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 Published bt CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 Music in the History of the Western Church. 
 
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 THE EDUCATION 
 OF A MUSIC LOVER
 
 THE EDUCATION 
 OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 A BOOK FOR THOSE WHO 
 STUDY OR TEACH THE ART OF LISTENING 
 
 BY 
 
 EDWARD DICKINSON 
 
 PROFESSOR OF THE HISTORY AND CRITICISM OF MUSIC 
 OBERLIN COLLEGE 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 1911
 
 Copyright, iqii, by 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 Published March, 191 1
 
 fc5 
 
 TO 
 MRS. RUDOLPH BARDENHEUER
 
 PREFACE 
 
 The lost art, that is perhaps nearest of all arts 
 to eternity, the subtle art of listening. 
 
 — William Butler Yeats. 
 
 This book is an attempt to interpret music to 
 those who already love it upon slight acquaintance 
 and desire the fuller enjoyment that comes with 
 larger knowledge. It is the part of wisdom to 
 make studious preparation for any enterprise that 
 adds to the wealth of the mind, whether it be travel- 
 ling in foreign lands, looking at pictures, or taking 
 a walk. It is a question of seeing much, of seeing 
 correctly, and of retaining what one sees. With 
 some preliminary acquaintance with the facts of 
 art or nature there is intelligent expectation, and 
 afterward a sense of permanent possession. 
 
 It goes without saying that so extensive a survey 
 of musical art as I propose is not intended for those 
 who hear music only for transient, superficial 
 pleasure. Not that I would condemn such pleas- 
 ure; — the instant joy, the sudden elevation of mood 
 which fine music brings, even to those who know 
 nothing about its principles, is not to be despised; 
 the effect is not altogether evanescent, since every 
 impression upon the senses alters the mental con- 
 stitution, and even a slight visitation of truth or 
 
 vii
 
 PREFACE 
 
 beauty leaves us a little higher in reason's scale 
 than we were before. But still, this fugitive ex- 
 perience does not quite satisfy a person who is con- 
 stantly bent on self-improvement, and he will be 
 inclined to ask how he can add something more 
 tangible to his momentary satisfactions, and draw 
 from music that which will call into play his active 
 powers of observation and reflection and give his 
 understanding something solid to feed upon. 
 
 The present volume is the result of many years 
 of experience in leading students into the mysteries 
 of music. The writing of it has been especially 
 associated with the very delightful task of inter- 
 preting to college men and women the message of 
 the great tone masters from every point of view 
 that may be suggested by their works. In the 
 practice of this lectureship the implied inquiry has 
 always been: What are the elements that music 
 contains in all its phases as an art of design and 
 an art of expression? And also: How much of all 
 this can be understood and appreciated by one 
 who does not sing or play an instrument, and is 
 unacquainted with musical theory? It has been 
 surprising, as well as gratifying, to discover how 
 much of critical appreciation can be developed by 
 an untrained music lover under judicious leader- 
 ship. This experience has not been isolated, and 
 the success of others in the same undertaking has 
 been such that instruction in what is commonly 
 called "musical appreciation," which has recently 
 become a feature in many conservatories, musical 
 
 viii
 
 PREFACE 
 
 clubs, and private circles, is now slowly making its 
 way into universities, colleges, and public schools. 
 Colleges that are reluctant to establish technical 
 courses in practical music, are beginning to see 
 that the promotion of intelligent taste in music is 
 as much within their province as a similar en- 
 deavor in respect to the kindred arts of painting 
 and literature. 
 
 In the present volume I have had a mature grade 
 of students, as well as teachers, in mind, for since 
 it is not in any sense a text book, it has seemed best 
 to me to expound music from the higher and more 
 comprehensive point of view, leaving it to those 
 who may do me the honor to read my words to 
 apply its suggestions to their own particular needs 
 and circumstances. Professional musicians will 
 find nothing novel, either in fact or theory; the 
 method of presentation may perhaps contain sug- 
 gestive features. It is my hope that those who love 
 the art and wish to extend their vision of its beauty, 
 and also those who are trying, systematically or 
 otherwise, to diffuse their love of music over a wider 
 circle, may be helped to obtain a clearer insight 
 into the problems involved, and to catch the en- 
 thusiasm which has been the spring and mainstay 
 of the author's labor. My satisfaction will be 
 complete if I have been able to show convincingly 
 that music, rightly pursued, is not only an addition 
 to the gladness of life, but also a means of inward 
 culture. 
 
