From the date
of the invention of music written and sung in parts, a similar problem
had been set successive generations of musicians, and solved by each
according to its needs and lights. At first words were indispensable;
they were, if not the backbone of the music, at least the string on
which the pearls might be strung. The first veritable composers--in
setting, for instance, the words of the Mass--took for a beginning a
fragment of Church melody, or, to the great scandal of the
ecclesiastics, secular melody. Call this bit A, and say it was sung by
Voice I.; Voice II. took it up in a different key, Voice I. continuing
with something fresh; then Voice III. took it in turn, Voices I. and II.
continuing either with entirely fresh matter, or Voice II. following in
the steps of Voice I. And so on, either until the whole piece was
complete or a section ended; but the end of one section was the
jumping-off place for the commencement of another, which was spun out in
exactly the same way. 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.
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