Lessons In Music Form A Manual Of Analysis Of All The Structura

CADENCES IN GENERAL.--A cadence is the ending of a phrase. Strictly speaking, every interruption or "break" between figures, and between all melodic members, is a cadence; but t...

THE NECESSITY OF FORM IN MUSIC.--So much uncertainty and diversity of opinion exists among music lovers of every grade concerning the presence of Form in musical composition, an...

THE MELODIC FIGURE.--The smallest unit in musical composition is the single tone. The smallest cluster of successive tones (from two to four or five in number) that will convey...

TIME.--Time is the same thing in music that it is everywhere else in nature. It is what passes while a piece of music is being played, sung, or read. It is like the area of the...

ORIGIN OF THE NAME.--The fully developed Sonata-allegro form is the design in which the classic overture and the first movement of the symphony, sonata and concerto are usually...

EVOLUTION.--It cannot have escaped the observant student of the foregoing pages, that the successive enlargement of the structural designs of musical composition is achieved by...

CAUSES.--The possibility of deviating from the fundamental standard of phrase-dimension (four measures) has been repeatedly intimated, and is treated with some detail in the tex...

THE PHRASE.--It is not altogether easy to give a precise definition of the phrase. Like so many of the factors which enter into the composition of this most abstract, ideal, and...

The processes of extension and development are applied to the period in the same general manner as to the phrase. The results, however, are broader; partly because every operati...

THE SONG-FORM OR THE PART-FORM.--Almost every musical composition of average (brief) dimensions, if designed with the serious purpose of imparting a clear formal impression, wil...

CAUSES.--Despite the many points of resemblance between the various forms to which our successive chapters have been devoted,--the natural consequence of a continuous line of st...

The use of the various forms of composition, that is, their selection with a view to general fitness for the composer's object, is, primarily, simply a question of length. The h...

The phrase is, after all, only a unit; and the requirements of Variety cannot be wholly satisfied by the mere development and extension of a single phrase, except it be for a ce...

Another method of enlargement consists in associating two different--though somewhat related--Song-Forms. The practice was so common in certain of the older dances, particularly...

CLASSIFICATION OF THE LARGER FORMS.--The Sonatine form is the smaller variety of two practically kindred designs, known collectively as the Sonata-allegro forms. In order to obt...

REPETITION OF THE PARTS.--The enlargement of the Three-Part Song-form is effected, in the majority of cases, by simply repeating the Parts. The composer, in extending the dimens...

In this form of composition there are three digressions from the Principal theme. But, in order to avert the excess of variety, so imminent in a design of such length, the digre...

LESSON 10.--Analyze the following examples of the Three-Part Song-form. The first step, here again, is to fix _the end of the First Part_; the next, to mark the beginning of the...

_the reproduction of Part I_, and therewith the fulfilment of the important principle of return and confirmation. The reproduction is sometimes exact and complete; sometimes sli...

DISTINCTION BETWEEN BIPARTITE AND TRIPARTITE FORMS.--We learned, in the preceding chapter, that the Two-Part Song-form is a composition of rather brief extent, with so decisive...

GROUP OF PARTS.--In some, comparatively rare, instances, the arrangement of perfect cadences is such that,--coupled with independence of melodic formation and character,--the co...

LESSON 15.--Analyze the following examples, as usual. They represent chiefly the Third Rondo-form, but _one example each_ of the First and Second Rondo-forms have been introduce...

As described in the preceding chapter, the Second Rondo-form contains two digressions from the Principal theme, called respectively the first and second Subordinate themes. It b...

they are both measure 8):--Part I extends to the double-bar, and is repeated literally, only excepting the _rhythmic_ modification of the final measure; Part II extends from mea...

melodic statement. It is, for a time, probably an evident continuation and development of the melodic theme embodied in the First Part; but it does not end there; it exhibits a...

melodic and rhythmic contents of the leading thought, out of which the whole composition is to be developed. It is generally a period-form, at least, closing with a firm perfect...