: '
ACCOMPANIMENT
importance in this respect. Take for illustra-
tion the chorus by Kent (1700-76), 'Thou,
Lord, art our Father,' the climax of which,
in the original,
is rather awkwardly interrupted
by reststhe fragmentary sections can now be
; experimeut and much experience, organ ac-
appropriately and advantageously united by a
few intermediate jubilant notes in some such
manner as the following : principle on which they were prepared at the
Great Organ, ivith Double Diapason.
1
I
I I
pp^^liEgi
1^
Again, in Dr. Greene's anthem, God is our '
hope and strength, occurs a short chorus,
'
behold the works of the Lord,' which, after a
short trio, is repeated, in precisely the same
form as that in which it previously appears.
According to the modem rules of musical
consti-uction and development it would be
considered desirable to add some fresh feature
on the repetition, to enhance the effect. This
can now be supplied in this way, or in some
other analogous to it
Great Organ, with D(mble Diapason,
^i^lili|#i;il
mm^^ -iiippi
iil^^g^^^^gpa
The organ part to Dr. Arnold's collection of
Cathedral Music, published in 1790, consists
chiefly of treble and bass, with figures ; so
does that to the Cathedral Music of Dr.
Dupuis, printed a few years later. Vincent
ACCOMPANIMENT
Novello's organ part to Dr. Boyce's Cathedral
Music, issued in 1849, on the contrary, was
arranged almost as exclusively in ' short score.
Thus after a period of three centuries, and after
companiments, in the case of full choral pieces,
came to be written down on precisely the same
commencement of that period.
Illustrations showing the way of interpreting
figured basses could be continued to almost any
extent, but those already given will probably be
sufficient to indicate what may be done in the
way of accompaniment, when the organ will
permit, and when the effects of the modern
orchestra are allowed to exercise some influence.
In accompanying English psalm tunes it is
usual to make use of somewhat fuller harmony
than that which is represented by the four
written voice-parts. The iides of musical com-
position, as well as one's own musical instinct, •
frequently require that certain notes, when
combined with others in a particular manner,
should be followed by others in certain fixed
progressions ; and these progressions, so natural
and good in themselves, occasionally lead to a
succeeding chord or chords being presented in
' incomplete harmony in the four vocal parts.
'
In such cases it is the custom for the ac-
'
companist to supply the omitted elements of
the harmony ; a process known by the term
'filling in.' Mendelssohn's Organ Sonatas,
Nos. 5 and 6, each of which opens with a
chorale, afford good examples of how the usual
parts may be supplemented with advantage.
The incomplete harmonies are to be met with
most frequently in the last one or two chords
of the clauses of a tune ; the omitted note
being generally the interval of a fifth above the
bass note of the last chord ; which harmony
note, as essential to its correct introduction,
sometimes requires the octave to the preceding
bass note to be introduced, as at the end of the
third clause of the example below or to be
;
retained if already present, as at the end of the
fourth clause. An accompaniment which is to
direct and sustain the voices of a congregation
should be marked and decided in character,
without being disjointed or broken. This com-
bination of distinctness with continuity is
greatly influenced by the manner in which the
repetition notes are treated. Repetition notes
appear mth greater or less frequency in one or
other of the vocal parts of nearly all psalm
tunes, as exhibited in the example below.
Those that occur in the melody should not be
combined, but on the contrary should, generally
speaking, be repeated with great distinctness.
As such notes present no melodic movement,
but only rhythmic progress, congregations have
on that account a tendency to wait to hear the
step from a note to its iteration announced
before they proceed so that if the repetition
;