[Music: BACH: Fugue No. 8, Book I
Theme
Augmentation]
[Music: BACH: Fugue No. IX, Book II
Theme
Diminution]
Augmentation is very frequent in modern literature when a com-
poser, by lengthening out the phraseology of a theme, wishes
to gain for it additional emphasis. Excellent examples are the
closing measures of Schumann’sArabesque, in which the remi-
niscence of the original motto is most haunting,e.g.,
[Music: Motto]
[Music: Motto augmented]
the Finale of Liszt’sFaust Symphony, where the love theme of
the Gretchen movement is carried over and intoned by a solo
baritone with impressive effect,e.g.
[Music]
[Music: In augmentation
Das ewig Weibliche]
III. Shifted Rhythm; the position of the subject in the measure
is so changed that the accents fall on different beats,e.g.
[Music: BACH: Fugue No. V, Book II
Subject
Shifted]
IV. Stretto; (from the Italian verb “stringere,” to draw close)
that portion of a fugue, often the climax, where the entrances
arecrowdedtogether,i.e., the imitating voice enters before the
leading voice has finished,e.g.
[Music:Fuga giocosa, J.K. PAINE, op. 41
Subject]
The effect is obviously one of great concentration and dramatic
intensity—with a sense of impending climax—and its use is by