Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

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SEQUENCE SEQUENCE 415
Beethoven's famous Septet for strings and
wind naturally heads the Ust, and Hummel's
for piano, stiings, and wind is the next best
known, though it is far inferior to Spohr's
difficult and brilliant work for a. similar combination
(op. 147). A striking, though too
seldom heard composition, is Saint- Saens's
Septet for piano, strings, and trumpet, op. 65.
Operatic situations have seldom given rise
to, or opportunity for, vocal septets, but the
magnificent specimen in the last act of Goetz's
Taming of the Shrew ' deserves foremost
mention. F. C.
SEQUENCE is generally taken to mean the
repetition of a definite group of notes or chords
in different positions of the scale, like regular
steps ascending or descending, as in the following
it has long been considered allowable to introduce
intervals and combinations, in those
cii'cumstances, which would otherwise have
been held inadmissible. Thus a triad on the
leading note would in ordinary circumstances
be considered as a discord, and would be limited
in progression accordingly ; but if it occurred
in a sequence, its limitations were freely obviated
by the preponderant influence of the established
form of motion. Such diatonic sequences, called
also sometimes diatonic successions, are extremely
familiar in Handel's works. A typical
instance is a Gapriccio in G major, published
in Pauer's ' Alte Meister,' which contains at
least fifteen sequences, some of them unusually
long ones, in four pages of Allegro. The subject
itself is a characteristic example of a sequence
in a single part ; it is as follows :
outlines :
The device has been a favourite one with
composers, irom Corelli, Bach, and Handel, to
Schumann, Brahms, and Wagner. The reason
is partly that it is so thoroughly intelligible
without being commonplace. The mind is
easily led from point to point by recognising
eacli successive step after the first group of
chords has been given, and is sufficiently
interested by the slight amount of diversity
which prevails at each repetition. It thus
supplies a vital element of form in a manner
which in some cases has certain advantages over
simple exact repetition, especially when short
phrases are repeated in juxtaposition. It was
consequently made much use of by early composers
of sonatas, and instrumental works of
like nature, such as Corelli and his immediate
successors ; and in many cases examples make
their appearance at analogous points in different
movements, indicating the recognition of formal
principles in their introduction. This occurs,
for instance, near the beginning of the second
half in the following movements from Corelli's
Opera Quaita : Corrente and Allemanda of
Sonata 1, Allemanda and Corrente of Sonata
2, Corrente of Sonata 3, Corrente and Giga
of Sonata 4, Gavotte of Sonata 5, Allemanda
and Giga of Sonata 6, and so forth. A
large proportion of both ancient and modem
sequences are diatonic ; that is, the groups are
repeated analogously in the same key series,
without consideration of the real difference of
quality in the intervals ; so that major sevenths
occasionally answer minor sevenths, and diminished
fifths perfect fifths, and so forth ; and
A kind of sequence which was early developed
but which is more characteristic of later music,
is the modulatory sequence, sometimes also
called chromatic. In this form accidentals are
introduced, sometimes by following exactly the
quality of the intervals where the diatonic series
would not admit of them, and sometimes by
pui'posely altering them to gain the step of
modulation. This will be easily intelligible
from
^^^^^
the following example :
The usefulness of the device in such circumstances
is, if anything, even more marked than
it is in a single key, because of the greater
breadth of range which it allows, and the closeness
and cogency of the successive transitions
which it renders possible. A compact and
significant example to the point is the following
from a fugue by Cherubini in C major :
i^^^^^^i
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Beethoven made very remarkable use of this
device, especially in the great Sonata in Bb,
op. 106, from which an example is quoted in
the article Modulation [vol. iii. p. 239]. The
'
working out ' portion of the fii-st movement of
the same sonata is an almost unbroken series of
sequences of both orders ; and the introduction
to the final fugue is even more remarkable, both
for the length of the sequence, and the originality
of its treatment. The first-mentioned,