CADENCE

(Ital. cadenza, a /rtWmg'.) In Music, the conclusion of a song, or of some parts thereof, in certain places of the piece, dividing it as it were into so many numbers or periods. The cadence takes place when the parts fall or terminate on a note or chord naturally expected by the ear, just as a period closes the sense in the paragraph of a discourse. A cadence is either perfect or imperfect. The former when it consists of two notes sung after each other, or by degrees conjoined in each of the two parts, the harmony of the fifth preceding that of the key note; and it is called perfect, because it satisfies the ear more than the latter. The latter imperfect; that is, when the key note with its harmony precedes that (Jf the fifth without its added seventh. A cadence is said to be broken or interrupted when the ba rises a major Or minor second, instead of falling a fifth. C [s. 191]