A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Exposition

EXPOSITION is the putting out or statement of the musical subjects upon which any movement is founded, and is regulated by various rules in different forms of the art. In fugue the process of introducing the several parts or voices is the exposition, and it ends and passes into episode or counter-exposition when the last part that enters has concluded with the last note of the subject. The rules for fugal exposition are given in the article Fugue. Counter-exposition is the reappearance of the principal subject or subjects, after complete exposition, or such digressions as episodes. In forms of the harmonic order the term Exposition is commonly used of the first half of a movement in Binary form, because that part contains the statement of the two principal subjects. This use of the word is evidently derived from the incomplete and superficial view which was the legacy of theorists of some generations back, that a Binary movement was based on two tunes which for the sake of variety are put into two different keys. Hence it is not so apt in this sense as it is in connection with fugue. But it may be defended as less open to objection when it is used as the obverse to Recapitulation, so as to divide Binary movements into three main portions, the Exposition, Development, and Recapitulation; and though it leaves out of count the vital importance of the contrast and balance of key, it is likely to be commonly accepted in default of a better. See also Form.

[ C. H. H. P. ]