Page:A Dictionary of Music and Musicians vol 2.djvu/362

The great use which Beethoven made of such transitory subordinate modulations has been already treated of at some length in the article Harmony; it will therefore be best here to refer only to a few typical examples. The force with which he employed the device above illustrated from Mozart is shown in the wonderful transition from E♭ to G minor at the beginning of the Eroica (bars 7–10), and the transition from F to D♭ at the beginning of the Sonata Appassionata. These are, as in most of Mozart's examples, only single steps; in many cases Beethoven makes use of several in succession. Thus in the beginning of the E minor Sonata, op. 90, the first section should be theoretically in E minor, but in this case a quick modulation to G begins in the 3rd bar, in the 7th a modulation to B minor follows, and in the 9th, G is taken up again, and through it passage is made back to E minor, the original key, again. Thus the main centre of the principal key is supplemented by subordinate centres; the different notes of the key being used as points of vantage from which a glance can be taken into foreign tonalities, to which they happen also to belong, without losing the sense of the principal key which lies in the background.

These transitions often occur in the early part of movements before the principal key has been much insisted on, as if to enhance its effect by postponement. Thus we find remarkable examples in Beethoven's Introductions, as for instance in the Leonore Overture No. 3, and in the Introduction to the Quartet in C, Op. 59, No. 3. In composers of note since Beethoven, we find a determination to take full advantage of the effect of such transitions. Brahms for instance makes constant use of them in his instrumental works from the earliest to the latest. The first two pages of the G minor Quartet for pianoforte and strings, shows at once how various are the subordinate centres of which he makes use. In a much later work—the Pianoforte Quartet in C minor, op. 60—he presents a short version of his principal subject in the principal key, and then passes to B♭ minor, D♭ major, E♭ minor, A♭, G♭ minor, and B♭ major in rapid succession before he resumes his original key in order to propound his first subject more fully. Schumann was equally free in his use of subordinate modulations. In the fine intermezzo of the 'Faschingsschwank,' which has the signature of E♭ minor, the first chord is in that key, but the second leads to D♭ major, and a few chords further on we are in B♭ minor, from which an abrupt return is made to E♭ minor only to digress afresh. Such are the elaborate transitions which are developed by an extension of the device of single transitions used so frequently by Mozart; and it may be noted that a closely-oonnected series of transitory modulations after this manner, occupies in modern music an analogous position to that occupied by a connected series of harmonies, based on quickly-shifting root-notes, in the music of a century or a century and a half earlier. Similarly, in the closely-connected steps of modulation, like those used by Haydn and Mozart between one strongly marked expanse of key and another, more modern composers have packed their successions of keys so closely that it is often a matter of some difficulty to disentangle them with certainty. For instance, the passage in the slow movement of Beethoven's B♭ Sonata, op. 106, just before the resumption of the principal key and the first subject (in variation), is as follows—

In this, besides the number of the transitions (exceeding the number of bars in the example), the steps by which they proceed are noticeable with reference to what was touched upon above in that respect. Many similar examples occur in Schumann's works. For instance, in the last movement of his sonata in G minor, where he wishes to pass from B♭ to G major, to resume his subject, he goes all the way round by B♭ minor, G♭ major, E♭ major, D♭ minor, F♯, B, A, D, C minor, B♭, A♭, and thence at last to G; there is a similar example in the middle of the first movement of his Pianoforte Quartet in E♭; examples are also common in Chopin's works, as for instance bars 29 to