rather to point out that in symphonic music it is by the quality of tone that the essence of an idea is conveyed. The tone of the instrument is like the inflection of the voice in speaking, wherein the truth is conveyed although you speak an untruth. An oath might be a prayer but for the inflection.

The pianoforte or the violin, or any other single instrument, has but little variety of tone; the orchestra, on the other hand, has not only four distinct groups of instruments, each group having its own tone quality, but within two of these groups1 there are considerable differences in what is called "tone color." It is of no great importance to know that the solo near the beginning of the slow movement of the César Franck symphony is played on an English horn, but it is important to feel the quality of the tone, and to realize how largely the effect of the theme depends on it. For some obscure reason many people remain insensitive to qualities of tone color. (Perhaps they have received their musical education at the pianoforte which, under unskillful hands, differs only in loud and soft.) One so seldom observes a listener even amused by the antics of Beethoven's double-basses, and yet, in at least four of his symphonies, their behavior is at times extremely ludicrous. He whose humor ranges all the way from the most delicate, ironic smile to a terrible, tragic laughter, wherein joy and sorrow meet, as meet they must when either presses far,he achieves these remarkable effects largely by means of the tone quality of the instruments. In his Fifth Symphony he creates the most thrilling effect by means of some score or more of reiterated notes in the soft, muffled tones of the kettledrum. In the finale to the First Symphony of Brahms it is the tone of the French horn, and again of the flute, that creates for us such profound illusions of beauty as pierce to our very soul. From the depths of the orchestra the horn chants its ennobled song; then follows the dulcet blow-pipe of the flute singing the same magic theme. These varied tones succeeding one another, or melting one into the other-these are the

In the "wood-wind" group, so called, there are flutes, oboe, clarinets, bassoons, English horn, etc.; in the brass, there are trumpets, French horns, trombones, tubas, etc.

colors that animate and beautify the forms into which the thoughts fall. What delicate nonsense filigree the violins draw in the slow movement of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony; how sepulchral the bassoon with its mock sadness; what a vibrant quality do the violoncellos and the contra bases give to the great melody in the finale to the Ninth; with what poignancy does the clarinet give voice to the sentiment of the second theme in the slow movement of Brahms's Third Symphony. How luxurious and vivid is the application of all these varied hues to the design.

A fine singing voice has, perhaps, the most beautiful of all tone colors, but the sensibility of many people seems to be limited to that alone. In fact the love of singing is, in many cases, merely a sentimental thrill unconnected with any intellectual process and entirely devoid of imagination. In the orchestra the tone of the instrument is to the theme itself what the color is to the rose. It is much more than that, of course, because it is at any time both retrospective and prospective; this tone color is a darker or lighter shade of that, or, perchance, another hue entirely. The colors shift from moment to moment always as a part of the design rather than as mere color.

Taking it all together-rhythm, meter, melody, harmony, and tone color-this substance of a symphony is a wonderful thing. Nothing quite so delicately organized has ever been created by the mind and the imagination of man. With an interplay of parts almost equal to that of a finely adjusted machine, it seems to go where it wills to go regardless of anything but a whim. How marvelously does it express both the actions and the dreams of human beings; how true is it to their deeper consciousness-a consciousness that dimly fathoms both life and death; that knows itself to be a part of the ages to come. It is just as likely that life is a brief, shadowed moment in an endless light, as that it is "a rapid, blinking stumble across a flick of sunshine."

'In his first essay, "What is Music?" Mr. Surette supplies needful definitions: "Melody in music consists in a sequence of single sounds curved to some line of beauty. Whereas rhythm is conceivable without any intellectual quality, as a purely physical manifestation,-melody implies some sense of design, since it progresses from one point in time to another, and with

out design would be merely a series of incoherent sounds. In this design rhythm plays a leading part, and the themes having the most perfect balance of rhythms are the most interesting. Examples of diverse but highly coordinated melodies may be found in the slow movement of Beethoven's pianoforte sonata, Opus 13, and in Brahms's pianoforte quartette, Opus 60, the synthetic quality of which is like that of a finely constructed sentence. Melody, being design, gives conscious evidence of the personality of its creator. Schubert, for example, is like Keats and represents a type of pure lyric utterance. Bach, on the contrary, is essentially a thinker, and his melodies are full of vigorous and diversified rhythms. Harmony

is an adjunct to the other two elements. It is in music something of what color is in painting. As contrasted with the long line of melody and the regular impulses in time of rhythm, harmony deals in masses. Melody carries the mind from one point to another; harmony strikes simultaneously and produces an immediate sensation."

A few other elementary statements may be useful to some readers.

