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Table of Contents
1. Art of Fugue: Contrapunctus VIII & XI – J. S. Bach
2. Grosse Fuge in B flat major – L. van Beethoven
3. WTC I, BWV 846-869: C sharp minor fugue – J. S. Bach
4. Mass in B minor, BWV 232: Confiteor – J. S. Bach
5. Requiem: Kyrie Eleison – W. A. Mozart
6. Le tombeau de Couperin II: Fugue – M. Ravel
7. “Hammerklavier” Sonata, IV: Fugue – L. van Beethoven
8. Art of Fugue: Contrapunctus I – J. S. Bach
9. String quartets op. 20: No. 6 “Sun” – J. Haydn
10. Sonata in B minor IV: Fugue – F. Liszt
11. “Little” Fugue for organ in G minor, BWV 578 – J. S. Bach
The 11 greatest fugues ever written
Classical Echoes – 16 October 2024
From Bach to Ravel: Introducing 11 of the greatest fugues ever written which everyone should be aware of
Among hundreds of musical forms, from etudes to symphonies, the fugue remains one of the most fundamental, yet complex and difficult to comprehend. While the concept of polyphony in music began in the early Middle Ages, developing through canons and other forms, the fugue as we know it emerged in the 17th century with masters like Biber, Pachelbel, and, of course, Bach. Defining the greatest fugues is a highly subjective and challenging task, but based on popular opinions and research, in this blog post, I will share some of the most complex, beautiful, and greatest fugues.
Table of contents
1. Art of Fugue: Contrapunctus VIII & XI – J. S. Bach
2. Grosse Fuge in B flat major – L. van Beethoven
3. WTC I, BWV 846-869: C sharp minor fugue – J. S. Bach
4. Mass in B minor, BWV 232: Confiteor – J. S. Bach
5. Requiem: Kyrie Eleison – W. A. Mozart
6. Le tombeau de Couperin II: Fugue – M. Ravel
7. “Hammerklavier” Sonata, IV: Fugue – L. van Beethoven
8. Art of Fugue: Contrapunctus I – J. S. Bach
9. String quartets op. 20: No. 6 “Sun” – J. Haydn
10. Sonata in B minor IV: Fugue – F. Liszt
11. “Little” Fugue for organ in G minor, BWV 578 – J. S. Bach
11. “Little” Fugue for organ in G minor, BWV 578 – J. S. Bach
One of Bach’s most well-known fugues for organ is often recognized as the “Little Fugue.” The name was given by early editors to distinguish it from the “Great” Fantasia and Fugue in G minor.
It’s a single-subject, four-voice fugue that begins, despite its name, with a long and catchy theme in G minor, followed by an answer in D minor accompanied by a countersubject. Much of the fugue consists of a complex dialogue between the four voices, with the theme repeated in different keys and episodes (or sequences) separating and developing the sound.
Like many of J.S. Bach’s works, this fugue wasn’t published for almost a century after his death, remaining a silent echo of a past era. Though not as complex as some of his other fugues, the “Little” Fugue remains a golden benchmark of counterpoint and polyphony.
J. S. Bach – Little fugue (yt: gerubach)
10. Sonata in B minor IV: Fugue – F. Liszt
The fourth movement of Liszt’s monumental only piano sonata, marked Allegro Energico, begins with an energetic fugue in B flat minor, featuring an alternate theme from the first movement. In this unique fugato section, the composer returns to the great masters of the past, with clear staccato notes played at an insanely fast tempo, combining techniques by Bach, Handel, and their contemporaries. The fugue doesn’t have a clear ending; instead, it smoothly flows into the epic finale, using themes from the first movement. Liszt really shakes things up by introducing new techniques that break the rules set back in the Baroque era, like full octaves and double thirds in the left hand played at a super-fast tempo which, I have to say, makes an outstanding final result! Without any doubts, this fugato section is the most technically demanding of all the fugues on this list, requiring the performer to emphasize every note and build up amazing counterpoint that introduces us to the rest of the finale of the great sonata.
K. Buniatishvili – Sonata in B minor (Liszt): fugue (yt: music 737)
9. String quartets op. 20: no. 6 “Sun” – J. Haydn
After Bach, music had to change. Classical music was lighter and more accessible, and Joseph Haydn stepped into the spotlight as one of the great composers of his time. But that doesn’t mean he completely left behind Baroque styles like fugues. In his 40s, when he was already well established, Haydn wrote his six string quartets, Op. 20, which blend his mastery of form with the new Classical style.
