[Illustration: Example 14. Fragments of Mozart, Beethoven, and Mendelssohn.]
In No. 1, the first motive evidently ends with the longer tone, g-sharp. In No. 2, each one of the four motives differs from the others in length; the sum of them is, however, exactly 24 beats, or 8 measures; hence, each one is actually a two-measure motive, counting from accent to accent. The upper numbers indicate the actual, vital beginning of each motive.
This very natural, and fairly common, inequality increases the difficulty of analysis somewhat. A knowledge of the principal chords, and familiarity with their manner of employment in composition, greatly facilitates the task, because the harmonic design furnishes in many cases the only unmistakable clue to the extremities of the melodic members. The difficulty finally vanishes only when the student has learned to appreciate the declamatory quality of all good melody, and can detect its inflections, its pauses; can feel which (and how many) of its tones are coherent and inseparable, and where the points of repose interrupt the current, and thus divulge the sense of the melodic sentence.
LESSON 3.—Analyze the third Song Without Words of Mendelssohn (A major, the so-called Hunting Song); first of all, locate the principal melody,—it is not always the uppermost line of tones; then divide this melody into its melodic motives, marking the "breaks" which separate each from the following one; the figures may be noted, also, but only mentally. No. 35 may also be analyzed in the same manner.