CORNELL

CHAPTER XVMODERN FORMNo art is more cramped by the unnecessary limitation of itsterms than music. The word " harmony " has now thrown ofpits conventional shackles to a great extent, but still with alarge number of people " melody " signifies an exclusive useof diatonic platitudes and effete banalities. The restrictionswhich have crusted over all ideas of " musical form," almostto petrification, have naturally resulted in the completeexhaustion of those few forms, the use of which is stillregarded exclusively as " good form " by many musicians.As MacDowell has said ": If by the word form ' ' our theoristsmeant the most poignant expressions of poetic thought inmusic, if they meant the art of arranging musicalCoherence,sounds into the most telling presentation of amusical idea, we should have nothing to say ; forif this were admitted, instead of the recognized forms ofmodern theorists for the proper utterance, we should possessa study of musical sounds which might truly justify the titleof musical intellectuality. Form should be a synonym forcoherence. No idea, whether great or small, can find utterancewithout form, but that form -will be inherent to theideas." This coherence, which is "form "per se, maybe securedin many ways.The full problem first presented itself when instrumentalmusic separated from vocal, soon after the " Apt for voices orviols " period ; and the early composers, seeing how necessaryit was to lay down some intelligent lines in the new region,decided that music should be built like architecture in certaindefinite and balanced designs. Architectural design—Ruskin's"frozen music"—soon became a mere fetish, and consequentlya serious hindrance to expression.This unnecessary narrowing down of the term "form"led to a lamentably limited range of vision, and a consequent181