 In the course of the past few years an ingenious 
 
 ix
 
 TREFACE 
 
 invention has brought the teaching of musical ap- 
 preciation within the reach of instructors who have 
 sufficient theoretical knowledge. It has made all 
 departments of musical composition in a certain 
 degree accessible even to those who are not expert 
 pianists. I refer to the mechanical piano players, 
 which were at first looked upon with suspicion, 
 and often with abhorrence by professional musi- 
 cians, but which are proving themselves an agency 
 of immense usefulness in diffusing good music 
 among the people. Those who employ them soon 
 learn that, with skilful handling, these instruments 
 are capable of a large range of expression, and 
 require musical feeling and intelligence for their 
 proper handling. Many musicians have found that 
 it is not beneath their dignity to give instruction 
 in the use of these instruments for the attainment 
 of a correct interpretation of master works. It 
 seems also to be the general testimony that their 
 wide adoption has not diminished the demand for 
 musical instruction by the old established methods. 
 For my own part I am convinced that without this 
 invention lecture courses in the history and criti- 
 cism of music would have little practical benefit, 
 for it is self-evident that such courses are worth- 
 less without abundant illustration. I also feel 
 quite certain that whatever of value this book 
 may contain is multiplied many times by the op- 
 portunities for home study which the self-player 
 affords to the amateur. 
 
 Some of my readers would probably find my 
 
 x
 
 PREFACE 
 
 book practically more convenient if I defined some 
 of the technical terms which I am forced to use. 
 This will be the case, for example, in the division 
 on counterpoint, where fugues are mentioned with- 
 out explaining what fugues are. But if a begin- 
 ning were made in defining terms, there would be 
 no end; the book would be perverted into a text 
 book and a dictionary. The few technicalities 
 employed can be elucidated by means of any of 
 the numerous reference books that are always at 
 hand, and accommodating musicians are never far 
 away. 
 
 A small part of the substance of this volume has 
 been used in a series of articles in The Musician 
 for 1909, and in an address before the Music 
 Teachers' National Association in 1906. This 
 material has been rewritten; by far the greater 
 part is entirely new, and all has been prepared 
 under the guidance afforded by actual experience 
 in the class room. 
 
 Northampton, Mass., 
 August, 1 910. 
 
 XI
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. The New Musical Education . . . . i 
 
 II. The Music Lover's Need of Education . 16 
 
 III. Definite Hearing: The Problem of Form 39 
 
 IV. The Beauty of Melody and Rhythm . . 69 
 V. The Beauty of Harmony 89 
 
 VI. Performance: The Art of the Pianist . 102 
 
 VII. The Art of Song: Music and Poetry . . 142 
 
 VIII. The Art of Song: The Technique of the 
 
 Singer 171 
 
 IX. The Problem of Expression: Representa- 
 tive Music 192 
 
 X. Musical History and Biography .... 234 
 
 XI. The Music Lover and the Higher Law . 267 
 
 Appendix 291
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE NEW MUSICAL EDUCATION 
 
 Those who love to search for laws and parallels 
 in art history are at times disposed to raise the dis- 
 quieting question if the flood of musical energy, that 
 has been so steadily rising during the past three or 
 four hundred years, has not reached the high-water 
 mark, or even already begun to recede. Not in 
 quantity, certainly, but in quality, in sheer creative 
 power. The history of art is the history of growth, 
 maturity and decline — not in the productive im- 
 pulse at large, for art is inseparably identified with 
 human progress, but in its several epochs and de- 
 partments. Greek sculpture, Gothic architecture, 
 Italian Renaissance painting, Greek and English 
 dramatic poetry, have each in turn exhibited the 
 working of that destiny, beyond the control of men 
 of genius, which decrees that every achievement of 
 the human spirit shall sooner or later exhaust its 
 primal impulse and sink into stagnation, or else into 
 vain repetitions of forms from which all freshness of 
 energy has departed. Are there any signs that the 
 arresting hand of fate has likewise been laid upon 
 the art of tone?
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 Music has been the latest of the arts to reach 
 maturity. So wonderful have been its achieve- 
 ments that, judging from analogy, it is hardly 
 to be expected that the triumphs of Palestrina 
 and Bach in church music, Beethoven in the sym- 
 phony, Handel in the oratorio, Schubert in the 
 song, Chopin in piano music, and Mozart and 
 Wagner in the opera can be indefinitely repeated. 
 Up to a recent period we see a progressive evolu- 
 tion of forms and styles. Palestrina and his con- 
 temporaries, Bach, Handel, Beethoven, Schubert, 
 Wagner adopted forms that were immature and 
 raised them to fulness of strength. Liszt and Ber- 
 lioz saw the promise in an old idea, gave it final 
 validity and contrived for it a new form and method. 
 Haydn, Weber, Grieg, and the later Russians went 
 back to the native music of the common people and 
 found there an inspiration that issued in works of 
 novel and exquisite quality. Schumann and Cho- 
 pin discovered undreamed-of capacities in an instru- 
 ment already old. Movements parallel to these we 
 cannot discover in our day. The classic forms have 
 been worked out. The promises of the East and 
 North, which a generation ago stirred us with the 
 hope of another musical springtime, have not yet 
 been fulfilled — Tchaikovsky, Dvorak, and Grieg 
 still have no peers among their younger compatriots. 
 A critic of little faith would be inclined to echo the 
 sigh of Mallarme: "The flesh is sad, alas! and all 
 the books are read." 
 
