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The adoption of this little figure is especially happy, as the mind is led on from the successive expositions to the episodes by the same process as in the first statement of subject and counter-subject, and thereby the continuity becomes so much the closer.
As further examples in which the episodes are noticeable and distinct enough to be studied with ease, may be quoted the 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 10th, and 24th of the first book of the Wohltemperirte Clavier, and the 1st, 3rd, 12th, and 20th of the second book. They are generally most noticeable and important in instrumental fugues which have a definite and characteristic or rhythmically marked subject.
It follows from the laws by which expositions are regulated, that episodes should be frequently used for modulation. While the exposition is going on, modulation is restricted; but directly it is over, the mind inclines to look for a change from the regular alternation of prescribed centres. Moreover, it is often desirable to introduce the principal subject in a new key, and the episode is happily situated and contrived for the process of getting there; in the same way that after transitions to foreign keys another episode is serviceable to get home again. In this light, moreover, episodes are very frequently characterized by sequences, which serve as a means of systematizing the steps of the progressions. Bach occasionally makes a very happy use of them, by repeating near the end a characteristic episode which made its appearance near the beginning, thereby adding a very effective element of form to the movement.
In a looser sense the term Episode may be applied to portions of fugues which stand out noticeably from the rest of the movement by reason of any striking peculiarity; as for instance the instrumental portion near the beginning of the Amen Chorus in the Messiah, or the central portions of certain very extensive fugues of J. S. Bach, in which totally new subjects are developed and worked, to be afterwards interwoven with the principal subjects.
In the purely harmonic forms of art the word is more loosely used than in the fugal order. It is sometimes used of portions of a binary movement in which subordinate or accessory subjects appear, and sometimes of the subordinate portions between one principal subject and another, in which modulation frequently takes place. It serves more usefully in relation to a movement in Aria or Rondo form; as the central portion in the former, and the alternative subjects or passages between each entry of the subject in the latter cannot conveniently be called 'second subjects.' In the old form of Rondo, such as Couperin's, the intermediate divisions were so very definite and so clearly marked off from the principal subject that they were conveniently described as Couplets. But in the mature form of Rondo to be met with in modern Sonatas and Symphonies the continuity is so much closer that it is more convenient to define the form as a regular alternation of principal subject with episodes. It sometimes happens in the most highly artistic Rondos that the first episode presents a regular second subject in a new key; that the second episode (following the first return of the principal subject) is a regular development or 'working out' portion, and the third episode is a recapitulation of the first transposed to the principal key. By this means a closer approximation to Binary form is arrived at. In operas and oratorios, and kindred forms of vocal art, the word is used in the same sense as it would be used in connection with literature.
[ C. H. H. P. ]
EQUAL VOICES. See Unequal, and Voices.
ERARD. P. 491 a, par. 3. The establishment of the London house was not due to the French Revolution; Sebastian Erard had already begun business in London in 1786.
[ A. J. H. ]
ERK, L. C. Add date of death, Nov. 25, 1883.
ERNST, H. W. Line 9 from end of article, for Ferdinand Hiller read Stephen Heller. (Corrected in later editions.)
ESCHMANN, J. C. See vol. ii. p. 733 b, and add that he died at Zurich, Oct. 25, 1882.
ESCUDIER. Add dates of death of Marie, April 17, 1880, and of Léon, June 22, 1881.
ESMERALDA. Opera in four acts; words by Theo Marzials and Albert Randegger, arranged from Victor Hugo's libretto La Esmeralda'; music by A. Goring Thomas. Produced by the Carl Rosa company, Drury Lane, March 26, 1883.
[ M. ]
ESSIPOFF, Annette, Russian pianist, born 1850, and educated at the Conservatorium of St. Petersburg, principally under the care of Theodor Leschetitzky. After attaining considerable reputation in her own country she undertook a concert tour in 1874, appearing in London at the New Philharmonic concert of May 16 in Chopin's E minor Concerto, at recitals of her own, and elsewhere. She made her début in the same concerto in 1875 at one of the Concerts Populaires, and afterwards at a chamber concert given by Wieniawski and Davidoff. In 1876 she went to America, where her success was very marked. In 1880 she married Leschetitzky, and since that time has been seldom heard in England. Her playing combines extraordinary skill and technical facility with poetic feeling, though the artistic ardour of her temperament leads her at times to interpretations that are liable to be called exaggerated.
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ESTE, Thomas. Line 7, add that he was engaged in printing as early as 1576. P. 496 a, for ll. 10–18 read He died shortly before 1609, in which year a large number of his 'copyrights,' as they would now be called, were transferred to T. Snodham. [ Dict. of Nat. Biog. ]
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