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Rh transition between episode and main theme; very characteristic of Haydn, who, however, often gives it more organization B

than appears on the surface-A A A cada; very rarely C

with no change of key except between tonic major and minor, as in Haydn's famous Gipsy Rondo. Frequently the episodes are increased in number or made to recur. Beethoven most clearly shows the influence of Haydn in his frequent use of modifications of this type of rondo in his earlier works, e.g. finales of Sonatas, Op. 10, No. 3, Op. 14, Nos. I and 2. He also applied it very successfully to his early slow movements, as in the Sonatas, Op. 2, No. 2, and Op. 13 (Pathétique). The sectional rondo was modernized on a gigantic scale by Brahms in the hnale of his G minor Pianoforte Quartet, Op. 2 5; and Schumann's favourite art-forms are various compounds between it and the cognate idea of the dance-tune with one or more “ trios, ” as in the Novellettes, the Arabeske, and the Romance in B major. (ii) Rondos influenced by the form of a first movement (for which see SONATA FORMS). The normal scheme for this, which B.

is Mozart's favourite rondo-form, is A A A B A cada, C

and it is easy to see how it may be applied to sectional rondos, as in the hnale of Beethoven's Sonata, Op. 13. But it normally implies longer and weightier themes and a higher degree of organization. If the second episode (C) is transformed into an elaborate development of previous material in various keys, the resemblance to first-movement form is increased; the only external difference being the recurrence of A in full after the first episode B (which is treated exactly like the' “ second subject ” of a first movement). As, however, many first movements that do not repeat their exposition (corresponding to A-j-B in the above rondo-scheme) make a feint of so doing before beginning the development, it is obvious that the blending of rondo and first-movement form may become very, complete. In fact, the true criterion of a rondo is, as with all real art-forms, a matter of style rather than of external shape. The well rounded-off, self-repeating, tune-like character of the main theme, and a sense of pleasure and importance in the mere fact of its return (without absolute necessity for dramatic effect) are the distinctive evidences of rondo form and style. This rule is well proved by the case most frequently cited as an exception, the rondo of Beethoven's Sonata in D, Op. ro, No. 3; for nothing can be more significant than the way in which its fragmentary opening figure is built up into a self-contained musical epigram and ended with a full close, as contrasted with the way in which the most tuneful of first-movement beginnings (e.g. Beethoven's Quartet in F major, Op. 59, No. 1, Trio in B fiat, Op. 97; Brahms's String Quintet in F major, Op. 88) expand gradually into their further course. The following are some of the more important of many modifications and applications of this form:-

(a) Omission of return of main theme before recapitulation of B

episode-A A development, tn various keys, B A cada-as in Beethoven's G major Concerto, where, however, much happens between the recapitulation of B and the following return of A, and the coda is nearly as long as all that has gone before. B

(b) A A B (A) like a first movement without a development. Here A will be very large and the transition to B important, while B will consist of a considerable number of themes. See the finales of Mozart's E flat String Quartet and C major Quintet, most of his greater slow movements, and many of Beethoven's. In concertos the only modifying influence the balance between solo and orchestra shows in rondo-form is in the tendency to give the orchestra a large number of subsidiary themes at the outset, which perhaps do not reappear until the cada, where, with the aid of the solo, they can round off the design very effectively. Mozart’s use of this device is not confined to concertos. (D. F. T.)

RONSARD, PIERRE DE (1524–1585), French poet and “prince of poets” (as his own generation in France called him), was born at the Chateau de la Poissonniére, near the village of Couture in the province of Vendômois (department of Loir-et-Cher), on the 11th of September 1524. His family are said to have come from the Slav provinces to the south of the Danube (provinces with which the crusades had given France much intercourse) in the first half of the 14th century. Baudouin de Ronsard or Rossart was the founder of the French branch of the house, and made his mark in the early stages of the Hundred Years' War. The poet’s father was named Loys, and his mother was Teanne de Chaudrier, of a family not only noble in itself but well connected. Pierre was the youngest son. Loys de Ronsard was maitre d’hôtel du roi to Francis I., whose captivity after Pavia had just been softened by treaty, and he had to quit his home shortly after Pierre’s birth. The future Prince of Poets was educated at home for some years and sent to the College de Navarre at Paris when he was nine years old. It is said that the rough life of a medieval school did not suit him. He had, however, no long experience of it, being quickly appointed page, first to the king’s eldest son Francois, and then to his brother the duke of Orleans. When Madeleine of France was married to 'James V. of Scotland, Ronsard was attached to the king’s service, and he spent three years in Great Britain. The latter part of this time seems to have been passed in England, though he had, strictly speaking, no business there. On returning to France in 1540 he was again taken into the service of the duke of Orleans. In this service he had other opportunities of travel being sent to Flanders and again to Scotland. After a time a more .important employment fell to his lot, and he was attached as secretary to the suite of Lazare de Baif, the father of his future colleague in the Pléiade and his companion on this occasion, Antoine de Baif, at the diet of Spires. Afterwards he was attached in the same way to the suite of the cardinal du Bellay-Langey, and his mythical quarrel with Rabelais dates mythic ally from this period. His apparently promising diplomatic career was, however, cut short by an attack of deafness which no physician could cure, and he determined to devote himself to study. The institution which he chose for the purpose among the numerous schools and colleges of Paris was the College Coqueret, the principal of which was Daurat-afterwards the “dark star” (as he has been called from his silence in French) of the Pléiade, and already an acquaintance of Ronsard’s from his having held the office of tutor in the Baif household. Antoine de Baif, Daurat’s pupil, accompanied Ronsard; Belleau shortly followed; Joachim du Bellay, the second of the seven, joined not much later. Muretus (Jean Antoine de Muret), a great scholar and by means of his Latin plays a great influence in the creation of French tragedy, was also a student here.

Ronsard’s period of study occupied seven years, and the first manifesto of the new literary movement, which was to apply to the vernacular the principles of criticism and scholarship learnt from the classics, came not from him but from Du Bellay. The Défense et illustration de la langue française of the latter appeared in 1549, and the Pléiade (or Brigade, as it was first called) may be said to have been then launched. It consisted, as its name implies, of seven writers whose names are sometimes differently enumerated, though the orthodox canon is beyond doubt composed of Ronsard, Du Bellay, Baif, Belleau, Pontus de Tyard (a man of rank and position who had exemplified the principles of the friends earlier), jodelle the dramatist, and Daurat. Ronsard’s own work came a little later, and a rather idle story is told of a trick of Du Bellay’s which at last determined him to publish. Some single and minor pieces, an epithalamium on Antoine de Bourbon and Jeanne de Navarre (1550), a “Hymne de la France” (1549), an “Ode a la Paix,” preceded the publication in 1550 of the four first books (“first” is characteristic and noteworthy) of the Odes of Pierre de Ronsard. This was followed in 1552 by the publication of his Amours de Cassaudre with the fifth book of Odes. These books excited a violent literary quarrel. Marot was dead, but he left a numerous school, some of whom saw in the stricter literary critique of the Pléiade, in its outspoken contempt of merely vernacular and medieval forms, in its strenuous advice