 Certain phenomena, indeed, suggest the approach
 
 THE NEW MUSICAL EDUCATION 
 
 of a period of decadence. The spontaneity, the 
 freshness, the directness and inevitableness of utter- 
 ance which distinguish the work of the men I have 
 mentioned, and indeed of the older masters in gen- 
 eral, are certainly not the obvious features in the 
 output of the leading composers of the present gen- 
 eration. Music has become sophisticated and self- 
 conscious. Complication of structure, harmonic 
 strain and stress, superabundance of discord, glar- 
 ing contrasts, frantic appeals to raw nervous sensa- 
 tion, strive to compensate for a deficiency in vital, 
 original melodic ideas. There is an extreme em- 
 phasis upon virtuosity and technical elaboration, 
 which is always an unfavorable symptom in art. 
 Music seems to distrust its own inherent power to 
 satisfy and strives to draw attention by illustrating 
 pictorial or literary subjects, often with a strong 
 attraction toward the extravagant and morbid. 
 Composers in increasing numbers are possessed by 
 the craving for critical self-analysis. They work 
 with calculation. They invent theories which they 
 and their disciples proclaim with tongue and pen. 
 They often seem to go out in deliberate search after 
 originality; they ask not, Is this worth saying? but, 
 Has it been said before? In striving to expand 
 their art, composers of the school of Strauss and 
 Mahler appear to have their minds intent not so 
 much upon the discovery of greater and nobler 
 ideas as upon more gigantic means of expressing 
 their ideas. Individual freedom, the supreme con- 
 quest of nineteenth -century art, is after all paying 
 
 3
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 its price. There is no longer a consciousness of 
 mutual support, such as the Renaissance painters 
 found in submission to a prolific common tendency. 
 Even the most sincere and moderate of the later 
 composers are reflective, distinctly aware of the 
 method and purpose of their mental operations. 
 They rarely yield in unquestioning surrender to the 
 guardian genius which drives the artist whither he 
 knows not. 
 
 It would be rash to assert that these appearances 
 are necessarily signs of impending decrepitude. 
 They may indicate the need of a period of rest and 
 recuperation, of reaction toward the simpler ideals 
 of an earlier time. Perhaps, on the other hand, 
 they indicate that new materials are being gathered 
 for the use of strong men soon to come. The har- 
 monic experiments of the Debussys and Ravels, 
 like the experiments of the Impressionists with 
 pigments and of the Symbolists with words, may 
 prove the means of enlarging the technique for 
 the service of wider expression. But at any rate 
 the youthful period of music is past, and the art has 
 attained full strength and stature. The only ques- 
 tion is, how long will the period of maturity last? 
 Will new nations — our own perhaps, an emanci- 
 pated Russia, or it may be the awakening peoples 
 of the Orient — applying the fully developed Euro- 
 pean technique to ageless stores of emotional expe- 
 rience, instil into the veins of music a new energy 
 which centuries only can exhaust? 
 
 Those who look for a check in the progress of 
 
 4
 
 THE NEW MUSICAL EDUCATION 
 
 music on the creative side may easily console them- 
 selves by the thought that there is no sign of abate- 
 ment in the spread of its beneficent influence. 
 Whether or not the works of the past are to be 
 equalled or excelled, the problem of the adaptation 
 of music to the spiritual and intellectual needs of 
 men still waits for solution. An epoch of fuller 
 knowledge and appreciation on the part of both 
 musicians and the public seems plainly to be at 
 hand. The waning of the productive energy would 
 not be altogether a cause for lament if thereby 
 the world could be turned to a deeper love and 
 understanding of the treasures it already possesses. 
 And the grounds for such hope are multiplying 
 daily. There can be no question that the sum of 
 musical intelligence is vastly greater the world over 
 than it was fifty years ago. In the very midst of 
 the era of artistic fecundity the epoch of scholar- 
 ship and enlightenment has become established. 
 The nineteenth century has seen the founding of 
 many musical educational institutions, adminis- 
 tered in accordance with the highest standards 
 of discipline and research. Every department of 
 musical history, aesthetics, science, and technical 
 application has been investigated by scholars of 
 Germany, France, England, and other countries 
 with an exactness, a precision, and a breadth of 
 vision that are not surpassed in any field of learned 
 inquiry. The methods of teaching in composition 
 and performance have been reconstituted on a 
 basis of thoroughness which leaves nothing to be 
 
 5
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 desired, except that constant revision and refine- 
 ment of method which in music as in all education 
 is an endless process. Text books and treatises 
 on every conceivable musical subject increase be- 
 yond all computation. The great composers are 
 subjected to an exhaustive review, ranging from 
 minutest textual examination to emotional inter- 
 pretation. This spirit of earnestness is pervading 
 all classes. The provincial music teacher has 
 caught the contagion and the desire for accuracy 
 and system is spreading to the musical frontiers, 
 revolutionizing the whole scheme of musical in- 
 struction. "Twenty-five years ago," says a recent 
 English writer, "what were called 'lessons' were 
 given, as they are now; but in the old days, while 
 the lessons were given, nothing was taught. Music 
 was not part of a serious education; it was a 
 fashionable accomplishment. . . . Such a method, 
 if method it may be called which was none, is now 
 changed for a full, rational, and liberal study, car- 
 ried on just as thoroughly, as intellectually, and 
 as systematically as in any other serious branch of 
 learning." Not less remarkable has been the edu- 
 cational progress in music in this country. The 
 advance that has been made in the last thirty years 
 is little short of revolutionary. The true meas- 
 ure of the nation's advancement toward the 
 proud distinction of being a musical people does 
 not consist in the number of operas given in New 
 York in a season, nor in Paderewski's income from 
 a single concert tour, nor even in the amount of 
 
