“I see,” Evelyn replied pensively. “The first line written in one of the ancient modes, and underneath the melody, chromatic harmonies.”
“No, that would be horrible,” Ulick cried, like a dog whose tail has been trodden upon. “That is the infamous modern practice. I seek the harmony in the sentiment of the melody I am writing, in the tonality of the mode I am writing.”
And then, little by little, they entered the perilous question of the ancient modes. There were several, and three were as distinctive and as rich sources of melody and harmony as the ordinary major scale, for modern music limited itself to the major scale, the minor scale being a dependency. The major and minor modes or scales had sufficed for two or three centuries of music, but the time of their exhaustion was approachin
