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Partly by reason of the confusion caused by obedience to old polyphonic customs in making the accompaniments, and partly because the madrigal had become a field for the display of vocal agility. Already the development of colorature singing had reached a high degree of perfection. Already the singer sought to astonish the hearer by covering an air with a bewildering variety of ornaments.
'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.
If no other evidence were at hand, the works of Vecchi would be sufficient to prove that the logical progress of the medieval lyric drama in one direction had led it into the very mazes of the polyphonic wilderness. Much misinformation concerning this madrigal drama has been disseminated by the comfortable process of repeating without scrutiny errors early fastened upon histories of music.
It is absurd to class her as a disciple of free verse, or of imagism, or of polyphonic prose; she delights in trying her hand at all three of these styles of composition, for she is an experimentalist; but much of her work is in the strictest orthodox forms, and when she has what the Methodists used to call liberty, no form or its absence can prevent her from writing poetry.
But, as all students of musical history know, the study of the art originated among the fathers of the church and in their pursuit of principles of structure they chose a path which led them directly away from the rhythmic and strophic basis of the song and into the realm of polyphonic imitation.
There is everything in fact except polyphonic prose, and although I am afraid she loves her experiments in that form, they are the portion of her complete works that I could most willingly let die. Her sensitiveness to colours and to sounds is clearly betrayed all through the romantic narrative of the Cremona Violin, where the instrument is a symbol of the human heart.
During Lent we sang, unaccompanied, Palestrina and Vittoria, and this sixteenth-century polyphonic music requires singing with such exactitude that it needs the utmost concentration and sustained attention, if the results are to be satisfactory. The organist was quite pleased with his make-shift choir; though, as a thorough musician, he was rather exacting.
The predominant feature of this music is harmony, brought forth by the union, not of sounds, but of melodies different and contrasting melodies united in harmony, that is the characteristic of the polyphonic school, and the rhythm is marked, not by accents, but by changes of the chords.
But the desire for resolution is historically much later than the distinction between consonance and dissonance.... "What we call resolution is not change from dissonant to consonant IN GENERAL, but the transition of definite tones of a dissonant interval into DEFINITE TONES of a consonant."<1> The dissonance comes from the device of getting variety, in polyphonic music, by letting some parts lag behind, and the discords which arose while they were catching up were resolved in the final coming together; but the STEPS were all PREDETERMINED.<2> Resolution was inevitably implied by the very principle on which the device is founded.
The old polyphonic music he knew, and he was a master of polyphonic writing; but with him it was only a means to the carrying out of a scheme very unlike any the old writers ever thought of the interest of each separate part is not greater than the general harmonic interest. Then, as he admitted, he learnt a great deal from the Italians.
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