 6
 
 THE NEW MUSICAL EDUCATION 
 
 respectable compositions produced by native musi- 
 cians, but rather in the extent to which good music 
 is becoming a necessity in the life of the community. 
 Accepting such a standard there is every reason 
 for gratification and hope. Those who love music 
 for what is best in it are rapidly increasing in 
 number. The educative value of music is widely 
 recognized. Performers, directors, and teachers find 
 every day more encouragement for solid work. The 
 musical magazines that devote themselves to 
 strictly educational questions receive generous sup- 
 port. Publishing houses find a large demand for 
 critical works on musical subjects of every de- 
 scription. Men of superior mental attainments 
 are giving themselves in increasing numbers to 
 the service of the higher musical propaganda. 
 Through the wide world of musical dilettantism 
 is felt the bracing influence of a better purpose. 
 It is easy to overlook these signs of promise in view 
 of the vast abundance of musical vulgarity, en- 
 couraged and delighted in by multitudes both high 
 and low. The cheap graphophone, the vaudeville, 
 the musical comedy and the "popular" song seem 
 to many observers representative of the musical 
 taste of the future as well as of the present. In the 
 babel of discordant sounds the voices of those who 
 proclaim the gospel of sweetness and light in mu- 
 sical art often sound faltering and far away. But 
 over against this wide-spread satisfaction with the 
 tawdry and vulgar must always be recognized that 
 conspicuous trait in the American character upon 
 
 7
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 which reformers of every sort have learned to rely 
 — an intellectual unrest, a craving for new ideas, 
 a respect for things of the mind, a readiness to be 
 led in the direction of better individual and social 
 accomplishment. The progress of music in Amer- 
 ica is simply a detail of the rapid advancement in 
 the appreciation of fine art, and its application in 
 the adornment of public and private life, which 
 is one of the most auspicious phenomena of the 
 present day. Let any one read a few pages in 
 the history of American music, compare the pro- 
 grams of Thalberg in the '50's with those of Pad- 
 erewski in the '90's, observe the results of the 
 missionary labors of such men as Lowell Mason, 
 Theodore Thomas, Carl Zerrahn, and Thomas 
 Ryan, glance over the musical programs of our 
 leading churches and compare them with the prac- 
 tice of forty years ago, count the catalogues of the 
 music schools and peruse their contents, note the 
 increase of orchestras and choral societies, learn 
 what some of our cities are doing for the musical 
 welfare of the people, consider the attention that is 
 given to music in the public schools and colleges, 
 try to form an estimate of the number of musical 
 clubs and the measure of their influence. After 
 such a survey no excuse could be found for dis- 
 couragement on the part of any one who is en- 
 gaged in the effort to make music a living force in 
 national life. 
 
 As a result of these tendencies of the last few 
 decades, musical education in this country has now 
 
 S
 
 THE NEW MUSICAL EDUCATION 
 
 entered upon a new stage of its career. Having 
 reformed its methods, elevated its standards, and 
 thrown wider the doors of opportunity, all in the 
 interest of the special student, it is now turning its 
 favor toward those who stand outside the ranks of 
 those who would play, sing, or compose, the noble 
 company upon whom music depends for its pat- 
 ronage, the expectant majority represented by the 
 dilettante, the amateur, the actual or potential mu- 
 sic lover. It is shaping its plans and adjusting its 
 methods with a view to the extension of taste and 
 appreciation among the people. Its ultimate pur- 
 pose is to promote intelligent musical enjoyment 
 as a factor in popular education. 
 
 In the history of music up to a recent time the 
 cultivation of taste on the part of the public, and 
 even on the part of individual pupils, has com- 
 monly been left to take care of itself, as a sort 
 of by-product rather than a primary intention. 
 Training has been directed toward what is called 
 "practical" musical instruction, viz. playing, sing- 
 ing, and composing. Systematic cultivation of aes- 
 thetic taste in schools and colleges by means of the 
 critical study of masterworks has been confined to 
 literature, perhaps because literature is a form of 
 expression with which every educated person comes 
 into personal relations in the natural order of his 
 life. In the English-speaking countries this has es- 
 pecially been the case, for the artists around whom 
 patriotic pride has gathered have been, with a 
 few exceptions, poets and novelists, rather than 
 