The last movement of his final quartet, No. 6 “The Sun,” is a wonderful fugue on three subjects. This A major counterpoint, with its fast tempo and clear melodies, combines the complexity of Bach’s studies with Haydn’s light touch, making it a great example of the so-called “classical fugue.” While Bach focused on usage of polyphonic techniques and Augenmusik (eye music), Haydn emphasized an elegant and enjoyable sound. It’s very easy to follow and listen to without actually looking at the sheet.
The fugue captures the overall sunny mood of the quartet and introduces this musical form to many new listeners, influencing a new generation of great composers, including Mozart.
Collard plays Ravel’s le tombeau de Couperni: fugue (yt. newFranzFerencLiszt)
8. Art of fugue: Contrapunctus I – J. S. Bach
The undisputed master of counterpoint, J. S. Bach, wrote fugal works throughout his entire life. His final, unfinished piece was dedicated to the art of creating a sublime polyphonic dialogue between multiple voices expanding the simplest theme. Even in his own time, Bach was considered an old-fashioned composer, as the aristocracy was moving toward lighter, more melodic music.
Like many of Bach’s compositions, The Art of Fugue didn’t receive much attention and was seen as an old-fashioned educational piece, mainly useful for music studies. Only about 30 copies of the masterpiece were sold after his death, and it wasn’t performed in its entirety until the 20th century.
The main idea behind a set of fugues is to expand on a simple subject and create a harmonic and meaningful conversation between the voices. The fugue begins with an exposition of the subject in D minor, introducing a clear and distinct melody that receives a tonal response in A minor. Through various modulations and sequences, the main theme is developed across four voices before leading to the coda and ending.
That being said, genius lies in simplicity—taking a basic motif and turning it into something meaningful. Listening to a fugue is like listening to a really good conversation, and Contrapunctus 1 is a perfect starting point for your appreciation of this musical form.
Contrapunctus 1, G. Gould (yt: sincepc)
7. “Hammerklavier” sonata, IV: Fugue – L. van Beethoven
After Bach, the grandaddy of fugues, Beethoven was probably the next greatest contributor to this music style. Even though admitted that he had never written a really good fugue (according to his own standards), he brought something to this form what he brought to all of his music—an expression of human’s deepest feelings and emotions.
While working on his tremendous sonata, Beethoven was seeking to use various of possible techniques to make his Hammerklavier sound like full scaled orchestra.
The fourth movement starts with a slow intro that connects smoothly previous themes and goes through a few key changes before landing in B♭ major, where the fugue actually begins.
This is a huge and difficult counterpoint, with three voices working together, and it’s full of Beethoven’s energy and drama. The main theme has three sections: a big jump with a trill, a descending scale, and a fast series of notes with some tricky chromatic touches. Beethoven plays around with this theme in all sorts of fun ways, flipping it backwards and upside down to show its genius insanity.
Maybe Beethoven didn’t mean to write a traditional fugue. It’s all about showing his inner chaos and feelings, using different techniques to match the mood of the sonata. However, he seems to redefine the meaning of fugue in all classical music.
L. van Beethoven – Sonata no. 29 in B flat major: Fugue (yt: Alex)
6. Le tombeau de Couperin II: Fugue – M. Ravel
The most dreamy and pleasurable of all the fugues on this list is the second movement of a mesmerizing but really heartbreaking piece by M. Ravel, dedicated to his friend who died in WWI. Le Tombeau de Couperin, or “The Tomb of Couperin,” refers to a French composer from the 17th century and is a piano suite of six movements in the basic Baroque form, including common styles of that era like the prelude, menuet, and fugue. Listening to the whole piece is like trying to remember a really good dream after you’ve woken up.
The fugue has a dance-like first theme in E minor, similar to the prelude, where the theme and inner voices create a unique spiritual feeling, giving you mixed feelings of joy and sadness.
Like Liszt, Ravel also pays tribute to great composers of the past and brings a unique piece of music that evokes deep emotions.
Despite the difficult history behind the piece, Ravel chose to write something light and rather cheerful. The music doesn’t just express the composer’s emotions but makes you feel a certain way. As Ravel himself said about his work: “The dead are sad enough, in their eternal silence“.
Collard plays Ravel’s le tombeau de Couperni: fugue (yt. newFranzFerencLiszt)
5. Requiem: Kyrie Eleison – W. Mozart
“The day of wrath, that day will dissolve the world in ashes.” These words from Mozart’s Requiem in D minor, describe the mood of the piece he wrote knowing he was nearing the end of his life.
