Page:The World as Will and Idea - Schopenhauer, tr. Haldane and Kemp - Volume 3.djvu/257

Rh a pause to free itself from the control of rhythm, to launch out into the free imagination of an ornate cadenza, such a piece of music divested of all rhythm is analogous to the ruin which is divested of symmetry, and which accordingly may be called, in the bold language of the witticism a frozen cadenza.

After this exposition of rhythm, I have now to show how the nature of melody consists in the constantly renewed disunion and reconciliation of the rhythmical, and the harmonious elements of it. Its harmonious element has as its assumption the fundamental note, as the rhythmical element has the species of time, and consists in a wandering from it through all the notes of the scale, until by shorter or longer digressions it reaches a harmonious interval generally the dominant or sub-dominant, which affords it an incomplete satisfaction; and then follows by a similarly long path, its return to the fundamental note with which complete satisfaction appears. But both must so take place that the attainment of the interval referred to and the return to the fundamental note correspond with certain favourite points of the rhythm, otherwise it will not work. Thus, as the harmonious succession of sounds requires certain notes, first of all the tonic, next to it the dominant, and so on, so rhythm, on its part, requires certain points of time, certain numbered bars and certain parts of these bars, which are called strong or good beats or the accented parts of the bar, in opposition to the weak or bad beats, or unaccented parts of the bar. Now the disunion of these two fundamental elements consists in this, that because the demand of one is satisfied that of the other is not; and their reconciliation consists in this, that both are satisfied at once and together. That wandering of the notes until they find a more or less harmonious interval must so take place that this interval as attained only after a definite number of bars and also at an accented part of the bar, and in this way becomes for it a kind of resting-point; and similarly