Little Fugue
You're in the middle of a perfect storm, surrounded by total cacophony—nothing makes sense. Until it does
A fugue is one of the most beautiful forms of musical composition. It originated in Baroque music, where it came to define a rich, layered style of writing in which multiple voices intertwine around a single, evolving idea. It’s considered one of the highest expressions of contrapuntal composition — a method in which independent melodic lines (or “voices”) weave together harmoniously and rhythmically, while remaining loyal to a single, unifying idea throughout the piece.
The word fugue comes from the Latin fuga, meaning “flight” — a poetic nod to how a musical theme seems to “flee” from one voice to another, passed around, echoed, transformed.
In a fugue, the central idea reappears constantly — but it doesn’t simply repeat. It returns in different octaves, across different voices, tossed from one instrument to the next. It dances between rhythms, sometimes fast, sometimes slow, sometimes almost imperceptible — and other times it’s right in your face.
If you’re the kind of person who likes to hear a concept before defining it — and honestly, that’s probably the best way — here are a few fugues worth listening to:
The composer most famously associated with the fugue is Bach. He wrote dozens of them, with The Art of Fugue (BWV 1080) standing as the genre’s undisputed summit. In that piece, Bach explores the fugue from every imaginable angle — reversed, inverted, augmented, diminished. If you prefer your Bach vocal rather than instrumental, I recommend listening to the Swingle Singers’ renditions — their arrangements bring out the fugue’s form in a beautifully clear way.
There are more approachable — perhaps even modern — examples that illustrate fugue-like structures brilliantly. You probably know a few already. Think of Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen. Or God Only Knows by The Beach Boys, especially toward the end. And my personal favorite: A Little Fuga by Sasha Argov. That tune is what first sent me down the fugue rabbit hole. For the record, I have zero formal training in classical music or composition — just a curious ear and a soft spot for elegant chaos.
What fascinates me about the fugue is that it’s one of the hardest musical forms to write — not just intellectually or aesthetically, but emotionally. The challenge is to move people, to make every voice complement the others, and in the end, to serve the central idea. The magic of a fugue is that it turns what could easily become noise — pure cacophony — into something deeply moving and intentional.
And here’s the thought that stuck with me: if you miss just one bar, or even a single note, the whole thing can collapse into chaos. Which made me realize — the fugue’s baseline isn’t harmony, but a perfect cacophony. What elevates it to a masterpiece is the act of managing — not controlling, but conducting complexity with care. The careful assignment of roles, the choreography of rhythms and to — and most importantly, the unwavering loyalty to the essence of the central idea.
Put on your headphones, queue up one of the fugues mentioned above — or any fugue, really — and you’ll get exactly what I mean.