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It is formed mostly of the four tones D-flat, E-flat, A-flat, and B-flat. All of these belong to the pentatonic major scale of D-flat. This gives a very marked pentatonic flavor, yet the song is not in the pentatonic scale, for the singer introduces half steps, and there are no such intervals in the pentatonic scale.

Along with it I show the tonal material of the Tinguian song arranged in corresponding sequence. It will be seen that every note in the Japanese scale is found also in the Tinguian, though not always in the same octave. All of the Tinguian tones are found in the Japanese scale except the C-flat and D-flat. These exceptions are shown with their stems turned down.

For the last time, the old conceptions of tonality obtain in his music dramas. One feels throughout "Tristan und Isolde" the key of D-flat, throughout "Die Meistersinger" the key of C-major, throughout "Parsifal" the key of A-flat and its relative minor. Rhythms that had been used all through the classical period are worked by him into new patterns, and do service a last time.

Arrange the various tones of this melody in any order that we will, we cannot make them conform to any diatonic scale used in modern music. If, however, we ignore the C-flat, which occurs twice in the song, it gives us an incomplete ascending melodic-minor scale in D-flat. But the song is not minor in mode. It is distinctly major in tonality.

There is here a turn of phrase, a quality of sentiment, which are notably fresh and strange. There is in this, and in "By Smouldering Embers," a graver tenderness, a more pervasive sobriety, than he had revealed before. Read over the D-flat major section of "An Old Love Story." Throughout MacDowell's previous work one will find no passage quite like it in contour and emotion.

The notes G-natural and D-flat do not belong to this scale. At those places where they are put down in the notation, they are used to better define the glissandos. The singers pass over them rapidly, sliding from the topmost note of the group to the lowest with no perceptible dwelling on any of the intermediate tones.

By comparing this measure with the corresponding measure in each of the other three verses, it will be seen that the singers have taken great pains in those verses to avoid this note which does not belong to the pentatonic scale which they are using, evidence that they do not sense the tone in the fourth verse, where it is taken glissando. The D-flat, also foreign to the scale, occurs but once.