A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Real Fugue

by William Smyth Rockstro

REAL FUGUE. That species of Fugue in which the intervals of the Subject and Answer correspond exactly, without reference as in Tonal Fugue to the Tonic and Dominant of the scale in which they are written. Thus, in the following example, the Answer is an exact reproduction of the Subject, in the fifth above:

whereas, according to the laws of Tonal Fugue, the Tonic in the Subject should have been represented in the Answer by the Dominant, and vice versâ; thus—

Real Fugue is an invention of much older date than its tonal analogue; and is, indeed, the only kind of Fugue possible in the Ecclesiastical Modes. For, in those antient tonalities, the Dominant differs widely from that of the modern scale, and exercises widely different functions; insomuch that the Answer to a given Subject, constructed with reference to it, would, in certain Modes, be so distorted as to set all recognition at defiance. The idea of such a Dominant as that upon which we now base our harmonic combinations, is one which could never have suggested itself to the mediæval contrapuntist. Accordingly, the composers of the 15th and 16th centuries regulated their Subjects and Answers in conformity with the principles of the system of Hexachords. When a strict Answer was intended, its Solmisation was made to correspond exactly, in one Hexachord, with that of the Subject in another. Where this uniformity of Solmisation was wanting as was necessarily the case when the Answer was made in any other Interval than that of the Fourth or Fifth above or below the Subject the reply was regarded as merely an imitative one.^[1] [See Hexachord.] But, even in imitative replies, the laws of Real Fugue required that a Fifth should always be answered by a Fifth, and a Fourth by a Fourth; the only license permitted being the occasional substitution of a Tone for a Semitone, or a Major for a Minor third. In practice both the strict and the imitative Answer were constantly employed in the same composition: e.g. in the Kyrie of Palestrina's 'Missa Brevis,' already quoted as an example under Hexachord, the Subject is given out by the Alto in the Hexachord of C; answered strictly by the Bass in that of F; again answered, in the same Hexachord, by the Treble; and then imitated, first by the Tenor, and afterwards by the Bass, with a whole Tone, instead of a Semitone, between the second and third notes. Among the best writers of the best period of Art we find these mixed Fugues—which would now be called 'Fugues of Imitation'—in much more frequent use than those which continued strict throughout, and forming the foundation of some of the finest polyphonic Masses and Motets.

When the Imitation, instead of breaking off at the end of the few bars which form the Subject, continues uninterruptedly throughout an entire movement, the composition is called a Perpetual Fugue, or, as we should now say, a Canon. A detailed classification of the different varieties of Real Fugue, perpetual, interrupted, strict, or free, in use during the 14th and 15th centuries, would be of very little practical service, since the student who would really master the subject must of necessity consult the works of the great masters for himself. In doing this, he will find no lack of interesting examples, and will do well to begin by making a careful analysis of Palestrina's 'Missa ad Fugam,' which differs from the work published by Alfieri and Adrien de Lafage under the title of 'Missa Canonica,' in one point only, and that a very curious one. In the 'Missa Canonica,' in the First or Dorian mode, two Voices lead off a Perpetual Real Fugue, which the two remaining Voices supplement with another, distinct from, but ingeniously interwoven with it; the two Subjects proceeding uninterruptedly together until the end of each several Movement a style of composition which is technically termed 'Canon, four in two.' In the 'Missa ad Fugam,' in the Seventh Mode, the four Voices all start with the same Subject, but after a few bars separate themselves into two Choirs, each of which diverges into a Perpetual Real Fugue of its own, which continues uninterruptedly to the end of the Movement, after the manner of the 'Missa Canonica.'^[2]

Though less esteemed by modern Composers than Tonal Fugue, Real Fugue is still practised with success even in modern tonalities. John Sebastian Bach has left us many masterly examples, both for Voices—as in the Mass in B minor—and for the Organ. Handel has done the same in some of his finest Choruses, as 'The earth swallowed them' in Israel in Ægypt, and the matchless 'Amen' in the Messiah; while in no less than five of his six beautiful Fugues for the Pianoforte (op. 25), Mendelssohn has forsaken the Tonal for the Real method of construction.

The converse practice, on the part of antient Composers, is exceedingly rare, though instances of pure Tonal Fugue may be found, even in the 16th century; as in Palestrina's beautiful, though unknown Madrigal, 'Vestiva i colli.'^[3]

etc.

etc.

The subject, in the Hypodorian Mode, here passes directly from the note which, in modern Music, would be the Dominant, to the Final; while the Answer, in the Dorian Mode, proceeds from the Final to the Authentic Dominant—a method of treatment which anticipates the supposed invention of Modern Fugue by more than a century. Other instances may occasionally be found, among the works of cinque cento Composers—as in the Qui tollis of J. L. Hassler's Missa 'Dixit Maria'^[4] but they are very uncommon; and indeed it is only in certain Modes that they are possible.

[ W. S. R. ]

1. See the admirable exposition of the Laws of Fugue, by J. J. Fux, 'Gradus ad Parnassum.' Vienna 1725, pp. 143, et seq.
2. Choron's edition of the 'Missa ad Fugam' is out of print; but several copies of the work are preserved in the Library of the British Museum. [See {{sc|Raccolta Generale}}.] Albrechtsberger gives the Second Agnus Dei as an example, in his 'Gründliche Anweisung zur Composition,' vol. ii. p. 330 of Merrick's Eng. Transl. (Cocks & Co.) The 'Missa Canonica' is printed in the 'Cinq Messes de Palestrina,' edited by Adrien de Lafage (Paris, Launer; London, Schott & Co.)
3. Printed, with English words, beginning, 'Sound out my voice,' in N. Yonge's 'Musica transalpina' (Lond. 1558 [App. p.767 "1588"]).
4. Nuremberg, 1599. Reprinted in vol. i. of Proske's 'Musica divina.' Ratisbon 1853.