Part 11 (1/2)
A plus B plus A plus Coda.
This is the form of the great majority of polkas and waltzes, except that the song forms standing for A and B respectively are very often of three periods instead of two. This form also lies at the foundation of the great majority of salon pieces for the piano.
The only difference between the rondo form and the form last described--the proper designation of which is ”song form with trio”--is that the rondo introduces pa.s.sage work between the subject and the second subject. Should it be desired to develop the rondo to a greater length, the second subject can be repeated after the repet.i.tion of the first, and the first subject brought in still again. A third subject can be introduced, and in the longest rondo form the schedule is like this, C standing for the third subject:
A-B-A-C-A-B-A-Coda.
A form of this sort might extend to a very considerable length, as happens in the case of Chopin's Rondo in E-flat major, opus 18, which reaches to ten or twelve pages and occupies about ten minutes to perform.
The essential principle of musical form--form in music--is quite a.n.a.logous to form in literature. As in a poem or article the first consideration is Unity, or the preponderance of a leading idea, and the second Variety, or the occurrence of interesting ill.u.s.trative matter, and the third Symmetry, or the just relation between the different parts in order that the leading idea may not be obscured by the prolixity of the subordinate ideas, so the same principles prevail in music. Unity also is attained by peculiarly similar means in both cases. As in the article the leading idea is repeated a number of times in order to impress it upon the hearer, but frequently in different language, so in music the princ.i.p.al idea is repeated more times than any other in the course of the piece; and in the small forms, or rather in the molecular construction of a piece of music, the repet.i.tions are in a great variety of speech, exactly as they are in a well-made article. The same idea can be presented in different aspects, and different words may express it. In music this takes place through the appearance of the motive in different chords from those in which it first appeared, giving rise to variations in the melodic intervals and the like.
Symmetry in music is much more exactly observed than in literary composition, even in verse, since music itself is a matter of time and vibration, and the proportionate and mathematical relation of parts belongs to the very essence of the art. Every musical form, therefore, whether large or small, consists essentially of one leading idea and of two or more subordinate ideas, brought in with whatever cleverness of treatment the composer may find convenient, and the whole turned over and diversified according to his fancy.
In certain aspects the musical forms bear a good deal of resemblance to the quasi-geometric figures called arabesques, in which a certain line or form is many times repeated; or to the arrangement of crystals which the frost forms upon the gla.s.s of the window, when the simple crystalline form of water is repeated in a great diversity of ways, and larger figures and curious symmetries and suggestions are brought out.
In music of a serious construction the leading motives are diversified in a great variety of ways by being made to appear in different chords and intervals from the original form, and by being carried into other keys, whereby the impression upon the ear is very materially modified, at the same time without destroying the unity of the idea.
Musical forms in general may be divided into elementary and complete.
The elementary forms are those which are used as structural elements in the larger or complete forms. Thus, a motive repeated becomes a phrase; a phrase repeated or answered by counter-theme becomes a section; a section repeated becomes a period; the period repeated or modified becomes a two-period form or a period group, which may extend to a considerable number of periods. Out of these elementary forms the large forms are constructed. Beginning with the song form as the princ.i.p.al subject, the rondo goes on with a second song form as second subject, and so on to any extent desirable, according to the plan given above. In a.n.a.lyzing a large piece of music to find these leading subjects, the student should begin by first finding the great divisions in the piece, such as, for instance, those where an entirely new melody comes in a change of key, and the like. Having found the larger points of joining, he should then proceed to find the dividing lines in the smaller parts, which, in music, is rendered somewhat more difficult in consequence of the entire absence of punctuation bringing out relations of this kind. Not only are the marks wanting, but the bars confuse the eye and make it more difficult to find the real point where the ideas begin and end. The student, however, accustomed to memorizing his music, and consequently to thinking about it, will soon be able to find it by his intuition, in the same way that the reader knows when the sentence has been completed by the sense and not necessarily by the period which is placed after the last word.
There are a few leading types of form to which all others more or less conform. The first of these, and perhaps, on the whole, the most important, are those which are called unitary forms. A unitary form is a musical form with only one leading melodic idea, out of which the entire piece is developed. This can only be done in one or the other of three ways. Taking the simplest way first, it will be to develop this leading idea into a song form according to the pattern given above, in the beginning of this discussion. This, being sufficiently obvious on the face of it, requires no further attention here. Forms of this kind belong essentially to popular music, although they are not uncommon by way of relief in the more elevated art music.
There are two types of unitary form, however, which enter into and color all instrumental music to a degree, making it indispensable that the pupil thoroughly understand them. The first of these is the fugue.
In the fugue a melodic subject of two measures or four, rarely more, is taken by a single voice and is answered by another voice in the dominant, and this again by the third voice in the original key, and so on according to the number of voices performing the fugue. The voice which has completed the subject goes on with the counter-subject or the counterpoint while the second voice is singing the subject. When all the voices have had their turn at the phrase there is an interlude of modulating material, after which the subject comes again and is answered one or more times in the properly related keys, for which the artificer of fugues has his rules already prepared, following the principles laid down by Bach. After this second appearance of the theme in these new keys, another interlude, and then an additional strophe in still a different key and with finer treatment; and thus, according to the fancy of the composer and his skill, the piece is extended to one, two, or even six or eight pages. But during the whole of it the princ.i.p.al subject has reappeared at very short intervals and in a great variety of keys, while the interlude matter has always been of a lighter and less significant character. In order to arrive at an appreciation of fugues, the student perhaps can not do better than to begin with some of the two-part inventions of Bach, which, while not following the fugue form strictly, approximate it very nearly. The first invention and the eighth are perhaps the best for this purpose.
