Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/113

Rh HISTORY.] MUSIC 101 distinct from that of the other. He classed diatonic har mony, with its uniform treatment of all the notes in a key, into concords which include not the 4th from the bass, and three species of discords, namely, passing notes of several varieties, suspensions resolved on a note of the harmony in which they are discordant, and essential or elemental discords resolved with the progression of the whole chord to a chord whose root is at a 4th above the root of the discord. In this style discordant notes have identical treatment according to the number of their interval (as 7th or 9th), unaffected by its quality (as major or minor). He traced all the notes of the scale available in the diatonic style to the tonic, the 5th below it, and the 5th above it, as their roots, having thus a minor tone between the domi nant and submediant in the major form of a key. Present composers with ability for its production may, by obser vance of this ancient canon, make music in the style of the 16th century with as good likelihood of beauty as had the great masters of that period, but without imitating them, since working by their method and not necessarily by their example. Day showed that peculiar treatment of certain notes of the diatonic scale, together with the inclusion of the chromatic element which has crept into use during the later centuries, constitutes a style totally distinct from the other, and justly to be called exceptional. The basis of this system is the derivation of harmonics from specified fundamental n6tes or generators in every key. Thus exceptionally the 4th above the bass is a con cord, when it is the root inverted above the 5th in the triads of the tonic, the subdominant, and the dominant. Thus exceptionally the 3d in the dominant triad has pecu liar poignancy to which modern ears are sensitive, and the dominant triad is imitable on the supertonic by employ ment of its chromatic major 3d that has the same special character as the 3d of the dominant. Thus exceptionally the 7th may be added to the dominant triad. This com bination may also be imitated on the supertonic, and the addition likewise of a chromatic minor 7th to the tonic triad makes another chord consisting of the same intervals as the dominant 7th, namely, perfect 5th, major 3d, and minor 7th, the last two being at a diminished 5th asunder. Again exceptionally the minor or the major 9th may be added to each of these chords of the 7th, the llth to the chords of the 9th, and the minor or major 13th to the chords of the llth, beyond which the ascent by 3ds pro ceeds no more, as the loth is the double octave of the root. The 9th, llth, and 13th are susceptible of resolu tion each on a note of its own chord, which is not so with the 3d and 7th ; or they may, like the 3d and 7th, be resolved on some note of another chord when the entire harmony changes. The chords of the 9th, still less of the llth, and of the 13th least, rarely appear complete, the root being frequently, and other notes occasionally, omitted. In this style the discordant notes (3d, 7th, minor or major 9th, llth, and minor or major 13th) are identical in quality to whichever of the three roots they belong ; but they vary in treatment according to their source ; and in these two specialities they are distinguished from diatonic discords. Broadly it may be stated, but subject to amplification, that the natural resolution of dominant discords is upon the tonic concord, that the natural resolution of supertonic discords is either upon a tonic concord or upon a dominant discord, and that the natural resolution of tonic discords is either upon a dominant discord or upon a supertonic discord, the several elements of each harmony proceeding variously according to what note must follow it in the ensuing chord. The term fundamental discords is aptly applied to these which are traced to their harmonic generator, and their pertinence to one key is established by their all being resolvable on chords peculiar to the same tonality. The theory steps a degree further in proving ftF that the harmony of the augmented 6th f, with its several varieties of accompaniment consists of the primary and secondary harmonics of a common generator, and that the dominant and tonic are the notes in any key whence this harmony is derived, yielding respectively the augmented 6th on the minor 6th of the chromatic scale, and the augmented 6th on the minor 2d. The bold venture of Mouton, repeated by Monteverde and defended by the latter against the fierce disputation of the orthodox, is theoretically justified in this system on the principle of natural harmonics first enunciated in Oxford, and the ingenious searchings after truth by Rameau are shown in this system to have been on a false track and so to have passed round instead of to their mark. Day s Treatise, on its appearance, was denounced by the chief musicians in London, and a single believer for some time alone main tained and taught its enlightened views. These have now the acquiescence of many more musicians than originally opposed them, they are upheld by several eloquent sup porters, and they are widely disseminated throughout England. They have not yet been promulgated beyond that country ; but the advance they have made there in thirty-eight years may be taken as augury of their ad mission elsewhere when time and circumstance may bu opportune for their presentation. Music, in the modern special sense of the word, was Epitome. with the early Greeks regulated declamation to the accom paniment of instruments with stretched strings that were plucked or struck. With the Greeks it was also produced from pipes of metal or wood or horn, with reeds or with out, as signals or incentives in war and for domestic amuse ment. Far later, and in imperial Rome, it acquired a more definite form of what is now called melody. The transition of its principles from those which ruled in the classic ages to those which had been slowly developed in the course of after centuries is veiled with a mist like that which obscures the setting of paganism and the dawn ing of Christianity. Many fallacies are still entertained as to the dated organization of music in the church, and none greater than its ascription to St Ambrose and St Gregory, and the credit given to Guido for the enunciation of its rules. From the end of the 10th century music was in England in advance of other nations until its rise in Flanders in the 15th, when still our forefathers kept abreast of their contemporaries. Throughout the ecclesi astical reign of scholarship, the untutored people had a music of their own, which in its tonal and rhythmical affinity to that of later date commands present sympathy, and which, throughout the North, having the element of harmony or the combination of sounds, was the foundation of all to which science and art have together attained. The Flemings planted schools in Rome, Naples, and Venice, and the rise of the art in Germany was due to their influ ence. Adopted from the people by the church, the art of harmony was reduced to a system under the name of counterpoint. Its artificial ordinances were broken through at the end of the 16th century, against violent opposition but with permanent success. Coincident with this innova tion of principles was another innovation in the form of applying them, which was intended as a revival of antique use, but which issued, working together with the first- named change, in the establishment of the modern in music ; these two were the discovery of fundamental dis cords and the originating of free musical recitation. The acoustical phenomenon whereon fundamental discords are grounded was first perceived in England, and this in the last quarter of the 17th century. Empirical rules drawn from the tentative practices of great musicians were from