The proposition that the feelings are the subject which music has to represent is due partly to the theory according to which the ultimate aim of music is to excite feelings and partly to an amended form of this theory.
A philosophical disquisition into an art demands a clear definition of its subject matter. The diversity of the subject matter of the various arts and the fundamental difference in the mode of treatment are a natural sequence of the dissimilarity of the senses to which they severally appeal. Every art comprises a range of ideas which it expresses after its own fashion in sound, language, color, stone, etc. A work of art, therefore, endows a definite conception with a material form of beauty. This definite conception, its embodiment, and the union of both are the conditions of an aesthetic ideal with which a critical examination into every art is indissolubly connected.
The subject of a poem, a painting, or a statue may be expressed in words and reduced to ideas. We say, for instance, this picture represents a flower girl, this statue a gladiator, this poem one of Roland's exploits. Upon the more or less perfect embodiment of the particular subject in the artist's production depends our verdict respecting the beauty of the work of art.
The whole gamut of human feelings has with almost complete unanimity been proclaimed to be the subject of music, since the emotions were thought to be in antithesis to the definiteness of intellectual conceptions. This was supposed to be the feature by which the musical ideal is distinguished from the ideal of the other fine arts and poetry. According to this theory, therefore, sound and its ingenious combinations are but the material and the medium of expression by which the composer represents love, courage, piety, and delight. The innumerable varieties of emotion constitute the idea which, on being translated into sound, assumes the form of a musical composition. The beautiful melody and the skillful harmony as such do not charm us, but only what they imply: the whispering of love, or the clamor of ardent combatants.
In order to escape from such vague notions we must, first of alt sever from their habitual associations metaphors of the above description. The whispering may be expressed, true, but not the whispering of love; the clamor may be reproduced, undoubtedly, but not the clamor of ardent combatants. Music may reproduce phenomena such as whispering, storming, roaring, but the feelings of love or anger have only a subjective existence.
Definite feelings and emotions are unsusceptible of being embodied in music.
Our emotions have no isolated existence in the mind and cannot, therefore, be evoked by an art which is incapable of representing the remaining series of mental states. They are, on the contrary, dependent on physiological and pathological conditions, on notions and judgments--in fact, on all the processes of human reasoning which so many conceive as antithetical to the emotions.
What, then, transforms an indefinite feeling into a definite one--into the feeling of longing, hope, or love? Is it the mere degree of intensity, the fluctuating rate of inner motion? Assuredly not. The latter may be the same in the case of dissimilar feelings or may, in the case of the same feeling, vary with the time and the person. Only by virtue of ideas and judgments--unconscious though we may be of them when our feelings run high--can an indefinite state of mind pass into a definite feeling. The feeling of hope is inseparable from the conception of a happier state which is to come, and which we compare with the actual state. The feeling of sadness involves the notion of a past state of happiness. These are perfectly definite ideas or conceptions, and in default of them--the apparatus of thought, as it were--no feeling can be called "hope" or "sadness," for through them alone can a feeling assume a definite character. On excluding these conceptions from consciousness, nothing remains but a vague sense of motion which at best could not rise above a general feeling of satisfaction or discomfort. The feeling of love cannot be conceived apart from the image of the beloved being, or apart from the desire and the longing for the possession of the object of our affections. It is not the kind of physical activity but the intellectual substratum, the subject underlying it, which constitutes it love. Dynamically speaking, love may be gentle or impetuous, bouyant or depressed, and yet it remains love. This reflection alone ought to make it clear that music can express only those qualifying adjectives, and not the substantive, love, itself. A determinate feeling (a passion, an emotion) as such never exists without a definable meaning which can, of course, only be communicated through the medium of definite ideas. Now, since music as an "indefinite form of speech" is admittedly incapable of expressing definite ideas, is it not a psychologically unavoidable conclusion that it is likewise incapable of expressing definite emotions? For the definite character of an emotion rests entirely on the meaning involved in it.
How it is that music may, nevertheless, awaken feelings (though not necessarily so) such as sadness and joy we shall try to explain hereafter when we come to examine music from a subjective point of view. At this stage of our inquiry it is enough to determine whether music is capable of representing any definite emotion whatever. To this question only a negative answer can be given, the definiteness of an emotion being inseparably connected with concrete notions and conceptions, and to reduce these to a material form is altogether beyond the power of music. A certain class of ideas, however, is quite susceptible of being adequately expressed by means which unquestionably belong to the sphere of music proper. This class comprises all ideas which, consistently with the organ to which they appeal are associated with audible changes of strength, motion, and ratio: the ideas of intensity waxing and diminishing; of motion hastening and lingering: of ingeniously complex and simple progression, etc. The aesthetic expression of music may be described bv terms such as graceful, gentle, violent, vigorous, elegant, fresh--all these ideas being expressible by corresponding modifications of sound. We may, therefore, use those adjectives as directly describing musical phenomena without thinking of the ethical meanings attaching to them in a psychological sense, and which, from the habit of associating ideas, we readily ascribe to the effect of the music, or even mistake for purely musical properties.
The ideas which a composer expresses are mainly and primarily of a purely musical nature. His imagination conceives a definite and graceful melody aiming at nothing beyond itself. Every concrete phenomenon suggests the class to which it belongs or some still wider conception in which the latter is included, and by continuing this process the idea of the absolute is reached at last. This is true also of musical phenomena. This melodious adagio, for instance, softly dying away, suggests the ideas of gentleness and concord in the abstract. Our imaginative faculty, ever ready to establish relations between the conceptions of art and our sentiments, may construe these softly ebbing strains of music in a still loftier sense, e.g., as the placid resignation of a mind at peace with itself; and they may rouse even a vague sense of everlasting rest.
The primary aim of poetry, sculpture, and painting is likewise to produce some concrete image. Only by way of inference can the picture of a flower girl call up the wider notion of maidenly content and modesty, the picture of a snow-covered churchyard the transitoriness of earthly existence. In like manner, but far more vaguely and capriciously, may the listener discover in a piece of music the idea of youthful contentedness or that of transitoriness. These abstract notions, however, are by no means the subject matter of the pictures or the musical compositions, and it is still more absurd to talk as if the feelings of "transitoriness" or of "youthful contentedness" could be represented by them.
There are ideas which, though not occurring as feelings, are yet capable of being fully expressed by music; and conversely, there are feelings which affect our minds but which are so constituted as to defy their adequate expression by any ideas which music can represent.
What part of the feelings, then, can music represent if not the subject involved in them?
Only their dynamic properties. It may reproduce the motion accompanying physical action, according to its momentum: speed, slowness, strength, weakness, increasing and decreasing intensity. But motion is only one of the concomitants of feeling, not the feeling itself. It is a popular fallacy to suppose that the descriptive power of music is sufficiently qualified by saying that although incapable of representing the subject of a feeling, it may represent the feeling itself--not the object of love, but the feeling of love. In reality, however, music can do neither. It cannot reproduce the feeling of love but only the element of motion; and this may occur in any other feeling just as well as in love, and in no case is it the distinctive feature. The term "love" is as abstract as "virtue" or "immortality," and it is quite superfluous to assure us that music is unable to express abstract notions. No art can do this, for it is a matter of course that only definite and concrete ideas (those that have assumed a living form, as it were) can be incorporated by an art.(1) But no instrumental composition can describe the ideas of love, wrath, or fear, since there is no causal nexus between these ideas and certain combinations of sound. Which of the elements inherent in these ideas, then, does music turn to account so effectually? Only the element of motion--in the wider sense, of course, according to which the increasing and decreasing force of a single note or chord is "motion" also. This is the element which music has in common with our emotions and which, with creative power, it contrives to exhibit in an endless variety of forms and contrasts.
Though the idea of motion appears to us a most far- reaching and important one, it has hitherto been conspicuously disregarded in all inquiries into the nature and action of music.
Whatever else there is in music that apparently pictures states of feeling is symbolical.
Sounds, like colors, are originally associated in our minds with certain symbolical meanings which produce their effeds independently of and antecedently to any design of art. Every color has a character of its own; it is not a mere cipher into which the artist blows the breath of life, but a force. Between it and certain states of mind, Nature herself has established a sympathetic connection. Are we not all acquainted with the unsophisticated meanings of colors, so dear to the popular imagination, which cultured minds have exalted into poetic refinement? Green is associated with a feeling of hope, blue with fidelity. Rosenkranz recognizes "graceful dignity" in orange, "philistine politeness" in violet, etc. (Psychologie, 2nd ed., p. 102.)
In like manner, the first elements of music, such as the various keys, chords, and timbres, have severally a character of their own. There exists, in fact, a but-too-ready art of interpreting the meanings of musical elements. Schubart's symbolism of the keys in music forms a counterpart as it were, to Goethe's interpretation of colors. Such elements (sounds, colors), however, when employed for the purposes of art, are subject to laws quite distinct from those upon which the effect of their isolated action depends. When looking at a historical painting we should never think of construing the red appearing in it as always meaning joy, or the white as always meaning innocence. Just as little in a symphony would the key of A flat major always awaken romantic feelings or the key of B minor always misanthropic ones, every triad a feeling of satisfaction and every diminished seventh a feeling of despair. Aesthetically speaking, such primordially distinctive traits are nonexistent when viewed in the light of those wider laws to which they are subordinate. The relation in question cannot for a moment be assumed to express or represent anything definite whatsoever. We called it "symbolical" because the subject is exhibited not directly but in a form essentially different from it. If yellow is the emblem of jealousy, the key of C major that of gaiety, the cypress that of mourning, such interpretations, and the definite character of our emotions, imply a psychophysiological relation. The color, the sound, or the plant as such are not related to our emotions, but only the meanings we ourselves attach to them. We cannot, therefore, speak of an isolated chord as representing a determinate feeling, and much less can we do so when it occurs in a connected piece of music.
Beyond the analogy of motion, and the symbolism of sounds, music possesses no means for fulfilling its alleged mission.
