Page:A Dictionary of Music and Musicians vol 1.djvu/559

FORM. which is just finished is in such or such a key. Haydn's early Quartets are sometimes very little more than jingle in one key and more jingle in another, to fill up his recognised system of form, without ever rising to the dignity of a tune, and much less to a figure with any intensity of meaning; and some of Mozart's instrumental productions are but little better.

That Haydn studied the works of Emmanuel Bach is well known, for he himself confessed it; and the immediate connection between him and his predecessors is nowhere more clear than in the similarity of occasional irregularities of construction in the second half of his movements. There is more than one instance of his first subject reappearing clearly at the beginning of the second half of a movement instead of in its latter portion (Quartet in F major, op. 2, No. 4; No. 67 in Trautwein); and further than this, and corroborative of the continuous descent, is the fact that when the first subject reappears in what we should call its right place, there are conspicuous irregularities in the procedure, just as if Haydn were half apologising for a liberty. For the section is often prolonged and followed by irregular modulations before the second subject reappears, and is then far more closely followed than the first subject and the materials of the first section. Another point illustrating a lingering feeling for the old practice of repeating the conclusion or cadence-figures of the first part at the conclusion of the whole, is that a sort of premature coda is occasionally inserted after the earlier figures of the second section on its repetition in this place, after which the concluding bars of the first part are exactly resumed for the finish. Of this even Mozart gives a singular and very clear instance in the first movement of his G minor Symphony.

Of the minor incidental facts which are conspicuous in Haydn's works the most prominent is his distribution of the subjects in the first part. He conforms to the key-element of Form in this part with persistent regularity, but one subject frequently suffices for both sections. With this principal subject (occasionally after a short independent introduction in slow time) he commences operations; and after concluding the first section and passing to his complementary key for the second, he reproduces it in that key, sometimes varied and sometimes quite simply&mdash;as in the well-known Symphony in D, No. 7 of Salomon's set (first movement), or in that in E&#x266d;, No. 9 of the same series (also first movement), or in the Quartet in F minor, op. 55, or the Finale of the Quartet in C, op. 75 (No. 1 in Trautwein). And even where the second section has several new features in it the first subject is often still the centre of attraction, as in the first movement of the Quartet in C (No. 16, Trautwein), and the same movement of the Quartet in F (No. 11, Trautwein). On the other hand Haydn is sometimes profuse with his subjects, and like Beethoven gives several in each section; and again it is not uncommon with him to modulate into his complementary key and go on with the same materials for some time before producing his second subject, an analogous practice to which is also to be met with in Beethoven.

A far more important item in Haydn's development of Form is the use of a feature which has latterly become very conspicuous in instrumental compositions, namely the Coda, and its analogue, the independent episode which usually concludes the first half of the movement.

Every musician is aware that in the early period of purely formal music it was common to mark all the divisions of the movements clearly by closes and half closes; and the more vital the division the stronger the cadence. Both Haydn and Mozart repeat their cadences in a manner which to modern ears often sounds excessive; and, as already pointed out, they are both at times content to make mere 'business' of it by brilliant passages, or bald chords; but in movements which were more earnestly carried out the virtue of making the cadence also part of the music proper, and not a mere rigid meaningless line to mark the divisions of the pattern, was soon recognised. There were two ways of effecting this; either by allusion to the figures of the subjects adapted to the form of the cadence, or by an entirely new figure standing harmonically on the same basis. From this practice the final episode to the first part of the movement was developed, and attained at times no insignificant dimensions. But the Coda proper had a somewhat different origin. In the days before Haydn it was almost invariable to repeat the second half of the movement as well as the first, and Haydn usually conformed to the practice. So long as the movements were of no great length this would seem sufficient without any addition, but when they attained to any considerable dimensions the poverty and want of finish in ending twice over in precisely the same way would soon become apparent; and consequently a passage was sometimes added after the repeat to make the conclusion more full, as in Haydn's well-known Quartet in D minor, op. 76, the first movement of the Quartet in C (Trautwein, No. 56), the last movement of the Quartet in E, No. 17, and many others. It seems almost superfluous to point out that the same doctrine really applies to the conclusion of the movement, even when the latter half is not repeated; since unless an addition of some sort is made the whole concludes with no greater force than the half; the conclusion being merely a repetition of the cadence figure of the first half of the movement. This case however is less obvious than the former, and it is probable that the virtue of the Coda was first observed in connection with movements in which the second half was repeated, and that it was afterwards found to apply to all indiscriminately. A Coda in both cases is to be defined as the passage in the latter part of a movement which commences at the point where the substance of the repeated first part comes to an end. In Haydn codas are tolerably plentiful, both in movements in which the latter half is repeated and in movements in