Expert: David Froom - 7/13/2007

Question
This is the line from the movie, 'The Lake House." I want to know the meaning of the following line in detail.
"I derived my inspiration... for the metaphor of the fugue, the loop."
The person who says this line is an architect and explains his design.  

Answer
Having not seen the movie, I can't be sure of what the line means to that person.  A lot of people use metaphors involving musical terms without really understanding what the musical term means.

I can tell you about a fugue.  It is a composition in which a melodic idea, called the "subject," is presented initially as an unaccompanied line.  Then another line comes in presenting the same melodic idea in a different key, accompanied by the first line which now is doing something complementary (it the accompaniment is always the same thing, it is called the "countersubject").  Another line enters with the subject (typically back in the origianl key) while the initial two lines continue, both doing complementary music.

This process continues until all voices are present.  (When I say "voices," I don't mean necessarily things that are sung.  In fugues, each of the lines tyically is referred to as a "voice.")

The total number of voices usually is 3, 4, or 5.  After all voices have stated the subject, there is usually a "cadence," which is a kind of musical punctuation mark.  This signifies the end of the first section, which is called the "fugal exposition."  

Throughout the fugue, all the voices are strictly accounted for -- that is, if the fugue has five voices, the presence (or absence) of each voice is noted in the music.  

The music that comes next usually does not have specific references to the "subject." It is called an "episode."

The piece progresses typically by alternating areas of exposition and episode.  It has a series of cadences marking the arrival of different closely related keys.  It ends back in the original key.

There are a number of compositional devices that may or may not be used, identified by how they treat the subject.

Usually, all the material of the fugue (the episodes, the expositions, the countersubject, the accompanimental bits) is related by having been built up from the same tiny musical fragments, called "motives."

Metaphorically, I guess, people think of fugues as detailed elaborations of a simple, basic, recognizable idea, worked through according to a systematic plan.  Fugues don't have "loops," but instead are better understood as a kind of continuous development (where nothing happens twice in the same way, but instead always reappears as an elaboration of what has come before).  But I can guess that if the fugue metaphor isn't a strict one, the idea of things "looping back,"  that is, of specific architectural ideas reappearing in a variety of guises, could be apt.

I hope this helps.  

David Froom