 9
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 painters, sculptors, or composers. The conception 
 of art is very largely made to conform to a literary 
 standard; art, it is thought, must convey "ideas," 
 by which is meant lessons, appeals, admonitions 
 that can also be expressed in words; pictorial or 
 musical impressions are esteemed of minor signifi- 
 cance, and the inevitable inclination is to translate 
 them into verbal terms, under a sort of blind no- 
 tion that to do so gives them a practical instead of 
 a questionable value. The result has been that the 
 great majority of those who deal with music only 
 as hearers have been left to gain what knowledge 
 and taste they could by the casual attendance upon 
 concerts and opera performances, and by reading 
 musical criticisms in the newspapers. The latter 
 means of enlightenment is manifestly incomplete, 
 since musical reviews in the daily press are con- 
 cerned with the merit and demerit of performances 
 or of new compositions — that is, the application of 
 general principles to concrete cases — almost never 
 with the discussion of the general principles them- 
 selves. Consequently the history of music shows 
 us by a thousand instances — often very melan- 
 choly instances — that the taste of the public has 
 usually acted as a drag upon musical progress. 
 Appreciation of art must always, of course, lag 
 behind artistic creation; it is one aspect of that 
 conservative element in the human compound 
 which, as a check upon overhasty radicalism, is 
 an undoubted advantage to the race. None the 
 less are popular ignorance and prejudice in matters 
 
 10
 
 THE NEW MUSICAL EDUCATION 
 
 of reason and imagination to be deplored, and a 
 movement to develop an appreciation of what is 
 beautiful and profitable in art must certainly, to 
 employ the threadbare phrase of the newspapers, 
 "meet a long felt want." 
 
 This movement is now well under headway and 
 its promoters cannot be accused of a lack of zeal. 
 A well known critic writes a book entitled "How 
 to Listen to Music," parallel to those useful man- 
 uals, "How to Study Pictures" and "The Appre- 
 ciation of Sculpture." Another publishes a vol- 
 ume in answer to the question, "What is Good 
 Music?" Two others explain essentials of form 
 under the title, "The Appreciation of Music." 
 These works are but samples of a whole library 
 aiming directly or indirectly at a similar purpose. 
 The musical magazines are giving larger space to 
 matters of broad musical culture as compared 
 with the discussion of pedagogic subjects, and 
 the literary periodicals are feeling the stress of this 
 new interest. Musicians everywhere are adding 
 instruction in criticism and interpretation to their 
 office as practical trainers. Already specialists 
 in this new field are beginning to appear. Most 
 significant and promising of all, this department 
 of education is planting its feet in universities, 
 colleges, seminaries, and public schools. It has 
 been discovered that a critical discrimination can 
 be imparted in respect to music as well as in 
 literature, and by analogous methods; and with 
 the influence of institutions of learning thrown into 
 
 ii
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 the scale the hope for the advancement of a higher 
 musical culture among the educated classes rises 
 to confidence. With music becoming a national 
 concern, administrators of colleges and schools find 
 it a part of their duty to direct it, so far as lies 
 within their power over young minds, toward the 
 ends of individual and collective benefit. 
 
 It was unquestionably their doubt in regard to 
 the intellectual and disciplinary value of music 
 that so long hindered school boards and college 
 trustees from uniting musical instruction with their 
 orthodox schemes of classroom and laboratory 
 work. They said implicitly to the music teachers 
 of the country: Gentlemen, show us that your 
 methods are based on thoroughly scientific founda- 
 tions and that the results furnish a fair parallel 
 to those that are expected from the established 
 school and college courses, and then we will con- 
 sider the question of opening our doors. This 
 the leaders of musical education have done. The 
 long resistance of college and school has begun to 
 yield. The question now is not whether music is 
 worthy of admission to the academic precincts, 
 but exactly what office shall be assigned to her 
 in cooperation with the classic sisterhood of arts 
 and sciences. The institutions that have taken 
 music into their folds have already divided her ser- 
 vice into two departments — she is used as a means 
 of promoting aesthetic culture and appreciation 
 among many, as well as training productive and 
 executive faculties on the part of a few. 
 
 12
 
 THE NEW MUSICAL EDUCATION 
 
 All college studies are contained in two classes 
 — vocational studies and culture studies. Music, 
 by its very nature, belongs to both. As this whole 
 book is devoted to music as a culture study, the 
 distinction between the two classes need not be 
 enlarged upon here. Neither does it seem to 
 me to require argument to prove that the dissem- 
 ination of good taste in art is an obligation upon 
 college and school. If such argument is needed, 
 there is no better summary than that of President 
 Frederick Burk of the San Francisco State Normal 
 School. "The world," he says, "uses vocations 
 as a means of bread winning, but the world also 
 uses music, art, literature, the drama just as in- 
 tensely, just as essentially, just as relevantly. 
 Because the world uses religion, art, music, the 
 drama, civic ideals, etc., these are as legitimate and 
 important goals of education as bread winning." 
 
 This interest in the extension of musical appre- 
 ciation, once taking root as a conviction, becomes 
 an enthusiasm. It is by no means confined to 
 university circles. Nowhere is it more beautifully 
 manifested than among the noble group of obscure 
 private teachers, who at stated times gather their 
 little company of pupils and talk to them on the 
 deeper things of their art. This is indeed a service 
 that "blesseth him that gives and him that takes." 
 
