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important and so prevalent in the century and a half culminating in the monumental work of J. S. Bach. After the Baroque period the bass virtually loses its melodic character and henceforth is confined to a purely harmonic function. A device having a certain affinity with this dual function of the Baroque bass, although not confined to this period, was nevertheless a widely used one. This device, known as basso ostinato, consists of a reiterated bass melody over which a diversity of textures are written. The English term for basso ostinato is " ground bass ", or simply " ground ". It would appear that this term is used in two senses. A ground, strictly speaking, means a bass melody of this sort or the theme itself. It is also used to mean the entire

The Anlo (Eve) dance drumming orchestra of southeastern Ghana has three components, each with its own general level of pitch. In the highest range idiophones and the smallest of the drums play unchanging ostinati that provide the gait of the music. One of these high instruments controls the timing and placement of all patterns. In the middle range one or more drums support the musical gait of the upper range but with varied patterns. This intermediate drumming is also usually responsive to the third component, the leading drum (or master drum), which plays intermittently in the lowest range. Some of the play of the leading drum is decorative; some controls the performers with signals

A SPECIAL STYLE OF composition for dances and instrumentally accompanied songs developed in Italy early in the sixteenth century. The style spread to other European countries and persisted as the basis for this particular type of music until the middle of the next century. A large repertoire of such music remains in manuscript and printed books for lute, bandora, vihuela, cittern, the stringed keyboard instruments, various ensembles, and, beginning in the seventeenth century, the Spanish guitar. Associated with this style throughout its history are small musical units that occur before, after, or between repetitions of the music for a dance or song. In the Intabolatura de leuto de diversi autori (Milan: Giovanni Antonio Casteliono, 1536) such units are called riprese, and unmarked examples occur even earlier. The term changes to ritornello in II ballarino (Venice, i581) of Fabritio Caroso,' and in I6o6 Montesardo describes the passacaglia, one of the Spanish forms that entered Italy along with the guitar, as that which in his country is called a ritornello.2 The musical construction of the ripresa, ritornello, and passacaglia is based on the compositional techniques of the Italian dance style. Therefore I will summarize briefly the special features of this style, and then discuss the various types of riprese: internal or concluding (in regard to location), standard or double in length. Finally, I will describe the particular ostinato technique that operates in the chains of concluding riprese and ritornelli, and ultimately leads to the great Baroque sets of variations on the passacaglia and ciaccona. In the Italian dance style, musical organization on the most fundamental level is essentially harmonic in nature. Ex. I shows my concept of the basic chordal relationships for the modes per B quadro and per B molle, the two dance modes which, during the course of the Baroque period, gradually evolve into the tonal major and minor modes.3 Each

