Jean-Philippe Rameau · section 34 of 109

Chapter twenty

On the character of chords

Harmony can certainly stir different passions in us according to the chords employed. Some chords are sad, languishing, tender, pleasing, cheerful, or startling. Particular successions of chords can express these same passions. Although this subject lies far beyond my powers, I shall explain as much as experience enables me to.

Consonant chords occur everywhere, but they should be used as often as possible in songs of gladness and magnificence. Since one cannot avoid mixing dissonant chords among them, the dissonances must arise naturally and be prepared whenever possible. The most prominent parts, such as the upper part and bass, should always be consonant with one another.

Gentleness and tenderness are sometimes expressed quite well by prepared minor dissonances.

Tender laments sometimes call for dissonances by borrowing and by supposition, preferably minor rather than major. Any major dissonances that occur should predominate in the middle parts rather than in the outer parts.

Languor and suffering are expressed very well through dissonances by borrowing, and especially through the chromatic, which we shall discuss in the following book.

Despair, and all passions that lead to fury or contain something astonishing, call for unprepared dissonances of every kind, with major dissonances predominating especially in the upper part. In certain expressions of this nature, it is even beautiful to pass from one key to another through an unprepared major dissonance, provided the ear is not offended by an excessive disparity between the two keys. This therefore requires great discernment, as does everything else. Merely heaping dissonance upon dissonance wherever possible would be an infinitely greater fault than sounding only consonances. Dissonance must therefore be employed with great discretion. Even in chords from which it cannot be separated, one should avoid sounding it when its harshness does not suit the expression, skillfully omitting it and distributing among all the parts the consonances that make up the rest of the chord. Remember that the seventh, from which all dissonances arise, is merely a sound added to the perfect chord. This sound does not destroy the chord's foundation and may always be removed whenever one judges it appropriate.

Melody has no less expressive force than harmony, but it is almost impossible to give certain rules for it, because good taste matters more here than anything else. We shall therefore leave gifted spirits the pleasure of distinguishing themselves in this field, upon which almost the entire force of feeling depends. We hope that accomplished people, for whom we have said nothing new, will not resent our revealing secrets of which they might have wished to remain the sole possessors. Our limited understanding does not allow us to contest their mastery of this final degree of perfection, without which even the finest harmony sometimes becomes insipid, and through which they can always surpass others. This does not mean that someone who knows how to arrange a succession of chords appropriately cannot derive from it a melody suited to the subject, as we shall see later. But taste always supplies the first impulse.

Here the ancients seem to excel, if we are to believe them: one made Misse weep through his melody; another compelled Alexander to take up arms; another made a furious young man gentle and humane. Everywhere, in short, we find astonishing effects attributed to their music. Zarlin judges this very reasonably. He first says that their word harmony often meant no more than a simple melody, and that all these effects came more from forceful speech—whose power was increased by the manner of its sung delivery—than from melody alone. Their melody certainly could not benefit from all the variety that perfect harmony, unknown to them, supplies us today. Their harmony, he also says,* consisted of a perfect chord above which they sang airs of every kind indiscriminately, much as we hear in our musettes or hurdy-gurdies. They call this Sinfonia.

Furthermore, a good musician must enter into every character he wishes to portray. Like a skilled actor, he must put himself in the speaker's place, imagine himself where the various events he wishes to represent occur, and take as much part in them as those most deeply concerned. He must be a good declaimer, at least inwardly, and feel when the voice should rise or fall, and by how much, so that his melody, harmony, modulation, and tempo conform to it.

* Terza Parte, chapter 79, folio 356.