For many years, until the start of the Classical era in 1750, the fugue was considered by many to be the ultimate musical art form. With its intricate counterpoint and tightly woven motifs, it represented the epitomy of musical thought in the Baroque era. Even after its use fell into disfavor, it still popped up occasionally in the works of Mozart, Beethoven, and even later composers. In spite of all this, I had no idea what a fugue was until I read a description in my dog-eared book of Music Appreciation. This description was illustrated with examples from J. S. Bach's Fugue in G Minor, the "Little" (so named to distinguish it from the "Great" G minor fugue). The concept sounded intriguing, so I went out and bought an orchestrated recording of the piece. I was immediately hooked. After experiencing both this fugue, and those incorporated in Handel's Messiah, I decided that I wanted to write fugues, too. Below, I will describe the stages I went through as I tried to master this ancient art form.
In the beginning, I did not have a strong handle on all the niceties of fugue construction. I had read that the first part, or "voice", enters with the musical idea, or "subject", and is soon joined by the "answer", where the subject is repeated in another voice, in a new key, while the first voice continues to play against it. So far, so good. However, I did not realize that, once the second voice appeared in the new key, the first voice was allowed to play in the new key as well. Therefore, in my first few attempts to write a fugue, I was operating under the false assumption that the first voice had to play in the original key while the second played in the new key. Needless to say, I was soon quite frustrated in my attempts to write in two different, simultaneous keys that, in spite of my total and utter lack of skill, harmonized with each other. I had a hard enough time harmonizing in one key!
Before long, fortunately, I figured out that Baroque composers did not work under this restriction. Unfortunately, I did not know that there were a number of other restrictions that they took very seriously. Most important of these was the avoidance of parallelism in the fifth and octave; in other words, keeping two voices a fifth or an octave apart from moving by the same interval and in the same direction. I wasn't aware that this was a no-no, and so featured it prominently in my first fugue attempt, the A Minor Fugue. It wasn't until I sat in on a music theory class that I learned, to my dismay, that this type of writing would be far more difficult than I had anticipated.
Next, I went through a stage where I got very good at writing subjects, but never got around to anything else. By this time I was writing sketches for my Missa Grandis, and planned on filling it chock full o' fugues. My composition strategy for these fugues went something like this: First, I would have the sopranos enter with the fugue subject in the home key. Then, the altos would come in with the subject in the new key. The sopranos would drop out at this point; I had every intention of returning to it some day and filling in their part. Meanwhile, the tenors would enter in the home key, while the altos would drop out for the same reason the sopranos did earlier. Finally, the basses entered the picture, with the other three voices falling silent. At no time would more than one voice be singing. When the bass part was finished, I would more often than not set the whole thing aside and move on to something else. One of my more ambitious subjects was this one from the Credo:
I have pages and pages of this type of "subject only" fugue written down, and the truth is, I will probably never go back and finish them. However, this was by no means a waste of time. The subject is the foundation of a fugue; it takes a special sort of melody to make a subject, and a special knack to write such a melody. I mastered this aspect during my "subject only" period.
This period is named after the little magazine ads extolling the "geometry" method of drawing, with penciled-in rectangles and circles forming the framework on which the final drawing is based. I used a similar method to write a fugue at the end of the Gloria in the Missa Brevis. I started with the fugue subject:
Then I wrote a simple, four-part harmonization:
Then I went through the individual parts and embellished them with passing tones, suspensions, and other non-chord tones:
Now I had my three countermelodies. All I had to do was introduce each voice, then choose one of the parts shown above to continue it when the next voice came in. I did come across a minor snag-- not all the parts I had come up with would work as a bass line (to use the technical term, it was not "invertable" counterpoint). However, since the choir was accompanied by an orchestra, this was easily remedied by having the organ, cellos, or bassoons fill in the missing notes on the bottom. (Click here for the finished fugue on Midi.)
I only used this method a couple of times, after which my counterpoint writing became much more natural, less contrived. This led to my next phase:
The exposition is the first part of the fugue, consisting of the entrance of all the voices and ending with the completion of the subject in the last voice. It is also the only part I seemed capable of writing during this period. The exposition is very formulaic and almost writes itself, once the techniques of counterpoint are firmly established. However, it is the part that follows the exposition that presents the biggest problem. There are no rules governing what happens once the exposition ends, only suggestions and techniques. This type of rhapsodic writing presented a major challenge to me, and I therefore rarely got beyond the exposition before setting the work aside to continue another day. In some cases, that day came almost ten years later.
When I was in my mid-twenties, my brain made some kind of cognitive leap that suddenly made it possible to write fugues. I can't explain it-- It wasn't as if I had been practicing. I hadn't attempted to write counterpoint in years when I completed the D minor and G major organ fugues in 1987. By 1990, I had gotten so proficient that I was able to write the G minor organ fugue without making a single sketch. After this, I went back to many abortive fugue ideas from my college years and completed them (See Organ and Piano Works, "Preludes and Fugues in the Style of J. S. Bach".)
It may come as a surprise to those who have listened to my fugues that I have never had any formal training in counterpoint. Like my idol, J.S. Bach, I learned it by studying the works of others, writing my own fugues, and learning from my mistakes.
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