Talk:Fugue

JAllen, I enjoyed your contributions to this entry. I must quibble though with the sentence about "emotional expression." While I wholeheartedly agree with the idea that the fugue wasn't just a means to show off, and that fugues are indeed expressive, it's a little bit of an anachronism, based on what we know of Baroque ideas of composition, to call it emotional expression. The so-called "Doctrine of Affections" (German Affektenlehre) defines music's role in moral terms, that the particular "affects" a piece used should encourage morally upright emotions in the listener (very similar to ancient Greek ideas of music, I might add). While affects were a means of inspiring particular emotions, it's not the same as the Romantic idea of personal expression, as with Beethoven or Chopin. JDWpianist 18:28, 29 April 2009 (EDT)

I guess I was generalising a bit too far but at the same time I think it is appropriate for the target audience (potentially Year 6 to Year 12 students). If you would like to clarify the two periods, then that's fine. Jallen 18:38, 29 April 2009 (EDT)

Sure, I'll rewrite it to make it accurate without being too jargony. I'd also like to reinstate my sentence about how later composers used it to heighten a piece's emotion. JDWpianist 18:41, 29 April 2009 (EDT)