Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/108

Rh 96 MUSIC [HISTORY. wherein it is more developed. These musicians were by no means the first, however, to strike the vein of ore for which divination seems to have been carefully in search long prior to their labours. This justifies the belief that its source is in nature, that it was discovered, not created, by man s genius ; and the work of successive genera tions of artists has been to rear and mature that which, having once been found, is the heirloom of the present and the future. The practice of all ages proves common consent that a musical composition must begin and end in one and the same key, and this statement refers not more to our own time than to that of the ancients, whose modes are comparable though not identical with the keys of modern establishment. Continuance of one key throughout a piece of considerable length would be monotonous ; to relieve this, modulation is effected into other keys in the course of a composition. To obtain tonal variety without violence, the choice of alternative keys must be made first and chiefly from those which have the nearest tonal relationship to the primary key. After the harmonic 8th (which is a miniature of the 1st) the harmonic 5th is next in prominence, from this note a chord rises as complete as that of the generator, from this chord a second key proceeds by natural evolution ; the note, the chord, the key, are each named the dominant, since dominating, commanding, or defining the tonality of the fundamental note. The key of the dominant is hence the one most often chosen for the principal alternative to the primary key if the latter be major ; but the key of the 3d and that of the 6th are occasionally selected instead by a further application of the harmonic system. If the primary key be minor, the choice of the chief alternative key is often made in the contrary direction ; the tonic itself is assumed to be a harmonic 3d or else a 6th, and the chief modulation is made to the key at one of these inter vals below the original keynote, having reference to the submediant or the mediant as the source whence the minor form of a key is derived. Besides the chief alternative, other keys, more or less frequent, more or less remote, according to the greater or less length of a piece, are also employed in the course of a composition. The distribution of keys constitutes the ground-plan and the elevation of a musical structure ; the style of harmony, whether diatonic or chromatic, whether contrapuntal or massive, is its material ; the ideas, or subjects, or themes, or phrases, or figures, or as of late they have been whimsically named motives, stand for the ornamentation, such as portico, frieze, statuary, and carving, which are sometimes essential in a design. This, then, is a brief summary of the plan of the first movement of a symphony a first subject in the primary key, which consists of a single idea, or of several connected by tonal identity though melodically distinct ; a second subject in the chief alternative key, which also may be onefold or manifold in its matter ; and these first and second subjects complete the first part. Thus far has been but a simple statement of ideas, which is here followed by a working of the same matter, drawing from it what varieties of expression it may yield through compression or expansion by means of any or every re source of the musician s art ; the second part is aptly often named the free fantasia, because unrestricted to a fixed course of modulation, the composer s creative power being at full liberty as to course of keys and manner of development ; then for the first time the music reverts to the primary key for a retrospect of the entire matter of the first part, with, however, all that belongs to the second subject transposed from the chief alternative key into that which is the origin and centre whence all the modulations radiate ; lastly, there is often, but by no means always, a coda, which is a summing up of the whole argument, or a valediction to the hearer. The first movement, always cast in this mould, is succeeded generally by one in a slow tempo, sometimes planned like a first allegro, sometimes otherwise, according to outlines that cannot here be detailed, and this exhibits the sentiment of the artist, as did the preceding his scholarship and ingenuity. Then follows generally (again one must say, for there is no necessary prescription) a movement of lighter character than either of the foregoing, sometimes having the musical shape of a dance such as the minuet, sometimes having an arbitrary plan which still is based upon harmonic, and therefore natural, and consequently philosophical, principles. To con clude, there is a movement that is sometimes constructed like the first and is sometimes as complicated, but in other instances has an arbitrary design. Such is the highest class of musical composition : firstly, because it is wholly musical, springing entirely from the artist s imagination without the prompting of words, needing no words to express its meaning to the auditor, being in itself poetry ; secondly, because it may comprise every means within the author s power to wield melody, counterpoint, harmony, modulation, all that but for the symphony would be special to the fugue, orchestration, and, above all, the arrangement of ideas in a consistent logical method with reference to principles that are the very foundation of art. Let it be hoped that this outline of the elements, essence, and plan of the symphony justifies the use of the words supreme importance in reference to the class of composition at the outset of these remarks. . Haydn (1732-1809) is commonly styled the father of Haydn, the symphony. If truly, then Carl Philip Emanuel Bach (1714-1788), the second of the many sons of the great Sebastian, stands as grandfather in the genealogy of that species of music ; and its remoter ancestry may be traced to all but forgotten men in whose works is certainly a forecast of the plan above described. C. P. E. Bach wrote 18 symphonies, and upon these and upon the instru mental chamber music of the same author, Haydn avowedly modelled the plan of his compositions. The earlier writer had not the profundity of his father, nor the grace of Haydn, but his music represents the transition from one to another use in instrumental writing, and it fixed the plan which, however it may be expanded, can never be disestablished from the canons of art. Haydn produced the marvellous number of 125 symphonies (some of them, indeed, were overtures for theatrical use), besides 77 quartets for bowed instruments (the last one unfinished), 52 pianoforte sonatas, and pieces that are almost countless for various combinations of instruments ; and in these one knows not whether to wonder more at the infinite fluency of melody or at the artistic mastery. In summing up the enormous amount of his works regard must also be given to his 3 oratorios, his 14 masses, his operas, and his many detached pieces for one and several voices, and then it is hard to believe that all this can have been accomplished in a single life. (1756-1791). Particular comparison must be made of these dates with those of Haydn, as illustrating the re lation of the mighty musicians to each other, and the influence each may be supposed to have exercised on his friend for warmest friends they were and truest esti mators of each other s powers. If the young Mozart pro fited by Haydn s example, as doubtless he did, the old Haydn learned greatly from Mozart s, for there is so obvious a rise in the character of his music from the beginning to the end of his long career as shows that he was under a continuous course of self-schooling. It is because his was self-schooling, and because he seems to have had no distinct principle of harmony, but to have
 * Next in chronology as a symphonist stands Mozart Mozart.