Fugue

“ Though we occasionally meet with fugues in which the subject or answer is almost continuously present, a striking and well-known example being the first fugue in the 'Wohltemperirtes Clavier,' it is generally advisable to give variety to the composition by the introduction of episodes. An Episode, is that part of a fugue in which for a time neither subject nor answer is heard. In the majority of cases the reappearance of the subject attracts more attention and excites more interest, if it has been absent for a while. ”

“ Growing with the light, the fugue swells into crescendo. Lakes of sunshine and capes of shadow down the old road are more sharply defined. Bushes of tall, white melilot, clustered with myriads of tiny flowers, exhale a sweet fragrance into the morning air. The clearing around the house is flooded with sunlight. In the wooded pasture some trunks are bathed with a golden glory, while others yet stand iron [Pg 18] gray in the deep shadows. The world is awake. ”

“ It is possible to give very definite rules as to the correct answering of a fugue subject, the treatment of the exposition and episodes, and the construction of stretto. But in dealing with those parts of a fugue which we are now approaching, we are met by far greater difficulties than any we have as yet encountered. These arise from the fact that as soon as in composing a fugue we get beyond the exposition (or counter-exposition, if there be one) , we are left to a very great extent free to do what we please ”

“ In other departments he had rivals; but in the fugue, and all the kinds of canon and counterpoint related to it, he stands quite alone, and so alone, that all around him, is, as it were, desert and void.⁠*⁠*⁠*⁠It (his fugue) fulfils all the conditions which we are otherwise accustomed to demand, only of more free species of composition. A highly characteristic theme, an uninterrupted principal melody, wholly derived from it, and equally characteristic from the beginning to the end ”

“ It is hoped that these examples will sufficiently show the nature of the fugato. It is, of course, far easier to write than a strict fugue, or even a fughetta, and is not of sufficient importance to require a lengthy notice ”

“ In the form most frequently met with, a fughetta is an abridged fugue, and is almost always a complete movement in itself. It contains a regular exposition; but the middle section will have at most not more than one group of middle entries, and in many instances it is omitted altogether. In such cases the exposition is followed either by an episode leading to the final entry of the subject in the tonic key, or this final entry may follow the exposition immediately, without any episode whatever. ”

“ Will the revolutionary spirit which is now working such radical changes in the construction of the Opera affect the Oratorio also? Will the neglect of Counterpoint, the contempt for Fugue, the hatred of Polyphony, which so many young Musicians—and not young ones only—are rapidly learning to regard as signs of 'progress,' undermine the very foundations of Sacred Music to such an extent as to render the production of new and worthy works impossible? Is there genius enough in the world to strike out an entirely new conception, and learning enough to ensure its successful embodiment? ”

“ But the fugue we are now discussing is for two parts only; and after the first entry of the answer, the exposition (§ 11) is complete, and we reach the first episode, where, as we shall see later, modulation usually begins. There is, therefore, here no occasion to return to the tonic key. The same reason may probably explain the putting the second answer into the key of the subdominant, noticed in § 111. Students should always keep to the regular rule, and answer a subject modulating to the dominant by a return to the tonic. ”

“ But the fox answered, "Not for myself do I grieve. It is because thou, O calf! hast an enemy; therefore do I grieve." But the calf answered, "Be comforted, fox, for it is not likely any should be an enemy to me." Then replied the fox, "Beware thou disregard not my words, for if thou do, of a certainty a day shall come when thou shalt berue it." But the calf inquired, saying, "Who then could this enemy possibly be?" And the fox told him, saying, "Who should it be other than the lion-cub in the forest on the other side the mountain? ”

“ But Tiny’s fluff grows so fast, and he is so light, that we generally pick him up by it. And so, when the parrot began to pull at it, it rolled the dog all about, and as one of the bird’s claws got caught in the fluff of the dog and the other in the fluff of the hearth-rug, they got rolled up in the corner of it, — the terrier and the parrot together; and the noises that proceeded from those two, and the confusion there was of hearth-rug and fluff and feathers, defies all description. ”