 There is no need to search for the motives that 
 impel so many teachers, lecturers, and magazine 
 writers to preach the pure gospel of musical art, 
 but I love to think that here is shown one phase 
 
 J 3
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 of the humanitarian movement of the time. In 
 every earnest heart there is an instinctive desire 
 to communicate to others its own experiences of 
 good. And so when music is felt by one of its 
 votaries to be a source of unalloyed happiness and 
 purification of spirit he is fired with something 
 like a missionary zeal. He catches the philan- 
 thropic vibration that is abroad in the air. He 
 too would be a social benefactor. He would 
 bring the sweet companionship of music into the 
 common life as a means of effecting a closer fel- 
 lowship of minds in the higher regions of sentiment. 
 "We who care deeply about the arts," says the 
 Irish poet, William Butler Yeats, "find ourselves 
 the priesthood of an almost forgotten faith, and 
 we must, I think, if we would win the people 
 again, take upon ourselves the method and the 
 fervor of a priesthood." It is well said, and those 
 who are girding themselves for this high service of 
 proselytism may well bethink themselves of their 
 qualification for the mission. Consecration — yes, a 
 priest must have that, together with a willingness 
 to undergo resistance, indifference, and the trials 
 of hope deferred. But he must likewise possess 
 knowledge and wisdom — knowledge of the truth 
 he teaches so that his own faith will not be shaken, 
 knowledge of the needs and aptitudes of those 
 among whom he labors, and the wisdom which 
 enables him to adapt the means to the end, and to 
 seek that end on the higher levels and not the 
 lower. 
 
 14
 
 THE NEW MUSICAL EDUCATION 
 
 Let us go on, then, to consider what are the prob- 
 lems involved and the methods by which a better 
 and more accurate understanding of the joyful 
 mysteries of music can be imparted to those who 
 desire a fuller experience of the pleasures and ben- 
 efits of musical art. 
 
 15
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE MUSIC LOVER'S NEED OF 
 EDUCATION 
 
 The necessity of instruction in the art of hear- 
 ing music can hardly be denied by one who thinks 
 about the matter. It is not alone the " masses" 
 who are ignorant, and in their ignorance judge 
 foolishly. A large number who call themselves 
 educated must be included among those who are 
 outside the kingdom of music. The scorn of the 
 musical experts for the taste of those they serve 
 has been, and is even now, more or less outspoken, 
 and it would require a wide stretch of charity to 
 say that it has not been justified. The history of 
 musical patronage, so often clogging the wheels of 
 achievement, is a painful one when it is observed 
 how many of the noblest spirits in the realm of art 
 have suffered and even perished because of public 
 dulness or intolerance. There has certainly been a 
 vast improvement; there is immense encourage- 
 ment to be found by comparing the records of the 
 present with the annals of, say, fifty or seventy- 
 five years ago; then far more than now empty 
 virtuosity flourished without check and with little 
 
 16
 
 THE NEED OF EDUCATION 
 
 rebuke. But still, if it were possible to apply tests 
 among the habitues of opera houses and concert 
 halls by which those could be discovered who 
 perceive in music its central qualities as fine art, 
 refusing to be deceived by the sensational, tem- 
 porary, and meretricious, a sanguine investigator 
 would probably experience sad disillusion. It is 
 the conclusion of one of the foremost American mu- 
 sical authorities, after a quarter of a century of 
 observation, that among the frequenters of musi- 
 cal performances hardly one in a thousand knows 
 what good playing or singing really is. This, of 
 course, is an exaggeration, thrown out in one of 
 those dark hours which sometimes come to the 
 musical illuminati when for a whole season, seated 
 upon the Olympian heights of criticism, they 
 have surveyed the delusions of the populace below. 
 But it is sufficiently near the truth to pass with 
 only a moderate qualification. Now if the ele- 
 ments of good performance, which are really so 
 simple and obvious, are unknown to the average 
 concert goer, how much more certain is it that the 
 criteria of merit in composition will be obscure to 
 him. A high degree of intelligence in other de- 
 partments of art is no guarantee of musical under- 
 standing. Underlying the ignorance of musical 
 principles is the fundamental ignorance that music 
 has any principles that are necessary to be known 
 by one who lays claim to culture. Music suffers 
 like the drama from the common use of it among 
 intelligent people for recreation and amusement, 
 
 i7
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 rather than as something intellectually profitable 
 and demanding serious mental application as its 
 right. No one can enjoy a feeling of ease in culti- 
 vated society who has not at least a casual acquaint- 
 ance with the great poets and romancers, and an 
 impression of the work of the chief painters and 
 sculptors of the world. An utter lack of acquaint- 
 ance with the masters of music, however, is often 
 the ground for complacency or even of pride. A 
 recent work on aesthetics by a well-known univer- 
 sity professor contains a blunder on a point of 
 music which would certainly not have been par- 
 alleled if a matter connected with literature or 
 any other department of art had been in question. 
 Bruneau tells us that it was quite characteristic 
 of the taste of the period that when Rossini's 
 "Otello" was produced in Paris (the first per- 
 formance was in 182 1), nobody objected to the 
 bacchic joy of the songs, the delirious gayety of the 
 orchestra, the nonsense of the vocalises applied 
 during three acts to the terrible drama of hatred 
 and love. Even literary men, like Lamartine, de 
 Musset, and Stendhal, who knew and admired 
 Shakespeare, were fired with enthusiasm at the 
 representations of this parody of the venerable 
 masterpiece. Rossini's "Otello" is long dead and 
 no works of its kind are likely to appear again, 
 but the literati can hardly take credit to themselves 
 for the prevalence of a taste which prefers the 
 "Otello" of Verdi to its predecessor. 
 
