Page:Fugue by Ebenezer Prout.djvu/45

Chap. III.] notes of the dominant harmony. The same thing will be found in our examples in a minor key, in which an answer in the subdominant is much more common than in a major key—

Here the subject commences with the arpeggio of the dominant seventh; then comes tonic harmony, and then dominant harmony again. The answer is now in the subdominant, in order to carry out the important principle that dominant harmony should be answered by tonic.

73. As the possibility of a fugal answer being in the key of the subdominant has not, so far as we know, been touched upon in any existing treatise, it will be needful to give a considerable number of examples by the greatest masters—not only to establish the fact, but to enable us to deduce the necessary rules for the student's guidance in deciding when such an answer is advisable. Our next example deserves close examination—

Here the subject does not, like those previously given, begin with a note of the dominant chord; but the diminished fifth immediately following clearly indicates the chord of the dominant seventh. In the next bar is a modulation to the dominant key, the return to the tonic being made in the third bar.