Mu& in educafz’ot?
as a unit. This then is the stage of ‘total conception’ of the music-the
stage of synthesis, a natural consequence of the analysis which has, as
it were, been transcended; for in the field of music analysis is never an
end in itself.
This synthesis will enable the listener to understand music more
simply and spontaneously because the work in question has been assi-
milated by his mind, with the help of analytical knowledge which,
though it remains in the background, is none the less present and
ready to aid him.
These three stages-simple reception, conscious analysis and syn-
thesis-have their own dialectic similar to that on which Hegel’s
philosophy was based : thesis, antithesis, synthesis.
The object of the experiment was to initiate in imitative polyphony,
a public which had never had the opportunity of hearing a fugue or of
studying the technical elements and aesthetic conditions governing
this type of composition.
Naturally, many hours were devoted, beforehand, to explaining
orally, with practical demonstrations, the general laws of ‘horizontal’
melodic audition, the various definitions of the simple modulatory fugue
(with imitation at the fifth) of the first half of the eighteenth century, etc.
I had chosen J. S. Bach‘s Little. Fugue in C minor for two voices,
which is perhaps the simplest of those composed by the great Cantor
of Leipzig. A graph on the blackboard, indicating (by means of two
horizontal lines, and sections formed by vertical bars) how each voice
evolves during the fugue, enabled the listeners, each time the fugue
was played, to see for themselves at any given moment the exact point
that had been reached.
A record repeatedly reproduced this fugue, performed on a harpsi-
chord which brought out the middle and bass parts with remarkable
clarity. The audience were invited to apply the method of selective
audition, with a view to gaining an initial and increasing understanding
of the work.
The fugue was several times simply listened to, as in the first stage
described above. The first points that had to be noted, therefore, were
the general course of the two prescribed voices, evolving ‘horizontal-
ly’ in sound range; the polyphonic and imitative nature of this musical
idiom; and, lastly the fact that this polyphony simultaneously suggested
a system of modulatory, harmonic and cadential movements. For the
age of Bach, Haendel, Vivaldi, Couperin and Rameau had achieved an
excellent synthesis of polyphony and harmonic movement, organized in