MUSICAL COMPOSITION

FORM 75means by which unity and proportion are arrived atby the relative distribution of keys and harmonicbases on the one hand, and of subjects or figures ormelodies on the other. We might also describe itin the same terms as a painter would employ. Theform is the composition upon his canvas, the melodiesand phrases are the figures or the objects in his landscape.If he designs his picture so that he cannot getthe subjects of his design into the canvas as it stands,it will not serve his purpose to add on excrescences tothe edges; its shape, whether circular or square orelliptical, has to be symmetrical in order to satisfy theeye. Neither can he paint his figures, as Wiertz did,climbing out of the picture round the frame, withoutlaying himself open to the charge of eccentricity. Theword "eccentric" is the clue to the rule. Yourpicture must work to a centre, and you must not getoutside the attraction of the centre. You must decideon the size of your canvas, and so design your subjectsas to bring them within its limits, without giving theimpression of its being too large or too small for them.The proportionate treatment of the subjects must conformat once to the size of the picture and to themselves,and there must be a central point to which themanner of the design irresistibly directs the eye (suchas the child's head in the Sistine Madonna of Raphael).As in painting, so in music. No art is formless or itis monstrous, just as no face or figure is distortedwithout being repulsive. It is a law of nature againstwhose pricks no artist, whether he be painter, sculptor,architect, poet or musician, can kick without damageto his reputation. At the same time music has oneadvantage over other arts, in that, being itself a subtle