Sadly, Mozart didn’t finish the Requiem before he passed away in 1791. His student, Franz Xaver Süssmayr, dared to complete it based on Mozart’s sketches. Despite being unfinished, the Requiem remains one of the most powerful and well-known pieces in choral music, a work where emotions begin to be expressed through music—an idea that would become central to Beethoven’s art and the foundation of Romanticism.
At the end of Mozart’s life, he was considered by many (including himself) to be the greatest living composer, and there wasn’t much left for him to learn and explore. The Classical era was focused on more accessible, melodic music, exploring the sonata form and making it easier for everyone to enjoy. The more profound studies by Bach and other Baroque musicians were largely ignored and didn’t receive much attention.
After discovering Bach’s Art of Fugue and other works, he realized that there was much to learn from the great master. After exploring Baroque compositions, he included many complex fugatos into some of his timeless works, including the fugal entries in the fourth movement of the “Jupiter” Symphony and the Kyrie Eleison fugue from his Requiem Mass.
This is a great double fugue from the peak of Mozart’s career. It starts with a short, gentle intro taken from the beginning of his Requiem, and then moves into the powerful Kyrie Eleison, with the full orchestra and a dramatic ending.
The main theme, Kyrie Eleison (Lord Have Mercy), is followed by Christe Eleison (Christ Have Mercy), with countersubject playing alongside. It develops in four voices, introducing second theme coming together before a coda and ending.
Kyrie Eleison from Mozart’s Requiem (yt: Classical YouTube Music)
4. Mass in B minor, BWV 232: Confiteor, Bach
The greatest, the lengthiest, the most epic mass that was ever written, J.S. Bach’s B Minor Mass is his lifelong work compared to Beethoven’s Ninth or Goethe’s Faust, a stunning piece that showcases his eternal passion for sacred music. Spanning about two hours, it is full of religious symbolism and structure. Bach actually pieced it together over many years, drawing from earlier compositions and adapting them into this grand mass. Despite its brilliance, the B Minor Mass wasn’t performed in its entirety until the 19th century, long after Bach had passed away.
The Confiteor from the second section of the mass, Symbolum Nicenum, is one of the few fugues for five voices, consisting of two main subjects. The first theme in F-sharp minor, “Confiteor” (I confess), enters consistently from soprano to bass. After a short episode, the second subject, “Remissionem Peccatorum” (the forgiveness of sins), enters in the reverse order of the previous one, constantly modulating and overlapping the two main subjects, accompanied by distinctive counterpoint nearing the coda, where the actual fugue comes to an end. The piece calms in a series of chords that progress to the D major canon part, ending in epic polyphony played by the orchestra, accompanied by trumpets.
The entire Mass in B Minor is a work in which Bach aims to include his very best pieces in many different musical forms, and the Confiteor is indeed one of the greatest fugues he has written.
J. S. Bach – Confiteor from Mass in B minor (yt: pannonia77)
3. WTC I, BWV 846-869: C sharp minor fugue – J.S. Bach
Talking about fugues pretty much means talking a lot about Bach. The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1, a set of 24 preludes and fugues for every key, is one of the most important keyboard works in history. WTC 1 is considered so genius that it’s believed Bach was literally imprisoned in his house to work on his masterpiece.
C-sharp minor was barely used in those times due to specifics of harpsichord tuning and simpler alternatives like C minor or D minor. However, this didn’t stop J.S. from crafting one of the most complicated fugues ever written, in five voices and based on three subjects. It’s an extraordinary triple fugue, where subjects enter simultaneously without singled-out introductions, serving more as counterpoints to each other. In the development sections, Bach uses strettos on all three subjects, making them enter consistently and overlap, creating one of the most complex and meaningful polyphonies in music history.
The fugue has had a huge influence on future great composers; it impacted Beethoven while he was writing his C-sharp minor Moonlight Sonata, as well as later works by Mozart.
Playing all five voices on a single keyboard to highlight every theme requires a great approach from both the performer and the listener.
Fugue in C sharp minor (WTC I): analysis (yt: Richard Atkinson)
2. Grosse Fuge in B flat major – L. van Beethoven
“The Great Fugue … now seems to me the most perfect miracle in music,” said Igor Stravinsky, who also claimed that he “detests” Beethoven and considers him “the most overrated composer in history.” A truly unprecedented and unique piece of music, nothing like it was written in the century before or after.
