Page:A Dictionary of Music and Musicians vol 3.djvu/596

584 outlines and the systematic distribution of the principal harmonies afford the most favourable opportunities for simple but useful finger passages, for which the great masters have supplied plentiful formulas; and they furnish at the same time excellent means of giving the student a dignified and conscientious style, and a clear insight into the art of phrasing. These works may not have any strong interest of a direct kind for the musical world, but they have considerable value in so far as they fulfil the purposes they are meant to serve. The most famous and most classical examples of this kind are Clementi's sonatinas, of ops. 36, 37, and 38. And much of the same character are several by F. Kuhlau, which are excellently constructed and pure in style. Of modern works of a similar kind there are examples by L. Koehler. Those by Carl Reinecke and Hermann Goetz are equally adapted for teaching purposes, and have also in general not a little agreeable musical sentiment, and really attractive qualities. Some of Beethoven's works which are not definitely described as such are sufficiently concise and slight to be called sonatinas: as for instance those in G and G minor, op. 49, which were first announced for publication as 'Sonates faciles' in 1805. That in G major, op. 79, was published as a 'Sonatine' in 1810, though it is rather larger in most respects than the other little examples. Another 'sonatina' by him for mandolin, with pianoforte accompaniment, is given at vol. ii. p. 205 of this Dictionary. Prior to Beethoven the average scale of sonatas was so small that it seems difficult to see how a diminutive could be contrived; and indeed the grand examples which made the degrees of comparison specially conspicuous were not yet in existence. A modern work on such a scale, and made in the conventional manner, would probably be considered as a Sonatina, and apart from teaching purposes it would also be likely to be an anachronism. [ C. H. H. P. ]

SONG. In relation to the study of music, a Song may be defined as a short metrical composition, whose meaning is conveyed by the combined force of words and melody, and intended to be sung with or without an accompaniment. The Song, therefore, belongs equally to poetry and music. For the purposes of this Dictionary the subject should undoubtedly be treated with exclusive regard (were it possible) to music; but the musical forms and structure of songs are so much determined by language and metre, that their poetic and literary qualities cannot be entirely put aside. In the strictest sense, lyrical pieces alone are songs; but adherence to so narrow a definition would exclude many kinds of songs whose importance in the history of music demands that they should be noticed here. Attention, however, will be directed only to homophonic forms of songs—i.e. songs for one voice or unisonous chorus. Polyphonic forms—madrigals, glees, part-songs, etc.—fall under other heads of this work, to which the reader will be referred. Mention will likewise be made only of songs in the language of the composer of their music, and with accompaniment for one instrument.

A distinction will also, as far as possible, be observed between songs which are, as it were, the rude spontaneous outcome of native inspiration, the wild indigenous fruit of their own soil, and those other more regular and finished compositions which are written with conscious art by men who have made music their study. For want of a better term it will be convenient, where the difference must be emphasized, to designate this class of songs by the German phrase Kunstlied, or Artistic Song; while the former class, whose origin and authorship are generally obscure, may be called National or Popular Songs. Such are the Volkslieder of Germany, the Canti Popolari of Italy, and the Ballads of England.

It should, moreover, be mentioned that the heads or subdivisions under which songs will be ranged must be geographical rather than chronological; that is to say, they will be grouped in regard to country and not to period. For the study of any other branch of modern music among the leading nations of Europe, a chronological arrangement would probably be more useful and instructive, because at each successive epoch their musical productions have been sufficiently similar to admit of collective treatment. But the Song is that branch of music in which national peculiarities linger longest, and international affinities grow most slowly. This is, of course, primarily due to the fact that language, which is local, is an integral element of song. Secondly, it is caused by the popular origin of songs. Being of the people and for the people, they flourish most in a sphere where the influences of foreign example and teaching can hardly reach them. Hence it happens that even where the Artistic Song has lost every trace of its native soil, national melodies preserve a distinctively local colour. In some countries of Europe the development of the Song can be followed from the primitive form of folk-song to the highest type of artistic composition; but in others the art of music has scarcely yet advanced beyond the stage of national melodies.

It remains only to add that, although the year 1450 has been fixed in the preface to this Dictionary as a convenient point of departure for a general study of modern music, an account of the Song in Europe would be incomplete without, at least, a brief reference to the Troubadours, whose epoch was anterior to that date.

These versifiers, to whom the Song owes so much, derived their name from 'trobar' or 'trouver' (to find, or invent), and they first appeared about the end of the 11th century, in the southern provinces of France. The earliest of the Troubadours on record was William, Duke of Guienne, who joined the first Crusade in 1096 and died in 1126. The 12th and 13th centuries gave birth to hundreds of