Seeing, then, how easy it is to deduce from the inherent nature of sound the inability of music to represent definite emotions, it seems almost incredible that our everyday experience should nevertheless have failed firmly to establish this fact. Let those who, when listening to some instrumental composition, imagine the strings to quiver with a profusion of feeling clearly show what feeling is the subject of the music. The experiment is indispensable. If, for instance, we were to listen to Beethoven's "Overture to Prometheus," an attentive and musical ear would successively discover more or less the following: the notes of the first bar, after a fall into the lower fourth, rise gently and in rapid succession, a movement repeated in the second bar. The third and fourth bars continue it in wider limits. The jet propelled by the fountain comes trickling down in drops, but rises once more, only to repeat in the following four bars the figure of the preceding four. The listener thus perceives that the first and second bars of the melody are symmetrical, that these two bars and the succeeding two are likewise so, and that the same is true of the wider arc of the first four bars and the corresponding arc of the following four. The bass which indicates the rhythm marks the beginning of each of the first three bars with one single beat, the fourth with two beats, while the same rotation is observed in the next four bars. The fourth bar, therefore, is different from the first three, and, this point of difference becoming symmetrical through being repeated in the following four bars, agreeably impresses the ear as an unexpected development within the former limits. The harmony of theme exhibits the same correspondence of one large and two small arcs: the common chord of C of the first four bars corresponds to the chord of 6/4 of the fifth and sixth, and to the chord of 6/5 of the seventh and eighth bars. This systematic correspondence of melody, rhythm, and harmony results in a structure composed of parts at once symmetrical and dissimilar, into which further gradations of light and shade are introduced through the timbre peculiar to each instrument and the varying volume of sound:
Any subject other than the one alluded to we absolutely fail to find in the theme, and still less could we state what feeling it represents or necessarily arouses in the listener. An analysis of this kind, it is true, reduces to a skeleton a body glowing with life; it destroys the beauty, but at the same time it destroys all false constructions.
No other theme of instrumental music will fare any better than the one which we have selected at random. A numerous class of music lovers think that it is a characteristic feature only of the older "classical" music to disregard the representation of feelings, and it is readily admitted that no feeling can be shown to form the subject of the forty-eight preludes and fugues of J.S. Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier. However glaringly unscientific and arbitrary such a distinction may be--a distinction, by the way, which has its explanation in the fact that the older music affords still more unmistakable proof that it aims at nothing beyond itself, and that interpretations of the kind mentioned would, in this case, present more obstacles than attractions--this alone is enough to prove that music need not necessarily awaken feelings, or that it must necessarily be the object of music to represent them. The whole domain of florid counterpoint would then have to be ignored. But if large departments of art, which can be defended both on historical and aesthetic grounds, have to be passed over for the sake of a theory,(2) it may be concluded that such a theory is false. Though a single leak will sink a ship, those who are not content with that are at liberty to knock out the whole bottom. Let them play the theme of a symphony by Mozart or Haydn, an adagio by Beethoven, a scherzo by Mendelssohn, one of Schumann's or Chopin's compositions for the piano, anything, in short, from the stock of our standard music; or again, the most popular themes from overtures of Auber, Donizetti, and Flotow. Who would be bold enough to point out a definite feeling as the subject of any of these themes? One will say "love." He may be right. Another thinks it is "longing." Perhaps so. A third feels it to be "religious fervor." Who can contradict him? Now, how can we talk of a definite feeling being represented when nobody really knows what is represented? Probably all will agree about the beauty or beauties of the composition, whereas all will differ regarding its subject. To "represent" something is to exhibit it clearly, to set it before us distinctly. But how can we call that the subject represented by an art which is really its vaguest and most indefinite element, and which must, therefore, forever remain highly debatable ground?
We have intentionally selected examples from instrumental music, for only what is true of the latter is true also of music as such. If we wish to decide the question whether music possesses the character of definiteness, what its nature and properties are, and what its limits and tendencies, no other than instrumental music can be taken into consideration. What instrumental music is unable to achieve lies also beyond the pale of music proper, for it alone is pure and self-subsistent music. No matter whether we regard vocal music as superior to or more effective than instrumental music--an unscientific proceeding, by the way, which is generally the upshot of one- sided dilettantism--we cannot help admitting that the term "music," in its true meaning, must exclude compositions in which words are set to music. In vocal or operatic music it is impossible to draw so nice a distinction between the effect of the music and that of the words that an exact definition of the share which each has had in the production of the whole becomes practicable. All inquiry into the subject of music must leave out even compositions with inscriptions, or so-called program music. Its union with poetry, though enhancing the power of the music, does not widen its limits.(3)
Vocal music is an undecomposable compound, and it is impossible to gauge the relative importance of each of its constituents. In discussing the effect of poetry, nobody, surely, will cite the opera as an example. Now, it requires a greater effort, but not deeper insight, to follow the same line of thought when the fundamental principles of musical aesthetics are in question.
Vocal music colors, as it were, the poetic drawing.(4) In the musical elements we were able to discover the most brilliant and delicate hues and an abundance of symbolic meanings. Though by their aid it might be possible to transform a second-rate poem into a passionate effusion of the soul, it is not the music but the words which determine the subject of vocal composition. Not the coloring but the drawing renders the represented subject intelligible. We appeal to the listener's faculty of abstraction, and beg him to think, in a purely musical sense, of some dramatically effective melody apart from the context. A melody, for instance, which impresses us as highly dramatic and which is intended to represent the feeling of rage can express this state of mind in no other way than by quick and impetuous motion. Words expressing passionate love, though diametrically opposed in meaning, might, therefore, be suitably rendered by the same melody.
At a time when thousands (among whom there were men like Jean Jacques Rousseau) were moved to tears by the air from Orpheus:
J'ai perdu mon Eurydice,
Rien n'égale mon malheur,
Boyé, a contemporary of Gluck, observed that precisely the same melody would accord equally well, if not better, with words conveying exactly the reverse, thus:
J'ai trouvé mon Eurydice,
Rien n'égale mon bonheur.
The following is the beginning of the aria in question, which, for the sake of brevity, we give with piano accompaniment but in all other respect exactly as in the original Italian score:
[fig. 2]
We, for our part, are not of opinion that in this case the composer is quite free from blame, inasmuch as music most assuredly possesses accents which more truly express a feeling of profound sorrow. If, however, from among innumerable instances we selected the one quoted, we have done so because, in the first place, it affects the composer who is credited with the greatest dramatic accuracy; and, secondly, because several generations have hailed this very melody as most correctly rendering the supreme grief which the words express.
But even far more definite and expressive passages from vocal music, when considered apart from the text, enable us at best to guess the feeling they are intended to convey. They resemble a silhouette, the original of which we recognize only after being told whose likeness it is.
What is true of isolated passages is true also in a wider application. There are many cases where an entirely new text has been employed for a complete musical work If Meyerbeer's Huguenots, after changing the scene of action, the time, the characters, and the plot, were to be performed as "The Ghibellines of Pisa," though so clumsy an adaptation would undoubtedly produce a disagreeable impression, the purely musical part would in no way suffer. And yet the religious feeling and fanaticism which are entirely wanting in "The Ghibellines" are supposed to be the motive power in The Huguenots. Luther's hymn must not be cited as counter-evidence, as it is merely a quotation. From a musical point of view it is consistent with any profession of faith whatever. Has the reader ever heard the allegro fugato from the overture to The Magic Flute changed into a vocal quartet of quarreling Jewish peddlers? Mozart's music, though not altered in the smallest degree, fits the low text appallingly well, and the enjoyment we derive from the gravity of the music in the opera can be no heartier than our laugh at the farcical humor of the parody. We might quote numberless instances of the plastic character of every musical theme and every human emotion. The feeling of religious fervor is rightly considered to be the least liable to musical misconstruction. Yet there are countless village and country churches in Germany in which at Eucharist pieces like Proch's "Alpine Horn" or the finale from the Sonnambula (with the coquettish leap to the tenth) are performed on the organ. Foreigners who visit churches in Italy hear, to their amazement, the most popular themes from operas by Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, and Verdi. Pieces like these and of a still more secular character, provided they do not altogether lose the quality of sobriety, are far from interfering with the devotions of the congregation, who, on the contrary, appear to be greatly edified. If music as such were capable of representing the feeling of piety, a quid pro quo of this kind would be as unlikely as the contingency of a preacher reciting from the pulpit a novel by Tieck or an act of Parliament. The greatest masters of sacred music afford abundant examples in proof of our proposition. Handel, in particular, set to work with the greatest nonchalance in this respect. Winterfeld has shown that many of the most celebrated airs from The Messiah, including those most of all admired as being especially suggestive of piety, were taken from secular duets (mostly erotic) composed in the years 1711-1712, when Handel set to music certain madrigals by Mauro Ortensio for the Electoral Princess Caroline of Hanover. The music of the second duet,
No, di voi non vo' fidarmi,
Cieco amor, crudel beltà;
Troppo siete menzognere
Lusinghiere deità!
Handel employed unaltered both in key and melody for the chorus in the first part of The Messiah, "For unto us a Child is born." The third part of the same duet, So per prova i vostri inganni, contains the same themes which occur in the chorus of the second part of The Messiah, "All we like sheep." The music of the madrigal (No.16, duet for soprano and alto) is essentially the same as the duet from the third part of The Messiah, "O Death, where is thy sting?" But the words of the madrigal are as follows:
Se tu non lasci amore
Mio cor, ti pentirai
Lo so ben io!
There is a vast number of similar instances, but we need only refer here to the entire series of pastoral pieces from the "Christmas Oratorio" which, as is well known, were naively taken from secular cantatas composed for special occasions. And Gluck, whose music, we are taught, attained the sublime height of dramatic accuracy only by every note being scrupulously adapted to each special case, nay, by the melodies being extracted from the very rhythm of the syllables--Gluck has transferred to his Armida no fewer than five airs from his earlier Italian operas (compare with the author's Die moderne Oper, p. 16). It is obvious, therefore, that vocal music, which in theory can never determine the principles of music proper, is likewise, in practice, powerless to call in question the canons which experience has established for instrumental music.
