Scan 36
Grove's dictionary of music and musicians ed. by J. A. Fuller Maitland, 1907
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1MAGGIORE. This word, the Italian equivalent of our 'major,' is used as a supplementary guide in passages of music where a change is made from the minor to the major mode, generally to the tonic, not the relative major, since in that change a careless reader might disregard the correction of the minor signature. Such a change as that from C minor to C major, even when the three naturals are used to annul the previous three flats, might conceivably be overlooked, were it not for the warning 'maggiore.' But such external aids to the reading of music are of rather doubtful utility.
3MAGIC FLUTE. See ZAUBERFLÖTE.
5MAGNARD, LUCIEN DENIS GABRIEL ALBÉRIC, born in Paris, June 9, 1865, was educated at the Lycée Condorcet for a legal career. After passing the grade of 'licencié,' he discovered that his musical faculty was too strong to be resisted, and entered the Conservatoire, under Dubois and Massenet, gaining the first prize for harmony in 1888. On leaving the Conservatoire he pursued his studies with Vincent d'Indy, and has since become one of the most remarkable of modern French composers, distinguished for his boldness and sincerity. He has written the following for orchestra: three symphonies, opp. 4, 6, 11; a suite in ancient style, op. 2; a 'chant funèbre,' op. 9; an overture, op. 10; 'Hymne à la Justice,' op. 14; 'Hymne à Vénus,' op. 17. Among his works for chamber music are a quintet for piano and wind, op. 8; a violin sonata, op. 13; a string quartet, op. 16; and a trio for piano and strings, op. 18. His dramatic works are: 'Yolande,' op. 5, one-act, Brussels, 1892; 'Guerceur,' op. 12, in three acts, not yet given. The libretti of both are by the composer himself.
7MAGNIFICAT. The 'Song of the Blessed Virgin Mary' has been used as the Vesper Canticle of the Church from time immemorial; and the Evening Office has always been so constructed as to lead up to it as its chief point of interest.
9In Plain-song services it is sung to the same Tones as the Psalms, but to a different form, with more elaborate intonations and mediations (see PSALMODY).
11After the invention of Discant a custom arose of singing Magnificat in alternate verses of Plain-song and Faux Bourdon. Sometimes the Faux Bourdon was simply a harmonised psalm-tone, with the melody in the tenor, as in the following example of a very beautiful
13Magnificat, Primi Toni.
15'Use' which has long been traditional in French Cathedrals.
17Sometimes the Plain-song was contrasted with an original Faux Bourdon, written in the required Mode, but not, like the former example, on the actual melody of the psalm-tone. Dr. Burney, during his visit to Rome, met with an exceedingly interesting MS. collection of Faux Bourdons of this description, by some of the greatest masters of the 16th century. From his autograph transcription of this volume—now preserved under the name of Studij di Palestrina, in the Library of the British Museum—we extract the following beautiful example by Giovanni Maria Nanini.1
19Ton. IV.
21These two methods of singing Magnificat are so wonderfully effective that it is difficult to choose between them; and, happily, they are both so easy that no choir need fear to attempt them. But the development of the idea did not rest here. It is scarcely possible to name any great church composer who has not illustrated the text of the canticle with original music over and over again. Palestrina published a volume, in 1591, containing two settings in each of the first eight Modes, and has left nearly as many more in MS. His favourite plan was to treat the alternate verses, only, in complex imitation and closely-interwoven fugal points, leaving sometimes the even and sometimes the odd verses to be sung in unisonous Plain-song, in the manner already described. The following extract from one of the finest compositions in the series will serve to exemplify his usual mode of treatment.
231 It will be seen that Nanini has ended his Chant with the harmony of the Dominant, instead of that proper to the Final of the Mode. A similar peculiarity is observable in many other Faux Bourdons adapted by the old masters to alternate verses of Canticles and Psalms. The reason of this is self-evident. One or other of the subsidiary cadences of the Mode is employed, in order that its true Final Cadence may be reserved for the conclusion of the Antiphon which is to follow. The Sistine Miserere may be cited as the exception which proves the rule. It ends with the proper Final Cadence, because, in the office of Tenebrae, it is always sung without an Antiphon [see ANTIPHON].
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