The present article deals with Lieder to piano accompaniment by the Slovene composer Slavko Osterc, dating from his earliest creative period, which comprises something more than five years, when Osterc was still a self-taught composer. The Lieder, of which he wrote fourteen during this time, played an important role in a recital of Osterc's chamber works on March 2nd, 1925 in Celje, which closes this extraordinarily interesting, fertile and original period and which at the same time opened the way for him to the conservatory in Prague. Owing to quite a high number of Lieder it is possible to follow Osterc's development in this period well. It is an interesting fact that after Prague Osterc, out of this forty or so early works (besides the Lieder there are three operas, a ballet, seven orchestral works – including a symphony – six compositions for string quartet and several piano and choral works) only acknowledged five Lieder, which he entered at the top of the list of his compositions. In his first Lieder he leans on the romantic tradition in his use of expressional media. Major-minor tonality is completely preserved and the basic tonality is indicated at the beginning of compositions. Modulations are simple, alterations appear rather seldom and a sequential construction is characteristic. As regards form, the ternary form prevails, compounded of two-bar, four-bar and eight-bar groups. The rhythmical construction of the voice part is not complicated and is bound to simple rhythmic patterns which prevail throughout the piece. The piano accompaniment is modest, completely subjected to the vocal part and mainly consists of arpeggios. Although the musical idiom of these Lieder, which display neo-romantic and partly impressionistic features, is quite traditional, a marked musical talent and above all a rich and fresh melodic flow is evident. The most important group of Lieder is that from 1924, composed, with one exception (Armado Nervo) on texts of poems by the Slovene poets Oton Župancic and Alojz Gradnik, where reflective love lyrics prevail. In these Lieder Osterc is at his most progressive with regard to expression; as well as to compositional construction. Quite surprising is his sudden transition from the ternary form, which, he was so fond of up to that time, although it was not always completely appropriate for the text, to a use of through-composed songs. The melodic construction of the voice part springs in these Lieder from a completely new base. The use of the rhytmic patterns prevailing in the first Lieder disappears completely. The melodic line is no longer constructed on the principle of groups of two, four, eight bars etc., but rather in vocal phrases, built up on individual verses or thematically closed parts of verses. These vocal phrases are organically bound together and constitute a continuous melodic arch. The entire melodic flow of individual phrases and the melodic line as a whole only define and intensify, together with rhythm, accentuation and dynamics, everthing which is expressed and required by the text for its interpretation. The most important words and their stressed syllables fall on the highest tones of the phrases. These Lieder become less and less singable, in the traditional sense of the word. However the melodic line even with a marked recitative character is strongly expressive. There is an increased importance of the piano accompaniment. The beginnings of an imitative relation between voice and piano are moulded into a real dialogue in some places, while in others the piano becomes the independent bearer of musical development. The instrumental introductions themselves also lose their identity as a standard prelude, which, we find in the first Lieder, since they mostly take part in the musical action and are no longer just a preparation for it. The composer begins to omit the indication of basic tonality, although the traditional tonality of individual parts of the composition is still discernible in spite of unusual chordal combinations in some places and bold modulations. In the course of the compositions the composer moves from tonality to tonality, so that no one tonality prevails which could be characterized as that to which the composition as a whole belongs. Besides triads and their inversions which were dominant in the first Lieder, chords of the seventh, ninth and eleventh and their inversions increase, while the use of the major with the added sixth in tonic function becomes a typical feature. Parallel chords without traditional functional progressions are also characteristic. However, it is interesting that the composer, especally at the end of compositions or their parts, makes use of traditional cadences, particularly of authentic ones. In addition, the chromatic scales becomes more prominent. On the other hand sequence still plays an important role, especially in the piano accompaniment. In spite of the dominating chordal structure of the piano part we feel that the composer begins to pay more and more attention to a linear organization of the musical fabric. The other group of Lieder from 1921 is based on poems by the Slovene poet Fran Žgur. The text contains simple, amiable pictures from nature and is strophical. In order to avoid uniformity, into which these songs could fall, Osterc again consistently used the ternary form. The whole-tone scale is now more often employed than before in the melodic construction. In these Lieder the piano accompaniment has a more illustrative character which is justified by the text. Regarding harmony, these songs do not exceed the limits of those of the former group. However, in some places we observe a tendency towards chordal saturation which the composer reaches in one of the songs by means of parallel chordal structures of minor seconds which appear on the down beat. In the cycle of four »Bela Krajina lullabies«, the last from the period under discussion, Osterc for the first time takes his texts from the folk poetry of Bela Krajina which assumes a leading role, especially in his later choral compositions. With his musical idiom he was able excellently to capture their character and through them to bring a freshness into Slovene musical creativity. The use of the whole-tone scale prevails and is often doubled in the piano part in an interval of a major third downwards or is developed in augmented triads. For the first time we find in one place a new idiom of declamation, the so-called »Sprechstimme«. One of the Lieder is based on an ostinato piano accompaniment of the left hand which we have before encountered to such an extent in Osterc's songs. The last song is composed in a »choral« style, which is so typical of the composer's later work! The prominent feature of this style, indicated by Osterc in the subtitles of many compositions as »quasi chorale« or »like a chorale«, are represented by slowly moving chords with the melody in the upper voice, which mostly doubles the vocal part of the Lieder.

FOR OVER THREE AND A HALF CENTURIES composers have written ciaccone and passacaglie.1 One occasionally encounters the words even in contemporary music, where they usually describe pieces based on some sort of ostinato. But what are they? Where do they come from? Is thereor was there-any difference between them? Modern definitions afford us little insight into the historical development either of the terms themselves or of the forms associated with them. It seems in order to trace

