Items related to Style in Musical Art
Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1911 ...is compounded of a number of definite sections or phrases very much in the same manner as complete folk-songs. So the word "Subject" in a general survey will not be so convenient a term as thematic material, for of whatever dimensions a subject may be its constituents amount to thematic material, and though the terms have an unattractive sound it is better to be unattractive than unintelligible. It will not be serviceable to discuss thematic material in folk-music here, as in many respects folk-music stands altogether apart from the music which is cultivated by musicians as an art. It will be sufficient to say that folk-music arrived at very decisive definition of its thematic material among some races while artistic music was still in the early stages of trying to find out how to evolve definite musical ideas. Something may be said on this score later. For the present it need only be observed that what must be called artistic music, such as the early music of the Church, was quite content to borrow from the laity, as though it did not recognize the making of definite subjects as within its province. Yet from the earliest times till the present day one of the most constant objects of composers has been to achieve definition; and, as subsidiary to that aim, thematic material has grown more definitely individual as the unravelling of artistic methods has proceeded. In fact, thematic material became more and more pregnant as composers increased their resources. They first defined melody by rhythm, then gave it clearer form and greater interest and meaning by wedding it to harmony, and then enhanced it by modulation and colour. In the early stages of music, such as the early choral music previous to the seventeenth century, there were practically no s...
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