Page:A Dictionary of Music and Musicians vol 3.djvu/127

RESOLUTION. of this Dictionary; the following example, from a Fantasia by Emanuel Bach, illustrates the same point somewhat remarkably, and serves also as an instance of enharmonic resolution.

The minor seventh on C in this case is ultimately resolved as if it had been an augmented sixth composed of the same identical notes according to our system of temperament, but derived from a different source and having consequently a different context. This manner of using the same group of notes in different senses is one of the most familiar devices in modern music for varying the course of resolutions and obtaining fresh aspects of harmonic combinations. [For further examples see .]

An inference which follows from the use of some forms of Enharmonic resolution is that the discordant note need not inevitably move to resolution, but may be brought into consonant relations by the motion of other parts, which relieve it of its characteristic dissonant effect; this is illustrated most familiarly by the freedom which is recognised in the resolution of the chord of the sixth, fifth and third on the subdominant, called sometimes the added sixth, and sometimes an inversion of the supertonic seventh, and sometimes an inversion of the eleventh of the Dominant, or even a double-rooted chord derived from Tonic and Dominant together.

It is necessary to note shortly the use of vicarious resolutions—that is, of resolutions in which one part supplies the discordant note and another the note to which under ordinary circumstances it ought to pass. This has been alluded to above as common in respect of the so-called fundamental discords, but there are instances of its occurring with less independent combinations. The Gigue of Bach's Partita in E minor is full of remarkable experiments in resolution; the following is an example which illustrates especially the point under consideration.

The inference to be drawn from the above examples is that the possible resolutions of discords, especially of those which have an individual status, are varied, but that it takes time to discover them, as there can hardly be a severer test of a true musical instinct in relation to harmony than to make sure of such a matter. As a rule, the old easily recognisable resolutions, by motion of a single degree, or at least by interchange of parts of the chord in supplying the subsequent consonant harmony, must preponderate, and the more peculiar resolutions will be reserved for occasions when greater force and intensity are required. But as the paradoxes of one generation are often the truisms of the next, so treatment of discords such as is utterly incredible to people who do not believe in what they are not accustomed to, is felt to be obvious to all when it becomes familiar; and hence the peculiarities which are reserved for special occasions at first must often in their turn yield the palm of special interest to more complex instinctive generalisations. Such is the history of the development of musical resources in the past, and such it must be in the future. The laws of art require to be based upon the broadest and most universal generalisations; and in the detail under consideration it appears at present that the ultimate test is thorough intelligibility in the melodic progressions of the parts which constitute the chords, or in a few cases the response of the harmony representing one root to that representing another, between which, as in Examples 3 and 4, there is a recognised connection sufficient for the mind to follow without the express connection of the flow of the parts. Attempts to catalogue the various discords and their various resolutions must be futile as long as the injunction is added that such formulas only are admissible, for this is to insist upon the repetition of what has been said before; but they are of value when they are considered with sufficient generality to help us to arrive at the ultimate principles which underlie the largest circle of their multifarious varieties. The imagination can live and move freely within the bounds of comprehensive laws, but it is only choked by the accumulation of precedents. [ C. H. H. P. ]

RESPONSE, in English church music, is, in its widest sense, any musical sentence sung by the choir at the close of something read or chanted by the minister. The term thus includes the 'Amen' after prayers, the 'Kyrie' after each commandment in the Communion Service, the 'Doxology' to the Gospel, and every reply to a Versicle, or to a Petition, or Suffrage. In its more limited sense the first three of the above divisions would be excluded from the term, and