Counterpoint and Fugue
Counterpoint and Fugue
This domain examines strict species writing in the tradition of Fux and the analysis of Baroque fugue. Expect a short two- or three-voice exercise to complete, plus questions naming the parts of a fugue exposition and identifying contrapuntal devices.
Species rules that are actually marked
- First species (note against note): begin and end on a perfect consonance (unison, fifth, octave); approach the final by step in one voice where possible.
- Second species (two notes against one): the weak beat may carry a passing tone, but the strong beat must be consonant.
- Third and fourth species: dissonance appears as a cambiata or as a suspension - prepared on the weak beat, tied over, and resolved downward by step. An upward resolution is a retardation and must be labelled as such.
- Fourth species may use chains of 7–6 suspensions, but consecutive fifths by contrary motion remain forbidden.
Fugue vocabulary
- Subject; answer - real (exact transposition to the dominant) or tonal (adjusted so the music stays in the tonic key); countersubject; exposition; episode; middle entries in related keys; stretto; pedal point.
- Devices: inversion, augmentation, diminution, retrograde, invertible counterpoint at the octave, tenth or twelfth.
- A tonal answer is required when the subject opens on 5 or leaps 1–5: the fifth is answered by a fourth so the answer does not modulate.
Worked example
A subject in G major begins G–B–A–G and ends with the leap G up to D (1–5). A real answer would begin on D and repeat the leap D–A, pushing the music into A major. The correct tonal answer begins on D but answers the 1–5 leap with 5–1, that is D down to G, so the answer stays within G major and the countersubject remains diatonic. Mark the answer 'tonal' - a bare 'answer' often loses the definition mark.
Traps that cost marks
- Writing a third voice that crosses or overlaps its neighbour; examiners check the outer parts first.
- Answering in the subdominant by mistake, or transposing the countersubject along with the answer when it should stay in the tonic.
- Forgetting that a countersubject must work in invertible counterpoint against the subject, not merely be correct on its own.
- Treating every dissonance as a suspension: a passing tone on a strong beat is an error, not a decoration.