Critical and Historical Essays: Lectures delivered at Columbia UniversityMacDowell, Edward
History
Critical and Historical Essays: Lectures delivered at Columbia University
MacDowell, Edward
Music -- History and criticism
In all modern music this element is one of the most important.
If we refer again to the "Faust" overture of Wagner, we will
perceive that although the melodic trend and the pitch of
the phrase carry their suggestion, the roll of the drum which
accompanies it throws a sinister veil over the phrase, making
it impressive in the extreme.
The seed from which our modern wealth of harmony and tone
colour sprang was the perfect major triad. The _raison d'etre_
and development of this combination of tones belong to the
history of music. Suffice it to say, that for some psychological
reason this chord (with also its minor form) has still the same
significance that it had for the monks of the Middle Ages. It is
perfect. Every complete phrase, must end with it. The attempts
made to emancipate music from the tyranny of this combination
of sounds have been in vain, showing that the suggestion of
finality and repose contained in it is irrefutable.
Now if we depart from this chord a sensation of unrest is
occasioned which can only subside by a progression to another
triad or a return to the first. With the development of our
modern system of tonality we have come to think tonally; and a
chord lying outside of the key in which a musical thought is
conceived will carry with it a sense of confusion or mystery
that our modern art of harmony and tone colour has made its
own. Thus, while any simple low chords accompanying the first
notes of Raff's "Im Walde" symphony, given by the horns and
violins, would suggest gloom pierced by the gleams of light,
the remoteness of the chords to the tonality of C major gives
a suggestion of mystery; but as the harmony approaches the
triad the mystery dissolves, letting in the gleam of sunlight
suggested by the horn.
Goldmark's overture to "Sakuntala" owes its subtle suggestion to
much the same cause. Weber made use of it in his "Freischuetz,"
Wagner in his "Tarnhelm" motive, Mendelssohn in his "Midsummer
Night's Dream," Tchaikovsky in the opening of one of his
symphonies.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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