here is little sign. The themes were of the
formal mathematical type developed during the fugal period--a type that
"worked" easily, and in a way effectively, in the fugue itself, but was
unnecessary and, indeed, tiresome when contrapuntal working was not the
aim and object. The endless variants on this kind of thing, for
example--

[Illustration: some bars of music]

were simply a snare, and kept writers from seeing the importance of
singing and singable melody in the coming style. To show the difference
between the old and the new at once, let me here give two bits of themes
from Mozart and Haydn. They are in appearance not so far removed from
the contrapuntal type of theme, and while they sing themselves they yet
served their inventors capitally for contrapuntal treatment.

[Illustration: some bars of music]

Numberless sonatas were written about the same time. Either the subjects
were contrapuntal, formal, in build, or consisted of patterns made out
of broken chord-series. Domenico Scarlatti got some wonderful results;
but his music simply tickles the ear for a moment: meaning it has none.
Polyphonic music of every sort had now to go for a while; monodic music
was coming in. But before it could come in with any degree of security
something else had to come and something else to go. Up till now the old
idea of modes had remained strong, despite Sebastian Bach and his
marvellous use of chromatic harmonies. It had to yield to the modern
idea of key; a sense of key relationships had to be developed--much, at
first all, depended on that. The new idea, hinted at by Emanuel Bach,
and first seized upon by Haydn, was that a continuous stream of
melody--not necessarily always in the top or treble part--should run
through a movement, and, whatever the interest of the accompanying
parts, should always be of the first importance. For his inspiration, as
well as many of his actual themes, Haydn went to his native folk-dances
and folk-songs; he brought in the fresh air from the wilds, and the now
dusty contrapuntalism was blown out never again to return. We can see
above the difference between the full-bottomed wig theme and the newer
kind; to show, on the other hand, how near Haydn stood to Beethoven let
me give bits of themes from each composer.

[Illustration: some bars of music]

With the disappearance of the contrapuntal theme coincides the end of
purely contrapuntal "working" or development. The new kind I shall
descr