Fugues

[thefrenchhornguy]

I'm an amateur composer, and I'm experimenting with various musical styles. I've been trying, unsuccessfully so far, to write a fugue. I've tried with a saxophone quartet and clarinet quartet, but I'm open to all kinds of different ensembles. What I'd really like to have is more information about fugues. Could someone please help me to understand exactly what elements go into a fugue, what kinds of standard forms there are and a general idea of how they are written? The Internet has been unhelpful and I'd like to know what the rest of the musical community thinks.
If you have any ideas please post replies!

[sbeckmesser]

If you want to write a Baroque style fugue, you can try out the classic Baroque era text on counterpoint, Fux' Gradus ad Parnassum (Steps to Parnassus)

http://www.amazon.com/Study-Counterpoin ... 585&sr=8-1

There are lots of books suitable for studying counterpoint available for download through Google Books. I just searched for full-view books using "Fux Gradus" as the search criteria. You might also try "counterpoint." Most of these tutorial books follow Fux' stressing of species counterpoint with its emphasis on proper voice leading. As I learned in my composition classes, fugues are something you have to build up to (hence the "steps" in book's title). Try writing a simple canonic phrases (like "Row, row, row your boat" but maybe a little less simplistic). Then try writing 2-voice fugues, like the Bach 2-part Inventions. There's a reason the big guys broke into fugues when they wanted to get real serious (Beethoven Hammerklavier) , or when they just wanted to show off (Mozart: Jupiter, Verdi: Falstaff, Wagner: Meistersinger).

--Sixtus

[Lyle Neff]

Study lots of fugues (and ricercars), especially of the baroque era. Pachelbel's fugues are fairly simple.