Marij Kogoj dedicated the greater part of his artistic powers to opera. Of his three plans for operatic themes (the first being France Preseren's poem »Krst pri Savici«, the second Leonid Andrejev's drama »Black Masks«, the third Shakespeare's »Twelfth Night«) only the second was realised. The last, which he undertook in 1929 remained unfinished as in autumn 1932 he was incapacitated by schizophrenia. From the surviving material it is clear that he wrote (in the form of a piano score) the first two acts, though especially in the second there remain many gaps. He prepared the libretto himself on the basis of Shakespeare's text. From his arrangement of the action we know that the opera was to have four acts, the fourth and fifth acts of the original being combined. In shortening and combining original scenes and in the abridgement of the original text he displayed an outstanding knowledge of the stage and its rules. He located the action of the comedy on the Adriatic coast and made use of a number of Slovene folksongs as well as one Istrian one, giving them rich and imaginative contrapuntal treatment, considered among the best in Slovene music and displaying the author's contemporary relation with folk-melodies and their role in musical art. In addition to this he wove into the action dances by individual actors and by a ballet ensemble, thus adding to music and text the third most important element of his works for the stage, an element of which he made rich and idiosyncratic Use also in »Black Masks«. From the point of view of style and composition technique the two acts show Kogoj developing in a new direction. In the harmonic and also party in the rhythmic structure and especially in the melodic diction, features of expressionism are most apparent. In frequent rhythmical ostinati and harmonic handling which shows a retreat from the sphere of luxuriant chromaticism and dissonant inversions of chords of the seventh, ninth and eleventh and especially in the rich contrapuntal treatment and polyphonic forms (which appears more and more frequently towards the end of the second act) Kogoj shows that »Twelfth Night« would have been the first piece of his new stylistic orientation, drawing near to neoclassicism.

REDFORD'S COMPOSITIONS are important to the musicologist chiefly because they stand at the beginning of the emergence of an independent clavier style, and one finds juxtaposed in them a mature vocal counterpoint and crude essays at instrumental technique. Redford's works are chiefly variations on plainsong melodies, some of the variations on one and the same melody being in the vocal, some in the instrumental, style. This raises the question whether those written in vocal style are merely transcriptions of voice parts. Examination, however, leads to the conclusion that they are instrumental numbers. They would seem to have been intended for a two-manual organ. These variations are often characterized by both maturity and melodic beauty, as e.g. the Veni Redemptor, the Aurora Lucis, the Christe qui Lux, the Conditor alme siderum, the Deus Creator, or the Exultet celum laudibus. In the anthem Christus resurgens there is tone-painting and construction in the da capo, A-B-A form. In the instrumental Chorus nove Hierusalem, written in the vocal polyphonic style, there is an adumbration of Bach's contrapuntal ingenuity at the conclusion of his variations on Vom Himmel hoch da konnn ich her, where the four lines of the choral melody appear simultaneously. Especially characteristic of the attempts at an instrumental style are the incessant use of the sequence and the fecundity in rhythmic variation. Redford's compositions suggest that the sequence is the gateway to the freedom of an instrumental style. As the plainsong in general was the leading-string by which occidental music learned to walk, the sequence in particular was the means by which early instrumental composers tried their wings. Redford, again, makes us aware that in matters of rhythm we have retrogressed rather than progressed. In one composition of 13 measures, there are o1 rhythmic variations; in another of 7, there are 7 variations. In one three-voiced composition each of the three voices sings in a different rhythm throughout. Over against such rhythmic variety there is the interesting example of a discant ostinato in the Chorus nove Hierusalem where there are some 27 repetitions of a motif in 65 measures. Further points of interest are: an early adumbration of the later Alberti bass; the working of climaxes and cadences; embellishments and codettas; emphasis upon syncopation; fondness for melodic per27

"THE POLYPHONIC PERIOD" is a term frequently applied to the age of music ending with the year I6oo. Similarly, the musical style most prevalent between 1750 and i9o0 is often described as "homophonic," since it consists of a single melodic line supported by a harmonic background. In strictly homophonic music the bass serves as a supporting part of this harmonic background rather than as a continuous melodic line in its own right. Can an equally descriptive designation, based on the music itself, be discovered for the typical baroque compositions of the intervening period (16oo-1750)? In general these works cannot be adequately classified either as "many-voiced" or as "like-voiced." Peculiar to baroque music is the leading role assumed by the bass line, as evidenced by the basso continuo and the basso ostinato. But with the Monodic Revolution the top melody also came into new prominence, as did the personality and virtuosity of the soloist performing it. And the relation between the two outer voices became one not of imitation, but of opposition. In contradistinction to polyphonic and homophonic music, that which places singular emphasis on the opposition of outer voices may be described as "amphonic,"' that is, "sounding on both sides." The concentration on a moving bass line contrasted with a distinct and often

