J-'Kl!,l'ACI!,.

practical processes of art, this advantage was offset by the faults of a

purely empirical method of which the illusory foundation rested on the
arbitrary divisions of a corde sonore.
Years elapsed, and during this time, chance having successively
placed in my hands the treatises on harmony by Roussier3 , Langle4 , the
Chevalier de Lirou5 , Marpurg6 , Kirnberger7 , and Sabbatini8 , I read them

3Pierre-Joseph Roussier (c. 1716-1792) is known primarily for his Traite des accords et
de leur succession, selon le systeme de la basse fondamentale. pour servir de principes
d'harmonie a ceux qui etudient l'accompagnement du clavecin avec une methode
d 'accompagnement (Paris , 1764), and Observations sur different points de l'harmonie
(Geneva and Paris 1765). Fetis demonstrates his own partiality with respect to Rameau,
asserting that although Roussier followed closely Rameau's principles, he "had the merit
of being the first in France who took into consideration _the succession of harmonies." He
commends Roussier for recognizing that certain chords are the result of combinations of
prolongations, substitutions, and alterations, although he hastens to point out the intense
criticism leveled against him for the "impertinence with which he treated the most
distinguished authors" and the many errors in his writings. FetisB, 7:499. [PL]
4Honore-Fran~ois-Marie Langle (1741-1807) is best known for his Traite d'harmonie et
de modulation (Paris, 1797). While Fetis praises Langle's attack on former harmonists
who considered chords in isolation, he dismisses his idea that all chords are derived from
one chord, that ,of the "third," by which he means the perfect chord. FetisB, 6:42 . [PL]
5According to Fetis, Jean-Fran9ois Lirou's (1740-1806) most important work is his
Explication du systeme de l'harmonie, pour abreger l'etude de la composition. et
accorder la pratique avec la theorie (Paris, 1785). Fetis claims that Lirou was the first
French author to set aside completely Rameau's fundamental bass system and to seek the
laws of harmonic succession in tonality, although he is disappointed that Lirou considers
tonality as a scale derived from the resonance of sonorous bodies. Quoting Lirou, he
writes: "C produces E, G; G creates B, D; moreover , C may be considered as the fifth of
F, from F, A, C. Thus, C being placed in the middle, we find in the harmonic resonances
of F, C, and G the succession of sounds, E, F, G, A, B, C, D, E, which contain all the
intervals of our major scale, and which correspond to the two tetrachords of Greek music,
E, A, G, A; B, C, D, E." Fetis, of course, considers any appeal to the harmonic resonance
of sonorous bodies in support of harmonic systems to be purely arbitrary and mechanical.
FetisB, 6:455. [PL]
6friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg (1718-1795). See Fetis' critique of Marpurg's theory of
harmony in Book Four of this work.
7Johann Philipp Kimberger (1721-1783). In the Biographie universe/le Fetis casts doubt
on Kirnberger's claim that (like Rameau) he had reduced harmony to two fundamental
chords, the perfect chord and the seventh, noting that Kimberger's point of departure for
the consonant chord is the perfect chord with major third, minor third, and minor fifth (on
the seventh degree), and that, moreover, Kimberger "considered as essential the four
seventh chords G-B-D-F; A-C-E-G; B-D-F-A; C-E-G-B, which to him appeared to differ
only by the quality of their intervals ." Although Kimberger considers these seventh
chords to be increasingly perfect the closer their proximity to tonic harmony, Fetis
recognizes only the first as an essential chord approached without preparation, and the
others, being always prepared, as arising from prolongation and substitution. This leads
him to claim that Kimberger discovered "the mechanism of the prolongation of chords
that are not modified by other circumstances ." Fetis makes no mention of Kirnberger's
concept of the ascending and descending leading tones on scale degrees seven and four
respectively, an idea that would surely have influenced his own theory of tonality. FetisB,
5:339 . [PL]

x.lv