After these, an easy fugue in the ”Well-tempered Clavier,” such as the one in D major or that in C minor; more difficult examples are those in C-sharp major and in G major. In the development of fugues the old masters made use of a great variety of artifices, including all the devices of double counterpoint at the tenth and twelfth, canon and inversion, the latter applied not alone to the relation of the voices but also to the melodic material const.i.tuting a voice. ”The fugue,”
Cherubini says, ”contains everything which a good composer ought to know,” and it is, in fact, the underlying element in all serious moments of modern music except those which are purely lyric. The fugue underlies the elaboration in the middle of a sonata-piece, and, in fact, is the original source, as said before, of nearly all the serious moments in the higher departments of art.
The second serious unitary form is the theme and variation. In this case the theme is itself a complete song form of perhaps two or three periods, and each variation is precisely of the same number of measures, and follows the same harmonic structure in many cases.
There are, however, in modern use, two types of the variation form.
One of these, called formal variations, leaves the harmony entirely the same in all the variations, except, perhaps, to change the melody from major to minor of the same key and back again. In the best examples the harmony remains entirely unchanged, but the melody is diversified rhythmically in various ways. Good examples of this type of variations are to be found in the works of Mozart and in the second movement of Beethoven's Sonata in G major, opus 14, and in the second movement of the ”Sonata Appa.s.sionata” of Beethoven.
The character variation pursues a different course. At times the key is changed and the harmony changes very much. In order to see how this can be accomplished without destroying the ident.i.ty of the musical idea, it should be remembered that a musical idea consists essentially of three elements: it has a rhythm, a melodic figure, and a harmonic foundation. If the melodic figure is retained, and the harmonic figure, the rhythm can be diversified indefinitely, and, in fact, if any two of these elements are retained the third can be modified very much. In the latest practice of variation writing, two of these elements are changed at the same time, leaving only one element fixed, and in some instances it is difficult to find exactly where any of the original element of the theme remains. Beethoven began the development of character variation in his Sonata, opus 26, the first movement of which is in this form. He also did more or less in this direction in his famous ”Thirty-two Variations.” The variations of Schumann in the ”etudes Symphoniques” pa.s.s even beyond the bounds here defined. While remaining fast upon the original harmonic foundation, measure for measure, entirely new melodies come in and wholly different rhythms, so that in many instances only a few notes of the original theme are retained in any one variation. The student desiring to explore the most advanced variation writing will find examples ready to his hand in Brahms' variation on a theme of Handel and the two books of variations on a theme of Paganini. These may be considered as at present the _ultima thule_ of variation-making art. The principle of the variation lies at the foundation of very much that meets us in the higher departments of music, even when the variation form is not heard of.
All modifications or amplifications of a theme belong essentially to the variation type, and it is liberally applied to all long compositions where the same material is used a number of times.
When a piece of music consists of two fully developed melodic ideas, it is said to be binary in form, and these are all either song forms with trio or small rondo forms. Nearly all of the slow movements of Beethoven in the sonatas are binary forms, the dimensions of which may vary extremely. The student desiring to investigate this part of the subject more thoroughly is referred to the ”Primer of Musical Forms,”
by W. S. B. Mathews (Arthur P. Schmidt & Co., Boston), where the principles are more fully unfolded.
There is one form in modern music which is the type of so large a proportion of extended instrumental movements that the student will do well to master its peculiarities at the earliest possible moment. This is the form sometimes called the sonata form or sonata-piece. The term sonata was originally used in two senses: in its larger sense it indicates an extended musical composition with three or four movements, all which taken together form the sonata. By the term sonata-piece, however, is meant the particular movement of the sonata which gives the name to the whole piece. This, as a rule, is the first movement, but sometimes it is the closing movement, and in some instances there are three of these movements in the same sonata, so arranged with reference to one another as to form the necessary contrasts. The sonata-piece is the form which contains within itself very much of the essence of all the smaller forms. It generally consists of three large chapters, beginning with the princ.i.p.al subject, which may be longer or shorter, according to the fancy of the composer, and may end on its own princ.i.p.al key or on the dominant, and may be followed by pa.s.sage work or not, to any extent the composer chooses; then comes a second subject. According to Beethoven's almost invariable practice, the first subject of a sonata form is thematic in its character, and in developing this theme many of the principles of variation work are applied. The second subject is almost invariably a lyric melody, sometimes very charming, and always in a different key from that of the first subject, usually in the dominant; or, if the first subject is a minor, this will be in the relative major. Then follows a concluding paragraph of anywhere from six to thirty measures, and a double bar with a repeat sign. This forms the first chapter of the sonata-piece.
After the double bar comes the second chapter, which is an elaboration or free fantasia on the material of the first part. At the end of this free fantasia, which may be longer or shorter at the fancy of the composer, comes the recapitulation, or the repet.i.tion of the entire first part, the only change being that the second subject is now in the princ.i.p.al key. In the elaboration of the sonata all sorts of musical fancies are liable to appear--queer juxtapositions of motives from the different parts of the first and second subjects, inversions, variations, and so on.
The sonata-piece is the type, not alone of the princ.i.p.al movement in symphonies and chamber quartets and trios, but it is also the type of all serious overtures, and therefore it has been well designated by German theorists as the Princ.i.p.al Form of modern music.
Whether longer or shorter, whether serious or lively, all musical forms have the same conditions to satisfy--viz., those of unity, or the preponderance of a single idea; symmetry, or just proportion of parts; and variety, the proper relief and introduction of new material. If the princ.i.p.al idea is repeated too much, monotony ensues; if there are too many accessory ideas, in place of variety we have looseness and want of unity. And in carrying out these principles in compositions of different lengths and in different styles, the composer has practically unlimited freedom.