Home  >  John  >  Music  >  Stretto & Augmentation

Stretto & Augmentation
in J.S. Bach's Credo

The Credo from Bach's B-minor Mass is a splendid example of both stretto and augmentation:
  • the entire piece is only 46 measures
  • the tune is easy to recognize when it appears - the tenors begin the piece with it
  • the texture remains light and transparent throughout
Stretto is the overlapping of two separate expressions of the same tune.
The equivalent in speech would be two people saying a cactus cat, how prickly that,
where the second person starts when the first person says prickly, like this: 

      a cactus cat, how prickly that
                        a cactus cat, how prickly that
Listen for the liberal use of stretto beginning in measure 34.
 
Augmentation is the doubling of a tune's rhythmic values.
The equivalent in speech would be two people saying my, what a lovely tomato,
where the second person says it twice as slowly as the first person, like this: 

      my, what a lovely tomato
      m y ,   w h a t   a   l o v e l y   t o m a t o
Listen for the basses entering with the tune in augmentation in measure 33.
 
 
 Try listening now and see if you can hear the stretto and augmentation (marked in yellow below).