We are driven, then, to conclude either that polyphony should grow obsolete, which the most unthinking audacity can hardly affirm, or that the extreme of Romantic expression has lost in art what it has gained in poetry.
The Symphony in F major is one of the least formal of compositions, but the most laborious academician in music could not compile a more elaborate polyphony than Brahms has here created.
Hence, apart from such a secondary point as orchestration, it is only in his splendid, reckless, audacious polyphony that he has really enlarged the treatment of musical technique.
That innate complementariness is an absolute necessity in painting, just as free metre in poetry or polyphony in music.
A new idea had taken possession of him, or, rather, he contemplated the application of the principle of his former labors in polyphony to instrumental music pure and simple.
Anton Rubinstein played every school with consummate skill, from the iron certitudes of Bach's polyphony to the magic murmurs of Chopin and the romantic rustling in the moonlit garden of Schumann.
This does not imply that Chopin had any particular genius in counterpoint, but to deny his mastery of polyphony is a grave error.
II When we are confronted by a litany of strange names, by the intricate polyphony of literary sects and cenacles, the American lover of earlier French poets is bewildered, so swiftly does the whirligig of time bring new talents.
A four-voiced polyphony at a good gait is positively hair-raising.
None but a master of polyphony could have attempted to express in music what Richard Strauss has expressed.
Wagner's primacy is due to his employment of the richest style of polyphony and counterpoint, the increased possibility of this through the invention of the valve horn, and his demand of solo virtuosity upon his orchestral players.
Berlioz misses the polyphony that enriches Wagner's orchestra, and makes instruments like the second violins, violas, etc.
Besides theirpolyphony derived from Bach, Franz's songs are interesting for their modulations, which are employed not simply for the sake of showing cleverness or originality, but for their appropriateness in expressing the mood of the poem.
Despite its wealth of polyphony and theme combination, the score told, without a word of synopsis, a clear intelligible story of a hero's material victory, followed by a greater moral one.
Out of a homophonic polyphony of two or more voices, there grew a polyphony that was real.
Many have their hair dyed, and in such a fashion as to be startling in its revolt against the law of organic harmony, and the effect of a studied discord, only to be resolved into the higher polyphony of the toilet taken as a whole.
The life enjoyed by this phase of Passion music was brief, for it arose only a short time before the musical revolution, heralded by the Florentine monody and confirmed by the opera, drove the mediaeval polyphony into seclusion.
Under such influences, impelled by a zeal for the glory of God and the honor of his Church, the polyphony of the Netherland school put forth its consummate flower in the "Palestrina style.
In the larger compositions we have a blending and alternation of these two, and the scholastic Netherland polyphony appears clarified, and moulded into more plastic outlines for the attainment of a more refined vehicle of expression.
There was much learning of every sort; all the devices of polyphony were freely and luxuriantly employed, but along with them were other passages of true expression.
In a true polyphony not only has every tone of the leading voice a melodic character, but all the tones which sound together with it are themselves elements of other and independently moving melodies.
Polyphony comprehends the most recondite elements of musical theory, but its essence consists of one leading concept--that of canonic imitation.
And in the same country, too, arose the Gothic arch, the beauties of the shrine of Notre Dame in Paris, and the involved and massive polyphony of music.
The limitations of polyphony were reached when the true expression of melodic intervals was lost through their intermingling with so many incongruous elements.
The art of polyphony had its origin at the same period as the pointed arch and the great cathedrals of Europe, which our architects strive in vain to surpass.
The art of polyphony is to be understood as an effort toward variety and unity combined.
The pianoforte trios of Haydn are perhaps the only works of first-rate artistic importance in which there is no doubt that the earlier stages of the new art do not admit of sufficient polyphony to give the instruments fair play.
The invention of the damper-pedal in the pianoforte epitomizes the difference between polyphony and symphonic art, for it is the earliest device by which sounds are produced and prolonged in a way contrary to the spirit of "real" part-writing.
The reason for this is, perhaps, the circumstance that the pianist throughout his education is brought into touch with greater polyphony than the players of other instruments, and that polyphony is a basic principle in music.
True polyphony is the mature fruit of contrapuntal study, although the severe forms of counterpoint are seldom allowed to make themselves visible.
