
that some idea or mood from without is grafted
on to the musical stem. Such a scheme as
this demands unity of mood, some central
idea running through the whole, surrounded
by attendant episodes, the whole in a sort of
chiaroscui'O. This is certainly the principle
which underlies the fugal form, and it is also
the principle which underlies tlie various forms
in which the romantic composers found it
necessary to express themselves. Can we not
trace an analogous emotional need and an
analogous means of expression in the fugues of
Bach on the one hand, and on the other in
Schumann's pianoforte concerto ^\'ith its single
theme, in his C major fantasia with its ' leiser
Ton, '^ in the persistent melancholy figures of
Chopin's preludes, in the ' idee fixe ' of Berlioz,
and above all in the 'leit-motif of ^Vagner's
music-dramas? Perhaps Wagner's leit-motif
compares more closely with a canto fermo than
with a fugue subject, and we can trace a most
interesting parallel between the leit-motif of
"Wagner and the fugue-on-chorale of Bach. The
introduction of a chorale as a canto fermo in a
fugue only makes its due emotional effect when
the chorale is well kno\vn to the hearers,otherwise
its introduction will be quite point-
less. Thus the introduction of the chorale is
to a certain extent dramatic in its emotional
effect. In the same way a leit-motif imposed
on the polyphonic web of Wagner's music makes
its effect largely because of its dramatic power
produced by force of association. k. v. w.
[A few additional particulars on Real and
Tonal Fugue, from the articles on these subjects
by W. S. Rockstro in the first edition of the
Dictionary, may not be out of place.]
Real Fugue.—This is an invention of much
and is, indeed,
older datethanitstonalanalogue ;
the only kind of fugue possible in the ecclesi-
' The motto of Schumann's fantasia could be equally weU illustrated
by OTie of E.-»ch'3 fuguea.
2 It may be objei^'ted that modern audiences do experiencp a
decided emotional thriU at the introduction of the chorale, for
inRtnnce in Mendelssohn's E minor fugue, without being at all
familiar witii the tune, but even in this case they do recognise
that it in a chorale. It calls up associations of church worship
and a great crowd Binging, and the effect is to this extent dramatii-.
astical modes. For, in those ancient tonalities,
the Dominant difJers widely from that of the
modern scale, and exercises widely different
functions ; insomuch that the answer to a given
subject, constructed with reference to it, would, in
certain modes, be so distorted as tuset all recognition
at defiance. The idea of such a dominant
as that upon which we now Ijase our harmonic
combinations is one which could never liave
suggested itself to the medieval contrapuntist.
Accordingly, the composers of the 15th and 16th
centuries regulated their subjects and answers
in conformity with the princijtles of the system
of Hexachords. When a strict answer was iiitemled,
its solmisation was made to correspond
exactly, in one hexachord, with that of the
subject ill another. Where this uniformity of
solmisation was wanting—as was necessarily the
case when the answer was made in any other
interval than that of the fourth or filth above
or below the subject— the reply was regarded
as merely an imitative one.^ [See Hexachord.]
But, even in imitative replies, the laws of Real
Fugue required that a filth should always be
answered by a fifth, and a fourth by a fourth
the only licence permitted being the occasional
substitution of a tone for a semitone, or a major
for a minor third. In practice both the strict
and the imitative Answer were constantly employed
in the same composition : e.g. in the
Kyric of Palestrina's ' Missa Brevis,' quoted as
an example under Hexachohii, the subject is
given out by the alto in the hexachord of C ;
answered strictly by the bass in that of F ; again
answered, in the same hexachord, by the treble ;
and then imitated, first by the tenor, and afterwards
by the bass, with a whole tone, instead
of a semitone, between the second and third
notes. Among the best writers of the best period
of art we find these mixed fugues— which
would now be called ' Fugues of Imitation '^in
much more frequent use than those which continued
strict throughout, and forming the foundation
of some of the finest polyphonic masses and
motets.
When the imitation, instead of breaking off at
the end of the few bars which form the subject,
continues uninterruptedly throughout an entire
movement, the composition is called a periietual
fug^te, or, as we should now say, a canon. A
detailed classification of the different varieties
of real fugue, perpietual, interrujited, strict, ctr
free, in use during the 14th and 15th centuries,
would be of very little practical service, since the
student who would really master the subjectnmst
of necessity consult the works of the great masters
for himself. In doing this, he will find no lack
of interesting exanijiles, and will do well to begin
liy making a careful analysis of Palestrina's
'Missa ad Fugam,' which difiers from the work
published by Alfieri and Adrien de Lafage under
' See the admirable exposition of the Ijiwh of Fufrue in J. J. Fux'e
Orti.iux (id /'•irtias/i.urn. Vienna. 17'2.5, pp. H:{. et s-y.