Fugue

A fugue is a contrapuntal compositional technique for two or more voices, built on a short theme called the subject. The subject is introduced by one voice and then imitated successively by the others, typically alternating tonic and dominant entries, while free counterpoint and modulating episodes fill the spaces between statements. Developing through imitation, inversion, augmentation and stretto, the fugue became the supreme test of a composer's craft in the Baroque era, above all in the keyboard works of *Johann Sebastian Bach*, and it has remained a living form for later composers from *Beethoven* to *Shostakovich*.