preferred to treat the subject separately under the general heading of Contrapuntal Forms, reserving only technical terms for definition here.
(i.) If in the beginning or “exposition” the material with which the opening voice accompanies the answer is faithfully reproduced as the accompaniment to subsequent entries of the subject, it is called a countersubject (see Counterpoint, under sub-heading Double Counterpoint). Obviously the process may be carried further, the first countersubject going on to a second when the subject enters in the third part and so on. The term is also applied to new subjects appearing later in the fugue in combination (immediate or destined) with the original subject. Cherubini, holding the doctrine that a fugue cannot have more than one subject, insists on applying the term to the less prominent of the subjects of what are commonly called double fugues, i.e. fugues which begin with two parts and two subjects simultaneously, and so also with triple and quadruple fugues.
(ii.) Episodes are passages separating the entries of the subject.[1] Episodes are usually developed from the material of the subject and countersubjects; they are very rarely independent, but then conspicuously so.
(iii.) Stretto, the overlapping of subject and answer, is a resource the possibilities of which may be exemplified by the setting of the words omnes generationes in Bach’s Magnificat (see Bach).
(iv.) The distinction between real and tonal fugue, which is still sometimes treated as a thing of great historical and technical importance, is really a mere detail resulting from the fact that a violent oscillation between the keys of tonic and dominant is no part of the function of a fugal exposition, so that the answer is (especially in its first notes and in points that tend to shift the key) not so much a transposition of the subject to the key of the dominant as an adaptation of it from the tonic part to the dominant part of the scale, or vice versa; in short, the answer is as far as possible on the dominant, not in the dominant. The modifications this principle produces in the answer (which have been happily described as resembling “fore-shortening”) are the only distinctive marks of tonal fugue; and the text-books are half filled with the attempt to reduce them from matters of ear to rules of thumb, which rules, however, have the merit (unusual in those of the academic fugue) of being founded on observation of the practice of great masters. But the same principle as often as not produces answers that are exact transpositions of the subject; and so the only kind of real fugue (i.e. fugue with an exact answer) that could rightly be contrasted with tonal fugue would be that in which the answer ought to be tonal but is not. It must be admitted that tonal answers are rare in the modal music of the 16th century, though their melodic principles are of yet earlier date; still, though tonal fugue does not become usual until well on in the 17th century, the idea that it is a separate species is manifestly absurd, unless the term simply means “fugue in modern tonality or key,” whatever the answer may be.
The term “answer” is usually reserved for those entries of the subject that are placed in what may be called the “complementary” position of the scale, whether they are “tonally” modified or not. Thus the order of entries in the exposition of the first fugue of the Wohltemp. Klav. is subject, answer, answer, subject; a departure from the usual rule according to which subject and answer are strictly alternate in the exposition.
In conclusion we may remind the reader of the most accurate as well as the most vivid description ever given of the essentials of a fugue, in the famous lines in Paradise Lost, book xi.
| “His volant touch, Instinct through all proportions, low and high, Fled and pursued transverse the resonant fugue.” |
It is hard to realize that this description of organ-music was written in no classical period of instrumental polyphony, but just half-way between the death of Frescobaldi and the birth of Bach. Every word is a definition, both retrospective and prophetic; and in “transverse” we see all that Sir Frederick Gore Ouseley expresses in his popular distinction between the “perpendicular” or homophonic style in which harmony is built up in chords, and the “horizontal” or polyphonic style in which it is woven in threads of independent melody. (D. F. T.)
FÜHRICH, JOSEPH VON (1800–1876), Austrian painter, was
born at Kratzau in Bohemia on the 9th of February 1800. Deeply
impressed as a boy by rude pictures adorning the wayside chapels
of his native country, his first attempt at composition was a
sketch of the Nativity for the festival of Christmas in his father’s
house. He lived to see the day when, becoming celebrated as
a composer of scriptural episodes, his sacred subjects were
transferred in numberless repetitions to the roadside churches of
the Austrian state, where humble peasants thus learnt to admire
modern art reviving the models of earlier ages. Führich has
been fairly described as a “Nazarene,” a romantic religious artist
whose pencil did more than any other to restore the old spirit
of Dürer and give new shape to countless incidents of the gospel
and scriptural legends. Without the power of Cornelius or the
grace of Overbeck, he composed with great skill, especially in
outline. His mastery of distribution, form, movement and
expression was considerable. In its peculiar way his drapery
was perfectly cast. Essentially creative as a landscape
draughtsman, he had still no feeling for colour; and when
he produced monumental pictures he was not nearly so
successful as when designing subjects for woodcuts. Führich’s
fame extended far beyond the walls of the Austrian capital,
and his illustrations to Tieck’s Genofeva, the Lord’s Prayer,
the Triumph of Christ, the Road to Bethlehem, the Succession
of Christ according to Thomas à Kempis, the Prodigal
Son, and the verses of the Psalter, became well known. His
Prodigal Son, especially, is remarkable for the fancy with which
the spirit of evil is embodied in a figure constantly recurring,
and like that of Mephistopheles exhibiting temptation in a human
yet demoniacal shape. Führich became a pupil at the Academy
of Prague in 1816. His first inspiration was derived from the
prints of Dürer and the Faust of Cornelius, and the first fruit of
this turn of study was the Genofeva series. In 1826 he went to
Rome, where he added three frescoes to those executed by
Cornelius and Overbeck in the Palazzo Massimi. His subjects
were taken from the life of Tasso, and are almost solitary examples
of his talent in this class of composition. In 1831 he finished
the Triumph of Christ now in the Raczynski palace at Berlin.
In 1834 he was made custos and in 1841 professor of composition
in the Academy of Vienna. After this he completed the
monumental pictures of the church of St Nepomuk, and in 1854–1861
the vast series of wall paintings which cover the inside of the
Lerchenfeld church at Vienna. In 1872 he was pensioned and
made a knight of the order of Franz Joseph; 1875 is the date of his
illustrations to the Psalms. He died on the 13th of March 1876.
His autobiography was published in 1875, and a memoir by his son Lucas in 1886.
FUJI (Fuji-san, Fujiyama, Fusiyama), a celebrated mountain
of Japan, standing W.S.W. of Tokyo, its base being about 70 m.
by rail from that city. It rises to a height of 12,395 ft. and its
southern slopes reach the shore of Suruga Bay. It is a cone of
beautifully simple form, the more striking to view because it
stands isolated; but its summit is not conical, being broken by
a crater some 2000 ft. in diameter, for Fuji is a quiescent volcano.
Small outbursts of steam are still to be observed at some points.
An eruption is recorded so lately as the first decade of the 18th
century. The mountain is the resort of great numbers of pilgrims
(see also Japan).
FU-KIEN (formerly Min), a south-eastern province of China, bounded N. by the province of Cheh-kiang, S. by that of Kwang-tung, W. by that of Kiang-si and E. by the sea. It occupies an area of 53,480 sq. m. and its population is estimated at 20,000,000. The provincial capital is Fuchow Fu, and it is divided into eleven prefectures, besides that ruled over by the prefect of the capital city. Fu-kien is generally mountainous, being overspread by the Nan-shan ranges, which run a general course of N.E. and S.W.
- ↑ An episode occurring during the exposition is sometimes called codetta, a distinction the uselessness of which at once appears on an analysis of Bach’s 2nd fugue in the Wohltemp. Klav. (the term codetta is more correctly applied to notes filling in a gap between subject and its first answer, but such a gap is rare in good examples).