 When it comes to a comprehension of music as 
 
 18
 
 THE NEED OF EDUCATION 
 
 a fine art a large proportion of the literary class 
 are represented either by Dr. Johnson or by Bos- 
 well. When the great lexicographer was seventy- 
 one years of age he chanced one day to hear some 
 funeral music, and remarked that it was the first 
 time that he had ever been affected by musical 
 sounds. Boswell was more susceptible. "I told 
 him," said the faithful scribe on another occasion, 
 "that music affected me to such a degree as often 
 to agitate my nerves painfully, producing in my 
 mind alternate sensations of painful dejection, so 
 that I was ready to shed tears; or of daring reso- 
 lution, so that I was inclined to rush into the 
 thickest part of the battle." "Sir," said Johnson, 
 "I should never hear it if it made me such a fool." 
 Between Johnson's indifference and BoswelPs 
 sentimental excitability the wise man would, per- 
 haps, find little to choose. The true nature of 
 music's virtue probably had never dawned upon 
 either of them. Boswell, indeed, possessed a 
 source of pleasure unknown to his friend, but his 
 nervous explosions would hardly leave any very 
 valuable deposit behind them. If he described his 
 mental condition accurately the effect of music upon 
 him was of the most indefinite and transient char- 
 acter. And so it is upon the minds of a vast 
 number of people who call themselves musical, and 
 give concerts and operas their regular attendance. 
 The impression they receive is hardly more dis- 
 tinct than that of a succession of perfumes; the 
 subsequent memory is that of something exhila- 
 
 19
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 rating but vague, like a last week's display of fire- 
 works. Outside of the hall or theatre they give no 
 study to the scientific principles of musical art or 
 its psychologic reactions, and consequently their 
 judgments, if that term can properly be applied, 
 are unconsidered and usually perverse, since they 
 are touched off by the mere nerve stimulation of 
 the instant. Such indulgences in pleasant sound 
 have, indeed, a value to those who come jaded with 
 prosaic toil; like coolness after summer heat they 
 bring repose and refreshment and are vastly to be 
 preferred to many of the fashionable distractions 
 of the hour. But to one who knows the benefits 
 which music can impart — that its tonic proper- 
 ties have it in them to restore the worn spirit and 
 inform and enrich the mind at the same time — 
 there comes often a feeling of pain that the greater 
 good should not be enjoyed at the same time with 
 the lesser. 
 
 Among those who receive music in a general 
 way there is a class of minds, very serious and 
 philosophical, to whom the very vagueness of these 
 diffused impressions seems the condition of the 
 most inspiring communications. These thinkers, 
 mystical in temperament and introspective in habit, 
 discern in music a spiritual suggestion more elo- 
 quent than speech, whose very indefiniteness and 
 unreality impart to it a sublimated value. In 
 many such cases the effect upon the imagination 
 seems in inverse ratio to the amount of artistic con- 
 trivance involved in the music; the mere physical 
 
 20
 
 THE NEED OF EDUCATION 
 
 sensation of tone even with slight dynamic fluctua- 
 tions is sufficient to produce powerful emotional 
 reaction. To Thoreau any sound that could be 
 called musical disturbed his thought with a sense 
 of something ineffable. A music box is tinkling 
 near by, and he writes in his Journal: "I feel a 
 sad cheer when I hear those lofty strains, because 
 there must be something in me as lofty that hears." 
 Again he confesses: "I hear one thrumming a gui- 
 tar below stairs. It reminds me of moments that I 
 have lived. What a comment upon our life is the 
 least strain of music! It lifts me above the mire 
 and dust of the universe. . . . Ninety-nine one- 
 hundredths of our lives we are mere hedgers and 
 ditchers, but from time to time we meet with re- 
 minders of our destiny. We hear the kindred vi- 
 brations, music! and we put our dormant feelers 
 into the limits of the universe. We attain to wis- 
 dom that passeth understanding." Two days 
 later he makes this entry: "What is there in 
 music that it should so stir our deeps? Suppose 
 I try to describe faithfully the prospect which a 
 strain of music exhibits to me. The field of my 
 life becomes a boundless plain, glorious to tread, 
 with no death nor disappointment at the end of it. 
 All meanness and trivialness disappear." 
 
