Page:Fugue by Ebenezer Prout.djvu/196

178 interval of subject and answer, or, if they are, their employment is only incidental. Passages of imitation, provided that all the voices take part in them, will very often be also fugato passages; but in general in such cases the voices will enter in succession, the first voice being either unaccompanied by any harmony at all, or only accompanied by instruments, and not by any other voices. Such passages are often found in pieces not otherwise in fugal form.

359. In consequence of the freedom allowed in fugato, it is quite impossible to give any fixed rules for its construction. Its nature will be best understood by the examination of specimens by different composers, and in various styles. Our first example will be by Bach.

In this passage we omit the semiquaver accompaniment in the