Throughout, a most fantastic description of fugal style.
|
"Whence the sound Of instruments, that made melodious chime, Was heard, of harp and organ; and who mov'd Their stops and chords was seen; his volant touch Instinct through all proportions, low and high, Fled and pursued transverse the resonant fugue." —Milton, [Paradise Lost], Book XI. |
"Then rose the agitation, spreading through the infinite cathedral to its agony; then was completed the passion of the mighty fugue. The golden tubes of the organ which as yet had but sobbed and muttered at intervals—gleaming amongst clouds and surges of incense—threw up, as from fountains unfathomable, columns of heart-shattering music. Choir and antichoir were filling fast with unknown voices. Thou also, Dying Trumpeter! with thy love which was victorious, and thy anguish that was finishing, didst enter the tumult; trumpet and echo—farewell love and farewell anguish—rang through the dreadful Sanctus."
—From De Quincey's [Dream Fugue in the "Vision of Sudden Death]."
Truly a marvellous picture of the effect of a fugue in a great medieval cathedral!
CHAPTER IV
THE MUSICAL SENTENCE
BEFORE passing on to an explanation of the fundamental types of musical structure, we must give some idea of the constituent parts of the Period in music. Every art has its units of expression: the straight line, the curve, the arch, the poetic stanza and the prose sentence. Just as poetry and prose are a series of stanzas or sentences, so a musical composition is a succession of definitely organized portions of thought and emotion, in terms of rhythm and sound. In the heart of a composition, to be sure, we often find a great freedom in the phraseology, comparable to blank verse or to a rhapsodic kind of prose; but with few exceptions, such as a Fantasie, every composition always begins with one or two periods which, in regard to subdivision, balance and directness of statement, are carefully planned and are complete in themselves. Before it is possible to follow intelligently the structure of a musical sentence we must gain a clear idea of what is meant by the frequently used terms Tonality and Modulation. Since the evolution and acceptance of our three modern scales:[44] the major, the minor and the chromatic—which gained their sanction chiefly through the investigations and compositions of Bach and Rameau—every melody and the accompanying harmony are said to be in a certain "tonality" (or "key") which takes its name from the first tone of the scale in question, e.g., C, E-flat, F sharp, etc. Hence this first tone is called the Tonic or chief tone and from it ascend the other tones of the scale. That is, a melody in E-flat major will employ only those tones found in the scale of E-flat major, and is said to be in that "key," or "tonality." The same would be true of the harmony involved, i.e., the chords would consist of combinations of the different tones of this scale. When a melody, as is often the case, employs tones not found in the scale in question, these are called chromatic[45] changes, and may or may not effect a "modulation" or departure into another key, e.g.