DICTIONARY OF MUSIC - El Atril

IMPERFECT IMPERFECT 461
to become clerk to a city attorney, copyist to
the Academy, and amanuensis to Dr. Pepusch.
He possessed a strong alto voice and played
inditferently on the flute, violin, viol da gamba,
and harpsichord. At the age of forty, by the
sole aid of Mace's Muncle's Monument, he
learned to play upon the lute. In 1741
he established the Madrigal Society [see
Madrigal Society]. In 1752, upon the death
of John Shore, he was appointed lutenist of the
Chapel Royal. He was a diligent collector and
assiduous student of the works of the madrigal
writers and other early composers, but had no
taste whatever for the music of his own time. He
died of asthma at his residence in Cold Bath
Fields, April 15, 1764.
His son John' made music his profession,
became a violoncellist and organist, and was
the first organist of Surrey Chapel, Blackfriara
Road, which post he held for about a year,
until his death in 1794. w. h. h.
IMPERFECT (Lat. Imperfeetus, Ital. Imper-
felto). A term employed, in Music, in relation
to Time, to Melody, to Cadence, and to Interval.
I. Time. Medieval writers (accustomed to
look upon the number Three—the symbol of
the Blessed Trinity— as the sign of perfection)
applied the term, Imperfect, to all rhythmic
proportions subject to the binary division.
The notes of measured music were called
Imperfect, when divisible into two equal
portions. Thus, the Minim— always equal to
two Crotchets only—was essentially Imperfect,
in conmion with all other notes shorter than
the Semibreve. The Large was also Imperfect,
whenever it was made eijual to two Longs ; the
Long, when equal to two Breves ; the Breve,
when equal to two Semibreves ; and the Semibreve
when equal to two Minims.
The Imperfection of the Minim, and Crotchet,
was inherent in their nature. That of the
longer notes was governed, for the most part,
by the species of Mood, Time, or Prolation, in
which they were written ; for, Mood, Time, and
Prolation, were themselves capable of assuming
a perfect, or an imperfect form. In the Great
Mood Imperfect, the Large was equal to two
Longs only, and therefore Imperfect ; while all
shorter notes were Perfect, and, consequently,
divisible by three. In the Lessej- Mood Imperfect,
the Long was, in like manner, equal to no
more than two Breves. In Imperfect Time, the
Breve was equal to two Seinihreves. In the
Lesser (or Imperfect) Prolation, the Semibreve
was equal to two Minims.
But notes, even when perfect by virtue of the
Mood, Time, or Prolation in which they were
that, in
written, could be made imperfect ; and
several different ways.
A Perfect note was made Imperfect ' by
position,' when another note, or rest, of half its
value, was written either before or after it ;
thus, the Semibreves in the following example.
though written under the signature of the
Greater Prolation, were each equal to two
Minims only
E^
Black square notes, though Perfect by the
Modal Sign, became Imperfect in like manner
when mixed with white ones : thus, in the
following example, each white Breve is equal to
three Semibreves, and the black one, to two
only—
Again, the Perfection, or Imperfection, of any
note whatever, could be regulated by means of
a Point.
Imperfect notes were made Perfect by the
Point of Augmentation— the exact equivalent to
the dot in modern music, and, therefore, needing
no example.
Notes perfect by the modal sign, but rendered
imperfect by position, could be restored to
perfection by a Point of Division, as in the next
example, where the first Semibreve, equal, in
the Greater Prolation, to three Minims, would
be made imperfect by the Minim which follows
it, were it not for the Point of Division placed
between the two notes
^
In both these cases, the Point serves to augment
the value of tlie notes : but, it may also
be made to produce an exactly contrary effect.
For instance, a Point of Division, jJaced between
two shorter notes, following and preceding two
longer ones, in Perfect Time, served, anciently,
to render both the longer notes Imperfect. In
the following example, therefore, the Breves are
equal to two Semibreves only
P=b^
There are other ways in which the Perfection
of certain notes may be changed to Injperfection,
and vice versa ; and, for these, the Student
will do well to consult the pages of Zaceoni,
Zarlino, and Thomas Morley. [See Mood,
Notation, Point, Prolation, Proportion,
Time.]
II. Writers on Plain-song apply the term
Imperfect to melodies which fail to extend
throughout the entire compass of the mode in
which they are written. Thus, the melody
of the Antiphon, Angclus autem Domini, is in
the Eighth Mode ; but, as it only extends from
F to D—two notes short of the full range of the
Hypomixolydian scale—it is called an Imperfect
Melody. w. s. r.
III. For Imperfect Cadence, see Cadence,
vol. i. p. 4.37.
IV. For Imperfect Interval, see Interval.