Music: An Art and a Language - Walter Raymond Spalding

Tchaikowsky: 5th Symphony

Dvořák: Symphony From the New World

It is now necessary for the student to know something about the constructive principles by which large works of music are fashioned; not so much that he could compose these works himself, even if he had the inspiration, but to know enough, so that the reception of the music is not a haphazard activity but an intellectual achievement, second only to that of the original creator. Every genuine work of art in whatever medium, stone, color, word or tone, must exhibit unity of general effect with variety of detail. That is, the material must hold together, be coherent and convince the participant of the logical design of the artist; not fall apart as might a bad building, or be diffuse as a poorly written essay. And yet, with this coherence, there must always be stimulating and refreshing variety; for a too constant insistence on the main material produces intolerable monotony, such as the "damnable iteration" of a mediocre prose work or the harping away on one theme by the hack composer. In no art more than music is this dual standard of greater importance, and in no art more difficult to attain. For the raw material of music, fleeting rhythms and waves of sound, is in its very nature most incoherent. Here we are not dealing with the concrete, tangible and definite material which is available for all the other arts, but with something intangible and elusive. We know from the historical record [9] of musical development, that, only after centuries of experimentation conducted by some of the best intellects in Europe, was sufficient coherence gained so that there could be composed music which would compare with the simplest modern hymn-tune or part-song. And this was long after each of the other arts—architecture, sculpture, painting and literature—had reached points of attainment which, in many respects, have never since been equalled.

Before carrying our inquiries further, something must be said about the two main lines of musical development which led up to music as we know it to-day. These tendencies are designated by the terms Homophonic and Polyphonic. By homophonic,[10] from Greek words signifying a "single voice," is meant music consisting of a single melodic line, as in the whole field of folk-songs (which originally were always unaccompanied) or in the unison chants of the Greeks and the Gregorian tones of the early church, in which there is one melody though many voices may unite in singing it. Later we shall see what important principles for the growth of instrumental music were borrowed from the instinctive practise associated with the folk-song and folk-dance. But history makes clear that the fundamental principles of musical coherence were worked out in the field of music known as the Polyphonic. By this term, as the derivation implies, is meant music the fabric of which is made by the interweaving of several independent melodies. For many centuries the most reliable instrument was the human voice and the only art-music, i.e., music which was the result of conscious mental and artistic endeavor, was vocal music for groups of unaccompanied voices in the liturgy of the church. About the tenth century, musicians tried the crude experiment,[11] called Organum, of making two groups of singers move in parallel fifths e.g.,