Never satisfied with any fugal work he had ever written, Beethoven’s Grosse Fugue transcends the traditional definition of a fugue. It’s not fair to judge this piece by comparing it to other fugues, as it possesses a deeper and more dramatic nature.
This is the longest double fugue for string quartet on this list, lasting over 15 minutes and consisting of many unprecedented sections, including an overture (introduction), a march, and a slow movement that modulates between the two main subjects, culminating in an intense coda. The two main subjects are introduced before the actual beginning of the fugue and are played simultaneously in various overlapping variations, accompanied by counterpoint that can confuse and mesmerize even professional musicians who are familiar with counterpoint. Throughout the fugue, Beethoven also employs a French dotted rhythm similar to that found in Contrapunctus 2 from The Art of Fugue and used in the second movement of his Opus 111.
The piece’s enormous length and structure may be related to the fact that Beethoven intended it to be the closing movement of his B-flat major string quartet no. 13, Op. 130. For some reason—whether due to the publisher’s suggestion or the significance of the work—he decided to present it as a separate piece. Criticized harshly by his contemporaries, the piece remains too modern and shocking even today.
Artemis Quartet: Beethoven’s Grosse Fuge (yt: hollowchatter)
1 .Art of fugue: Contrapunctus VIII & XI – J. S. Bach
Bach wrote The Art of the Fugue toward the end of his life to show all the possibilities of counterpoint and how it can be used in music.
If The Art of Fugue is a masterpiece of fugue writing, then Contrapunctus 8 and 11 are the masterpieces within the masterpiece.
As you may have already noticed, Bach refers to the pieces within The Art of Fugue as “Contrapunctus” instead of “Fuga.” This is because the main idea of the entire work is to explore broader possibilities of counterpoint, including canons and fugues so complex and revolutionary that Bach wasn’t merely developing an existing form, but creating something more sophisticated. (Note: I will be using ‘fugue’ instead of ‘contrapunctus’ for simplicity.)
While eleventh fugue is the inversion of the eighth, there’s no sense in discussing them as separate pieces. Both contain three subjects, including the main theme from Fugue I.
Contrapunctus 8 is a triple fugue for three voices, lasting about six minutes and expanding the formal structure of Bach’s classical fugue.
Subject 1 feels more modern and, to me, melancholic than in the previous seven fugues. Its unexpected trills and rhythmic placements depict Bach’s intention to make this fugue more meaningful and different from the others. The fugue almost interrupts shortly after the development of the first theme and changes direction.
Subject 2 is even more intense and starts with a cool introduction of an ascending chromatic scale. The motive at the end of Subject 2 could even be seen as its own mini-theme, as it appears before Subject 2’s main entrance and is woven throughout the piece.
Subject 3 is an inverted, rhythmically simplified version of the main Art of Fugue theme. The fugue starts developing strongly with chromatic fragments in the second part, leading to an intense coda that really splits your mind while listening to it.
On the other hand, Contrapunctus XI contains the same themes from Contrapunctus VIII, plus the inversions of its subjects. It’s a four-voice triple fugue, making it even more complicated than the eighth. Both fugues develop counter-subjects based on the B-A-C-H theme.
Subject 1 is the inverted version of Subject 3 from Contrapunctus VIII. It features a similar A minor first answer as in the first fugue, along with a chromatic introduction to the second subject that resembles the eighth.
Subject 2 is the inverted version of Subject 1 from Contrapunctus VIII. The rising chromatic notes create some delightfully strange harmonies. It is more complex and intense, marking the point where the fugue really starts to develop.
Subject 3 is the inverted version of Subject 2 from Contrapunctus VIII, and it’s where chromatic scales crafts a complex melodic line of the fugue, producing even weirder harmonies. The scale motif at the end appears all over the fugue in so many variations that I couldn’t even keep track of them all. In one version, Subject 3 kicks off with the famous “BACH” riff. In German, B-flat is called B, and B natural is called H. This riff is also featured in the last section of the unfinished final piece in The Art of Fugue.
Only Bach knows exactly why he wrote this piece. Many agree that it was to demonstrate his composing skill and solidify his place among the greatest musicians. Some believe it was purely a teaching tool for practice and never intended to be performed. In my opinion, it’s Bach’s deeply personal piece—his final words expressed through music, as always. The work seems so overcomplicated and incomprehensible at first hearing; however, it opens up a new world of art and human capabilities. It took centuries for humanity to finally appreciate Bach, and it will take centuries for people to fully grasp his genius…
Art of fugue: contrapunctus 11 with analysis (yt: Ruoshi Sun)
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