“ The fox nearly always takes his nap in the open fields, along the sides of the ridges, or under the mountain, where he can look down upon the busy farms beneath and hear their many sounds, the barking of dogs, the lowing of cattle, the cackling of hens, the voices of men and boys, or the sound of travel upon the highway. It is on that side, too, that he keeps the sharpest lookout, and the appearance of the hunter above and behind him is always a surprise. ”

“ The fox squalls, picks himself up, and plunges over the brink of the mountain. The hunter has not missed his aim, but the oil in his gun, he says, has weakened the strength of his powder. The hound, hearing the report, comes like a whirlwind and is off in hot pursuit. Both fox and dog now bleed,—the dog at his heels, the fox from his wounds. ”

“ THE FOX AND THE CROW
A fox once saw a Crow fly off with a piece of cheese in its beak and settle on a branch of a tree. “That’s for me, as I am a Fox,” said Master Reynard, and he walked up to the foot of the tree. “Good-day, Mistress Crow,” he cried. “How well you are looking to-day: how glossy your feathers; how bright your eye. I feel sure your voice must surpass that of other birds, just as your figure does; let me hear but one song from you that I may greet you as the Queen of Birds.” ”

“ And the rat suddenly swam about two or three yards in front of the raft, and made such a loud splashing with his paws and his tail that the owl could not help seeing him. In a moment he swooped down upon the water, and Buzz and Fuzz squeaked with terror. For they thought that their friend must have been caught. ”

“ I have often had occasion to notice how much more intelligence the bird carries in its eye than does the animal or quadruped. The animal will see you, too, if you are moving, but if you stand quite still even the wary fox will pass within a few yards of you and not know you from a stump, unless the wind brings him your scent. But a crow or a hawk will discern you when you think yourself quite hidden. His eye is as keen as the fox's sense of smell, and seems fairly to penetrate veils and screens. Most of the water-fowl are equally sharp-eyed. ”

“ Just as the owl made that quick swoop the rat dived beneath the water, and the owl rose again without having caught him.
But the owl had heard their squeak, and he said to himself, that if he could not get a rat for his supper a mouse would do just as well. So down he flew again, and Fuzz and Buzz thought that their last moment had come. But when the owl was so close to them that they could see his sharp beak and his cruel claws quite plainly, their tails, which were floating in the water, were suddenly pulled, and they tumbled backwards head over heels into the stream. ”

“ Judged by the eye alone, the fox is the lightest and most buoyant creature that runs. His soft wrapping of fur conceals the muscular play and effort that is so obvious in the hound that pursues him, and he comes bounding along precisely as if blown by a gentle wind. His massive tail is carried as if it floated upon the air by its own lightness. ”

“ Perchance one turkey is minus her tail, the fox having succeeded in getting only a mouthful of quills.
As the brood grows and their wings develop, they wander far from the house in quest of grasshoppers. At such times they are all watchfulness and suspicion. Crossing the fields one day, attended by a dog that much resembled a fox, I came suddenly upon a brood about one third grown, which were feeding in a pasture just beyond a wood. ”

“ AS winter approached, and Fuzzy wandered farther and farther afield, the bullfrogs wriggled deep into the mud to sleep the white months away, the trout he had so often caught sought the deepest water they could find, in the very bottom of the ice-covered lake, the birds flew further south, the chipmunks retired to the depths of their well-stocked burrows, the pine squirrels took to their hollow trees except when the sun shone warmest, and the mice crept so deep into the frozen ground that Fuzzy could not dig them out. ”

“ The hawk has not the fox's cunning, hence it fell an easy victim. I do not think that the cunning of the fox is any more akin to reason than is the power of smell of the hound that pursues him. Both are inborn, and are quite independent of experience. If a fox were deliberately to seek to elude the hound by running through a flock of sheep, or by following the bed of a shallow stream, or by taking to the public highway, then I think we should have to credit him with powers of reflection. ”

