Musical Structure and Design

INTRODUCTION

EVER SINCE THERE have been men who have deliberately set out to compose pieces of music, and to give them a more or less permanent form by recording them in writing, they have been faced with one problem above all others. That problem arises at some point during the progress of the composition, and stated baldly, it takes the form of the question ‘What shall I do next?’

In some periods of musical history, various different satisfactory kinds of solution have been found. At other times, composers have been less sure of themselves. Indeed, practically the whole of one century—the seventeenth—was devoted to the task of evolving, by the trial-and-error method, suitable ways of achieving continuity in that music employing instruments which (following on the invention and development of the violin family), replaced the hitherto prevailing purely vocal forms just about the end of the sixteenth century. Not that the composers of that day were conscious of being primarily concerned with any such thing; musical history shows that deliberate preoccupation with externals cannot of itself result in the production of masterpieces.

The aim of this book is to describe the answers which the best composers of different periods have given to the above question; to discuss the varying structural requirements of different musical styles, and to illustrate from the music itself the ways in which the greatest musical creative artists have met these requirements.

The most casual lover of music will find greater enjoyment in his listening if he has some understanding of the long- and short-range plans of the composer, for without it music can be only a matter of the momentary enjoyment of isolated sensations which happen to reach the seat of the emotions. To the serious music-student, whether he be an aspirant to the profession of music, or a listener determined to extract from the art as much as he can of that which so many great men have put into it, intimate and conscious understanding of design is even more important than close acquaintance with the technical details of harmony and counterpoint. For the composer, appreciation of the methods and achievements of his forerunners is the only sure foundation upon which he can build for himself.

To hear music and to listen to it are not necessarily the same thing. One can hear while thinking about something else, just as one can see things from the window of a bus while the attention is elsewhere; but listening requires continuous attention to the music, as a play requires continuous attention to the words and action.

Attentive listening is for several reasons much more widespread today than it was, say, fifty years ago. There is a more general understanding of the fact that great music is not something that has come into being, as it were by magic, through an intermediary known as a composer, but that it is the careful, thoughtful, and largely deliberate creation of men whose aptitude, inclination, studies and labour have all been concentrated on the creation of something which did not exist before. This realisation has led to an increase in the number of listeners who have found pleasure in doing justice to the creators of these new things by giving their work the close attention which it deserves.

This word ‘attention’ is really the key to the whole matter. It is no very formidable task to devote one’s mental energy for a short time to concentration upon the unfolding design of a piece of music, any more than it is to read a book; indeed, there are many similarities between attentive listening and attentive reading, and the student of music would do well to regard his listening as an occupation calling upon much the same faculties as his reading. The one essential difference lies in the need, in attentive listening, for exercising the memory to the extent of being able to recognise the re-appearance of passages already heard; but the development of this faculty is by no means difficult, and it is quickly improved by practice and experience. There is no need for alarm at early failures to recollect certain features of music that have been heard; ability to do so grows quickly, and is helped by the repeated hearings of the same piece which the gramophone makes possible.

The understanding, and therefore the study, of musical design (or form, or structure), is one of the essentials of intelligent attentive listening; but it brings with it a very real danger which the examination system, and the text-books written with that system in view, have tended to accentuate.

The author’s experience has been, (great as is the number of books devoted in whole or in part to the subject of musical design, and excellent as is the quality of some of them), that too little stress is as a rule laid upon the fact that music is an art which includes time (measured in hours, minutes and seconds) among its elements; in other words, that it exists not on paper to be looked at, but in the time element to be listened to; that the printed copy is no more than a series of reminders or indications of what the music is intended to sound like, and that no amount of paper ingenuity is of the slightest consequence, or is even related to the art of music at all, unless it signifies an effect which can be appreciated by the ear. This book contains several reminders of the need for regarding music as matter for appreciation through actual hearing, and the author makes no apology for the fact, since the book has failed in its purpose if it does not do something to remedy this defect of some of its predecessors.

It is useless to imagine that by examining the printed copy and marking off sections of the music as if they were measurable in feet and inches, one can acquire much idea of the really important aspects of musical design. It would be easy to take all the sonata-movements that Beethoven ever wrote, and measure them off in this way. One would probably receive the impression that the master had produced some hundreds of almost identical objects, and might be forgiven for wondering why Beethoven should be regarded as the intellectual superior of anybody working on a mass-production line.

Teachers and students alike run the risk, if they are not ever watchful of the need to regard music as music, of confusing the basic design with the finished individual product; of coming—to put the point slightly differently—to regard musical forms as if they were moulds into which composers simply have to pour their music; or (a better simile) as if they were like architects’ plans to which unlimited numbers of virtually identical houses may be constructed.

The truth about musical design is far different, and may well be illustrated by reference rather to living beings. For example, no two humans are quite alike in appearance, let alone in spirit and character; the same can be said of cats or dogs, and no doubt of earwigs or cheese-mites. Yet all the members of each species conform to a common type, in so far as all are built on a recognisably similar framework, while all have common outward characteristics (e.g., all humans have two eyes, ten toes, and so on). Similarly, no two pieces of music are exactly alike. Each piece has its own unique characteristics and personality, evolved from its own materials and in its own environment. Yet the progress of the art of music has brought with it the evolution of a number of well-defined types of structural basis, to one or another of which the majority of movements conform.

In this sense, there can be said to exist an anatomy of music, and the profitable study of musical design consists in mastering the anatomical principles without losing sight of the fact that they are no more than that, and then examining the ways in which the great composers have made them the basis of the living individual organisms which are their creations.

