Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph (152 page)

 

The preceding are the main forms used in multimovement symphonies, concertos, solo sonatas, string quartets, and other chamber music. The overall idea has to do with contrasts of mood and tempo: a typical work might have a fast first movement in sonata form, a slow movement in ABA form, a medium-tempo minuet or racing scherzo, then a fast finale in sonata-rondo form. This pattern was, like all else, infinitely variable. Here and there in his work, Beethoven created new ad hoc or hybrid forms, such as the finales of the Third and Ninth Symphonies.

 

FUGUE

 

Fugue
is a contrapuntal procedure that evolved in the early Baroque period and persisted through the Classical period and later. First, recall what
counterpoint
is: a superimposition of melodies, each line (called a
voice
, even in instrumental music) its own melody, yet the whole also creating effective harmony. (This is in contradistinction to other kinds of texture that involve a single melody with accompaniment.) In the Classical period and later, although fugues were still often composed, the idea had become a kind of self-conscious archaism. Because achieving a balance of good melody and good harmony in counterpoint is one of the most difficult skills in composition, usually involving concentrated study to master, the Classical period called fugue and overt counterpoint “the learned style.”

A simple fugue is based around a single melodic idea called the
subject
. Counterpoint is woven around that subject, sometimes involving a consistent second thematic idea called a
countersubject
. A typical fugue begins like this: the subject is heard alone, then a second voice enters on the subject in the dominant key while the first voice continues in counterpoint (perhaps that being the countersubject); then a third voice enters in the tonic key while the other voices weave counterpoint around it. If it is a four-voiced fugue, there is a fourth entry of the subject while the other voices continue in counterpoint. Here is a typical opening of a three-voiced fugue:

 

 

Collectively, a section with entries of the subject like this is called a
fugal
exposition
. Then follows a section where there is a kind of as-if improvisation on the exposition material, that section called an
episode
. The whole of the fugue proceeds in an alternation of exposition (entries of the subject) and episode (free counterpoint on the material). At the end there may be a section called the
stretto
in which, as if in its eagerness to be heard, the subject enters in the voices in closer succession, each entry almost treading on the heels of the last.

There are infinite variations. A fugue can be in two voices or up to as many as you like (but rarely more than six). There may or may not be a countersubject, or a stretto at the end. The piece may be a
double fugue
, involving two more or less equal subjects. There are smaller named variants based on the fugal idea: a
fughetta
is a little fugue, often an episode in a larger movement; a
fugato
is a fuguelike section involving a subject but is less developed than a full fugue.

Beethoven was fascinated by the fugal idea and turned to it often, especially in the late music. But he was determined to adapt fugue to the demands of Classical-style movements, and constantly found new ways of integrating fugue and sonata or sonata-like forms, or creating new formal patterns based around fugue. Since the model of a fugue composer for Beethoven was J. S. Bach (mainly in
The Well-Tempered Clavier
), the style of Beethoven's fugues sometimes recalls Bach.

 

CANON

 

Canon resembles fugue in that it is a contrapuntal procedure based on a single subject, but it is a more rigid procedure than fugue. Think of canon as a grown-up form of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat”: the beginning of a melody is heard alone, then a second voice begins the same tune while the first voice continues it, and the idea continues with as many voices as you like:

 

 

So the single tune is heard two or more times in overlapping entries and creates counterpoint with itself—in effective harmony. The canonic tune may or may not begin on the same pitches in each entry; there are other varieties, such as a
crab canon
, in which the second entry is the melody backward. Canons can't happen by accident; they have to be carefully composed. Bach was celebrated for the suppleness and beauty of his canons, qualities that are very hard to achieve in such a rigid form. Beethoven usually wrote freestanding canons only as jokes for friends, but some of his pieces have canonic episodes integrated into the larger form.

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