The proposition which we are endeavoring to disprove has become, as it were, part and parcel of current musical aesthetics, so that all derivative and collateral theories enjoy the same reputation of invulnerability. To the latter belongs the theory that music is able to reproduce visual and auditory impressions of a nonmusical nature. Whenever the question of the representation of objects by musical means (Tonmalerei) is under debate we are, with an air of wisdom, assured over and over again that, though music is unable to portray phenomena which are foreign to its province, it nevertheless may picture the feelings which they excite. The very reverse is the case. Music can undertake to imitate objective phenomena only, and never the specific feeling they arouse. The falling of snow, the fluttering of birds, and the rising of the sun can be painted musically only by producing auditory impressions which are dynamically related to those phenomena. In point of strength, pitch, velocity, and rhythm, sounds present to the ear a figure bearing that degree of analogy to certain visual impressions which sensations of various kinds bear to one another. As there is, physiologically speaking, such a thing as a vicarious function (up to a certain point), so may sense impressions, aesthetically speaking, become vicarious also. There is a well-founded analogy between motion in space and motion in time; betwen the color, texture, and size of an object and the pitch, timbre, and strength of a tone; and it is for this reason quite practicable to paint an object musically. The pretension, however, to describe by musical means the it feeling" which the falling snow, the crowing cock, or a flash of lightning excites in us is simply ludicrous.
Although, as far as we remember, all musical theorists tacitly accept and base their arguments on the postulate that music has the power of representing definite emotions, yet their better judgment has kept them from openly avowing it. The conspicuous absence of definite ideas in music troubled their minds and induced them to lay down the somewhat modified principle that the object of music was to awaken and represent indefinite, not definite, emotions. Rationally understood, this can only mean that music ought to deal with the motion accompanying a feeling, regardless of its essential part with what is felt; in other words, that its function is restricted to the reproduction of what we termed the dynamic element of an emotion, a function which we unhesitatingly conceded to music. But this property does not enable music to represent indefinite feelings, for to "represent" something "indefinite" is a contradiction in terms. Psychical motion, considered as motion apart from the state of mind it involves, can never become the object of an art because without an answer to the query, What is moving, or what is being moved? an art has nothing tangible to work upon. That which is implied in the proposition--namely, that music is not intended to represent a definite feeling (which is undoubtedly true)--is only a negative aspect of the question. But what is the positive, the creative, factor in a musical composition? An indefinite feeling as such cannot supply a subject; to utilize it an art would, first of all have to solve the problem: What form can be given to it? The function of art consists in individualizing, in evolving the definite out of the indefinite, the particular out of the general. The theory respecting "indefinite feelings" would reverse this process. It lands us in even greater difficulties than the theory that music represents something, though it is impossible to define what. This position is but a step removed from the clear recognition that music represents no feelings, either definite or indefinite. Yet where is the musician who would deprive his art of that domain which from time immemorial has been claimed as belonging to it?(5)
This conclusion might give rise to the view that the representation of definite feelings by music, though impracticable, may yet be adopted as an ideal, never wholly realizable, but which it is possible, and even necessary, to approach more and more closely. The many high-sounding phrases respecting the tendency of music to cast off its vagueness and to become concrete speech, no less than the fulsome praises bestowed on compositions aiming--or supposed to be aiming--at this, are proof of the popularity of the theory in question.
Having absolutely denied the possibility of representing emotions by musical means, we must be still more emphatic in refuting the fallacy which considers this the aesthetic touchstone of music.
The beautiful in music would not depend on the accurate representation of feelings even if such a representation were possible. Let us, for argument's sake, assume the possibility and examine it from a practical point of view.
It is manifestly out of the question to test this fallacy with instrumental music, as the latter could be shown to represent definite feelings only by arguing in a circle. We must, therefore, make the experiment with vocal music as being that music whose office it is to emphasize clearly defined states of mind.(6)
Here the words determine the subject to be described; music may give it life and breath, and impart to it a more or less distinct individuality. This is done by utilizing as far as possible the characteristics peculiar to motion and the symbols associated with sounds. If greater attention is bestowed on the words than on the production of purely musical beauty, a high degree of individuality may be secured--nay, the delusion may even arise that the music alone expresses the emotion which, though susceptible of intensificafion, was already immutably contained in the words. Such a tendency is in its consequences on a par with the alleged practicability of representing a certain feeling as the subject of a given "piece of music." Suppose there did exist perfect congruity between the real and the assumed power of music, that it was possible to represent feelings by musical means, and that these feelings were the subject of musical compositions. If this assumption be granted, we should be logically compelled to call those compositions the best which perform the task in the most perfect manner. Yet do we not all know compositions of exquisite beauty without any definite subject? We need but instance Bach's preludes and fugues. On the other hand, there are vocal compositions which aim at the most accurate expression of certain emotions within the limits referred to, and in which the supreme goal is truthfulness in this descriptive process. On close examination we find that the rigor with which music is subordinated to words is generally in an inverse ratio to the independent beauty of the former; otherwise expressed, that rhetorico-dramatical precision and musical perfection go together but halfway, and then proceed in different directions.
The recitative affords a good illustration of this truth, since it is that form of music which best accommodates itself to rhetorical requirements down to the very accent of each individual word, never even attempting to be more than a faithful copy of rapidly changing states of mind. This, therefore, in strict accordance with the theory before us, should be the highest and most perfect music. But in the recitative, music degenerates into a mere shadow and relinquishes its individual sphere of action altogether. Is not this proof that the representing of definite states of mind is contrary to the nature of music, and that in their ultimate bearings they are antagonistic to one another? Let anyone play a long recitative, leaving out the words, and inquire into its musical merit and subject. Any kind of music claiming to be the sole factor in producing a given effect should be able to stand this test.
This is by no means true of the recitative alone; the most elevated and excellent forms of music equally bear out the assertion that the beautiful tends to disappear in proportion as the expression of some specific feeling is aimed at; for the former can expand only if untrammeled by alien factors, whereas the latter relegates music to a subservient place.
We will now ascend from the declamatory principle in the recitative to the dramatic principle in the opera. In Mozart's operas there is perfect congruity between the music and the words. Fven the most intricate parts, the finales, are beautiful if judged as a whole, quite apart from the words, although certain portions in the middle might become somewhat obscure without them. To do justice in a like degree both to the musical and the dramatic requirements is rightly considered to be the ideal of the opera. But that for this reason there should be perpetual warfare between the principles of dramatic nicety and musical beauty, entailing never-ending concessions on both sides, has, to my knowledge, never been conclusively demonstrated. The principle involved in the opera is not undermined or weakened by the fact that all the parts are sung--our imagination being easily reconciled to an illusion of this kind--but it is the constraint imposed alike upon music and words that leads to continual acts of trespass or concession, and reduces the opera, as it were, to a constitutional government whose very existence depends upon an incessant struggle between two parties equally entitled to power. It is from this conflict, in which the composer allows now one principle and now the other to prevail, that all the imperfections of the opera arise, and from which, at the same time, all rules important for operatic works are deduced. The principles in which music and the drama are grounded, if pushed to their logical consequences, are mutually destructive; but they point in so similar a direction that they appear almost parallel.
The dance is a similar case in point, of which any ballet is a proof. The more the graceful rhythm of the figures is sacrificed in the attempt to speak by gesture and dumb show, and to convey definite thoughts and emotions, the closer is the approximation to the low rank of mere pantomime. The prominence given to the dramatic principle in the dance proportionately lessens its rhythmical and plastic beauty. The opera can never be quite on a level with recited drama or with purely instrumental music. A good opera composer will, therefore, constantly endeavor to combine and reconcile the two factors instead of automatically emphasizing now one and now the other. When in doubt, however, he will alwavs allow the claim of music to prevail, the chief element in the opera being not dramatic but musical beauty. This is evident from the different attitudes of mind in which we listen to a play or an opera in which the same subject is treated. The neglect of the musical part will always be far more keenly felt.(7)
As regards the history of the art of music, it appears to us that the importance of the celebrated controversy between the disciples of Gluck and those of Piccinni lies in the fact that the question of the internal conflict in the opera caused by the incompatibility of the musical and the dramatic principles was then for the first time thoroughly discussed. The controversy, it is true, was carried on without a clear perception of the immense influence which the outcome would have on the whole mode of thinking. He who does not shrink from the labor--a very profitable labor, by the way--of tracing this musical controversy to its sources(8) will notice in the vast range from adulation down to ill-breeding all the wit and cleverness of French polemics, but likewise so childish a treatment of the abstract side of the question, and such want of deeper knowledge, that the science of musical aesthetics could gain nothing from the endless disputation. The most gifted controversialists--Suard and the Abbé Arnaud on Gluck's side, and Marmontel and La Harpe of the opposite camp--though repeatedly going beyond the limits of Gluck's critique and into a more minute examination of the dramatic principle of the opera and its relation to music, treated this relation, nevertheless, as one of the many properties of the opera, but by no means as one of the most vital importance. It never struck them that the very life of the opera depended on the nature of this relationship. It is certainly remarkable how very near some of Gluck's opponents, in particular, were at times to the position from which the fallacy of the dramatic principle can be clearly seen and confuted. Thus La Harpe, in the Journal de Politique et de Littérature of October 5, 1777, says:
On objecte qu'il n'est pas naturel de chanter un air de cette nature
dans une situation passionée, que c'est un moyen d'arrêter la scène
et de nuir à l'effet. Je trouve ces objections absolument
illusoires. D'abord, dès qu'on admet le chant, il faut l'admettre le
plus beau possible et il n'est pas plus naturel de chanter mal, que
de chanter bien. Tous les arts sont fondés sur des conventions, sur
des données. Quand je viens à l'opéra, c'est pour entendre la
musique. Je n'ignore pas, qu'Alceste ne faisait ses Adieux à Admète en
chantant un air; mais comme Alceste est sur le Théatre pour chanter,
si je retrouve sa douleur et son amour dans un air bien mélodieux,
je jouirai de son chant en m'intéressant à son infortune.
Is it credible that La Harpe should have failed to recognize the security and unassailableness of his position? For, after a while, it occurs to him to object to the duet of Agamemnon and Achilles in Iphigenia because "it is inconsistent with the dignity of the two heroes to talk simultaneously." With this remark he quits the vantage ground of the principle of purely musical beauty and tacitly--nay, unconsciously-- accepts the theory of his adversaries.
