[PNG] [[audio/mpeg]]

Notice how charmingly the staccato and the legato are contrasted in these motives.

The entire invention is made out of this subject by means of those methods of varied repetition discussed in Chapter I., especially "imitation" and "transposition." For example, the lower voice, which we will call the bass, "imitates," almost exactly, through the first eleven measures, what the soprano says a measure before it. On the other hand, in measure 12 the bass starts the ball a-rolling by giving the subject (this time in the key of C), and the soprano takes its turn at imitating. Then, from measure 29 to the end, it is again the soprano which leads and the bass which imitates. The student should trace out these imitations in detail, admiring the skill with which they are made always harmonious.

There are many instances of transposition also, most of them carried out so systematically that they form what musicians call "sequences."

A sequence is a series of transpositions of a motive, shifting it in pitch either upward or downward, and carried out systematically through several repetitions. Examples: measures 4, 5, and 6, transposition of the motive in soprano, three repetitions; measures 21, 22, 23, transposition of motives of both voices, three repetitions; measures 24, 25, transposition of motives of both voices, two repetitions. The second of these sequences is shown in Figure X.

It will be noted what a strong sense of regular, orderly progress these sequences impart to the melodies.

It is interesting to see that the same general scheme of keys is embodied in this invention that we have observed in folk-songs: i. e., the modulation to the "dominant" in the middle (measure 12), and the return at the end to the original key. This divides the piece into two unequal halves, the first making an excursion away from the home key, the second returning home—much as the King of France, with twenty thousand men, marched up the hill and then marched down again. Such a two-part structure is observable in thousands of short pieces, and is called by musicians "binary form."

[PNG] [[audio/mpeg]]