A common syllable may be treated either as long, or short, at pleasure. One long syllable is reckoned as the equivalent of two short ones. Syllables are of three kinds long(–), short (‿), and common (–‿). We shall most readily make this position intelligible, by considering the syllables and feet which form the basis of Poetical Metre and then shewing their application to the phrases of a regularly-constructed Melody. Themes which are not so reducible-in other words, Melodies which exhibit no rhythmic correspondence with any imaginable kind of poetical Verse-may, indeed, be safely assumed to be bad ones. Upon this coincidence, Music and Poetry are almost entirely dependent for the intimacy of their mutual relations: and, as we shall presently shew, these relations influence pure Instrumental Composition no less forcibly than Vocal Music the themes of a Sonata being as easily reducible to metrical feet as those of an Opera. The two systems, notwithstanding their apparent difference, may almost be described as interchangeable: since it would be quite possible to express the swing of a Melody in Dactyls and Spondees, or the scansion of a Verse in Crotchets and Quavers. METRE, the rhythmic element of Song: as exemplified, in Music, in the structure of melodious phrases-in Poetry, in that of regular Verses.Īs the rhythm of Poetry is measured by syllables and feet, so is that of Music by beats and bars.
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