The more scrupulous we are in keeping pure the dramatic element of the opera by withholding from it the vivifying breath of musical beauty, the more quickly it faints away like a bird in the exhausted receiver of an air pump. We have, therefore, no course but to fall back upon the pure, spoken drama which, at all events, is proof of the impossibility of the opera; unless, though fully aware of the unreality involved, we assign to the musical element the foremost rank in the true exercise of the art, this fact has, indeed, never been questioned. Even Gluck, the most orthodox dramaturgist, although he originated the fallacy that opera music should be nothing but exalted declamation, did, in practice, often allow his musical genius to get the better of him, and this invariably to the great advantage of the work. The same holds good of Richard Wagner. For the object of these pages, it is enough to denounce emphatically as false Wagner's principal theorem as stated in the first volume of Oper und Drama: "The misconception respecting the opera, viewed as a work of art, consists in the fact that the means (the music) is regarded as the end, and the end (the drama) as the means. An opera, however, in which the music is really and truly employed solely as a medium for dramatic expression in a musical monstrosity.(9)
One of the inferences to be drawn from Wagner's proposition (respecting the means and the end) is that all composers who have set indifferent librettos to anything better than indifferent music were guilty of a great impropriety, as we ourselves are in admiring such music.
The connection of poetry with music and with the opera is a sort of morganatic union, and the more closely we examine this morganatic union of musical beauty and definite thoughts, the more skeptical do we become as regards its indissolubility
How is it that in every song slight alterations may be introduced which, without in the least detracting from the accuracy of expression, immediately destroy the beauty of the theme? This would be impossible if the latter were inseparably connected with the former. Again, how is it that many a song, though adequately expressing the drift of the poem, is nevertheless quite intolerable? The theory that music is capable of expressing emotions furnishes us with no explanation. In what, then, consists the beautiful in music, if it does not consist in the emotional element?
An altogether different and independent element remains, which we shall presently examine more closely.
So far we have considered only the negative aspect of the question, and have sought to expose the fallacy that the beautiful in music depends upon the accurate expression of feelings.
We must now, by way of completing the exposition, bring to light also its positive aspect and endeavor to determine the nature of the beautiful in music.
Its nature is specifically musical. By this we mean that the beautiful is not contingent upon nor in need of any subject introduced from without but that it consists wholly of sounds artistically combined. The ingenious co-ordination of intrinsically pleasing sounds, their consonance and contrast, their flight and reapproach, their increasing and diminishing strength--this it is which, in free and unimpeded forms, presents itself to our mental vision.
The primordial element of music is euphony, and rhythm is its soul: rhythm in general, or the harmony of a symmetrical structure, and rhythm in particular, or the systematically reciprocal motion of its several parts within a given measure. The crude material which the composer has to fashion, the vast profusion of which it is impossible to estimate fully, is the entire scale of musical notes and their inherent adaptability to an endless variety of melodies, harmonies, and rhythms. Melody, unexhausted, nay, inexhaustible, is preeminently the source of musical beauty. Harmony, with its countless modes of transforming, inverting, and intensifying, offers the material for constantly new developments; while rhythm, the main artery of the musical organism, is the regulator of both, and enhances the charms of the timbre in its rich variety.
To the question: What is to be expressed with all this material? the answer will be: Musical ideas. Now, a musical idea reproduced in its entirety is not only an object of intrinsic beauty but also an end in itself, and not a means for representing feelings and thoughts.
The essence of music is sound and motion.
The arabesque, a branch of the art of ornamentation, dimly betokens in what manner music may exhibit forms of beauty though no definite emotion be involved. We see a plexus of flourishes, now bending into graceful curves, now rising in bold sweeps; moving now toward, and now away from each other; correspondingly matched in small and large arcs; apparently incommensurable, yet duly proportioned throughout with a duplicate or counterpart to every segment in fine, a compound of oddments, and yet a perfect whole. Imagine now an arabesque, not still and motionless, but rising before our eyes in constantly changing forms. Behold the broad and delicate lines, how they pursue one another; how from a gentle curve they rise up into lofty heights, presently to descend again; how they widen and contract, surprising the eye with a marvelous alternation of quiescence and mobility. The image thus becomes nobler and more exalted. It moreover; we conceive this living arabesque as the active emanation of inventive genius, the artistic fullness of whose imagination is incessantly flowing into the heart of these moving forms, the effect we think will be not unlike that of music.
When young, we have probably all been delighted with the ever-changing tints and forms of a kaleidoscope. Now, music is a kind of kaleidoscope, though its forms can be appreciated only by an infinitely higher ideation. It brings forth a profusion of beautiful tints and forms, now sharply contrasted and now almost imperceptibly graduated; all logically connected with each other; yet all novel in their effect; forming as it were, a complete and self-subsistent whole, free from any alien admixture. The main difference consists in the fact that the musical kaleidoscope is the direct product of a creative mind, whereas the optic one is but a cleverly constructed mechanical toy. It however, we stepped beyond the bounds of analogy, and in real earnest attempted to raise mere color to the rank of music by foisting on one art the means of another; we should be landed in the region of such puerile contrivances as the "color piano" or the "ocular organ," though these contrivances significantly prove both phenomena to have, morphologically, a common root.
If any sentimental lover of music thinks that analogies such as the one mentioned are degrading to the art we reply that the only question is whether they are relevant or not. A subject is not degraded by being studied. If we wish to disregard the attributes of motion and successive formation, which render a comparison with the kaleidoscope particularly applicable, we may, forsooth, find a more dignified parallel for beautiful music in architecture, the human body, or a landscape, because these all possess original beauty of outline and color quite irrespective of the intellectual substratum, the soul.
The reason why people have failed to discover the beauties in which pure music abounds is, in great measure, to be found in the underrating by the older systems of aesthetics of the sensuous element and in its subordination to morality and feeling--in Hegel, to the "idea." Every art sets out from the sensuous and operates within its limits. The theory relating to the expression of feelings ignores this fact and, disdainfully pushing aside the act of hearing, it passes on immediately to the feelings. Music, say they, is food for the soul, and the organ of hearing is beneath their notice.
True, it is not for the organ of hearing as such, for the "labyrinth" of the "tympanum," that a Beethoven composes. But our imagination, which is so constituted as to be affected by auditory impressions (and in relation to which the term "organ" means something very different from a channel directed toward the world of physical phenomena), delights in the sounding forms and musical structures and, conscious of their sensuous nature, lives in the immediate and free contemplation of the beautiful.
It is extremely difficult to define this self-subsistent and specifically musical beauty. As music has no prototype in nature, and expresses no definite conceptions, we are compelled to speak of it either in dry, technical terms, or in the language of poetic fiction. Its kingdom is, indeed, "not of this world." All the fantastic descriptions, characterizations, and periphrases are either metaphorical or false. What in any other art is still descriptive is in music already figurative. Of music it is impossible to form any but a musical conception, and it can be comprehended and enjoyed only in and for itself.
The "specifically musical" must not, however, be understood only in the sense of acoustic beauty or symmetry of parts--both of which elements it embraces as of secondary importance--and still less can we speak of "a display of sounds to tickle the ear," or use similar phraseology which is generally intended to emphasize the absence of an intellectual principle. But, by laying stress on musical beauty, we do not exclude the intellectual principle; on the contrary, we imply it as essential, for we would not apply the term "beautiful" to anything wanting in intellectual beauty; and in tracing the essential nature of beauty to a morphological source, we wish it to be understood that the intellectual element is most intimately connected with these sonorific forms. The term "form" in musical language is peculiarly significant. The forms created by sound are not empty; not the envelope enclosing a vacuum, but a well, replete with the living creation of inventive genius. Music, then, as compared with the arabesque, is a picture, yet a picture the subject of which we cannot define in words, or include in any one category of thought. In music there is both meaning and logical sequence, but in a musical sense; it is a language we speak and understand, but which we are unable to translate. It is a highly suggestive fact that, in speaking of musical compositions, we likewise employ the term "thought," and a critical mind easily distiguishes real thoughts from hollow phrases, precisely as in speech. The Germans significantly use the term Satz ("sentence") for the logical consummation of a part of a composition, for we know exactly when it is finished, just as in the case of a written or spoken sentence, though each has a logic of its own.
The logic of music, which produces in us a feeling of satisfaction, rests on certain elementary laws of nature which govern both the human organism and the phenomena of sound. It is, above all, the primordial law of "harmonic progression" which, like the curve lines in painting and sculpture, contains the germ of development in its main forms, and the (unfortunately almost unexplained) cause of the link which connects the various musical phenomena.
All musical elements are in some occult manner connected with each other by certain natural affinities, and since rhythm, melody, and harmony are under their invisible sway, the music created by man must conform to them-any combinations conflicting with them bearing the impress of caprice and ugliness. Though not demonstrable with scientific precision, these affinites are instinctively felt by every experienced ear, and the organic completeness and logic, or the absurdity and unnaturalness of a group of sounds, are intuitively known without the intervention of a definite conception as the standard of measure, the tertium comparationis.(10)
From this negative rationalness, inherent in music and founded on the laws of nature, springs the possibility of its becoming invested also with positive forms of beauty.
The act of composing is a mental working on material capable of receiving the forms which the mind intends to give. The musical material in the hands of creative genius is as plastic and pliable as it is profuse. Unlike the architect, who has to mold the coarse and unwieldy rock, the composer reckons with the ulterior effect of past sounds. More ethereal and subtle than the material of any other art, sound adapts itself with great facility to any idea the composer may have in his mind. Now, as the union of sounds (from the interdependence of which the beautiful in music flows) is not effected by mechanically stringing them together but by acts of a free imagination, the intellectual force and idiosyncrasy of the particular mind will give to every composition its individual character. A musical composition, as the creation of a thinking and feeling mind, may, therefore, itself possess intellectuality and pathos in a high degree. Every musical work ought to bear this stamp of intellectuality, but the music itself must furnish evidence of its existence. Our opinion regarding the seat of the intellectual and emotional elements of a musical composition stands in the same relation to the popular way of thinking as the idea of immanence does to that of transcendence. The object of every art is to clothe in some material form an idea which has originated in the artist's imagination. In music this idea is an acoustic one; it cannot be expressed in words and subsequently translated into sounds. The initial force of a composition is the invention of some definite theme, and not the desire to describe a given emotion by musical means. Thanks to that primitive and mysterious power whose mode of action will forever be hidden from us, a theme, a melody, flashes on the composer's mind. The origin of this first germ cannot be explained, but must simply be accepted as a fact. When once it has taken root in the composer's imagination, it forthwith begins to grow and develop, the principal theme being the center round which the branches group themselves in all conceivable ways, though always unmistakably related to it. The beauty of an independent and simple theme appeals to our aesthetic feeling with that directness which tolerates no explanation except perhaps, that of its inherent fitness and the harmony of parts, to the exclusion of any alien fact It pleases for its own sake, like an arabesque, a column, or some spontaneous product of nature--a leaf or a flower.
