III.
There was an ominous flash in Dr. Dubbe’s eye when he arose to address the class. “We have this week,” he began, “a program barbarous enough to suit the lovers of ultra-modern music. There is Saint-Saëns’ overture, ‘Les Barbares,’ to begin with. This is as barbaric as a Frenchman can get, and is interesting chiefly as a study of how not to use the trumpets. But for sheer barbarity commend me to Hausegger’s ‘Barbarossa.’ Here we find the apotheosis of modern exaggeration. Hausegger strove to make up for inimportant themes by a profuse use of instruments. Only one theme, which occurs in the third movement, is of any account, and that is an imitation of an old German chorale. In this most monotonously muted of tone-poems the composer forgot to mute one instrument—his pen.”
“My! but Dr. Dubbe is knocking to-day,” whispered Miss Sara Band.
“The thing is in C major and opens with a C major chord,” continued Dr. Dubbe. “That is the end of the C major; it never returns to that key. This is modern music. Take the third movement. It opens with a screeching barbershop [p 242] />]chord. A little later ensues a prize fight between two themes, which continues until one of them is knocked out. In this edifying composition, also, snare drum sticks are used on the kettle drums. More modern music. Bah!”
I have never seen Dr. Dubbe so irritated.
“Let us turn to something more cheerful,” resumed Dr. Dubbe; and seating himself at the piano he played the Schubert C minor impromptu. “On the second page,” he said, “where the key becomes A flat major, occurs a harmony which looks and sounds like a foreign chord. Treated harmonically it is a second dominant formation, and should read C flat, D natural, A flat, diminished seventh of the key of the dominant. Schubert does not, however, use it harmonically, otherwise the B natural would read C flat. These notes are enharmonic because, though different, they sound the same.”
“How clear!” exclaimed Miss Gay Votte.
“But Schubert, instead of progressing harmonically, goes directly back into the tonic of A flat major.”
“How careless of him!” said Mrs. Givu A. Payne.
“Schubert uses it in its natural position. If the enharmonic C flat were used the chord would then be in its third inversion. Each diminished seventh harmony may resolve in sixteen different ways.”
[p 243]
]“Mercy!” murmured Mrs. Fuller-Prunes. “How much there is to know.”
Dr. Dubbe passed his hand across his brow as if wearied. “I shall never cease to regret,” he said, “that Schubert did not write C flat. It would have been so much clearer.”
After the lecture Miss Ellenborough gave us another surprise—doughnuts made in the shape of flats. Dr. Dubbe ate five, saying that D flat major was his favorite key.
I rode down in the elevator with him and he repeated his remark that Schubert had unnecessarily bemuddled the chord.
“I am sure you made it very plain,” I said. “We all understand it now.”
“Do you, indeed?” he replied. “That’s more than I do.”
Of course he was jesting. He understands everything.