PON PEO AE OLE I 
aK prt: 
ii 
29 
sound and all the merits of the preceding period. Its special gain 
was the introduction of new harmonies, the chord of the seventh 
being made familiar by Monteverde, which enormously increased 
the means for the suggestion of strong passion. The accompanied 
recitatives, airs, and choruses of the later 17th century, with the 
addition of instrumental interludes, were integrated into great 
works lasting for two or three hours. The oratorios of Handel, 
and the Passions, Masses, and Cantatas of Bach, brought the form of 
accompanied vocal music to its climax, and it became equilibrated, 
ceasing to develop farther. 
The evolution of pure instrumental music was described as 
the most wonderful and interesting of all. As already mentioned, 
i} was differentiated from vocal music by the year 1600. It inte- 
grated into various forms, some of which are a close imitation of 
the vocal song and the vocal fugue; but the Fantasia and the 
Sonata or Symphony are purely instrumental. Considerable at- 
tention was given to the latter form; the rhythmical contrasts in 
which the great masters of the Sonata excelled were illustrated by 
examples from Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven; and were com- 
pared with the homogeneity of early tunes, where nearly all the 
notes are the same length. How homogeneity became hetereo- 
genity, as regards power of tone, was shown by a contrast of 
Handel’s simple methods with the continual gradation and shading 
indicated by later composers ; and also by the fact that a beginner 
on the pianoforte plays every note with exactly the same strength ; 
as he improves he first learns to differentiate the melody from the 
accompaniment, making the performance heterogeneous, and the 
heterogeneity continually increases as the performer’s skill 
develops up to the subtle gradations and the prodigious sudden 
contrasts of the very greatest pianists. Mr. Davey also made 
some remarks upon equal temperament, which extends key-rela- 
tionship, by which all the factors of the Sonata are welded into 
one connected whole ; and upon modulation, which enables a 
variety of scales to be used in a composition. 
A glance was also taken at the lyrical sentiment developed in 
this century, and at the last resource of importance brought into 
music, the Leit-Motif, a succession of notes labelled with a title, 
and employed by Berlioz and,Wagner much in the same way as a 
. known proposition is employed in a mathematical demonstration. 
Then, speaking of his original proposition as proved, Mr. Davey 
discussed the theories of Helmholtz concerning temperament and 
the chords which have the best effect ; and said that the great 
physicist had not realised that music consists of successions of 
sounds, and not of isolated chords, and depends on a great many 
other things besides beauty of sound. Mr. Davey played a por- 
tion of a piece by Alkan, using close harmonies at the bottom of 
the pianoforte, which, according to Helmholtz, would be the worst 