"In simple phrase Melody is a well-ordered series of tones heard successively; Harmony, a well-ordered series heard simultaneously; Rhythm, a symmetrical grouping of tonal time units vitalized by accent. The lifeblood of music is Melody, and a complete conception of the term embodies within itself the essence of both its companions. A succession of tones without harmonic regulation is not a perfect element in music; neither is a succession of tones which have harmonic regulation but are void of rhythm. The beauty and expressiveness, especially the emotionality, of a musical composition depend upon the harmonies which either accompany the melody in the form of chords (a group of melodic intervals sounded simultaneously), or are latent in the melody itself (harmonic intervals sounded successively). Melody is Harmony analyzed; Harmony is Melody synthesized.

"The fundamental principle of Form is repetition of melodies, which are to music what ideas are to poetry. Melodies themselves are made by repetition of smaller fractions called motives (a term borrowed from the fine arts), phrases, and periods, which derive their individuality from their rhythmical or intervallic characteristics. Melodies are not all of the simple kind which the musically illiterate, or the musically ill-trained, recognize as 'tunes,' but they all have a symmetrical organization."-How to Listen to Music, H. E. Krehbiel, Scribner's, 1896, pp. 22-23.

"All music is made from 'phrases.' Music, like prose or verse, consists of a series of sentences, divided by its commas, colons, and full stops. In musical parlance the sentence is called a 'phrase'; the various kinds of stops are represented in sound by breaks in the musical flow, from the tiniest little halt between consecutive sounds to the long period of silence. Music is also punctuated by certain harmonic progressions, called 'cadences,' which bring to the mind the idea of more or less complete rest and 'finish.' "Unlike prose, and more analogous to verse, is the grouping of phrases into regular periods that balance one another; just as certain lines of poetry not merely rhyme with others but contain the same number of feet and accents, so musical sentences or phrases balance one another." "The phrase is almost always melodic, that is to say the pitch of its notes varies. The most simple form of music is that which is melodic, and in one part (i. e., one set of notes sounding at a time) only. Unaccompanied solo song is the most ready example of this, and the folksong instantly leaps to the mind."-On Listening to Music, by E. Markham Lee, pp. 11-15 (E. P. Dutton Co.)

The 'sonata form' is composite or cyclical; that is, it is composed of two or more parts or movements. It includes the symphony, symphonic poem or tone poem (invented by Liszt, and frequent in 'program music'), concerto, sonata, and forms of chamber music such as trios and quartets for stringed instruments or for strings and piano. The overture, like the tonepoem, may appear to have but a single movement, but is also constructed on this pattern. Krehbiel explains that a composition of this general type is a sonata if written for a solo instrument like the piano, or for the violin with piano accompaniment. If the accompaniment be written for an orchestra, then the piece is called a concerto, while "a sonata written for an orchestra is a symphony.”—Editor.

JAZZ: A MUSICAL DISCUSSION

By CARL ENGEL

Jazz,
sarabande
and waltz

To a great many minds, the word "jazz" implies frivolous or obscene deportment. Let me ask what the word "sarabande" suggests to you? I have no doubt that to most of you it will mean everything that is diametrically opposed to "jazzing." When you hear mention of a "sarabande," you think of Bach's, of Handel's slow and stately airs; you think of noble and dignified strains in partitas, sonatas, and operas of the eighteenth century. Yet the sarabande, when it was first danced in Spain, about 1588, was probably far more shocking to behold than is the most shocking jazz today. The sarabande seems to have been of Moorish origin. Then, as now, the oriental, the exotic touch, gave dancing an added fillip. When Lady Mary Mantagu, writing from Adrianople in 1717, described the dance that she saw in the seraglio of a rich Mussulman, she made allusions which leave no uncertainty as to the exact nature of these proceedings. Something of that character must have belonged to the earliest sarabandes. They were the proud Hidalgo's hoolah-hoolah.

A French author, Pierre de Lancre, wrote in 1613: "The courtesans who mingle with the players have given this dance such a vogue on the stage, that there is hardly a young girl in the country who cannot copy them to perfection." How truly the same might be said of our generation; it is the stage that starts a novel mode of dancing, the public which is alert to ape it and outstep it. Father Mariana, in his book De Spectaculis, published in 1609, devoted a whole chapter to an attack on the sarabande, accusing it of having done more harm than the bubonic plague which devastated Europe in the Middle Ages.

Reprinted from the Atlantic Monthly for August, 1922, by permission of the editor and of the author. The introduction and the conclusion have been omitted. Dr. Engel is Chief of the Music Division of the Library of Congress, a writer upon musical subjects, and a composer.