#well-tempered clavier
J.S. Bach,preludes in G-Major: skip the intro
-1:48 Suite for Cello N°1, BWV 1007
-5:40 Well-Tempered Clavier, BWV 846 The Ave MariaofCharles Gounod is based on this melody.
- A fugue is a musical form that emerged in the baroque period that discusses a compact melodic idea with a definite number of voices in imitative counterpoint.
- Counterpoint is a structural form where each voice makes up its own melody, but only when they are combined does the listener realize that each voice is dependent on the other. Thus, they make sense not only horizontally, but also vertically, to form chords and progressions.
- Many symphonies contain fugues in small parts in them. A good example of this would be the Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony.
- However, the master of the Fugue was JS Bach. At around the age of 25, he gained near perfection, mathematically, logically, melodically and harmonically, of the wonderful form.
- Bach wrote 2 books, called the Well-Tempered Clavier, which together have fugues in 24 different keys. One book was for the major keys and the other for the minor keys.
Structure of a Fugue:
1. The fugue will began with something called Exposition, where the main musical idea is exposed, usually through one or two bars of only one voice. The musical idea is called the subject. The next part of the exposition will be the Answer, which is the transposition of the subject to the dominant voice. It could either be a ‘real’ answer, which is an exact transposition to the dominant, or a 'tonal’ answer, where the transposition is altered slightly. Each voice is introduced turn by turn.The two steps are repeated until the desired number of voices achieved: First, the tonic subject, then the dominant answer, then the tonic subject, the dominant answer…
2. After the exposition, the composer is free to express his or her musical thoughts in whatever way he or she likes.
A CANON is a type of fugue where different voices accompany each other with similiar melodies in the same key. This is the simplest type of fugue to compose.
