G. Rybintseva

Fugue and Sonata: Two Images of the World

The imaginative and structural features of the leading musical forms of Baroque and Classicism – fugues and sonatas – make it possible to watch them as sound images of the two new European pictures of the world. Fugue evokes associations with the ideas of the mechanical theorists about the empty space of the Universe, filled with a multitude of continuously moving independent objects that do not interact with each other and do not change their level of quality. Creating an image of this kind with the help of the methods of ostinate-variant repetition is the most characteristic method of promoting musical material for a fugue. Later picture of the world, called «historicism», was based on the laws of dialectics. Among them are the principles of universal interconnection and interdependence, the unity of opposing principles as the causes of all development, resulting in the transition of objects to a new quality. Such installations define the structure of the sonata form - the most significant musical structure of classicism. Being a sound image of mechanical movement-displacement, the fugue contains prototypes of dialectical thinking at the same time. Late samples of the fugue, in particular those of J. S. Bach, bear undeniable features of dialecticism. In this regard, the central musical structure of the Baroque can be considered the prelude to the sonata form, recreating the sound images of the ideological historicism.

Key words

fugue, movement, mechanicism, baroque, sonata, dialectic, historicism, classicism.

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