I do not say the composers knew what they were
after; on the contrary, as in the beginnings of anything new in any art,
they simply were vaguely groping after something, they did not by any
means realise what.
During the period when the polyphonic writers were pouring out their
most glorious and living stuff, in the first lame, crude fugues the
medium was being prepared for the triumphs of Handel and Bach; and in
the same way, while Bach was writing the G minor and A minor fugues (I
am not speaking of vocal music) some smaller men were working at what
was destined to grow into the symphony, sonata and quartet. These terms
are used here in their present-day signification. In the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries such words as symphony and overture, and suite and
sonata, were interchangeable; but that does not at all concern us here.
The symphony or sonata or quartet form is what these early groups of
movements led up to. That these groups of movements originated in the
theatre is quite probable; this is indicated by the mere fact that the
word "overture" was frequently used to describe them. When the fugue was
in its fullest maturity composers were turning overtures out in vast
quantities. Our own Arne tried his hand at them, and no one looking at
_his_ would dream that the sonata form was so nearly ripe at the time.
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