MUSICAL COMPOSITION

II p~RHYTHM 27tt.: J J -f4 J.: JoB(three notes of the scale of G minor). The best possiblestudies in rhythm are the songs of Schubert, whichprovide an amazing series of all sorts and kinds offigure in a short space. But let it be rememberedthat they are all the outcome of spontaneous invention;if they had been hunted for or manufactured,sincerity would not be so patent upon every page.Genuine rhythmical invention, like melodic, comes tothe composer because it must, not because he makes it.The study of the rhythm of others must be directedrather to the way the masters use it than to the actualrhythms themselves. Manufacture will not do, but anall-round knowledge of their methods of using it will,to an inventive mind, suggest rhythms of its owncreation.II. RHYTHM OF PHRASE.This branch of the study is of much larger scope,and has to do with the balance of general design ratherthan with the patterns which form the ground note ofthe design. It is this which enables a composer towrite sentences which are intelligible and logical intheir relationship to each other, and at the same timeto preserve their relative proportion.This species of rhythm exactly answers to metre inpoetry. As an example of the simplest form of musicalmetre in four-bar and two-bar phrases, the followingtheme from Beethoven's Ruins of Athens usedj byhim for the pianoforte variations (Op. 76) willsuffice: