Music Video Lesson: What is a Fugue?

Welcome to livingpianos.com. I'm Robert Estrin, and today is an unbelievably important subject, the ultimate musical form, the fugue. Now, even if you haven't heard of what a fugue is, you've heard them many times, from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony to Handel's Messiah. The fugue is actually a technical type of form that can be utilized within compositions, or there's whole pieces written that are fugal.

Now, what is this all about? Well, it's an amazing type of composition that is based upon counterpoint, the interweavings of separate lines. Rather than just have a chord and melody, imagine having more than one melody at the same time. Is this possible? Well, we all are familiar with, for example, with a round. For example. You get the idea. This is technically called a canon. I'm bringing this up so you can get a little idea of what a fugue is about. A fugue is a bit more complex than a simple canon or a round such as this.

But before we get into what a fugue is, I'm going to start with something just a little bit simpler and then you'll understand and appreciate what goes into writing a fugue.

Well, first of all, the grand master of writing counterpoint and fugues is Johann Sebastian Bach. Bach, as a matter of fact, I'm going to get into his Well-Tempered Clavier in a minute, but he could craft such unbelievable compositions of counterpoint, of interweaving lines, that it's a mathematical wonder that he could create. But it's the joy of the music and the emotional content that is most important. That's what I'm going to demonstrate for you here today.

So we're going to first talk about a simpler form than a fugue, which is called an invention. An invention is simply two different lines. One line played by one instrument and another solo line played with another instrument. One isn't melody, one isn't harmony. They're both melodies that interweave with one another. Bach wrote a whole bunch of inventions, and to understand what an invention is and what counterpoint is about, I want to show you the beginning of his first Invention in C major. It starts off with what's called the subject, and this is the seeds for the whole composition. It starts off with the simple notes here. It doesn't seem like much, does it? That's it. And right after that happens, it's repeated in an octave lower.

So, what happens with the other part is that you have a counter subject. So after this is done, you have... So you put them together. And so the entire thing is built upon the subject and the counter subject. I'm going to play just the first section of this invention for you so you can hear how the lines interweave a bit.

Okay. So that's just the beginning of Bach's first Invention in C Major, and you can see it already, it's a very different type of music. And there's an utter perfection about how these musical lines, but even though they're independent lines that could be sung by different people or played on different instruments or in the sense of the keyboard, played with different hands, where they intersect and the notes come together, the harmonies are lush and beautiful.

Well, that's just what is an invention. There are many things that can be done with the subject and the counter subject. What kind of things can be done with them? Well, they can be played slower or faster. That's referred to as augmentation and diminution. They could also be played backwards. They could be played upside down as well. To demonstrate all this, I'm going to show you one of Bach's preludes and fugues in C-sharp minor from book one.

And this is really important by the way. Bach wrote... This is unbelievable. He lived from 1685 to 1750, or dates around that. Nobody's 100% sure, but what he did was he wrote preludes and fugues in every one of the major and minor keys. This is a whole book of them right here. But that wasn't enough for Bach. He wrote two complete books. So you have all your 12 major keys, all your 12 minor keys times two, for 48 preludes and fugues. Can you believe it? It's just one of the milestones of the musical literature.

And I'm going to show you. Now, I'm kind of switching it up. We started off with two-part inventions. Now we're going voom, to a five-part fugue. Five voices? Can you believe this? Typically, you have at least three voices in a fugue and you have the subject, counter subject. And the initial statements of these are called the exposition where you have an answer.

So for example, now, the subject of C-sharp minor, a fugue from book one is incredibly simple. This is all it is. That's it. Then of course, that is then restated a fifth higher. This is the way fugues work. So that same subject then comes back a fifth higher, five notes higher. And what's going on? Just like in the invention, you have a counter subject. The counter subject in this case is this. And once again, it could be inverted. Or it could be played backwards.

