MUSICAL COMPOSITION

DANGER SIGNALS 171of all, the silence which succeeds the Trumpet Call inthe second act of Fidelio). To hit upon the rightmoment for this effect is no easy matter; it must nevermiss fire, and never sound like a complete finish. Todo it successfully requires a dramatic mind; but allcomposers must be·· endowed-witli-that-gift if their/ music is to possess any measure of vitality. Anothermore utilitarian and perhaps less heroic virtue of restsis the help they give in solving a difficult piece oftechnique. Many are the knots in part-writing whichthey will untie in far easier fashion than an alterationof notes. A student will often puzzle his brains forhours to find his way out of an apparent impasse whichthe cessation of a part will clear up at once. Restsand pauses are the best friends of the composer, theperformer and the listener.(§ 5) The danger of falling into a style of orchestrationwhich resembles the perpetual use of the fullswell of an organ.This is closely related to the danger alluded toabove. Its genesis is an absence of rests. There isno organ effect more impressive than the full swell,but none more conducive to monotony if it is usedin excess. Like all luxury, it ends by palling. Thepossession of a large fortune does not give nearly somuch pleasure to a rich man, as an unexpectedfive-pound note does to a poor one. Much of recentorchestral writing is so persistently lavish of itsresources that the individual characteristics of thevarious instruments are obliterated altogether. Suchpoetical conversations between them as delight theear in Schubert's unfinished symphony are ceasingto be. Instead of rivers and brooks of sound winding