This book claims to be a text-book only in so far as it may help to clarify the practice of the great men of the past; it does not pretend to give information as to how the music of the present should be designed, since the author is convinced that great music exists only where significant musical material is allied to the form which for itself is the right one, and that a large percentage of the music of today (as of every age) will be found by posterity not to meet this condition, and will be discarded as the concertos of Hummel have been discarded, no matter how interesting it may be to its composers’ contemporaries. Let the composer, therefore, work out his own salvation; if he is a great man with important things to say, he will learn how to say them in the best way, as Bach, Mozart, and Wagner did.

It is dangerous to rely too much upon analogy, but we may helpfully compare the position of the composer producing living pieces of music—each with its own individuality yet belonging to its species—with that of the great classical painters, whose intimate knowledge of anatomy provided the basis upon which they created their figures, giving them life and character by their genius. The music-student, whether he would write music, or understand fully what others have written, must learn his musical anatomy; but, having mastered it, he must beware of any temptation to regard pieces of music which he cannot fit to preconceived notions of ‘form’ as being defective in design.

Sir Donald Tovey writing of Beethoven’s pianoforte sonata in B flat (op. 22), says that it ‘is the work in which Beethoven has achieved as pure a normality as an art-form can maintain without losing its individual life’.¹ Elsewhere he calls the same piece ‘the most conventional of all Beethoven’s works’² and ‘Beethoven’s one model sonata.’³ This is as much as to say that, while it is possible, by taking the average measurements of all human beings, to produce a mathematical statement of the size, weight, features and character of a theoretical ‘average man’, such men do not in fact exist; or, if one can be found, he is just as much an individual, different from all other individuals, as any one of the other two thousand million human beings who are not ‘average’. Similarly, some movements (for example, the first movement of Mozart’s pianoforte concerto in A major, K. 488) may coincide in most respects with the average proportions of all examples; but they are not for that reason necessarily either more or less perfect than other pieces.

Human beings are interesting according to the beauty of appearance and individuality of character which they develop on their own account out of their share of the common material, rather than because of the number of their ribs. Similarly, pieces of music are interesting when they bring variety and originality of thought to the basic designs.

As a consequence of the need to keep within reasonable limits of space, the anatomical principles which underly the Western European music of the three-and-a-half centuries between 1550 and 1900 are set forth in this book somewhat baldly. For the student who wishes to go more closely into the theory of the matter, a short bibliography of some of the most rewarding books has been provided. More space is thereby made available for discussion of the real music which the great composers have given us, not by breathing life into dead bodies, but by bringing about the growth of living ones.

Many of the illustrations in this book consist of detailed analyses of certain pieces of music which can only be appreciated by close reference to the printed copy in preparation for, and in conjunction with, actual aural acquaintance; a relatively simple matter for the student of today who has gramophone and radio at his disposal. The author’s aim has been to use for the illustrations such music as is easily accessible either by purchase or in good public libraries, and (where it cannot be played for study purposes by a pianist of average ability) is frequently to be heard by wireless, or easily obtainable in recorded form.

It remains to take note of three indispensible conditions for the successful study of musical design. The first is, that the student must regard text-books, including the present one, as no more than aids to his unceasing study of the music itself. [Such study need never come to an end within the span of one human life, and provided it is always directed towards music as heard and not as looked at in print, it will always be rewarded by an ever-increasing insight into the workings of great minds, and by continuous satisfaction in and enjoyment of their work.]

The second condition is, that the student must take note of the revolution brought about in the understanding of music by the writings of Sir Donald Tovey, and be prepared to draw upon them constantly for help and guidance in his own work. It is no exaggeration to say that no printed word of Tovey’s can safely be ignored by anyone who takes music seriously; but, above all, his volume of Musical Articles from the Encyclopaedia Britannica, his Beethoven and his seven volumes of Essays in Musical Analysis should be the constant companion of the student.

The third condition is set out by the late Dr R. O. Morris in his book The Structure of Music, where he insists upon the need for the student to build up at least a small library of basic musical texts for himself. The actual possession, for immediate and constant reference, of such things as Beethoven’s pianoforte sonatas, Bach’s ‘48’, and miniature scores of a few dozen of the greatest things in choral, orchestral and chamber music is essential. Even in these hard days there are many rewards for the diligent searcher of secondhand music-shops and catalogues, and some shillings (or pounds) spent upon scores as occasion and ability allow, constitute a real investment just as certainly as the money spent by a joiner upon his tools.

The glossary of musical forms claims only to give a few essential facts, and should be supplemented where necessary by reference to Grove’s Dictionary.

¹ Companion to Beethoven’s pianoforte sonatas, p. 86.

² Beethoven, p. 106.

³ Collected Articles from the Encyclopaedia Britannica, p. 125.

I

THE SMALLEST UNITS OF MUSICAL DESIGN

THE CONSTRUCTION OF intelligible music is akin in many respects to that of intelligible verse or prose. Musical sounds, like words, are built into clauses, sentences and paragraphs; and big movements, like the chapters of a novel or the cantos of an epic poem, are constructed of successions of logically-connected paragraphs.

Also, as literature is punctuated by commas, colons, full stops and the rest, so is music punctuated continuously by the chord-progressions known as cadences. It is taken for granted that the student is familiar with the sound of the most frequently-used cadences, but it is necessary to say a few words about them at this point. Cadences fall into three broad classes—those which give the mental impressions of rest, of incompleteness, and of surprise. The first class includes perfect and plagal cadences; the second imperfect, and the third interrupted cadences. But within each class there is a very large scope for subtlety of grading; compare, for example, the effects of two perfect cadences, in the first of which the melody comes to rest on the mediant, and in the second on the tonic.

Ex. 1

It needs no particular sensitivity of ear to recognise that though both give the impression of rest, the second cadence of the example has a