Fugato

As Printed on a Score

Printed over a passage, when it is labelled at all, where a fugal exposition appears inside a movement that is not a fugue; often there is no label and only analysis names it. It covers the passage until the texture leaves imitation.

How Composers Use It

A fugato brings contrapuntal drive into homophonic music: a subject entering voice by voice develops an idea or builds a climax, as in the Allegretto of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony. Write a clear subject, keep each entry audible against a thinned texture, and let the passage dissolve back into the movement’s main style — a fugato rarely completes the full fugal plan.

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