There is no greater and more frequent error than to distinguish between "beautiful music" with and without a definite subject The error is due to the extremely narrow conception of the beautiful in music, leading people to regard the artistically constructed form and the soul infused into it as two independent and unrelated existences. All compositions are accordingly divided into full and empty "champagne bottles"; musical "champagne," however, has the peculiarity of developing within the bottle.
One musical thought is refined in and through itself and, for no further reason, another is vulgar; this final cadence is imposing, while by the alteration of but two notes it becomes commonplace. We are perfectly justified in calling a musical theme "grand, graceful, warm, hollow, vulgar"; but all these terms are exclusively suggestive of the musical character of the particular passage. To define the musical complexion of a given theme, we often speak in terms used to describe emotions, such as "proud, gloomy, tender, ardent longing." But we may with equal justice select them from a different order of phenomena, and call a piece of music "sweet, fresh, cloudy, cold." To be descriptive of the character of a musical composition, our feelings must be regarded in the light of mere phenomena, just like any other phenomenon which happens to present certain analogies. Epithets such as we have mentioned may be used so long as we remain fully conscious of their figurative sense-nay, we may even be unable to avoid them; but let us never say, This piece of music "expresses" pride, etc.
A close examination of the musical definiteness of a theme convinces us, however--the inscrutability of the ultimate ontological causes notwithstanding--that there are various proximate causes with which the intellectual element in a composition is intimately associated. Every musical factor (such as an interval, the timbre, a chord, the rhythm, etc.) has a distinctive feature of its own and its individual mode of action. Though the composer's mind be a mystery, its product is quite within the grasp of our understanding.
A theme harmonized with the common chord sounds different if harmonized with the chord of the sixth; a melody progressing by an interval of the seventh produces an effect quite distinct from one progressing by an interval of the sixth. The rhythm, the volume of sound, or the timbre--each alters the specific character of a theme entirely; in fine, every single musical factor necessarily contributes to a certain passage assuming just this particular aspect, and affecting the listener in this particular way. What it is that makes Halévy's music appear fantastic, that of Auber graceful--what enables us immediately to recognize Mendelssohn or Spohr--all this may be traced to purely musical causes, without having recourse to the mysterious element of the feelings.
On the other hand, why the frequent chords of 6/4 and the concise, diatonic themes of Mendelssohn, the chromatic and enharmonic music of Spohr, the short two-bar rhythm of Auber, etc., invariably produce this specific impression and none other--this enigma, it is true, neither psychology nor physiology can solve.
If, however, we inquire into the proximate cause--and that is, after all, what concerns us most in any art--we shall find that the thrilling effect of a theme is owing, not to the supposed extreme grief of the composer, but to the extreme intervals; not to the beating of his heart but to the beating of the drums; not to the craving of his soul, but to the chromatic progression of the music. The link connecting the two we would by no means ignore; on the contrary, we shall presently subject it to a careful analysis. Meanwhile, we must remember that a scientific inquiry into the effect of a theme can deal only with such musical factors as have an enduring and objective existence, and not with the presumable state of mind in which the composer happened to be. The conclusion reached by arguing from the composer's state of mind directly to the effect of the music might perchance, be correct but the most important part of the syllogism, the middle term, i.e., the music itself, would thus be ignored.
A good composer, perhaps more by intuition than by rote, always has a practical knowledge of the character of every musical element; but in order to give a rationale of the various musical sensations and impressions we require a theoretical knowledge of those characters from the most intricate combinations down to scarcely distinguishable gradations. The specific effect of a melody must not be taken as "a marvel mysterious and unaccountable" which we can only "feel" or "divine"; but it is the inevitable result of the musical factors united in this particular manner. A short or long rhythm, a diatonic or chromatic progression--each has its individual physiognomy and an effect of its own. An intelligent musician wilt therefore, get a much clearer notion of the character of a composition which he has not heard himself by being told that it contains, for instance, too many diminished sevenths, or too many tremolos, than by the most poetic description of the emotional crises through which the listener passed.
To ascertain the nature of each musical factor, its connection with a specific effect--its proximate, not its ultimate cause--and, finally, to explain these particular observations by more general laws, would be to establish that "philosophic foundation of music" to which so many writers aspire, though none has ever told us in what sense he understands this phrase. This psychical or physical effect of a chord, a rhythm, or an interval is not accounted for by saying that this is the expression of hope, that the expression of disappointment--as we should say this is red, that green--but only by placing specifically musical attributes in general aesthetic categories, and the latter under one supreme principle. After having explained the isolated action of each single element, it would be incumbent upon us to show in what manner they govern and modify one another in all their various combinations. Most music critics have ascribed the intellectual merit of a composition more particularly to the harmony and the contrapuntal accompaniment. The arguments, however, are both superficial and desultory. Melody, the alleged vehicle of sensuousness and emotion, was attributed to the inspiration of genius--the Italian school accordingly receive a gracious word of praise; while harmony, the supposed vehicle of sterling thought in contradistinction to melody, was deemed to be simply the result of study and reflection. It is strange how long people were satisfied with so unscientific a view of the subject. Both propositions contain a grain of truth, but they are neither universally applicable nor are the two factors in question in reality ever so strictly isolated. The soul and the talent for musical construction are bound up in one inseparable whole. Melody and harmony issue simultaneously in one and the same armor from the composer's mind. Neither the principle of subordination nor that of contrast affects the nature of the relation of harmony to melody. Both may display now an equal force of independent development, and now an equally strong tendency to voluntary subordination~ yet, in either case, supreme intellectual beauty may be attained. Is it, perchance, the (altogether absent) harmony in the principal themes of Beethoven's overture to Coriolanus or of Mendelssohn's overture to The Hebrides which gives them the character of profound thought? Is the intellectual merit of Rossini's theme "Oh, Matilda!" or of some Neapolitan song likely to be enhanced by substituting for the original meager harmony a basso continuo or some complicated succession of chords? The theme was conceived with that harmony, that rhythm, and that instrumentation. The intellectual merit lies in the union of all these factors; hence the mutilation of one entails that of the othirs. The prominence of the melody, the rhythm, or the harmony, as the case may be, improves the effect of the whole, and it is sheer pedantry to say that the excellence or the triviality is owing here to the presence of certain chords, and there to their absence. The camellia is destitute of odor, and the lily of color; the rose is rich both in odor and color; each is beautiful, and yet their respective attributes cannot be interchanged.
A "philosophic foundation of music" would first of all require us, then, to determine the definite conceptions which are invariably connected with each musical element and the nature of this connection. The double requirement of a strictly scientific framework and an extremely comprehensive casuistry renders it a most arduous though not an impossible tasI, unless, indeed, our ideal is that of a science of music in the sense in which chemistry and physiology are sciences!
The manner in which the creative act takes place in the mind of a composer of instrumental music gives us a very clear insight into the peculiar nature of musical beauty. A musical idea originates in the composer's imagination; he develops it--more and more crystals coalesce with it, until by imperceptible degress the whole structure in its main features appears before him. Nothing then remains to be done but to examine the composition, to regulate its rhythm and modify it according to the canons of the art. The composer of instrumental music never thinks of representing a definite subject; otherwise he would be placed in a false position, rather outside than within the domain of music. His composition in such a case would be program music, unintelligible without the program. If this brings the name of Berlioz to mind, we do not thereby call into question or underrate his brilliant talent. In his steps followed Liszt, with his much weaker "Symphonic Poems."
As the same block of marble may be converted by one sculptor into the most exquisite forms, by another into a clumsy botch, so the musical scale, by different manipulation, becomes now an overture of Beethoven, and now one of Verdi. In what respect do they differ? Is it that one of them expresses more exalted feelings, or the same feelings more accurately? No, but simply because its musical structure is more beautiful. One piece of music is good, another bad, because one composer invents a theme full of life, another a commonplace one; because the former elaborates his music with ingenious originality, whereas with the latter it becomes, if anything, worse and worse; because the harmony in one case is varied and novel, whereas in the other it drags on miserably in its poverty; because in one the rhythm is like a pulse, full of strength and vitality, whereas in the other it is not unlike a tattoo.
There is no art which, like music, uses up so quickly such a variety of forms. Modulations, cadences, intervals, and harmonious progressions become so hackneyed within fifty, nay, thirty years, that a truly original composer cannot well employ them any longer, and is thus compelled to think of a new musical phraseology. Of a greater number of compositions which rose far above the trivialities of their day, it would be quite correct to say that there was a time when they were beautifuL Among the occult and primitive affinities of the musical elements and the myriads of possible combinations, a great composer will discover the most subtle and unapparent ones. He will call into being forms of music which seemingly are conceived at the composer's pure caprice and yet for some mysterious and unaccountable reason, stand to each other in the relation of cause and effect Such compositions in their entirety, or fragments of them, may without hesitation be said to contain the "spark of genius." This shows how mistaken Oulibicheff is when he asserts that instrumental music cannot possibly be spirituel because the esprit of the composer consists solely in adapting his music in "a certain manner to a direct or indirect program." In our opinion we are quite warranted in saying that the celebrated D sharp in the allegro or the descending unisono passage in the overture to Don Giovanni are imbued with the spirit of genius. The former, however, as little represents (as Oulibicheff imagines) "Don Giovanni's hostile attitude to the human race" as the latter does "the parents, the husbands, the brothers, and the lovers of the women whom Don Giovanni seduced." Such interpretations are not only questionable in themselves, but are particularly so in respect to Mozart, who--the greatest musical genius the world has ever seen--transformed into music all he touched. Oulibicheff also thinks that Mozart's G minor symphony accurately describes the history of a passionate amour in four different phases. But the G minor symphony is music, neither more nor less; and that is quite enough. If, instead of looking for the expression of definite states of mind or certain events in musical works, we seek music only, we shall then, free from othcr associations, enjoy the perfections it so abundantly affords. Wherever musical beauty is wanting, no meaning, however profound, which sophistical subtlety may read into the work can ever compensate for it; and where it exists, the meaning is a matter of indifference. It directs our musical judgment, at all events, into a wrong channel. The same people who regard music as a mode in which the human intellect finds expression--which it neither is nor ever can be, on account of its inability to impart convictions--these very people have also brought the word "intention" into vogue. But in music there is no "intention" that can make up for "invention." Whatever is not clearly contained in the music is to all intents and purposes nonexistent, and what it does contain has passed the stage of mere intention. The saying, "He intends something," is generally used in a eulogistic sense. To us it seems rather to imply an unfavorable criticism which, translated into plain language, would run thus: The composer would like to produce something, but he cannot. Now, an art is to do something, and he who cannot do anything takes refuge in "intentions."
