Fugue - Perceptions and Aesthetics

Perceptions and Aesthetics

Fugue is the most complex of contrapuntal forms. In Ratz's words, "fugal technique significantly burdens the shaping of musical ideas, and it was given only to the greatest geniuses, such as Bach and Beethoven, to breathe life into such an unwieldy form and make it the bearer of the highest thoughts." An indication of this is that in the 19th century Simon Sechter composed over 5,000 fugues, but none of them are in today's concert repertoire, while another is the enduring success of the organ fugues of Felix Mendelssohn and Johannes Brahms.

In presenting Bach's fugues as among the greatest of contrapuntal works, Peter Kivy points out that "counterpoint itself, since time out of mind, has been associated in the thinking of musicians with the profound and the serious" and argues that "there seems to be some rational justification for their doing so." Because of the way fugue is often taught, the form can be seen as dry and filled with laborious technical exercises. The term "school fugue" is used for a very strict form of the fugue that was created to facilitate teaching.

Others, such as Alfred Mann, argued that fugue writing, by focusing the compositional process actually improves or disciplines the composer towards musical ideas. This is related to the idea that restrictions create freedom for the composer, by directing their efforts. He also points out that fugue writing has its roots in improvisation, and was, during the Renaissance, practiced as an improvisatory art. Writing in 1555, Nicola Vicentino, for example, suggests that

the composer, having completed the initial imitative entrances, take the passage which has served as accompaniment to the theme and make it the basis for new imitative treatment, so that 'he will always have material with which to compose without having to stop and reflect'. This formulation of the basic rule for fugal improvisation anticipates later sixteenth-century discussions which deal with the improvisational technique at the keyboard more extensively.