Figure XVI.
The second important result of the damper pedal is a still greater richness of tone which it enables composers to attain by artificially pushing still farther the fusion of many single tones which is illustrated on the plane of nature by the foregoing examples. The student of harmony will observe that though most of the "harmonics," written in quarter-notes, of Figure XVI, are consonant to the fundamental chord, and thus enrich without obscuring it, there are several, notably the G-sharp, which, being foreign to the chord, tend slightly to blur its clarity. These dissonant harmonics are, however, so faint that their effect is practically nil. But if the composer, acting on the hint they give him, introduces into his chords similar foreign tones, sounded more distinctly by the hands, he at once imparts to the harmony a curious opacity and thickness which it is almost impossible to describe, but which affords a pleasant contrast to the uniform clearness of purely consonant chords. The fourth and the sixteenth notes in the bit of Chopin already cited (Figure XV) illustrate this device. The effect of such dissonant tones may be likened to the effect of mixtures and body-colors in painting; they afford relief from the monotony of consonance just as those afford relief from the monotony of the pure colors. They provide the musical picture with chiaroscuro and atmosphere, softening the sharpness of its lines, spreading over it, so to speak, a delicate translucent haze. Used to excess, of course, they make a mere smutch, a meaningless, chaotic daub; the music reverts to primitive noise; the nice point is to use them just enough to gain depth, solidity, light and shade, without blackening and confusing the whole impression.[22]
Now Chopin is one of the supreme masters in the coloristic use of the dissonance. His nocturnes, especially the first, seventh, eighth, and fourteenth, may fairly be said to inaugurate by this means a new era in music, comparable in many respects to the era of impressionism in painting. Their tremulous, vaporous harmonies seem to come from no common piano, but from some wind-swept Æolian harp. Take, for instance, such a passage as the following, at the end of the third nocturne:—
Figure XVII.