Musical structure

“ A very small proportion of those who attend a symphony concert begin to get their money's worth—to put the matter on a perfectly practical plane—for at least 50% of the musical structure is presented to ears without capacity for receiving it. In regard to any work of large dimensions the final test is this: can we sing all the themes and follow them in their polyphonic development? ”

“ The musician, under the influence of an inward stimulus of some very obscure kind, may take three or four tones—say those of the opening subject of a sonata or a fugue—and build with them a structure ordered and controlled by certain laws purely its own, having for its object the susciting in our minds of a series of feelings from which all thought of speech is absent. The musician joys in building tones together in this way; we in our turn joy both in the process of building and in the finished edifice itself. ”

“ The structure of the instruments defines the possibilities of the music, and my belief is that a true idea of the character of ancient musical display can only be arrived at through a practical knowledge of such structure, its capabilities, its limitations, and the scope of its technique, since the qualities of tone that are at the command of the player are always determined by the means of excitation of the sounds, and by the shape and interior forms of the instruments. ”

“ The result of this irregularity and false quantity is to destroy the rhythm to an extent that often makes it difficult to say whether the music is in duple or triple measure. The musical consequence is the breaking down of symmetrical form, and the tendency is to reduce the organised structure to its component parts. ”

“ In the long evolution from the simple to the complex which music shares with everything else we know we may observe two different methods of tone-combination which, working together, have given us the elaborate texture of the modern art. That especially suited to melodic instruments, like those used in the orchestra or the chorus, puts melodies together as an engraver puts together lines, each remaining distinct, standing off clearly from the others, representing a different musical thought, and yet all agreeing, or, as we say, harmonizing. ”

“ Contrasts of timbre and tone are at least as various as contrasts of colour: the complexity of musical rhythm is far beyond anything that language can achieve; while, in the devices of harmony, and still more of polyphony and counterpoint, the composer occupies a position which is virtually unique in human experience. ”

“ By far the greater number of our rules of composition are not dictated by any physical law traceable in acoustics, but only by human taste, which is continually undergoing modifications in the course of time. Thus, most of our great composers have caused some alterations in our theory of music. It is not only possible, but probable, that in a hundred years' time we shall have admirable musical compositions very different in form and construction from our present ones. ”

“ In primitive states of music rhythmic sounds were heard, defined by the pulses but with little or no change of pitch, and sounds varying in pitch without regularity of impulse. A high degree of intellectuality was reached before our modern scales were evolved from long-continued attempts at making well-balanced successions of sounds. As musical art advanced rhythm and melodic expression became united. ”

“ The aspect of importance here, in short, is the varied motion of the music simply, the ups and downs of the harmony or melody, the stream of sound through its degrees of opposition, preponderance, emphasis, acuteness or vivacity, the elaboration of a melodic phrase in every respect that is suitable to the means of musical art, the musician-like fusion of all the instruments as one ensemble of tone, or in their succession, alternation, and emphatic display of themselves and each other. ”

“ An important principle of musical design is introduced to our notice by this little melody. It will be observed that it divides itself into three equal parts: the statement, measures 1-5; the contrast, measures 6-10; and the restatement, measures 11-15. (We may represent these by the letters A, B, and A.) Now these three parts, being of equal length and similar material, balance each other just as lines in poetry do. One makes us expect another, which, when it comes, fulfills our expectation. Thus we get the impression of regularity, order, symmetry. ”

“ Unless the sensuous elements of sound were themselves pleasing it is difficult to imagine that a musical composition could be. Music would then be like an orchestra whose members played in unison, but whose violins were raucous and whose trumpets hoarse. ”

“ As rhythm is the heart pulsation of music, [69] it naturally took hold of the first singers of in any measure formulated melody, leading to swaying of the body, clapping of the hands, stamping of the feet, and quickly suggested the employment of other resonant means for marking its progress. Our drums were at first only hollow pieces of wood, our cymbals, triangle, and gong may have had double duties,—musical and culinary,—and our harp and piano were anticipated by single strings stretched to yield a sonorous tone regardless of pitch. ”

“ Instruments alone cannot make music, any more than a steam derrick can build a bridge. If we wish to seize the true spirit of the modern musical art, we must, after all, leave orchestra, and piano, and sensuous value behind, and ascertain to what use composers have turned all these resources, and to what manner of expression, embodied in what kind of forms, they have been spurred by the romantic spirit. ”

“ This progress has gone on until the present time, when two particulars of our music are exactly recorded—the pitch and the rhythm. The exact relation of every tone to the key note is ascertainable from our musical notation, and the precise degree of rhythmic importance appertaining to each tone according to its place in measure and in the larger rhythms. ”

