CORNELL

62 MODERN HARMONYEx.130.DEBUSSY,''Chanson de Bilitis"'Hiiiij.iTilt1°Whatever view we take of the tonal system, it is unnecessaryto regard it suspiciously as a rival to oust the olderscales; let such people rather turn their eyes towards theadvances of duodecuple practice. Used purely by itself, the" tonal " system is very circumscribed. This scale is toomathematical and precise a product, and consequently toomonotonous in effect, to be capable of much development onits own lines. Its powers of modulation and transpositionare small indeed compared with the other systems. Its pureuse is limited generally to the shortest of characteristicsketches.Even when adopted for longer works, as Debussy's " Pelleaset M^lisande"—where the rather strained milieu or "auralvision," necessitated by the tonal scale, undoubtedlyfl-ssists the mystic atmosphere of the work—the'^tio!'""composer continually falls back to the relief ofsemitones. This is done by resolving the chords founded onthe C "tonal" scale into harmony formed on the C sharpseries, and vice versa. Frequently, too, he seems compelled toseek resolution into the diatonic system, as in Example 1146,and in the Elgar motiv (Example 119). It is to be noticedalso that the " tonal passage from the pianoforte prelude in'Example 123 commences with a diatonic concord. For bridgepassages and characteristic phrases, where a suspension oftonality is desirable, its use is admirable, and the beauty andpoweif' of the " tonal " chords as a means of modulation haslong been fully established.Its Real The real value, then, of the two " tonal " systemsValue, the C series or the C sharp scale, or a combinationof both—is twofold