d probably
feel not only the wayward humour of the passage in itself, but also its
connexion with the main theme. Nevertheless, the prominence given to the
device in technical treatises, and the fact that this is the one
illustration which hardly any of them cite, show too clearly the way in
which music is treated not only as a dead language but as if it had
never been alive.

All these devices are also independent of the canonic idea, since they
are so many methods of transforming themes in themselves and need not
always be used in contrapuntal combination.

_2. Fugue._

As the composers of the 16th century made progress in harmonic and
contrapuntal expression through the discipline of strict canonic forms,
it became increasingly evident that there was no necessity for the
maintenance of strict canon throughout a composition. On the contrary,
the very variety of canonic possibilities, apart from the artistic
necessity of breaking up the uniform fulness of harmony, suggested the
desirability of changing one kind of canon for another, and even of
contrasting canonic texture with that of plain masses of non-polyphonic
harmony. The result is best known in the polyphonic 16th-century motets.
In these the essentials of canonic effect are embodied in the entry of
one voice after another with a definite theme stated by each voice in
that part of the scale which best suits its compass, thus producing a
free canon for as many parts as there are voices, in alternate intervals
of the 4th, 5th and octave, and at such distances of time as are
conducive to clearness and variety of proportion. It is not necessary
for the later voices to imitate more than the opening phrase of the
earlier, or, if they do imitate its continuation, to keep to the same
interval.

Such a texture differs in no way from that of the fugue of more modern
times. But the form is not what is now understood as fugue, inasmuch as
16th-century composers did not normally think of writing long movements
on one theme or of making a point of the return of a theme after
episodes. With the appearance of new words in the text, the 16th-century
composer naturally took up a new theme without troubling to design it
for contrapuntal combination with the opening; and the form resulting
from this treatment of words was faithfully reproduced in the
instrumental _ricercari_ of the time. Occasionally, however, breadth of
treatment and terseness of design combined to produce