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Domenico Scarlatti got some wonderful results; but his music simply tickles the ear for a moment: meaning it has none. Polyphonic music of every sort had now to go for a while; monodic music was coming in. But before it could come in with any degree of security something else had to come and something else to go.
There is a marked indifference to the possibilities of contrapuntal effect, a dependence upon a method fundamentally homophonic rather than polyphonic this music is a rich and shimmering texture of blended chord-groups, rather than a pattern of interlaced melodic strands. One cannot but note the manner in which it abhors and shuns the easily achieved, the facile, the expected.
Edmund Severn, the American composer and violinist, has also written a notably fine violin concerto which I have played, with the Philharmonic, one that ought to be heard oftener. "Bach is one of the most difficult of the great masters to interpret on the violin. His polyphonic style and interweaving themes demand close study in order to make the meaning clear.
Some really beautiful madrigals exist, but Purcell could have done almost if not quite as well without them. During this period the old style of polyphonic music went out and the new came in. To understand the change, I beg the reader to refrain from impatience under the infliction of a few technicalities; they are a regrettable but inexorable necessity.
The old polyphonic music differed from the newer harmonic music in three respects: 1. Form and Structure. Nearly all the important old music, the music that counts, was for voices for chorus with or without accompaniment. "Forms," in the modern sense of the word cyclical forms with recurring themes arranged in regular sequence, and with development passages, etc. of these there were none.
Then followed the next logical step, namely, the attempt to imitate externals. Such pieces as Jannequin's "Chant des Oiseaux" and Gombert's "Chasse du Liévre" are examples of what was achieved in this direction. Finally, Palestrina demonstrated the scope of polyphonic music in the expression of religious emotions at times bordering upon the dramatic in their poignancy.
I advise technic practise with each hand alone, for you must know I am a firm believer in the study of pure technic outside of pieces. "As the student advances we take up chord playing with different touches, scales, arpeggios and octaves. I institute quite early what I call polyphonic technic one hand doing a different movement or touch from the other.
Viewed rightly, this suits the modern democratic instinct, and there is to-day a tendency to return to polyphonic writing. It is individuality in union. In the hands of genius it affords the most refined kind of harmony. A thorough knowledge of counterpoint shows the mistake of regarding it merely as a dull relic of a dead past.
This method of "imitation" was employed by all the polyphonic composers. Continuity was assured; lovely or unlovely harmonic dissonances were always arising, and being resolved through the collisions and onward movement of parts; the music, both melodically and harmonically, could be as expressive as the particular composer's powers allowed.
"I know you do," said Michael; "but what's the fiddle above all as you play it? What you want is polyphonic music. And I'll tell you what it is since it's too late for you to buy a piano I'll give you mine." "Thank you," said the artist blankly. "You will give me yours? I am sure it's very good in you."
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