MUSICAL COMPOSITION

FORM 77until he can deal with symphonies and large choralworks. There are plenty of dance forms at his disposalto vary his rhythmical powers, a point of which hemust never lose sight.Minuets and all sorts of old measures can bepractised first on the shortest lines, such as II 4, 4: IIII: 8, 4, 4: II, and later with extended phrases. Thetrios will give opportunity for inventing themes incontrast with, and yet suitable to, the minuets, thefirst step towards thoroughly contrasting first andsecond subjects in sonata form without destroying thefamily connection between them; and it will be foundmost valuable always to write a short coda for theconclusion, and endeavour to combine in it the ideas ofthe minuet and of the trio, so clamping together thewhole as a small work of art.This is exactly on the lines of Hans Sachs' advicefor a master-song. The minuet is the husband, thetrio is the wife, the coda is the child. From theminuet the composer may progress to its descendantthe scherzo, where he had better follow the typeindicated by Beethoven, not that of Mendelssohn,which is of a wholly different pattern more allied tothe rondo. The scherzo will, in addition to givingplenty of opportunity for expansion, provide opportunitiesfor practice in the writing of rapid notes,which always presents great difficulty to the beginner,and especially to one who has begun his studieswith harmony instead of counterpoint. The bestmodels for minuets will be found in Haydn and inMozart, and for scherzos in Beethoven, Schubert andDvord.k.Next in order of difficulty comes the rondo, the