Harmonia

“ For in the view of those who distinguish harmonia from tonos it is the harmonia upon which the ethos of music depends. Plutarch himself had just been saying (in c. 17) that Plato preferred the Dorian harmonia on account of its grave and elevated character (epei poly to semnon estin en tê Dôristi, tautên proutimêsen) . On the other hand the usual sense of tonos is supported by the consideration that the want of the tetrachord Hypatôn would affect the pitch of the scale rather than the succession of its intervals. ”

“ HARMONIA, in Greek mythology, according to one account the daughter of Ares and Aphrodite, and wife of Cadmus. When the government of Thebes was bestowed upon Cadmus by Athena, Zeus gave him Harmonia to wife. All the gods honoured the wedding with their presence. Cadmus (or one of the gods) presented the bride with a robe and necklace, the work of Hephaestus. ”

“ SEMELĒ, in Greek mythology, daughter of Cadmus and Harmonia, and mother of Dionysus by Zeus. It is said that Hera, having assumed the form of Semelē's nurse, persuaded her rival to ask Zeus to show himself to her in all his glory. ”

“ After the time of Aristoxenus the technical writers on music make little or no use of the term harmonia. Their word for 'key' is tonos; and the octachord scales which are distinguished by the succession of their intervals are called 'species of the octave' (eidê tou dia [Pg 21] pasôn) . The modes of the classical period, however, were still objects of antiquarian and philosophic interest, and authors who treated them from this point of view naturally kept up the old designation. A good specimen of the writings of this class has survived in the dialogus de musicâ of Plutarch. ”

“ He was a gentleman of leisure and devoted himself to the study of mathematics, especially of probabilities.
524 ↑ Roger Cotes (1682-1716) , first Plumian professor of astronomy and physics at Cambridge, and editor of the second edition of Newton's Principia. His posthumous Harmonia Mensurarum (1722) contains "Cotes's Theorem" on the binomial equation. Newton said of him, "If Mr. Cotes had lived we had known something." ”

“ But to create that intensity of feeling, which solely identifies itself with the accordance of musical composition, the corresponding symphony of which awakens from their secluded cells the sweetest and tenderest affections, elucidates emotions of hope, fear, surprise, terror, and joy,—and as the stream of harmony flows along calls forth involuntary exclamations of delight, wonder, and admiration—demands a much more copious extent of subject and execution. ”

“ We live in a three dimensional world, and in its length, breadth, and solidity do we disport ourselves. Music also has its three-fold manner of expression, its rhythm, its melody, and now its harmony. The rhythm is for balance, the melody for the outline, while the harmony constitutes the texture. Here again in other directions we may trace the same essentials: there is a texture of colouring, a style in Literature, and an appropriate technique for harmony in every branch of Art, just as there is an harmonic scheme in Music. ”

“ Oh, music comes directly from heaven! The harmony of sounds is something of a more intimate, secret, and mysterious nature than the harmony of lines and colours; for what constitutes the beauty, harmony, [414] and attraction of exterior things, is not there alone in appearance, but radiates from the spirit within: therefore it is that the beautiful, emanating from the divine harmony of sound, is more exquisite and more living, because it is the manifestation of the soul and the spirit without encumbrance. ”

“ They said, ‘If we preach wisdom to you, before your mind is disposed towards it, we shall lose our time; but if by harmonious sounds we establish harmony in your mind, you will yield without opposition.’ Let us then, like these philosophers, make men more or less musicians, and they will be disposed to every sort of harmony—for that of colours in a picture, or the order that pervades an architectural pile.
In short, to be alive to the beauties of harmony is to love the order which pervades the system of the Creator. ”

“ Or, again: we have all heard of the "music of the spheres"—a beautiful and significant name used by the old thinkers for the divine order of the universe—a music heard not by human ear, but only by the attentive human spirit. Harmonic relation apprehended by reason we call Law and its embodiment Science; the same apprehended by the imagination and æsthetic sense, we call Beauty, and its embodiment Art, music. ”

“ Harmony and melody—which have an equal share in the effects produced by sound—find their original type, it may be, in the double nature of the universe, and of human destiny considered socially and individually. Harmony, like the external world and its moving masses, presents us with various parts, linked together and arranged so as to subserve one and the same end. ”

“ Thought, emotion, all that we call the spiritual side of music, expresses itself not through sonorous or harmonic effects, primarily sensuous in appeal, but through melody and rhythm and their interplay and elaboration in so-called thematic development. In truly great music we remember, not such and such a bit of tone-color, not this or that sonority, but the soaring or tender curve of the themes, their logical yet ever new unfolding, their embodiment, in the whole composition, of richest variety with completest final unity. ”

“ But harmony is symphony: symphony is, as it were, concord. But it is impossible that concord should subsist between things that differ, so long as they differ. Between things which are discordant and dissimilar there is then no harmony. A rhythm is produced from that which is quick, and that which is slow, first being distinguished and opposed to each other, and then made accordant; so does medicine, no less than music, establish a concord between the objects of its art, producing love and agreement between adverse things. ”

“ So that I think the harmonica comes the nearest, as regards its tone, to that perfection, which is to be measured by its influence on our minds. And it is fortunate that this instrument (which chances to be the very one which imitates those nature-tones with such exactitude) happens to be just the very one which is incapable of lending itself to frivolity or ostentation, but exhibits its characteristic qualities in the purest of simplicity. ”

“ In this kind of music, harmony, the real seat of emotionality in music, is an eloquent factor, and, indeed, there is no greater mystery in the art, which is full of mystery, than the fact that the lowering of the second tone in the chord, which is the starting-point of harmony, should change an expression of satisfaction, energetic action, or jubilation into an accent of pain or sorrow. ”

