MSJ>ONGAKUGAKU Vol.43>KISO Akiko

In 1725 Johann Joseph Fux published a musical treatise called "Gradus ad Parnassum". Shortly before this work was published, Johann Mattheson came out with some new musical ideas opposing the old strict rules of composition.
In opposition to these ideas, Fux published his book defending the old strict rules. Nowadays, many critics attack Fux's ideas as being behind the times. Some go so far as to say that Fux's ideas don't even follow the thoughts of his predecessors, but their arguements are not convincing.

In this paper, we have tried to carry out a historical study of fugue in Fux's "Gradus". We have compared Fux's ideas with those of other composers active in Italy and Germany before the age of Fux, and with the ideas of Mattheson, who lived at the same time and in the same German speaking area as Fux.

As a result, it has been ascertained that the fugue in Fux's work is based on the theories of the Italian fugue of 100 - 150 years ago, and those of the German-Austrian Catholic bloc of about 50-100 years ago. The ideas of Mattheson, on the contrary, were based on the theories of the Protestant bloc in Germany after 1680. Fux stressed not only these old theories, but introduced many new and important elements of fugue, for example: the terminology of counter-subject, tonal answer, double fugue, etc. Furthermore it is clear that Fux based his theory on the Baroque-fugue. He also throws more light on the fugue of Bach than any other writer.