MUSICAL COMPOSITION

122 MUSICAL COMPOSITIONwant it for a very special effect (such as Brahms usedin the slow movement of the clarinet quintet). Inninety-nine cases out of a hundred, a well-designedsemiquaver figure, or passage will be far more interestingboth to player and to hearer, and will preservethe quartet atmosphere. When one or more solowind instruments are used in chamber music, theprinciple is the same as that given above in (6) andelsewhere. Forget the orchestra, and remember thatthe balance of parts is wholly different from thatof the orchestra, there being only one player to eachstring part.The best models for combined wind and strings arethe clarinet quintets of Mozart and of Brahms, theseptet of Beethoven, and the octet of Schubert. Whenthe pianoforte enters into the scheme the conditionsgreatly alter, and the writing for the strings becomesin some ways more hampered and more difficult. Thereis a basis of quarrel between them at the start, for thepianoforte is tuned in the tempered scale, where everyinterval except the octave is out of tune, and thestrings play in the pure scale. This quarrel has to besmoothed over temporarily when they join forces, andthe causes of friction have to be avoided as much as itis possible to avoid them. The accomplished violinistor violoncellist will adapt himself at critical momentsto the cast-iron requirements of the pianoforte, but theoccasions when he has to accomplish this difficultvolte-face must be minimised by the experience andcommon sense of the composer. He ought, for instance,to avoid giving the stringed instrument passages ofmelody in unison with the keyed, assigning themto another octave if they require reinforcement, and