Example of stretto fugue in a quotation from fugue in c major by johann caspar ferdinand fischer who died in 1746. The meaning of fugue is 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. Nov 28, 2023a fugue is a type of compositional technique that makes use of imitative counterpoint.
Fugue, in music, a compositional procedure characterized by the systematic imitation of a principal theme (called the subject) in simultaneously sounding melodic lines (counterpoint). In the context of a fugue it describes a situation where each voice enters before the previous voice has finished its subject. That time spent getting the headboard, for example, was frankly spent in a sort of grim fugue state, wordlessly drifting from place to place in exhausted resignation.
Oct 6, 2024a fugue is music written for several imitative parts which, entering at staggered stages, join together to create a harmonic whole. Jul 12, 2025the fugue, a cornerstone of western musical art, represents a pinnacle of contrapuntal technique. György ligeti wrote a fugue for his "requiem" (1966), which consists of a 5 part fugue in which each part (s,m,a,t,b) is subsequently divided in four voices that make a canon.
At the opening of every fugue, each voice enters (in an order determined by the composer) with a statement of the subject.