Page:A Dictionary of Music and Musicians vol 3.djvu/568

556 single parts or fugally answered. They enter and re-enter for the most part as concrete lumps of harmony, the harmonic accompaniment of the melody being taken as part of the idea; and this is essentially a quality of sonata-form. So the movements appear to hang midway between the two radically distinct domains of form; and while deriving most of their disposition from the older manners, they look forward, though obscurely, in the direction of modern practices. How obscure the ideas of the time on the subject must have been, appears from the other point which has been mentioned above; which is, that in a few cases Kuhnau has hit upon clear outlines of tonal form. In the second Sonata, for instance, there are two Arias, as they are called. They do not correspond in the least with modern notions of an aria any more than do the rare examples in Bach's and Handel's Suites. The first is a little complete piece of sixteen bars, divided exactly into halves by a double bar, with repeats after the familiar manner. The first half begins in F and ends in C, the second half goes as far as D minor and back, to conclude in F again. The subject-matter is irregularly distributed in the parts, and does not make any pretence of coinciding with the tonal divisions. The second Aria is on a different plan, and is one of the extremely rare examples in this early period of clear coincidence between subject and key. It is in the form which is often perversely misnamed 'lied-form,' which will in this place be called 'primary form' to avoid circumlocution and waste of space. It consists of twenty bars in D minor representing one distinct idea, complete with close: then sixteen bars devoted to a different subject, beginning in B♭ and passing back ultimately to D minor, recapitulating the whole of the first twenty bars in that key, and emphasising the close by repeating the last four bars. Such decisiveness, when compared with the unregulated and unbalanced wandering of longer movements, either points to the conclusion that composers did not realise the desirableness of balance in coincident ranges of subject and key on. a large scale; or that they were only capable of feeling it in short and easily grasped movements. It seems highly probable that their minds, being projected towards the kind of distribution of subject which obtained in fugal movements, were not on the lookout for effects of the sonata order which to moderns appear so obvious. So that, even if they had been capable of realising them more systematically they would not yet have thought it worth while to apply their knowledge. In following the development of Sonata, it ought never to be forgotten that composers had no idea whither they were tending, and had to use what they did know as stepping-stones to the unknown. In art, each step that is gained opens a fresh vista; but often, till the new position is mastered, what lies beyond is completely hidden and undreamed of. In fact, each step is not so much a conquest of new land, as the creation of a new mental or emotional position in the human organism. The achievements of art are the unravellings of hidden possibilities of abstract law, through the constant and cumulative extension of instincts. They do not actually exist till man has made them; they are the counterpart of his internal conditions, and change and develop with the changes of his mental powers and sensitive qualities, and apart from him have no validity. There is no such thing as leaping across a chasm on to a new continent, neither is there any gulf fixed anywhere, but continuity and inevitable antecedents to every consequent; the roots of the greatest masterpieces of modern times lie obscurely hidden in the wild dances and barbarous howlings of the remotest ancestors of the race, who began to take pleasure in rhythm and sound, and every step was into the unknown, or it may be better said not only unknown but non-existent till made by mental effort. The period from about 1600 to about 1725 contains the very difficult steps which led from the style appropriate to a high order of vocal music—of which the manner of speech is polyphonic, and the ideal type of form, the fugue—to the style appropriate to abstract instrumental music, of which the best manner is contrapuntally expressed harmony, and the ideal type of form, the Sonata. These works of Kuhnau's happen to illustrate very curiously the transition in which a true though crude idea of abstract music seems to have been present in the composer's mind, at the same time that his distribution of subjects and keys was almost invariably governed by fugal habits of thinking, even where the statement of subjects is in a harmonic manner. In some of these respects he is nearer and in some further back from the true solution of the problem than his famous contemporary Corelli; but his labours do not extend over so much space nor had they so much direct and widespread influence. In manner and distribution of movements they are nearer to his predecessor and compatriot Biber; and for that reason, and also to maintain the continuity of the historic development after Corelli, the consideration of his works has been taken a little before their actual place in point of time.

The works of Corelli form one of the most familiar landmarks in the history of music, and as they are exclusively instrumental it is clear that careful consideration ought to elicit a great deal of interesting matter, such as must throw valuable light on the state of thought of his time. He published no less than sixty sonatas of different kinds, which are divisible into distinct groups in accordance with purpose or construction. The first main division is that suggested by their titles. There are twenty-four 'Sonate da Chiesa' for strings, lute, and organ, twenty-four 'Sonate da Camera' for the same instruments, and twelve Solos or Sonatas for violin and violoncello, or 'cembalo.' In these the first and simplest matter for observation is the distribution of the movements. The average, in Church and Chamber Sonatas alike, is strongly in favour of four, beginning with a slow movement, and alternating the rest. There is also an attempt at balance in the alternation of character between the movements. The first is commonly in 4-time, of dignified and solid