The student will find the subject and answer of the fugue in § 192. In our extract the subject in the middle voice is imitated in the fifth below and by augmentation, at half a bar's distance, therefore in a close stretto. On the completion of the subject by the alto, the treble gives it by inversion. Thus the augmented subject is accompanied in the first half by the subject in direct, and in the second half in inverted form. The bass then takes the subject in its direct form, and is followed (again at half a bar's distance) by the alto with the augmented subject. A comparison of the two voices here with their appearance at the beginning of our quotation shows us that the subject and its augmentation are here inverted in double counterpoint in the twelfth. The treble now accompanies the augmentation at a different point from before, and with the direct instead of the inverted form of the subject.
276. In speaking of the first stretto of Bach's fugue in E, in § 269, we said that Bach had other devices in reserve for the later part of the fugue. The following extract will show what was meant.