As the musical elements of a composition are the source of its beauty, so are they likewise the source of the laws of its construction. A great number of false and confused notions are entertained on this subject but we will single out only one. We mean the commonly accepted theory of the sonata and the symphony, grounded on the assumption that feelings are expressible by musical means. In accordance with this theory, the task of the composer is to represent in the several parts of the sonata four states of mind, all differing among themselves, and yet related to one another. (How?) In order to account for the connection which undoubtedly exists between the various parts, and to explain the differences in their effect it is naïvely taken for granted that a definite feeling underlies each of them. The construction put upon them sometimes fits, but more frequently it does not, and it never follows as a necessary consequence. It will always, however, be a matter of course that the four different parts are bound up in a harmonious whole, and that each should set off and heighten the effect of the others according to the aesthetic laws of music. We are indebted to the inventive genius of M. v. Schwindt for a very interesting illustration of Beethoven's "Fantasia for the Pianoforte" (Op. 80), the several parts of which the artist interprets as representing connected incidents in the lives of the principal actors, and then gives a pictorial description of them. Now, just as the painter transforms the sounds into scenes and shapes, so does the listener transform them into feelings and occurrences. Both stand in a certain relation to the music, but neither of them in a necessary one, and it is only with necessary relations that science is concerned.
It is often alleged that Beethoven, when making the rough sketch of a composition, had before him certain incidents or states of mind. Whenever Beethoven (or any other composer) adopted this method, he did so to smooth his task, to render the achievement of musical unity easier by keeping in view the conecting links of certain objective phenomena. If Berlioz, Liszt, and others fancied that a poem, a title, or an event yielded them something more than that, they were laboring under a delusion. It is the frame of mind bent on musical unity which gives to the four parts of a sonata the character of an organically related whole, and not their connection with an object which the composer may have in view. Where the latter denied himself the luxury of these poetic leading strings and followed purely musical inspiration, we shall find no other than a musical unity of parts. Aesthetically speaking, it is utterly indifferent whether Beethoven really did associate all his works with certain ideas. We do not know them, and as far as the composition is concerned, they do not exist. It is the composition itself, apart from all comment, which has to be judged; and as the lawyer completely ignores whatever is not in his brief, so aesthetic criticism must disregard whatever lies outside the work of art. If the several parts of a composition bear the stamp of unity, their correlation must have its root in musical principles.(11)
To avoid even the possibility of misapprehension, we will now define our conception of the "beautiful in music" from three points of view. The "beautiful in music," in the specific sense in which we understand it is neither confined to the "classical style" nor does it imply a preference for this over the "romantic style." It may exist in one style no less than the other; and may occur in Bach as well as in Beethoven, in Mozart as well as in Schumann. Our proposition is thus above all suspicion of partisanship. The whole course of the present inquiry never approaches the question of what ought to be, but simply of what is. We can deduce from it no definite ideal of the truly beautiful in music, but it enables us to show what is equally beautiful even in the most opposite styles.
Not long since, the fashion began to regard works of art in connection with the ideas and events of the time which gave them birth. This connection is undeniable and probably exists also in music. Being a product of the human mind, it must naturally bear some relation to the other products of mind: to contemporaneous works of poetry and the fine arts; to the state of society, literature, and the sciences of the period; and, finally, to the individual experiences and convictions of the author. To observe and demonstrate the existence of this connection in the case of certain composers and works is not only a justifiable proceeding but also a true gain to knowledge. We should, nevertheless, always remember that parallelisms between specific works of art and the events of certain epochs belong to the history of art rather than to the science of aesthetics. Though methodological considerations may render it necessary to connect the history of art with the science of aesthetics, it is yet of the utmost importance that the proper domain of each of these sciences be rigorously guarded from encroachment by the other. The historian viewing a work of art in all its bearings may discover in Spontini "the expression of French imperialism," in Rossini "the political restoration"; but the student of aesthetics must restrict himself to the examination of the works themselves, in order to determine what is beautiful in them and why it is so. The aesthetic inquirer knows nothing (nor can he be expected to know anything) about the personal circumstances or the political surroundings of the composer--he hears and believes nothing but what the music itself contains. He will, therefore, without knowing the name or the biography of the author detect in Beethoven's symphonies impetuousness and struggle, unsatisfied longing and defiance, all supported by a consciousness of strength. But he could never glean from his works that the composer favored republicanism, that he was a bachelor and deaf, or any of the numerous circumstances on which the art historian is wont to dilate; nor could such facts enhance the merit of the music. It may be very interesting and praiseworthy to compare the various schools of philosophy to which Bach, Mozart, and Haydn belonged, and to draw a parallel between them and the works of these composers. It is, however, a most arduous undertaking, and one which can but open to door to fallacies in proportion as it attempts to establish causal relations. The danger of exaggeration is exceedingly great once this principle is accepted. The slender influence of contemporariness may easily be construed as an inherent necessity, and the ever-untranslatable language of music be interpreted in the way which best fits the particular theory: all depends on the reasoning abilihes; the same paradox which in the mouth of an accomplished dialectician appears a truism seems the greatest nonsense in the mouth of an unskilled speaker.
Hegel, too, by his dissertation on music, has been the cause of misconceptions, for he quite unconsciously confounded the point of view of art history, which was pre-eminently his own, with that of pure aesthetics, and attributed an explicitness to music, which, as sucI, it never possessed. The character of a piece of music undoubtedly stands in some relation to the character of its author; but for the student of aesthetics the relation is nonexistent. The abstract notion of a necessary interdependence of all phenomena whatsoever may in its concrete application be distorted into a caricature of the reality. It requires, nowadays, great moral courage to resist a doctrine which is advocated with such skill and eloquence, and to openly affirm that "the grasp of historical relations" is one thing and "aesthetic judgment" another.(12) Objectively speaking, it is beyond doubt first that the different styles of expression of distinct works and schools are due to completely different collocations of the musical elements; and, second, that what rightly gives pleasure in a composition, be it a severely classical fugue of Bach or the dreamiest nocturne of Chopin, is the beautiful in a musical sense only.
Even less than with the classical does the beautiful in music coincide with one of its branches, the architectonic. The rigid sublimity of superincumbent harmonies, and the artistic blending of the many different parts (in which no isolated segment is ever free and self-sufficient because the complete work alone is so) have their imprescriptible justification. Yet those imposing and somber pyramids of sound of the old Italian and Dutch schools, and the finely chased salt cellars and silver candlesticks, so to speak, of venerable Sebastian Bach, are but small provinces within the kingdom of musical beauty.
Many schools of aesthetics think musical enjoyment is fully accounted for by the pleasure derived from mere regularity and symmetry; but these never were the sole attributes of beauty in the abstract and much less so of beauty in music. The most insipid theme may be symmetrical. "Symmetry" connotes proportion only, and leaves unanswered the question: What is it that impresses us as being symmetrical? A systematic distribution of parts, both uninteresting and commonplace, often exists in the most pitiable compositions, but the musical sense wants symmetry combined with originality.(13)
Oerstedt, to crown all, carried this Platonic doctrine so far as to cite the circle (for which he claims positive beauty) as a parallel case. Could he himself never have experienced the horror of a completely round composition?
From caution rather than from necessity we may add that the beautiful in music is totally independent of mathematics. Amateurs (among whom there are also some sentimental authors) have a singularly vague notion of the part played by mathematics in the composition of music. Not content with the fact that the vibrations of sound, the intervals, and the phenomena of consonance and dissonance rest on mathematical principles, they feel convinced that the beautiful in a composition may likewise be reduced to numbers. The study of harmony and counterpoint is looked upon as a kind of cabala, teaching the "calculus," as it were, of musical composition.
Mathematics, though furnishing an indispensable key to the study of the physical aspect of music, must not be overrated as regards its value in the finished composition. No mathematical calculation ever enters into a composition, be it the best or the worst. Creations of inventive genius are not arithmetical sums. Experiments with the monochord, the figures producible by sonorous vibrations, the mathematical ratios of musical intervals, etc., all lie outside the domain of aesthetics, which begins only where those elementary relations cease to be of importance. Mathematics merely controls the intellectual manipulation of the primary elements of music, and is secretly at work in the most simple relations. The musical thought, however, originates without the aid of mathematics. What Oerstedt means by inquiring whether the lifetime of several "mathematicians would suffice to calculate all the beauties in one symphony by Mozart"(14) we, for our part, are at a loss to understand. What is to be, or can be, calculated? Is it the number of vibrations of each note as compared with the next, or the relative lengths of the divisions and subdivisions of the composition? That which raises a series of musical sounds into the region of music proper and above the range of physical experiment is something free from external constraint a spiritualized and, therefore, incalculable something. Mathematics has as little and as much to do with musical compositions as such as with the generative processes of the other arts; for mathematics must, after all, guide also the hand of the painter and sculptor; it is the rhythmical principle of verse; it regulates the work of the architect and the figures of the dancer. Though in all accurate knowledge mathematics must have a place, we should never attribute to it a positive and creative power as some musicians, the conservatives in the science of aesthetics, would fain have us do. Mathematics and the excitation of feelings are in a similar position--they have a place in all arts, but in no art is there so much stress laid upon them as in music.
Between language and music parallels have also frequently been drawn and attempts made to lay down for the latter laws governing only the former. The relation between song and language is patent enough, whether we base it on the identity of physiological conditions or on the character which both have in common, namely, that of expressing thoughts and fedings by means of the human voice. The analogy, indeed, is so obvious as to render further discussion unnecessary. We admit at once that wherever music is merely the subjective manifestation of a state of mind, the laws of speech are, in a measure, also applicable to singing. That under the influence of passion the pitch of the voice is raised, while the propitiating orator lowers it; that sentences of great force are spoken slowly, and unimportant ones quickly--these and kindred facts the composer of songs, and the musical dramatist especially, will ever bear in mind. People, however, did not rest satisfied with these limited analogies; but conceiving music proper to be a kind of speech (though more indefinite and subtle), they forthwith deduced its aesthetic laws from the properties of language. Every attribute and every effect of music was believed to have its analogy in speech. We ourselves are of opinion that where the question turns on the nature of a specific art, the points in which it differs from cognate subjects are more important than the points of resemblance. An aesthetic inquiry, unswayed by such analogies as, though often tempting, do not affect the essence of music, must ever advance toward the point where speech and music irreconcilably part. Only from beyond this point may we hope to discover truly useful facts in respect to music. The fundamental difference consists in this: while sound in speech is but a sign, that is, a means for the purpose of expressing something which is quite distinct from its medium, sound in music is the end, that is, the ultimate and absolute object in view. The intrinsic beauty of the musical forms in the latter case, and the exclusive domination of thought over sound as a mere medium of expression in the former; are so utterly distinct as to render the union of these two elements a logical impossibility.