“ Thus from the definite number of twenty-four notes, varied in different degrees, by sharps, flats, semi-tones, &c., are produced all that is so magical, enthusiastic, and transporting in the empire of omnipotent music. Like as the alphabetic characters may be varied into myriads of forms suitable to every multifarious species of conversation or composition; in a word, a few musical notes in the hands of a master may be made by his skill to produce, from agreeable interchanges of time, harmony, &c., every variety of musical sentiment which can affect the human soul. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When I further consider that these sounds, placed by the interval of a third one above another, do constitute one entire harmony, which governs and comprises all the sounds that by art or imagination can be joined together in musical concordance, that, I cannot but think a significant emblem of that Supreme and Incomprehensible Three in One, governing, comprising, and disposing the whole machine of the world, with all its included parts, in a most perfect and stupendous harmony. ”

“ But since the seventeenth century our conception of music has gradually, from melodic, become harmonic; we hear vertically as well as horizontally; we hear the beauty of all chords as sounded together, and, unconsciously, we fill in the harmonies to every melody we hear. It would have been natural if the keyed instruments had adapted themselves to this altered musical conception, and had resigned the original conception of the scale to make way for harmonic conveniences. ”

“ Behind them one seems invariably to perceive some one sitting before a sheet of music paper and tampering with the art of music; seeking to discover what would result were he to accept as harmonic basis not the major triad but the minor ninth, to set two contradictory rhythms clashing, or to sharpen everything and maintain a geometric hardness of line. One always feels in them the intelligence setting forth deliberately to discover new musical form. ”

“ Properly speaking, "form" refers to the molecular constitution of music, to the ways in which relations of pitch and rhythm are manipulated in melody and harmony; "structure" to the molar constitution of music, the subsequent grouping of the melodies into complete pieces. The difference between a sonata, a fugue, and a nocturne is a difference of structure; the difference between a good melody and a bad one is a difference of form. ”

“ In this symphony, instruments speak a language whereof the world at no previous time had any knowledge; for here, with a hitherto unknown persistence, the purely musical expression enchains the hearer in an inconceivably varied mesh of nuances; rouses his inmost being to a degree unreachable by any other art ”

“ When science comes and the nature of sound itself is understood as a property, instruments are invented and improved by the husbandry of mind until a great variety of musical instruments are developed; thus symphony grows from the soil of time. What, then, is symphony? It is a succession of melodies, every one of which is produced by a group of instruments, one of which may be that of the human voice. Now, as these instruments play in unison, one or another is selected to play the leading melody, and the other instruments are made to play subsidiary melodies in harmony with the leading melody. ”

“ But the form is made for the music, not the music for the form; no serious composer writes music for the sake of the form, but chooses the form merely as a means to an end. The highest ideal of structural dignity and fitness is, to work from the thematic germ outward, and to let the development of this germ, the musical contents, determine and justify the structural plan and arrangement. ”

“ From this double bondage to the rhythmic-melodic powers of human expressive movements and to the thought content of language, musical art finally frees itself. While the musical instrument was at first a means designed to assist man in his endeavour to give direct expression to his emotions, man's activity in the case of 'absolute music' becomes limited to the mastery of the instrument itself. ”

“ The Place of Intellect in Music.—When we think of Music we have in mind an organization of musical sounds into something definite, something by design, not by chance, the product of the working of the human mind with musical sounds and their effects upon the human sensibilities. So long as man accepted the various phenomena of musical sounds as isolated facts, there could be no art. ”

“ Symphony—In modern time, or the time of representative government, which also may be considered as the time of science par excellence, symphony has been added to music. The development of symphonic music is dependent on the development of musical instruments. Musical instruments themselves have their germ in the hunter stage of society. ”

“ To the lawgivers, the signs themselves are the most important matter, and are continually growing in their estimation; the new art of music is derived from the old signs—and these now stand for musical art itself. ”

“ It presents all the characteristics we are accustomed to [pg 87] in freer musical forms: a flowing and distinctive melody, ease, clarity, and facility in the progression of the parts, inexhaustible variety of modulation, purest harmony, the exclusion of every jarring or unnecessary note, unity of form and variety of style, rhythm, and measure, and such superabundant animation that the hearer may well ask himself whether every note is not actually alive. ”

“ Instead of regarding our Tonal System as exhibiting the highest degree of perfection attainable, and of repudiating musical conceptions which reveal another foundation, as our musicians are apt to do, it would be more wise in them to study the various systems on which the music of different nations is founded, to acquaint themselves especially with the characteristics of the various scales, and, by adopting them on proper occasions, to produce new effects more refreshing than the hackneyed phrases and modulations which usually pervade their works. ”

“ It is, of course, obvious that our analysis has confined itself to the barest elements of the musical experience. Our music to-day, with its many-voiced harmonies, with its procession of chords instead of single tones, with its modulation into related keys, has an infinite wealth and complexity defying description. A large part of the astonishing effect of music is derived from the fact that in a brief space we seem to hear and absorb so much: the careers of multitudinous lives compressed into an instant. ”

“ 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 ”