II. Counterpoint and Galant Schemas
30
Mark Gotham
Key Takeaways
- The fugue is a contrapuntal genre popular since at least the 18th century.
- This chapter sets out some key principles of the opening exposition section.
- We introduce new terms including these (click on the term for the glossary entry):
- Subject
- Answer
- Countersubject
- Exposition
- We also meet some fugue-specific variants of familiars terms, notably:
- Voices
- SATB
We now move on from imitative practices common in the 16th century to the fugue, which may be thought of as the 18th-century equivalent and successor to this tradition. Fugues can vary quite a bit, and thus “fugue” is a surprisingly difficult term to define satisfactorily. Fugues in general are contrapuntal compositions that are defined by the strict use of a certain number of independent voices; each voice enters one by one, stating the main theme (subject) of the fugue. In this chapter, we will treat fugue as a process and show how to construct (the first part of) a fugue from first principles. This chapter deals with the basics of writing a fugal exposition from a given subject according to the “high Baroque” technique of Bach, Handel, and their contemporaries.
Basic Definitions
First, let’s define some of the terms we’ll need.
- Subject: A short tune that forms the melodic basis of a fugue, recurring throughout.
- Answer: A transposition of the subject that is also sometimes slightly altered, as discussed below.
- Countersubject: A melodic line that is sounded with (and complements) the subject/answer.
- Exposition: The first part of a fugue, during which each of the voices enters with the subject or answer. Note that this is distinct from the use of the term “exposition” in sonata form; they both refer to a first section setting out the main material, but they otherwise differ.
- Voices: The separate contrapuntal lines, which may be either instrumental or vocal. The number of voices does not necessarily correspond to the number of parts or musicians involved—a keyboard fugue for one player may have three, four, five, or six voices, and there are even some fugues for solo violin (which is quite a compositional feat!).
- SATB: Although a fugue may not involve any singers, it is customary to refer to the lines in a four-voice texture with S (soprano), A (alto), T (tenor), and B (bass) from highest to lowest. The ranges do not need to match those of the vocal parts exactly.
Structure / Voice Entries
Basically, the fugal exposition works as shown in
: one voice begins with the subject, then the next voices enters with the answer while the first continues with a countersubject, and so on.| Voice 1 | Subject | Countersubject | Free counterpoint |
| Voice 2 | Answer | Countersubject | |
| Voice 3 | Subject |
Note that the voices are numbered according to the order in which they enter. While it is perfectly common for the voices to enter in order from highest to lowest or lowest to highest, this is not strictly nec