Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

SONATA 507
being taken as part of the idea ; and this is
essentially a quality of sonata-form. So the
movements appear to hang midway between the
two radically distinct domains of form ; and
while deriving most of their disposition from
the older manners, they look forward, though
obscurely, in the direction of modern practices.
How obscure the ideas of the time on the subject
must have been, appears from the other point
which has been mentioned above ; which is,
that in a few cases Kuhnau has hit upon clear
outlines of tonal form. In the second Sonata,
for instance, there are two Arias, as they are
called. They do not correspond in the least
with modern notions of an aria any more than
do the rare examples in Bach's and Handel's
Suites. The first is a little complete piece of
sixteen bai's, divided exactly into halves by a
double bar, with repeats after the familiar
manner. The first half begins in F and ends
in C, the second half goes as far as D minor
and back, to conclude in F again. The subjectmatter
is iiTegularly distributed iu the parts,
and does not make any pretence of coinciding
with the tonal divisions. The second Aria is
on a different plau, and is one of the extremely
rare examples in this early period of clear
coincidence between subject and key. It is
in the form which is often perversely misnamed
'lied-form,' which will in this place be called
'
primary form ' to avoid circumlocution and
waste of space. It consists of twenty bars in
D minor representing one distinct idea, complete
with close : then sixteen bars devoted to
a different subject, beginning iu Bt> and passing
back ultimately to D minor, recapitulating the
whole of the first twenty bars iu that key, and
emphasising the close by repeating the last fombars.
Such decisiveness, when compared with
the unregulated and unbalanced wandering of
longer movements, either points to the conclusion
that composers did not realise the
desirableness of balance in coincident ranges of
subject and key on a large scale ; or that they
were only capable of feeling it in short and
easily grasped movements. It seems highly
probable that their minds, being projected
towards the kind of distribution of subject which
obtained in fugal movements, were not on the
look-out for effects of the sonata order which to
modems appear so obvious. So that, even if
they had been capable of realising them more
systematically, they would not yet have thought
it worth while to ap]ily their knowledge. In
following the development of the Sonata, it
ought never to be forgotten that composers had
no idea whither they were tending, and had to
use what they did know as stepping-stones to
the unknown. In art, each step that is gained
opens a fresh vista ; but often, till the new
position is mastered, what lies beyond is completely
hidden and undreamed of. In fact,
each step is not so much a conquest of new
land, as the creation of a new mental or
emotional position in the human organism.
The achievements of art are the unravellings of
hidden possibilities of abstract law, through the
constant and cumulative extension'of instincts.
They do not actually exist till man has made
them ; they are the counterpart of his internal
conditions, and change and develop with the
changes of his mental powers and sensitive
qualities, and apart from him have no validity.
There is no such thing as leaping across a oliasm
on to a new continent, neither is there any
gulf fixed anywhere, but continuity and inevitable
antecedents to every consequent ; the
roots of the greatest masterpieces of modern
times lie obscm-ely hidden in the wild dances
and barbarous bowlings of the remotest ancestors
of the race, who began to take pleasure in rhythm
and sound, and every step was into the unknown,
or it may be better said not only unknown but
non-existent till made by mental effort. The
period from about 1600 to about 1725 contains
the very difficult steps which led from the style
appropriate to a high order of vocal music—of
which the manner of speech is polyphonic, and
the ideal type of form, the fugue—to the style
appropriate to abstract instmmental music, of
which the best manner is contrapuntally- expressed
harmony, and the ideal type of form,
the Sonata. These works of Kuhnau 's happen
to illustrate very curiously the transition in
which a true though crude idea of abstract music
seems to have been present in the composer's
mind, at the same time that his distribution
of subjects and keys was almost invariably
governed by fugal habits of thinking, even
where the statement of subjects is in a harmonic
manner. In some of these respects he is nearer to,
and in some further back from, the true solution
of the problem than his famous contemporary
Corelli ; but his labours do not extend over so
much space, nor had they so much direct and
widespread influence. In manner and distribution
of movements they are nearer to his predecessor
and compatriot Biber ; and for that
reason, and also to maintain the continuity of
the historic development after Corelli, the
consideration of his works has been taken a
little before their actual place in point of time.
The works of Corelli form one of the most
familiar landmarks in the history of music, and
as they are exclusively instrumental it is clear
that careful consideration ought to elicit a
great deal of interesting matter, such as must
throw valuable light on the state of thought
of his time. He published no less than sixty
sonatas of different kinds, which are divisible
into distinct groups in accordance witli purpose
or construction. The first main division is that
suggested by their titles. There are twentyfour
'Senate da Chiesa' for strings, lute, and
organ, twenty-four ' Senate da Camera ' for the
same instruments, and twelve Solos or Sonatas