“ For once a week there is the lesson in harmony, which is one of the driest and most discouraging topics in the world. Yet no one can be said to know anything about music who does not understand harmony. Just think of it—harmony, counterpoint and fugue, form, theory, composition, instrumentation, sight-reading, history of music. ”

“ Unity is first manifested in the rhythm; then, as the tones consecutively follow each other, the succeeding one always born and growing immediately from the one just expiring, in the consequent melody; and lastly, as the tones progress simultaneously, hand to hand, and heart to heart, with the single line or passion of the melody, conditioned and responding to it in all its varied phases— (the individual and collective, the soul and its surroundings) —the grand diapason of harmony rolls on—and the magic unity of music is complete! ”

“ Again it may be said, that our ideas in music arise from the choice of sounds and their measures. The time alone in sounds, only gives birth to ideas emanating little or not at all from sentiment; in music, as in poetry, great poetical effects may be produced without the charm of poetry: such movements belong to harmony; melody possesses essentially the beauty of sentiment. We know that in natural, and even in moral philosophy, nothing can exist without motion ”

“ Next in order to harmonies, rhythms will naturally follow, and they should be subject to the same rules, for we ought not to seek out complex systems of metre, or metres of every kind, but rather to discover what rhythms are the expressions of a courageous and harmonious life; and when we have found them, we shall adapt the foot and the melody to words having a like spirit, not the words to the foot and melody. ”

“ From Harmony, from heavenly Harmony This universal frame began: When nature underneath a heap Of jarring atoms lay And could not heave her head, The tuneful voice was heard from high Arise, ye more than dead! Then cold, and hot, and moist, and dry In order to their stations leap, And Music's power obey. From harmony, from heavenly harmony This universal frame began: From harmony to harmony Through all the compass of the notes it ran, The diapason closing full in Man. What passion cannot Music raise and quell? ”

“ No one can ponder upon the above-mentioned harmonic foundation of the musical scale without conceiving a new idea of the beauty and significance of that glorious art and science which may be proved to be based upon laws decreed by the Almighty himself. The one consideration that, in all probability, no single musical sound comes to us alone, but each one is accompanied by its choir of ascending harmonic sequences, is sufficient to afford matter for many a wholesome and delightful meditation. ”

“ And all that has resisted and is but uncertainly held by its light remains outside of beauty, as not having absorbed the plenitude of the Form of colour.
And harmonies unheard in sound create the harmonies we hear and wake the Soul to the consciousness of beauty, showing it the one essence in another kind: for the measures of our sensible music are not arbitrary but are determined by the Principle whose labour is to dominate Matter and bring pattern into being. ”

“ Only by passing on and on, from chord to chord in ever-changing forms, from sweetest consonance to most brilliant dissonance, from exciting successions and combinations to calming ones, is harmonic texture provided for musical compositions. Sometimes, also, the melody remains unchanged when the harmonies are greatly altered, so that its expression may be varied, as the features of the same countenance may express varied emotions, and yet be always recognized. ”

“ Acoustics thus can show me the analogous effects of sound on every object of its impact. All harmonies start from a common centre and preserve the closest relations among themselves; or rather, harmony, like light, is decomposable by our art as a ray is by a prism. ”

“ But is not the soul acknowledged to be a harmony, and has she not the same relation to the body, as the harmony—which like her is invisible—has to the lyre? And yet the harmony does not survive the lyre. ”

“ Human life appears to me as a great orchestra in which we are the players. The great composition to be performed is the "Symphony of Life," its infinitude of dissonances and melodies blending into one colossal tone picture of harmony and grandeur. We players must study the laws of music and the score of the Great Symphony and we must practice diligently and persistently, until we can play our part unerringly in harmony with the concepts of the Great Composer. ”

“ Pile note on note the infinite music that flows increasingly to your soul from the tactual sonorities of a thousand branches and tumbling waters. How can the world be shrivelled when this most profound, emotional sense, touch, is faithful to its service? I am sure that if a fairy bade me choose between the sense of light and that of touch, I would not part with the warm, endearing contact of human hands or the wealth of form, the nobility and fullness that press into my palms. ”

“ For harmony is a symphony, and sym- phony is an agreement ; but an agreement of disagreements while they disagree there cannot be ; you cannot harmonize that which disagrees. In like manner rhythm is compounded of elements short and long, once differing and now in accord ; which accordance, as in the former instance, medicine, so in all these other cases, music implants, making love and unison to grow up among them ; and thus music, too, is concerned with the principles of love in their application to harmony and rhythm. ”

“ Its discordant clashes sweep upward in one harmonious tone that blends with the music of other worlds—to complete God’s orchestra.
It is greater than the stars—that moving procession of human energy; greater than the palpitating earth and the things growing thereon. ”

“ First of all, I will endeavour, by the following explanations, to give you as clear an idea as possible of what thorough-bass or harmony is, and to what purpose it serves.
Music consists of melody and harmony. When, for example, a female sings quite alone, without any accompaniment, her song is pure, simple melody. When another female singer, with a somewhat deeper voice, accompanies the first with a different, but still agreeably sounding melody, this will form music in two parts, which may also be called two-part harmony. ”

“ Did you possess other strings to your lyre—ten, a hundred, a thousand—the harmony of nature could more completely translate itself to you, each of the myriad vibrations according to their kind. You would perceive a number of [113] facts which are certainly passing around you, whose very existence you cannot even now guess, and in place of two dominant notes you would be conscious of the grand concert of harmonies everywhere about you. ”