Polyphony is their vital element; the forms of counterpoint became more appropriate as the number of parts increased.
Strauss's score shows to the full the amazing command of polyphony and the bewildering richness and variety of orchestration which have made his name famous.
Bruneau handles the orchestra like an amateur, and his attempts at polyphony are merely ridiculous.
If he was writing for grand and imposing effects, he could handle the most complicated polyphony with ease.
The words of the populace, the crowd, were sung by the choir in the polyphony of the time.
The result was that free polyphony took the place of rigid canon.
Its combination of polyphony with development of a theme--Johann Sebastian Bach and his organ and clavichord fugues--Fundamental traits of this music.
In those days, as we have already seen, compositions were written "da cantare e sonare," and a canzone for strings was simply a piece of vocal polyphony played instead of sung.
Hence Handel's polyphony had to be cast in broader and more powerful masses, while his orchestral accompaniment had a certain amount of independence, and at times even considerable descriptive power.
With Palestrina churchpolyphony reached its highest and its final development.
This new polyphony was made practicable by the technics of Clementi, but it required an attention on the part of the pianist to the enunciation of the several voice parts not required by Clementi's music.
It is not nearly so well developed in its polyphony as "Sumer is icumen in" or the works of the Frenchmen.
With Bach the development of instrumental polyphonycame to an end.
The people were invited to sing paraphrases of the psalms to familiar tunes, it is true, but the choir's polyphony went far to stifle the spirit of the melody.
Polyphony is the art of imitating sounds of various kinds, usually, without attempting to deceive the hearer as to their direction.
Buxtehude avoided in his music the ornate and clusteringpolyphony which was really his metier.
With the exception of the Italian operas played at Venice, in which (thanks to Fux) the tradition of vocal polyphony is maintained--a tradition to be put to such good use later by Hasse and especially Jommelli.
But in proportion as polyphony loses its danger so does the prominence of such rhythmic figures decrease, until in Beethoven's last works they are no more noticeable than other kinds of simplicity.
The polyphony was simple and the aim of the composition was popularity.
The Doric architecture of the frottola had to be developed into the Italian Renaissance style of the madrigal by the ripening of the craft of composers in adapting the music of ecclesiastical polyphony to the communication of worldly thought.
It is the polyphony in the sections of storm and stress that goes wrong.
His imposing grasp of choral polyphony was something new in English music.
In the development of instrumental polyphony Haydn's work was almost as important as that of Mozart.
The polyphony of Beethoven was unquestionably influenced by it and, even in his latest sonatas and quartets, may be regarded as its logical outcome.
The former evolves his conceptions by means of the most intricatepolyphony and with an opulence of orchestral effects.
His article presents strong arguments in favor of the belief that instrumental polyphony was actually practised by the Greeks.
On the other hand, the reticence displayed during most of the accompanying polyphony to the vocal parts rivals that of Wagner's highest attainment as embodied in the first act of "Die Walküre.
The skeleton of his harmonic structures was reared on a simpler basis than Bach's; on the other hand, the massed effects of his choral polyphony have never been surpassed.
Moreover it must be remembered that before the Middle Ages, the art of combining human voices in polyphony was but in a nascent state, and probably existed in classic Greece not at all.
By piling up a large number of independent and seemingly irreconcilable melodic themes one on top of the other, a marvellous effervescent polyphony is procured.
He adapted Beethoven's calorific polyphony together with the charmingly picturesque style of Weber, but did not approach his eminent contemporary, Brahms, either in depth of thought or in originality of ideas.
Influenced by local temperament, climate, history, on every hand its distinctly indigenous characteristics have stood out in peaceful contrast to the eclectic polyphony of coexisting scientific attempts.
Though classic purity of form is strictly adhered to, Beethoven's polyphony and Weber's picturesque portrayal are skilfully combined.
We have already seen how the Volkslied became fertilized by the polyphony of church-music.
The main objection brought by the reformers against polyphony was that the elaborate imitative treatment of the voices made the words unintelligible.
When I first heard it, with the clear march of the polyphony in Bach's B minor Mass fresh in my memory, I confess I thought that the parts had got dislocated, and that some of the band were half a bar behind the others.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "polyphony" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