Speech and music, therefore, have their centers of gravity at different points, around which the characteristics of each are grouped; and while all specific laws of music will center in its independent forms of beauty, all laws of speech will turn upon the correct use of sound as a medium of expressing ideas.
The most baneful and confused notions have sprung from the attempt to define music as a kind of speech, and we may observe their practical consequences every day. Composers of feeble genius, in particular, were only too ready to denounce as false and sensual the ideal of intrinsic musical beauty because it was beyond their reach, and to parade in its place the characteristic significance of music. Quite irrespective of Richard Wagner's operas, we often find in the most trivial instrumental compositions disconnected cadences, recitatives, etc., which interrupt the flow of the melody, and which, while startling the listener, affect to have some deep meaning, though in reality they display only a want of beauty. Modern pieces, in which the principal rhythm is constantly upset in order to bring into prominence certain mysterious appendages and a superabundance of glaring contrasts, are praised for striving to pass the "narrow limits" of music, and to elevate it to the rank of speech. Such praise has always appeared to us somewhat ambiguous. The limits of music are by no means narrow, but they are clearly defined. Music can never be "elevated to the rank of speech"--musically' speaking, "lowered" would be a more appropriate term--for music, to be speech at alt would, of course, be a superlative degree of speech.(15)
Our singers always forget this when in moments of intense emotion they ejaculate sentences as though they were speaking and think they thus attain the highest degree of musical expression. It does not strike them that the transition from song to speech is always a descent, so that the highest pitch of normal speech sounds deeper than the low notes in singing, though both proceed from the same organ. As mischievous in their practical consequences (if not more so, because of the impossibility of disproving them by actual experiment) are those theories which try to impose on music the laws of development and construction peculiar to speech, as in former days Rameau and Rousseau, and in modern times the disciples of Richard Wagner, have endeavored to do. In this attempt the life of the music is destroyed, the innate beauty of form annihilated in pursuit of the phantom "meaning." One of the most important tasks of the aesthetics of music would, therefore, be that of demonstrating with inexorable logic the fundamental difference between music and language, and of never departing from the principle that, wherever the question is a specifically musical one, all parallelisms with language are wholly irrelevant.
NOTES
1.
Vischer (Aesth., §2, note) defines determinate ideas as the
domains of life, provided that the corresponding realities be assumed to
agree with our conceptions. For conception always denotes the pure and
faultless image of the reality.
2.
Disciples of Bach, such as Spitta, attempt to remove the difficulty, not
indeed by questioning the theory itself, but by ascribing to his fugues
and chords an emotional element as eloquent and positive as the most
ardent admirer of Beethoven ever detected in the latter's sonatas. This is
consistent, at all events!
3.
Gervinus in his work Händel und Shakespeare (1868) has reopened the
controversy respecting the superiority of vocal over instrumental music;
but when he calls vocal music "true and genuine music," and instrumental
music a product of art which has "lost the spirit of life and has
degenerated into a mere outward display," a physical agent for the
production of physiological stimuli, he affords the proof, all his
ingenuity notwithstanding, that a learned Handel enthusiast may, at the
same time, fall into the most singular errors in regard to the true nature
of music. Nobody has ever exposed these fallacies more plainly than
Ferdinand Hiller, from whose critique on Gervinus' work we select the
following notable passages: "The union of word and sound may be of many
different kinds. What a variety of combinations lie between the most
simple and almost spoken recitative and a chorus of Bach or a finale in
one of Mozart's operas! But words and music affect the listener with
equal force only in the recitative, whether occurring by itself or
as a mere exclamation in the midst of a song. Whenever music steps forth
in its true character it leaves language, potent language, far behind. The
reason (unfortunately, one feels almost tempted to say) is not far
to seek. Even the most wretched poem, when set to beautiful music, can
scarcely lessen the enjoyment to be derived from the latter, whereas the
most exquisite poetry fails to compensate for dullness in the musical
part. How slender is the interest which the words of an oratorio
excite--it is difficult to comprehend how the gifted composer could ever
extract from them the material that fascinates our hearts and minds for
hours together. Nay, we go still farther, and maintain that the listener
as a rule is quite unable to grasp both the words and the music at the
same time. The conventional sounds which go to build up a sentence in
speech must be united in rapid succession, so that our memory may hold
them together while they reach the intellect Music, on the other hand,
impresses the listener with the first note and carries him away without
giving him the time, nay, the possibility, of reverting to what he has
just heard . . . . Whether we listen to the most simple Volkslied,"
Hiller continues, "or are overpowered by Handel's `Hallelujah' chorus sung
by a thousand voices, our delight and enthusiasm are due, in the former
case, to the melodious bud that has hardly yet expanded into a flower; in
the latter, to the power and grandeur of the combined elements of a whole
universe of sound. The fact that one treats of a sweetheart, the other of
a world of bliss, in no ways helps to produce the primary and
instantaneous effect. For this effect is a purely musical one and would be
produced even though we did not or could not understand the words."
(Aus dem Tonleben unserer Zeit, Neue Folge, Leipzig, 1871, p. 40,
etc.)
4. This well-known figure of speech is relevant only so long as nothing
but the abstract relations between music and words are referred to, quite
irrespective of aesthetic requirements, and when the only point to be
settled is on which of these two factors the exact and definite meaning of
the subject depends. It ceases, however; to be appropriate when the point
at issue is, not this abstract relation, but the mode in which the musical
material is manipulated. Only in a logical (one might almost say
"judicial") sense can the words be said to be the essence, and music a
mere accessory. The aesthetic demands on the composer are of a far loftier
kind and can only be satisfied by purely musical beauty (suited, of
course, to the words). When, therefore, we have to establish in the
abstract not what music does on being joined to words, but how it ought to
set about it in actual experience, we must above all beware of making it
the handmaid of poetry and thus making it move within the narrow limits
which the drawer sets to the colorist. Ever since Gluck, during the great
and salutary reaction against the melodious exaggerations of the Italian
school, retreated even beyond the golden mean (just as Richard Wagner has
done in our own days), the saying that the words are the "correct and
well-sketched drawing" which music has but to color (a remark which occurs
in the dedication to Alceste) has been repeated ad nauseam.
If music is to poetry no more than the mere colorist--if in its dual
capacity of drawer and colorist it fails to contribute something entirely
new which by the inherent power of its beauty sends forth living shoots of
its own and reduces the words to a mere framework--then it has reached at
best the level of a student's exercise or an amateur's standard of
excellence, but not the sublime height of true art.
5.
What absurdities arise from the fallacy which makes us look in every piece
of music for the expression of definite feelings or from the still greater
misconception of establishing a causal nexus between certain forms of
music and certain feelings, may be gleaned from the works of so
keen-witted a man as Mattheson. Arguing from his doctrine that our
principal aim when composing a "melody should be the expression of an
emotion," he says in his Vollkommener Capellmeister (p. 230, etc.):
"A courante should convey hopefulness." "The saraband has to express no
other feeling than awe." "Voluptousness reigns supreme in the concerto
grosso." The chaconne, he contends, should express "satiety,"
the overture magnanimity.
6.
In his critiques on vocal music, the author (in common with other critics
who share his opinion), for the sake of brevity and convenience, has often
when speaking of music made use, without any afterthought, of terms such
as "express," "describe," "represent," etc. Now such terms may without any
impropriety be employed so long as we do not lose sight of their
conditional applicability, i.e., of their applicability in a metaphorical
and dynamic sense only.
7.
What Mozart says about the relative positions of music and poetry in the
opera is highly characteristic of him. Completely opposed to Gluck, who
gave poetry precedence over music, Mozart held that poetry ought to be the
obedient child of music. Without a moment's hesitation he proclaims music
to reign supreme in the opera, in which it serves the purpose of
illustrating the pervading spirit. In support of this, he reminds us that
good music will make us forget even the most wretched libretto--whereas a
converse instance can scarcely be adduced--and this unquestionably follows
from the inherent nature of music. The mere circumstance that it affects
our senses more directly and more powerfully than any other art and
engrosses them completely, goes to show that the feelings which the words
might arouse must needs retire into the background for a time. The music,
however, through the organ of hearing (in some apparently unaccountable
manner) appeals directly to our imagination and our emotional faculty with
a force that temporarily transcends that of the poetry. (O. Jahn,
Mozart, III, 91.)
8.
The most notable of these polemic writings are to be found in the
collection, Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire de la Revolution opérée
dans la musique par M. le Chevalier Gluck (Naples and Paris, 1781).
9.
I cannot refrain from quoting some very pertinent remarks by Grillparzer
and M. Hauptmann. Grillparzer calls it "preposterous to make music in the
opera the mere handmaid of the text," and he goes on to say: "If music in
the opera is only there to say over again what the poet has already
expressed, then away with it . . . . He who knows thy power, O melody!
which thou, needless of words to explain thy meaning bringest down from
heaven, thither to return, after stirring the depths of our soul--he who
knows thy charms will never make thee the humble creature of poetry. To
poetry he may, indeed, accord priority (and I think she has a title to it
in the sense in which manhood takes precedence of youth), but he will
acknowledge the existence of thy own independent realm, and instead of
regarding you both in the light of ruler and subject or even as guardian
and ward, he will deem you to be sisters." He holds it to be of supreme
importance that no opera be measured by the standard of poetry--for
according to that every dramatico-musical composition is nonsense--but
solely by the standard of music.
