Critical and Historical Essays
hearing music was pleasant to him, and that to produce that
sensation was the entire mission of music, the Bishop placed
our art on a level with good things to eat and drink. Many
colleges and universities of this land consider music as a
kind of _boutonniere_.
This estimate of music is, I believe, unfortunately a very
general one, and yet, low as it is, there is a possibility
of building on such a foundation. Could such persons be made
to recognize the existence of decidedly unpleasant music,
it would be the first step toward a proper appreciation of
the art and its various phases.
Mere beauty of sound is, in itself, purely sensuous. It is
the Chinese conception of music that the texture of a sound
is to be valued; the long, trembling tone-tint of a bronze
gong, or the high, thin streams of sound from the pipes are
enjoyed for their ear-filling qualities. In the _Analects_ of
Confucius and the writings of Mencius there is much mention
of music, and "harmony of sound that shall fill the ears"
is insisted upon. The Master said, "When the music maker Che
first entered on his office, the finish with the Kwan Ts'eu
was magnificent. How it filled the ears!" Pere Amiot says,
"Music must fill the ears to penetrate the soul." Referring to
the playing of some pieces by Couperin on a spinet, he says that
Chinese hearers thought these pieces barbarous; the movement
was too rapid, and did not allow sufficient time for them to
enjoy each tone by itself. Now this is colour without form,
or sound without music. For it to become music, it must possess
some quality which will remove it from the purely sensuous. To
my mind, it is in the power of suggestion that the vital spark
of music lies.
Before speaking of this, however, I wish to touch upon two
things: first, on what is called the science of music; and
secondly, on one of the sensuous elements of music which enters
into and encroaches upon all suggestion.
If one were called upon to define what is called the
intellectual side of music, he would probably speak of "form,"
contrapuntal design, and the like. Let us take up the matter
of form. If by the word "form" our theorists meant the most
poignant expression of poetic thought in music, if they meant
by this word the art of arranging musical sounds into the most
telling presentation of a musical idea, I should have nothing
to say: for if this were admitted instead of the recognized
forms of modern theorists for the proper utterance, we should
possess a study of the power of musical sounds which might
truly justify the title of musical intellectuality. As it is,
the word "form" stands for what have been called "stoutly
built periods," "subsidiary themes," and the like, a happy
combination of which in certain prescribed keys was supposed
to constitute good form. Such a device, originally based upon
the necessities and fashions of the dance, and changing from
time to time, is surely not worthy of the strange worship
it has received. A form of so doubtful an identity that the
first movement of a certain Beethoven sonata can be dubbed by
one authority "sonata-form," and by another "free fantasia,"
certainly cannot lay claim to serious intellectual value.
Form should be a synonym for _coherence_. No idea, whether
great or small, can find utterance without form, but that form
will be inherent to the idea, and there will be as many forms
as there are adequately expressed ideas. In the musical idea,
_per se_, analysis will reveal form.
The term "contrapuntal development" is to most tone poets of the
present day a synonym for the device of giving expression to
a musically poetic idea. _Per se_, counterpoint is a puerile
juggling with themes, which may be likened to high-school
mathematics. Certainly the entire web and woof of this
"science," as it is called, never sprang from the necessities of
poetic musical utterance. The entire pre-Palestrina literature
of music is a conclusive testimony as to the non-poetic and
even uneuphonious character of the invention.
In my opinion, Johann Sebastian Bach, one of the world's
mightiest tone poets, accomplished his mission, not by means
of the contrapuntal fashion of his age, but in spite of it. The
laws of canon and fugue are based upon as prosaic a foundation
as those of the rondo and sonata form; I find it impossible to
imagine their ever having been a spur, or an incentive to poetic
musical speech. Neither, pure tonal beauty, so-called "form,"
nor what is termed the intellectual side of music (the art
of counterpoint, canon, and fugue), constitutes a really vital
factor in music. This narrows our analysis down to two things,
namely, the physical effect of musical sound, and suggestion.
The simplest manifestations of the purely sensuous effect of
sound are to be found in the savage's delight in noise. In
the more civilized state, this becomes the sensation of mere
pleasure in hearing pleasing sounds. It enters into folk song
in the form of the "Scotch snap," which is first cousin to the
Swiss _jodel_, and is undoubtedly the origin of the skips of
the augmented and (to a lesser degree) diminished intervals to
be found in the music of many nations. It consists of the trick
of alternating chest tones with falsetto. It is a kind of quirk
in the voice which pleases children and primitive folk alike,
a simple thing which has puzzled folklorists the world over.
The other sensuous influence of sound is one of the most
powerful elements of music, and all musical utterance
is involved with and inseparable from it. It consists of
repetition, recurrence, periodicity.
Now this repetition may be one of rhythm, tone tint, texture,
or colour, a repetition of figure or of pitch. We know that
savages, in their incantation ceremonies, keep up a continuous
drum beating or chant which, gradually increasing in violence,
drives the hearers into such a state of frenzy that physical
pain seems no longer to exist for them.
