Discords
Formerly all discords were prepared, and Monteverde's innovation of
taking the dominant seventh unprepared was held to be cataclysmic,
but in modern music almost any conceivable discord may be taken
unprepared. We have grown so used to this now that we think nothing
of it, still, whenever it can be done without sacrificing something
more important, I think even a dominant seventh is better prepared.
It is only the preparation, however, of discords which is now less
rigorously insisted on; their resolution--generally by the climbing
down of the offending note--is as necessary as ever if the music is
to flow on smoothly.
This holds good exactly in our daily life. If a discord has to be
introduced, it is better to prepare it as a concord, take it on a
strong beat, and resolve it downwards on a weak one. The preparation
being often difficult or impossible may be dispensed with, but the
resolution is still de rigueur.
Anachronism
It has been said "Thou shalt not masquerade in costumes not of thine
own period," but the history of art is the history of revivals.
Musical criticism, so far as I can see, is the least intelligent of
the criticisms on this score. Unless a man writes in the exotic
style of Brahms, Wagner, Dvorak and I know not what other Slav,
Czech, Teuton or Hebrew, the critics are sure to accuse him of being
an anachronism.
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