ALTHOUGH designed as a three-act opera, Berg's Lulu really falls not into three sections but into two halves, Act I and Act II Sc. 1 (which correspond to Wedekind's Erdgeist, the first of his two Lulu plays) forming the first half, and Act II Sc. 2 and Act III (which correspond to the second of the Lulu plays, Die Buchse der Pandora) the second half of the opera. The two halves are separated by the palindromic "Ostinato" interlude at the center of Act II. Berg himself drew attention to the formal importance of this interlude, in one of his letters to Schoenberg

Nucleus of One or Two Intervals: The compressed, melodic prototype-the nucleus of one or two intervals spanning usually not more than a third-has been found in many cultures throughout the world. Such structurally primal melody appears sporadically in Central Africa. As a chant-like accompaniment (whether as refrain or ostinato) it is more common, but where it comprises the entire or main melodic line it is quite rare. The latter or pure form of this type is illustrated in the following four examples (1-4): a sacred elephant yodel-song of the Babinga Pygmies of the Congo Republic: capital Brazzaville (formerly French); a sacred circumcision-bird song of the Bapere of the Congo Republic: capital Leopoldville (formerly Belgian); a secular song of the N'Gundi of the Congo Republic: Brazzaville; and a social song of the Mangbetu of the Congo Republic: Leopoldville.2 In the last instance, however, the condensed type of motif is only a small section within a more complex song.

According to one recent estimate, well over four hundred operas written before 1800 were based on subject matter that may be loosely classified as "exotic" (WHAPLES, 1951). In France, where opera was considered the very special domain of le merveilleux, the fantastic, librettists and composers took a truly extraordinary interest in far away places and their colourful people, banking no doubt on the demand created by the sensational exploits of French travellers and empire builders on three continents. But just because opera was designed in the words of Addison, mainly "to gratify the senses and keep up an indolent attention of the audience", authenticity, musical or otherwise, presented no real issue. On the whole, non-Europeans were depicted as either cruel or ridiculous, and their musical characterization was confined to a limited number of stereotypes, such as rhythmic ostinati and persistent repetitions of brief melodic phrases, occasionally an unusual interval like the augmented fourth. The emergence of the "noble savage" as a symbol of rebellion against the growing sophistication of the ruling court circles brought little or no change in operatic practice. But the wave of anthropological and sociological activity generated by the Enlightenment did produce several publications which contained also welcome samples of non-European music. As early as 1736 du Halde printed five supposedly authentic melodies in his description of China (FISCHER, 1910-11). One of these, the famous tune employed eventually by both Weber and Hindemith, was later picked up by Rousseau and then again by John Barrow in whose Travels in China it appeared just a year before Weber composed the first version of his Chinese Overture. Meanwhile, other travelogues, for example de Bougainville's A Voyage Around the World, included musical examples, not to speak of the fundamental musicological essays published by Amiot and Laborde in 1780.

A LITTLE noticed but highly prophetic facet of Milhaud's music has been a keen interest in a kind of maximal contrapuntal "freedom" that is certainly related to contemporary "chance" music. Something of its spirit can already be observed in his early works; the orchestral texture in the finale of Les Eumenides, for example, is made up of completely independent melodic phrases, one piled on top of the other, with each repeated as an ostinato of a different length, thus creating a kind of musical kaleidoscope. The vertical relationships at any given point here are obviously fortuitous to the extent that once the lengths of the phrases have been fixed, their simultaneities will follow "automatically." In the closing Processional of this finale, there are in the orchestra six patterns of 12, 14, 16, 8, 5, and 7 beats respectively; this orchestral mass underlies up to nine vocal lines that are free, although each circles about a limited number of notes in a kind of semi-ostinato and thus adds to the ever-changing yet ever-the-same effect of the scene.1 In 1921, during the same time that Milhaud was working on Les Eumenides, he also wrote a little piece for voice and four clarinets (Eb, Bb, A, and bass) called Cocktail aux Clarinettes. Here the precomposed counterpoint of Euminides is transformed into real "chance" relationships. As in the opera, the music in this modest quasi-sketch is based on constant reiteration of simultaneously sounding independent lines; but in addition, the much more freely laid out, unmeasured lines plus the fermatas scattered among the parts make it highly unlikely that anything will be aligned twice in the same way. Thus, of course, no two performances can be the same, so that the piece fulfills the cardinal requirement for utter modernity. The singer ("bartender") sings the recipe for a cocktail (Ex. 1).