The value of the recurring rhythms and phrases of the march is
well recognized in the army. A body of men will instinctively
move in cadence with such music. The ever recurring lilt of a
waltz rhythm will set the feet moving unconsciously, and as the
energy of the repetition increases and decreases, so will the
involuntary accompanying physical sympathy increase or decrease.
Berlioz jokingly tells a story of a ballet dancer who objected
to the high pitch in which the orchestra played, and insisted
that the music be transposed to a lower key. Cradle songs are
fashioned on the same principle.
This sensuous sympathy with recurring sounds, rhythm, and pitch
has something in common with hypnotism, and leads up to what
I have called suggestion in music.
This same element in a modified form is made use of in poetry,
for instance, in Poe's "Raven,"
Quoth the raven, nevermore,
and the repetition of colour in the same author's "Scarlet
Death." It is the mainspring (I will not call it the vital
spark) of many so-called popular songs, the recipe for which
is exceedingly simple. A strongly marked rhythmic figure is
selected, and incessantly repeated until the hearer's body
beats time to it. The well-known tunes "There'll Be a Hot
Time," etc., and "Ta-ra-ra, Boom-de-ay" are good examples of
this kind of music.
There are two kinds of suggestion in music: one has been called
tone-painting, the other almost evades analysis.
The term tone-painting is somewhat unsatisfactory, and reminds
one of the French critic who spoke of a poem as "beautiful
painted music." I believe that music can suggest forcibly
certain things and ideas as well as vague emotions encased in
the so-called "form" and "science" of music.
If we wish to begin with the most primitive form of suggestion
in music, we shall find it in the direct imitation of sounds
in nature. We remember that Helmholtz, Hanslick, and their
followers denied to music the power to suggest things in
nature; but it was somewhat grudgingly admitted that music
might express the emotions caused by them. In the face of this,
to quote a well-known instance, we have the "Pastoral" symphony
of Beethoven, with the thrush, cuckoo, and thunderstorm. The
birds and the storm are very plainly indicated; but it is not
possible for the music to be an expression of the emotions
caused by them, for the very simple reason that no emotions
are caused by the cuckoo and thrush, and those caused by
thunderstorms range all the way from depression and fear to
exhilaration, according to the personality of individuals.
That music may imitate any rhythmic sounds or melodic figure
occurring in nature, hardly needs affirmation. Such devices may
be accepted almost as quotations, and not be further considered
here. The songs of birds, the sound made by galloping horses'
feet, the moaning of the wind, etc., are all things which
are part and parcel of the musical vocabulary, intelligible
alike to people of every nationality. I need hardly say that
increasing intensity of sound will suggest vehemence, approach,
and its visual synonym, growth, as well as that decreasing
intensity will suggest withdrawal, dwindling, and placidity.
The suggestion brought about by pattern is very familiar.
It was one of the first signs of the breaking away from
the conventional trammels of the contrapuntal style of the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The first madrigal of
Thomas Weelkes (1590) begins with the words, "Sit down," and
the musical pattern falls a fifth. The suggestion was crude,
but it was caused by the same impulse as that which supplied
the material for Wagner's "Waldweben," Mendelssohn's "Lovely
Melusina," and a host of other works.
The fact that the pattern of a musical phrase can suggest kinds
of motion may seem strange; but could we, for example, imagine
a spinning song with broken arpeggios? Should we see a spear
thrown or an arrow shot on the stage and hear the orchestra
playing a phrase of an undulating pattern, we should at once
realize the contradiction. Mendelssohn, Schumann, Wagner,
Liszt, and practically everyone who has written a spinning
song, has used the same pattern to suggest the turning of a
wheel. That such widely different men as Wagner and Mendelssohn
should both have adopted the same pattern to suggest undulating
waves is not a mere chance, but clearly shows the potency of
the suggestion.
The suggestion conveyed by means of pitch is one of the
strongest in music. Vibrations increasing beyond two hundred
and fifty trillions a second become luminous. It is a curious
coincidence that our highest vibrating musical sounds bring
with them a well-defined suggestion of light, and that as
the pitch is lowered we get the impression of ever increasing
obscurity. To illustrate this, I have but to refer you to the
Prelude to "Lohengrin." Had we no inkling as to its meaning,
we should still receive the suggestion of glittering shapes
in the blue ether.
Let us take the opening of the "Im Walde" symphony by Raff as
an example; deep shadow is unmistakably suggested. Herbert
Spencer's theory of the influence of emotion on pitch is well
known and needs no confirmation. This properly comes under
the subject of musical speech, a matter not to be considered
here. Suffice it to say that the upward tendency of a musical
phrase can suggest exaltation, and that a downward trend may
suggest depression, the intensity of which will depend upon
the intervals used. As an instance we may quote the "Faust"
overture of Wagner, in which the pitch is used emotionally
as well as descriptively. If the meaning I have found in this
phrase seems to you far-fetched, we have but to give a higher
pitch to the motive to render the idea absolutely impossible.
The suggestion offered by movement is very obvious, for music