MODULAZIONE. – This term essentially denotes the passage from one tonality to another.
The means by which this passage may be effected are exceedingly varied and differ from case to case, according to the number of chords employed, the character one wishes to give the m., its duration and complexity, its style and expressive value; and, more technically, according to the dissonances that participate in it, the greater or lesser predominance of diatonicism or chromaticism, and the various procedures by which the notes of the destination tonality are introduced, successively or simultaneously, gradually or suddenly cancelling those of the initial tonality, with or without the use of suspensions, symmetrical patterns, and rhythmic and melodic elaborations. Accordingly, m. are usually classified, according to their duration, as momentary, provisional, or definitive. Momentary modulations abandon the destination tonality immediately after reaching it; provisional modulations remain in it for a more or less extended period without eliminating the need to return to the principal tonality; definitive modulations replace the principal tonality with another principal tonality. M. may be immediate (transitions); but the view is tenable that true m. is always mediated, and consists in finding one or more linking elements between two tonalities. With regard to the relationship between tonalities, m. are distinguished as near and remote. Near tonalities are those having at the key signature one accidental more or one fewer than the tonality taken as the basis. One may modulate to a near tonality by touching momentarily upon remote tonalities. Thus, a further distinction is made between direct m. and indirect m. For example: from C major to A-flat major through F minor: direct m.; from C major to A-flat major through E major, G minor, and E-flat major: indirect m., that is, to a near tonality through remote tonalities. In the great composers, m. is never an end in itself, but always has an intimate relationship with the structure of the piece, or else a particular expressive, descriptive, or allusive character, justified by the words in the case of music set to a given text. In the obbligato recitatives of the great Italian nineteenth-century composers, examples of m. frequently occur that adhere, with the happiest effect, to the emotional movements of a given character; among the masters of the lied, the art of modulating in accordance with the suggestions of the poetic text is exquisite and highly refined. In symphonic music there are m. necessary to the very construction of the piece, that is, m. called for by the musical form, which carries within itself its own tonal laws. Thus, for example, the first movement of a
sonata, or of a quartet, is based on two principal symphonic ideas, the second of which appears in the tonality of the major dominant or of the so-called relative major (and at times in other tonalities subordinate to the principal one). The development of musical language over the last fifty years has enormously enriched the technique of m., both in the field of polytonality (simultaneous m.) and in that of modality (unimodal, intermodal, polymodal m.).
Edgardo Carducci-Agustini