the.com/fugue
A melody that argues with itself, politely, in several voices at once.
means A musical form where a theme is introduced and then chased, echoed, and layered by other voices entering in turn — also used for a dissociative mental state where someone wanders off from their own identity for a while.
from From French 'fugue', from Italian 'fuga', from Latin 'fuga' meaning flight or fleeing — the same root that gives us 'fugitive'. The musical sense caught on because one voice seems to flee and the others chase after it, entering one by one in pursuit of the same melodic idea. The psychological sense ('fugue state') borrows the same image of flight, but from oneself rather than from another voice.
- structure
- One theme chases itself through every voice
- bach's specialty
- He wrote 48 just to prove a point
- psychiatric meaning
- Also a fugue: amnesia wearing a new identity
- etymology
- From fuga, latin for flight or fleeing