Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

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70 EESOLUTION BBSPONSE
The minor seventh on C in this case ia ultimately
resolved as if it had been an augmented
sixth composed of the same identical notes
according to our system of temperament, but
derived from a different source and having consequently
a different context. This manner of
using the same group of notes in different senses
is one of the most familiar devices in modern
music for varying the course of resolutions and
obtaining fresh aspects of harmonic combinations.
[For further examples see Modulation,
Change, Enharmonic]
An inference which follows from the use of
some forms of Enharmonic resolution is that
the discordant note need not inevitably move to
resolution, but may be brought into consonant
relations by the motion of other parts, which
relieve it. of its characteristic dissonant effect ;
this is illustrated most familiarly by the freedom
which is recognised in the resolution of the chord
of the sixth, fifth, and third on the subdominant,
called sometimes the added sixth, sometimes
an inversion of the supertonic seventh, and
sometimes an inversion of the eleventh of the
Dominant, or even a double-rooted chord derived
from Tonic and Dominant together.
It is necessary to note shortly the use of
vicarious resolutions—that is, of resolutions in
which one part supplies the discordant note
and another the note to which under ordinary
circumstances it ought to pass. This has been
alluded to above as common in respect of the
so-called fundamental discords, but there are
instances of its occurring with less independent
combinations. The Gigue of Bach's Partita in
E minor is full of remarkable experiments in
resolution ; the following is an example which
illustrates especially the point under consideration
^^m
:
Ex.12.
The inference to be drawn from the above examples
is that the possible resolutions of discords,
especially of those which have an individual
status, are Varied, but that it takes time to
discover them, as there can hardly be a severer
test of a true musical instinct in relation to
harmony than to make sure of such a matter.
As a rule, the old easily recognisable resolutions,
by motion of a single degree, or at least by
Interchange of parts of the chord in supplying
the subsequent consonant harmony, must preponderate,
and the more peculiar resolutions
will be reserved for occasions when greater force
and intensity are required. But as the paradoxes
of one generation are often the truisms of the
next, so treatment of discords such as is utterly
incredible to people who do not believe in what
they are not accustomed to, is felt to be obvious
to all when it becomes familiar ; and hence the
peculiarities which are reserved for special
occasions at first must often in their turn yield
the palm of special interest to more complex
instinctive generalisations. Such ia the history
of the development of muaical resources in the
past, and such it must be in the future. The
laws of art require to be based upon the broadest
and most universal generalisations ; and in the
detail under consideration it appears at present
that the ultimate test is thorough intelligibility
in the melodic progressions of the parts which
constitute the chords, or in a few cases the
response of the harmony representing one root
to that representing another, between which,
as in Examples 3 and 4, there is a recognised
connection sufficient for the mind to follow
without the express connection of the flow of
the parts. Attempts to catalogue the various
discords and their various resolutions must be
futile as long as the injunction is added that
such formulas only are admissible, for this is to
insist upon the repetition of what haa been aaid
before ; but they are of value when they are
conaidered with aufficient generality to help us
to arrive at the ultimate principles which underlie
the largest circle of their multifarioua
varieties. The imagination can live and move
freely within the bounds of comprehensive laws,
but it is only choked by the accumulation of
precedents. c. h. h. p.
RESPOND (Lat. Hespmsorimn) a form of
ecclesiastical chant which gi-ew out of the
elaboration of the primitive Eesponsobial
Psalmody. Some of the Besponds have- been
frequently treated in the Polyphonic Style, with
very great effect, not only by the Great Masters
of the 16th century, but even as late as the time
of Colonna, whose Eesponsoria of the Office for
the Dead, for eight voices, are written with
intense appreciation of the solemn import of
the text.
A large collection of very fine examples, including
an exquisitely beautiful set for Holy
Week, by Vittoria, will be found in vol. iv. of
Proske's Musica ' Divina.
\v. s. R.
RESPONSE, in English church music, is,
in
its widest sense, any musical sentence sung by
the choir at the close of something read or
chanted by the minister. The term thus includes
the ' Amen
'
after prayers, the ' Kyrie ''
after each commandment in the Communion
Sermce, the 'Doxology' to the Gospel, and
every reply to a Versicle, or to a Petition, or
Suffrage. In its more limited sense the first
three of the above divisions would be excluded
from the term, and the last-named would fall
naturally into the following important groups :
(1) those which immediately precede the Psalms,
called also the Preees ; (2) those following the
Apostles' Creed and the Lord's Prayer ; (3) those