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consonants) vibrate simultaneously; the upper note of an 8th has two vibrations for every one of the lower; while the minor 2nd (one of the harshest discords) has sixteen vibrations of its upper note for every fifteen of its lower, the coincidences of which vibrations are as rare as the dissonance of the combination is obvious.

You will please to regard this morning's discourse as introductory, and allow me to hope in subsequent lectures to interest you with practical applications of what has been now explained.

36

LECTURE II.

THE ANCIENT STRICT OR DIATONIC STYLE.

UNDERSTANDING as we now do the distince

tions of the diatonic and chromatic genera of the Greeks, it is time to consider the application of these terms as definitions of two broad styles in music. We must pause, however, on the threshold of this examination to note some of the landmarks in musical history, in order to ascertain the sources of these two styles, and thence trace their diversity.

The eighth century or, at earliest, the close of the seventh, saw the institution of a system of music for ecclesiastical use that may have had its origin in Greek precedent, but essentially differs from that in principle and effect. The Church system comprises a series of scales which are antipathetic to modern ears, because they are at variance with the tonal system that modern times have developed. Rome sent her missionaries through Gaul hither, the field of whose teaching was by degrees extended into the countries. of the north-east; and wherever they carried the Christian religion they carried with it the Church scales as the vehicle for utterance of the prayers. In this country and throughout the native land of the Teuton, they found the practice among the people of singing their popular or national songs in harmony. Appropriating this barbaric practice,

and engrafting it upon the musical system, which as yet acknowledged but unisonous singing, the Church then admitted the performance of descant, or accompanying melody, together with the Cantus Fermus-Canto Fermo-Plain Song. This descant consisted of such notes as were prompted by the euphonious instinct of the singers, and was always extemporaneous, as was the popular harmony of the laity. In course of time rules were framed to direct its construction, and, when it came to be written instead of improvised, it took the name of Counterpoint, denoting that it was sung against the point or theme. At first, descant or counterpoint was in notes of equal length to those of the subject; in this form of note against note it is called Plain or simple Counterpoint. Subsequently, various figurative forms were introduced, all of which-having notes of less or greater length than those of the subject-are comprised in the term Florid Counterpoint, and in this occur the three classes of diatonic discord, presently to be described. The plain song of the Church being always in one or other of the modes, necessitated corresponding modal restrictions in the counterpoint constructed upon it; and, as the modal arrangement of the succession of sounds was entirely arbitrary, so were the laws that regulated their combination similarly artificial. These were wholly regardless of the phenomenon since discovered of the generation of harmonic sounds by a fundamental note or root; and they refer therefore to the several combinations of intervals as each a separate fact,

without any general principle or bond of unity. As time advanced, the number of the modes was enlarged. There was added to those in Church use the Æolian, commencing on A, which is identical with the Eolian of Pindar, and is the single one of the Greek modes that appears intact in the Church system. Under the name of relative minor to the major tonic of a 3rd above, this mode has perplexed, more than all the rest of the cumbrous antique machinery, the progress of natural music. At last, under the name of the Ionian mode, our modern scale of C-with the semitones standing between its 3rd and 4th, and between its 7th and 8th degrees was included in the ecclesiastical system, though it was despised by the orthodox, the art conservatives of those days, as a lascivious innovation. Consequent upon this, but at first by very slow gradations, the natural harmonic system took its rise; but its progress was long retarded, nay, it is still in some degree embarrassed, by the conventional restraints of the earlier style. Modern theorists have codified the laws of counterpoint, and reduced them to such systematic order that they may be mastered by every student; and, submitting to these laws, modern writers have produced and always may produce compositions in the elder style, strikingly distinct in character from those expressed in the natural idiom of their own age. Occasions arise for the appropriate momentary assumption of the manner of former centuries-such as the wish to give special gravity to a particular piece, or to invest it with medieval associations; and, in order to appreciate music written with this design, and to

estimate the antique compositions which it emulates, the modern student should master the laws of counterpoint and so approach the fundamental or massive harmonic school by the path of history.

Modern

There is perfect analogy between these ancient and Ancient and modern styles in music, and firstly, the Hieratic or Styles. Archaic style in Greek sculpture and that of Phidias and Praxiteles, and secondly, the style of the first Christian painters and that of Raffaelle and his followers. The former, in all three cases, is conventional, limited, and, so to speak, dogmatic; the latter is, in every respect of subject and treatment, natural

and free.

The word Diatonic-rendered through the tones by etymologists must have been intended to signify through the uninfected notes, as opposed to Chromatic, which referred to an accidental sharp in every tetrachord; tonos, in this case, signifying tone or sound, and not an interval of two semitones. When it was rediscovered that any arrangement of notes might be re produced in a higher or lower pitch by the insertion of sharps or flats to adjust the position of the semitones, it was found that the diatonic principle of noninflected notes was preserved, though a piece of music were transposed one or more notes higher or lower, and the sharps or flats essential to the new key were employed. The next step was the discovery of modulation, that is, the art of passing from one key to another in the course of the same piece; and this also is true to the diatonic principles, since the sharps or flats that mark the new key belong to its natural and uninflected scale. Progressing further, musicians

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