In another passage Grillparzer says: "The opera composer who is in
the habit of putting his music together mechanically will find nothing
easier than to adapt his music exactly to the words; whereas he who aims
at making his music an organic whole, with inherent laws, will constantly
come into collision with the words. Every melody or theme has its own laws
of construction and development which to the true musical genius are
sacred and inviolable, and which he dare not infringe in deference to the
words. The musical prosaist may, indeed, begin and break off anywhere, for
fragments and sections can easily be transposed and rearranged; but
whoever has a mind for unity and completeness will give the whole or
nothing. These remarks must not be construed into a defense of bad
librettos; they are merely intended as an excuse and palliation. It is for
this reason that Rossini's shallow trifling is superior to Mosel's
intellectual parrotry, which destroys the very essence of music in order
to stumble along the line already traced by the poet. For this reason
again, many incongruities may be shown to exist in Mozart's operas, but
none in Gluck's. Lastly, for this reason the much-admired characteristic
of music is often but an extremely negative merit, joy being generally
expressed by not- sadness, sorrow by not-gladness, gentleness by
not-harshness, rage by not-gentleness, love by means of flutes, and
despair with trumpets, kettledrums, and double basses. The composer ought
to be guided by the incidents as they arise, not by the
words, and if his music is more eloquent he may rightly disregard
the libretto." Do not many of these aphorisms, written so many years ago,
sound like a condemnation of Wagner's theories and the Valkyrie-style?
Grillparzer displays a profound knowledge of the nature of the public when
he says: "Those who in the opera look for purely dramatic effects are, as
a rule, those who expect musical effects from dramatic poetry--in other
words, an effect without a cause." (IX, 144.)
M. Hauptmann, in his letters to O. Jahn, follows a similar line of
thought: "It seemed to me [on hearing Gluck's operas] as if the composer
was bent above all, on being true; not musically true but true in respect
of the words. This is frequently the highroad to musical failure, for,
whereas speech may be abruptly broken off, music ought to slowly die away.
Music will ever remain the vowel, in respect to which the word is but the
consonant, and here, as always, it is the vowel which plays the principal
part, as being the essential and not the auxiliary sound. The music
invariably stands out in strong relief, how well soever it may fit the
words, and it ought to be worth listening to for its own sake." (Briefe
an Spohr, ed. F. Hiller [Leipzig, 1876], p. 106, etc.)
10.
"Poetry may utilize the ugly (the unbeautiful) even in a fairly liberal
measure, for, as it affects the feelings only through the medium of the
ideas which it directly suggests, the knowledge that it is a means adapted
to an end will, from the outset, soften its impression, even to the extent
of creating a most profound sensation by force of contrast and by
stimulating the imagination. The effect of music, however, is perceived
and assimilated directly by the senses, and the verdict of the intellect
comes too late to correct the disturbing factor of ugliness. It is for
this reason that Shakespeare was justified in making use of the horrible,
while Mozart was obliged to remain within the limits of the beautiful."
(Grillparzer, IX, 142.)
11.
Beethoven oracles like Mr. Lobe and others were greatly scandalized at
these remarks. By way of replying, we cannot do better than quote Otto
Jahn's views in his essay on the new edition of Beethoven's works
published by Breitkopf and Härtel (Gesammelte Aufsätze über Musik),
which fully confirm our own opinions. Citing Schindler's well-known
anecdote that, when asked as to the meaning of his D minor and F minor
sonatas, Beethoven replied, "Read Shakespeare's Tempest", Jahn goes
on to say that the querist, after having read the play, will doubtless
become convinced that Shakespeare's Tempest did not affect him in
the same manner as it did Beethoven, and that it failed to inspire him
with D minor and F minor sonatas. That just this play should have
suggested to Beethoven those musical marvels is certainly an interesting
fact, but the attempt to understand them by the light of Shakespeare would
be proof of a somewhat beclouded musical judgment. When composing the
adagio of his F major quartet (Op. 18, No. 1), Beethoven is said to have
had the tomb scene in Romeo and Juliet in his mind. Now, if one
were to read the scene carefully and keep it in his mind's eye while
listening to the music, would this enhance or spoil the enjoyment of the
composition? Titles and footnotes, even authentic ones by Beethoven
himself, are not calculated to lead to a clearer apprehension of the
spirit and drift of the work. On the contrary, such factors are apt to
give rise to fallacies and misconceptions, as some of Beethoven's titles
have actually done. It is a well-known fact that the charming sonata in E
flat major (Op. 81) bears the following inscription. Les adieux,
l'absence, le retour, and being thought a reliable instance of program
music, it is interpreted with every confidence. "That they are incidents
in the life of a loving couple," says Marx, who leaves it, however, an
open question whether the lovers are married or not, "was, of course, to
be presumed; but the music itself contains the proof of it." "The lovers
spread out their arms as migratory birds do their wings," says Lenz, with
reference to the concluding passages of the sonata. Now it so happens that
Beethoven wrote on the original of the first part "The farewell on the
occasion of his Imperial Highness, the Archduke Rudolf's departure, the
4th of May, 1809," and on the title page of the second part, "The arrival
of his Imperial Highness the Archduke Rudolf, the 30th of January, 1810."
How he would have ridiculed the imputation that he desired to impersonate
toward the Archduke "the female flapping her wings and dying with bliss
and fond caresses." "It is, therefore, a matter for congratulation," Jahn
remarks in conclusion, "that Beethoven (as a rule) refrained from uttering
words calculated to beguile people into the belief that he who understands
the title, understands also the composition. His music says all he
wished to say."
12.
If I refer here to Riehl's Musikalische Characterköpfe, I do so in
grateful acknowledgment of the intellectual enjoyment to be derived from
the book.
13.
To illustrate this proposition, I make free in quoting the following
passage from my work Die moderne Oper (Preface, p. vi):
"The celebrated saying that the `truly beautiful' (who, by the way,
is to be the judge of this attribute?) can never lose its charms, even
after the greatest lapse of time, is, as far as music is concerned, little
more than an empty, though pompous, phrase. Music proceeds on the line of
nature, which every autumn allows a world of flowers to molder into dust
whence new blossoms arise. Musical compositions being the work of man, the
product of a certain individuality, period, or state of civilization
invariably contains the germs of slow or rapid decay. Among the great
forms of music, the opera is the most composite and conventional, and,
therefore, the most transient form. It may sadden us to reflect that even
comparatively new operas of a lofty and brilliant order (Spohr, Spontini)
have already begun to disappear from the stage. The fact is, nevertheless,
beyond dispute, nor can the process be stayed by invectives against the
evil `spirit of the time'--so characteristic of all ages. Time, forsooth,
is a spirit, but a spirit which creates its own body. The theater is the
forum for the living aspirations of the public, as distinguished from the
quiet study of the reader of musical scores. The stage is the life of the
drama; the fight for its possession is the drama's struggle for existence.
In this battle an inferior work often triumphs over its superior
predecessors, if it breathes the spirit of the time and if its pulse
throbs in harmony with our feelings and desires. Both the artist and the
public have a justifiable longing for something new in music, and those
critics whose admiration is restricted to older music and who lack the
courage to do homage also to modern compositions undermine the productive
power of art. The delightful belief in the imperishableness of music must,
of course, be given up. Has not every age proclaimed with the same
ungrounded assurance the undying beauty of its best operas? How long is it
since Adam Hiller of Leipzig declared that if Hasse's operas should ever
fail to charm an audience, a state of universal depravity would ensue? How
long is it since Schubart, the musical aesthetic of Hohenasperg,
pronounced it wholly inconceivable that the composer Jomelli could ever
sink into oblivion? And what are Hasse and Jomelli to us at the present
day?"
14.
Geist in der Natur (Ger. tr. by Kannegiesser), III, 32.
15.
We cannot conceal the fact that one of the loftiest productions of genius
of all ages has by its grandeur contributed to this favorite fallacy of
musical criticism of modern times, which assumes "an inherent propensity
in music to become as definite as speech," and "to throw off the yoke of
eurythmy." We allude to Beethoven's Ninth. This symphony is one of
those intellectual watersheds which, visible from afar, and inaccessible,
separate the currents of antagonistic beliefs.
Those musicians who value above all things the sublimity of the
"intention" and the intellectual importance of an aim distinct from the
music, place the Ninth Symphony at the head of all music; while the
small party who remain faithful to the abjured belief in intrinsic beauty
and who contend for purely aesthetic aspirations look upon it with
qualified admiration. As may be guessed, it is the finale which is the
point at issue, since no difference of opinion is likely to arise among
attentive and competent listeners respecting the exquisite, though not
faultless, beauty of the first three parts. We ourselves have always
regarded the last part as nothing more than the gigantic shadow of a
gigantic body. It is quite possible to realize and apprehend the mighty
conception of a lonesome and despairing mind, reconciled at last by the
thought of universal happiness, and yet to consider the music of the last
part wanting in beauty, its genius and individuality notwithstanding. That
this view of the symphony is generally received with supreme disfavor we
know but too well. In fact, when one of the most profound and accomplished
of German scholars attacked the fundamental idea of the composition in the
Augsburger Allgem. Zeitung in 1853, he at once felt the necessity
of humorously describing the article as emanating from a "feeble
intellect." He demonstrated the aesthetic monstrosity of an instrumental
composition of several parts closing with a chorus, and compared Beethoven
to a sculptor who carves the legs, the body, the chest and the arms of a
figure in white marble, but colors the head. One would think that all
sensitive listeners must simultaneously experience a feeling of discomfort
when the sounds of the human voice suddenly break upon them, because at
this point the composition "changes its center of gravity with a jerk and
threatens to throw the listener off his balance." Nearly ten years later
we had the satisfaction of knowing that the "feeble intellect" was none
other than David Friedrich Strauss.
The clever Dr Becher, on the other hand, who may figure as the
representative of a whole class, speaks of the fourth part of the Ninth
Symphony, in an essay printed in 1843, as a product of Beethoven's
"genius which admits of no comparison with any existing composition in
point of originality of construction, sublime organization, and boldness
of imagination." He assures us that in his opinion, this work like
Shakespeare's King Lear and a dozen other emanations of the human
mind in the zenith of poetic inspiration, overtops even its peers--"a very
Dawalagiri in the Himalaya of Art." Becher, in common with those who
cherish the same views, gives an exhaustive description of the
significance of the "subject" of each of the four parts and their profound
symbolism--but about the music itself not a syllable is said. This
is highly characteristic of a whole school of musical criticism, which, to
the question whether the music is beautiful, replies with a learned
dissertation on its profound meaning.