The Origin and Development of Musical Scales [pp. 324-343]

THE PRINCE TON RE VIR W.
of C), backed by the influence of the spreading doctrines of
tonality and of independent harmony, wrought the utter dis —
comfiture of the other sevenths, the Be's, crowned "the wanton
Lydian" mode chief of scales, transformed the Ionic into it bysharping its flat seventh, the Phrygian into the modern ascending minor, the Eolic into the descending minor, fused the
Phrygian and Eolic into the instrumental minor, but, strange
to say, left the famous Dorian almost entirely out in the cold.
During the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries a.
strong feeling arose for the individuality of harmonic combinations or chords as such. This new agent in musical history
seized the church modes, and, whatever may have been their
tuning up to that time, established it thenceforward upon the
basis of tone-relation. Wherever the antique tuning in its striving after perfect fifths had distorted the pure intonation, the
error was rectified. Hence the great superiority of the modern
major scale over every other is due partly to the fact that it
lends itself with greater ease than any other to harmonic uses,
and partly to the greater average connectedness of its constituent tones to each other; indeed, these two characteristics are
at bottom but the two faces of the same thing. The minor
scale possesses these excellences in a less degree and so occupies
a subordinate place. The ancient modes owe their downfall to
the small degree in which they possessed them. Nevertheless,
while we have gained in harmonic, we have lost in melodic facilities, in the change from five or seven modes to two, and how"
to regain the old variety and power of expression without relinquishing the wealth that harmony has brought us is with many
a question of great moment.
This brings us back to our starting-point and completes ourhasty survey of Helmholtz's theory. The reader of his book
cannot fail' to be impressed with the close correspondence that
appears between the historic facts and the theory offered, as;
well as with the excellent clearness and fulqess with which the
theory is advanced and illustrated. It is perhaps true that a
strict mathematical interpretation of its terms develops a large;
number of theoretical scales that are as yet unknown in practical' use, and that, since the actual forms often seem inferior in
tonal correlation to the theoretical, a fuller explanation might;
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