“ The Ranger made him a bed on the top of the pack that the burro carried, and tied him so that he couldn’t get down,—and there he was shortly snoozing, while the June sun dried his fur, and the trail climbed higher and higher. Life had taken a new turn for young Fuzzy-Wuzz. ”

“ I can believe that a fox might walk in a shallow creek to elude the hound, because he may inherit this kind of cunning, and in his own experience he may have come to associate loss of scent with water. Animals stalk their prey, or lie in wait for it, instinctively, not from a process of calculation, as man does. If a fox would bait poultry with corn, why should he not, in his wild state, bait mice and squirrels with nuts and seeds? Has a cat ever been known to bait a rat with a piece of cheese? ”

“ Imagine me, then, a handsome young dog-fox, head erect, ears pricked, brush on end and well fluffed out, trotting along on the very tips of my toes with my first rabbit between my jaws, and you have a picture of me as I swaggered over the bare turf in the moonlight, before the eyes of my admiring mother and jealous sisters. ”

“ That is the kind of fate that you are very likely to meet if you are a deer. But vengeance came on the morrow, for that day it was the Buck's turn to be chased by that horrible fog-horn on four legs. Hour after hour he heard the hound's dreadful baying behind him as he raced through the woods, and at last he, too, started for the water, just as the doe had done. But he never reached it, or at least not on that trip. He was within a few rods of the beach when his spread hoof caught on a root and threw him, and the hound was so close behind that they both went down in a heap. ”

“ The fox once came to a meadow in which was a flock of fine fat geese, on which he smiled and said, “I come in the nick of time, you are sitting together quite beautifully, so that I can eat you up one after the other.” The geese cackled with terror, sprang up, and began to wail and beg piteously for their lives. But the fox would listen to nothing, and said, “There is no mercy to be had! You must die.” ”

“ The hound is not remarkable for his fleetness, but how he will hang!—often running late into the night, and sometimes till morning, from ridge to ridge, from peak to peak; now on the mountain, now crossing the valley, now playing about a large slope of uplying pasture fields. At times the fox has a pretty well- defined orbit, and the hunter knows where to intercept him. ”

“ To learn his surpassing shrewdness and cunning, attempt to take him with a trap. Rogue that he is, he always suspects some trick, and one must be more of a fox than he is himself to overreach him. At first sight it would appear easy enough. With apparent indifference he crosses your path, or walks in your footsteps in the field, or travels along the beaten highway, or lingers in the vicinity of stacks and remote barns. Carry the carcass of a pig, or a fowl, or a dog, to a distant field in midwinter, and in a few nights his tracks cover the snow about it. ”

“ Simultaneously the creature shot into the moonlight in full charge upon her, its tail erect, its tiny ears laid flat, its great mouth with its multiple rows of sharp and powerful fangs already yawning for its prey, its ten legs carrying it forward in great leaps, and now from the beast's throat issued the frightful roar with which it seeks to paralyze its prey. ”

“ A fox, old, subtle, vigilant, and sly,-- By hunters wounded, fallen in the mud,-- Attracted, by the traces of his blood, That buzzing parasite, the fly. He blamed the gods, and wonder'd why The Fates so cruelly should wish To feast the fly on such a costly dish. ”

“ For a time Fuzzy-Wuzz paid little attention to Clickety-Clack, as the owl generally slept all day and the cub all night. But one evening he made a sad, sad mistake, did the little bear. As the owl floated down to the hearth rug, Fuzzy made a playful pounce for him. He caught the owl between his fore paws. But as he opened his jaws to take a nip at the feathered back, he got an awful surprise. ”

“ The Sheep Field was always noisy at night. One or another of the ewes would lose sight of her lamb behind a bush, and then for a long while either cried to the other, and yet neither would stir; and the wind everlastingly sang in the trees in Knockdane. [71]
By and by a pale April moon rose, and Fluff-Button sat up for the tenth time to flick the dew from his whiskers. The bushes around him took curious shapes in the half-light; and wander where he would among them, he saw no other rabbit. ”