Fugue
One subject taken up by several voices, chasing and stacking
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A fugue is a contrapuntal form: a short subject appears in one voice, other voices take it up a fifth or an octave away (the answer), and subject and answer enter in turn, like several people chasing one sentence. Episodes and modulations separate the entries, and the ending usually returns to the subject and the tonic.
A fugue is not "strict repetition": the subject can be augmented, diminished, inverted, overlapped in stretto — every entry is a variation. No two of Bach's forty-eight fugues in the Well-Tempered Clavier work the same way: a fugue is a set of procedures, not a form to fill in.
Read deeper → Fugue
Sources
- 赋格的主题、答题与声部进入规则，参 The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, "Fugue"；本文为原创表述
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