What are the rules of a fugue?
Most fugues open with a short main theme, the subject, which then sounds successively in each voice (after the first voice is finished stating the subject, a second voice repeats the subject at a different pitch, and other voices repeat in the same way); when each voice has completed the subject, the exposition is …
Who composed fugues?
composer Johann Sebastian Bach
The famous fugue composer Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) shaped his own works after those of Johann Jakob Froberger (1616–1667), Johann Pachelbel (1653–1706), Girolamo Frescobaldi (1583–1643), Dieterich Buxtehude (c. 1637–1707) and others.
What makes a fugue a fugue?
fugue, in music, a compositional procedure characterized by the systematic imitation of a principal theme (called the subject) in simultaneously sounding melodic lines (counterpoint).
What does fuga mean in music?
In music, a fugue is a contrapuntal compositional technique in two or more voices, built on a subject (theme) that is introduced at the beginning in imitation (repetition at different pitches) and recurs frequently in the course of the composition.
How many voices can a fugue have?
Most fugues are in three or four voices (“à 3” or “à 4”), but not all of these are used at any given moment; it is common for an episode to proceed in as few as two voices.
What are fugal devices?
A fugue is a multi-voice musical form that hinges on counterpoint between voices. Composers can write fugues for a single instrument (most notably a piano or other keyboard instrument), or they can write them for several individual players.
What is a concerto in music definition?
concerto, plural concerti or concertos, since about 1750, a musical composition for instruments in which a solo instrument is set off against an orchestral ensemble. The soloist and ensemble are related to each other by alternation, competition, and combination.
What does fugue mean?
Definition of fugue 1a : a musical composition in which one or two themes are repeated or imitated by successively entering voices and contrapuntally developed in a continuous interweaving of the voice parts The organist played a four-voiced fugue.
What is fugue in Baroque music?
The fugue is a type of polyphonic composition or compositional technique based on a principal theme (subject) and melodic lines (counterpoint) that imitate the principal theme. The fugue is believed to have developed from the canon which appeared during the 13th century.
What is a cembalo Concertato?
An example is the brilliant solo part given, exceptionally, to the “cembalo concertato” (i.e., a harpsichord that participates with the other instruments in the melodic discourse rather than, as is normal, confining itself to the realization of the basso continuo) in Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 5.