So you have all these, it could be backwards, upside down. It could be faster, it could be slower. But the entire work is built upon these seeds, the subject and counter subject. I'm going to play you just the first section of this, so you get a feel what a fugue sounds like, to get a feel for the music. And listen for how this subject, this simple subject keeps coming back again and again, and with the counterpoint of the counter subject.

Now, could you imagine, that was five voices there. There are actually five separate lines going on. Can you believe this? The writing, the mastery, to be able to make a piece of music that holds together.

Now, here's the interesting thing about this, is that fugues are rarely pieces all by themselves. They're parts of pieces. And even Bach wrote preludes and fugues, so there are two movements. And the only way to really appreciate what a fugue is, is in context. Just like if you really wanted to appreciate a great motion picture, you wouldn't watch just one or two scenes of it. You'd watch the whole picture because the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

So what I'm going to do for you is I'm going to play a complete work of Bach that ends with an absolutely stupendous fugue. I'm going to go downstairs on my grand piano for this, so you can really get the full experience. Bach wrote several toccatas and they're emotionally charged works. And his E Minor is one of my favorites. I'm going to play you the whole toccata. It's not that long, but it ends with a brilliant fugue. And listen to the fugue subject. This is the subject you're going to hear at the end of this toccata, after I go downstairs and play this for you.

So that's the fugue subject. And this is a three voice fugue, meaning there are three separate lines going on at the same time, and the emotional content and how this affects you is unbelievable. And you know, I'm a firm believer in listening to music to really understand it. Because in this video here, I could go get deep into the weeds and show you the subject. And at a certain point later on in fugues you have what's called a stretto, where the statement of the subject is interrupted before it could even finish again and again, and creates this chaotic madness of emotional tension.

And we could go through and analyze it very methodically, but, you know, I learned a lot from my father. My father Morton Estrin I've talked about so much because he was my teacher, my piano teacher, my theory teacher, my harmony teacher, sight, singing, everything. And you know, aside from his private piano teaching, he gave many classes. He was a professor at Hofstra University. He also gave classes in our home. He had a big studio.

And one of the things I used to love was attending his classes. And whenever he would have a class about music, oftentimes people would ask... He would play musical examples and play recordings of music, and people coming from other teachers would ask, "What should I listen for?" And this is really a question that if you go to conservatory, you understand where that question comes from. Because I remember in music conservatory, whenever we had any kind of theory, harmony, dictation, everything was like, if we listen to music, listen for where does the development start, where's stretto, listen for this, listen for that. And you know what my father always said if somebody asked him, "What do I listen for?" You listen to enjoy. That's right? Because you will understand in an intuitive way, what makes a fugue great by listening to a masterfully composed composition. So I hope you enjoy this performance of Bach's Toccata in E Minor.

So that is just one example of how a fugue at the end of a toccata can build such tremendous emotion. So it's not all just about the mathematics. You have to have a certain awe that somebody could craft a composition that has such intricacy, and these lines all coming together and forming this magnificent piece of music out of all these separate lines that somehow weave in and out of one another in ways that you can't even imagine, and you can't believe what's actually going on.

So I hope this has enlightened you enough that you'll take an active interest in listening to more fugues. And if you're interested, there are a lot of good videos out there on YouTube that get into the analysis part of it. And I welcome your questions. You go on to part two, where I get really deep into the analyzing a fugue, and tell you all the statements of the subject and the retrograde, the inversion, the diminution, the augmentation, and how it's all crafted, and where the derivation of all the notes come from. I'm happy to do that for you. Just let me know in the comments.

And by the way, you're always welcome to email me here at livingpianos.com. After all we are your online piano resource. And I hope you enjoy this. There's tons of premium content on my Patreon channel. Thanks to all of you subscribers. We'll see you next time here at livingpianos.com. Thanks again. I'm Robert Estrin.

Find the original source of this video at this link: https://livingpianos.com/what-is-a-fugue-bach-toccata-in-e-minor/

Automatic video-to-text transcription by DaDaScribe.com

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