 To this man who had kept his sensibilities so 
 delicate and pure, so responsive to every touch of 
 nature, the mere impact of tone upon the ear was 
 equivalent to an ecstasy. The "telegraph harp" 
 contained the essence of symphonies and ora- 
 
 21
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 torios and made them superfluous. Reading these 
 testimonies of Thoreau we can in a measure under- 
 stand how to the Greek philosophers the simplest 
 unharmonized strains contributed to ethical and 
 emotional culture, and thus had a place in the 
 scheme of education. 
 
 To a philosophic poet like Browning, who united 
 the gift of intuitive vision with a rare power of re- 
 flective analysis, the sounds of music excite con- 
 jecture over the ultimate cause of that rapture 
 which no other art can arouse in equal measure. 
 In "Parleyings" with Charles Avison, Browning 
 speaks what is thus far the last word in occult 
 musical interpretation. Music reveals the Soul — 
 the sum of those mysterious faculties that compose 
 the subconscious personality; Mind works con- 
 sciously, builds up knowledge with the facts of ex- 
 perience, as an engineer builds a bridge over a 
 gulf, laying stone upon stone. Beneath rolls some- 
 thing that Mind may hide but not tame — "Soul, 
 the unsounded sea," whose "lift of surge" brings 
 feeling from out the depths which Mind cannot 
 master. Mind's processes are easy to describe; 
 
 "But Soul's sea — drawn whence, 
 Fed how, forced whither, — by what evidence 
 Of ebb and flow, that's felt beneath the tread, 
 Soul has its course 'neath Mind's work overhead, — 
 Who tells of, tracks to source the founts of Soul ? 
 
 "To match and mate 
 Feeling with knowledge, — make as manifest 
 
 22
 
 THE NEED OF EDUCATION 
 
 Soul's work as Mind's work, turbulence as rest, 
 Hates, loves, joys, woes, hopes, fears that rise and 
 
 sink 
 Ceaselessly. . . . 
 
 "To strike all this life dead, 
 Run mercury into a mould like lead, 
 And henceforth have the plain result to show — 
 How we Feel hard and fast as what we Know — 
 This were the prize and is the puzzle! — which 
 Music essays to solve." 
 
 Music comes nearest to realizing the desire of 
 all art, to make the work of the Soul as manifest 
 as the work of the Mind; she seems about to give 
 momentary feeling permanence, to unveil our hid- 
 den impulses and motives; but the very essence of 
 her nature, her fluidity and quick vanishing into 
 the impalpable inane, forbids. 
 
 "Could music rescue thus from Soul's profound, 
 Give Feeling immortality by sound, 
 Then were she queenliest of arts. Alas — 
 As well expect the rainbow not to pass." 
 
 Lafcadio Hearn, convinced of the Buddhist doc- 
 trine of metempsychosis, is drawn by music into 
 the illimitable ocean of Being composed of billions 
 of pre-natal memories. "To every ripple of mel- 
 ody, to every billow of harmony, there answers 
 within, out of the Sea of Death and Birth, some 
 eddying immeasurable of ancient pleasure and 
 pain. Pleasure and pain: they commingle always 
 in great music; and therefore it is that music can 
 
 2 3
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 move us more profoundly than any other voice 
 can do. ... It is only the sum of the pains and 
 joys of past lives innumerable that makes for us, 
 through memory organic, the ecstasy of music. 
 All the gladness and the grief of dead generations 
 come back to haunt us in countless forms of har- 
 mony and melody." 
 
 Such experiences, which are transmuted into po- 
 etry by men like Thoreau, Browning, and Hearn, 
 are not to be lightly spoken of. They stir the 
 emotions to depths which no other excitation can 
 reach. They are akin to religious ecstasies, and it 
 is in recognition of certain correspondences in our 
 nature that the church has always welcomed the 
 aid of music in its efforts to draw the devotee into 
 a charmed circle from which earthly associations 
 shrink away. The practical musician, however, 
 has accustomed himself to take the matter more 
 coolly. While not denying that these mystical 
 transports are legitimate and the source of a joy 
 that is at the same time elevating and purifying, 
 still he distrusts them and would never admit 
 that the aim of musical study is to make one more 
 susceptible to them. It is evident that if musical 
 enjoyment began and ended with emotional stimu- 
 lation of this kind the critical study of music 
 would be merely the study of psychologic reac- 
 tions, and not at all a study of laws and methods 
 by virtue of which music becomes a fine art based 
 on scientific principles and appealing to the intel- 
 lect as well as to the sense. There would be no 
 
 24
 
 THE NEED OF EDUCATION 
 
 guarantee of any objective standard of merit or de- 
 merit; the strumming of a guitar which stirred 
 such high contemplations in Thoreau, if measured 
 by its effects alone, might outbalance in his mind 
 an orchestra playing the Andante from Schubert's 
 "Unfinished" symphony. In the case of weaker 
 minds, those endowed with an excess of sensibility 
 over judgment, music is often the parent of effem- 
 inate sentimentalities which, if habitually in- 
 dulged, produce those relaxing results of which 
 moralists complain. Where the purely subjective 
 interpretation has free sway, minds less robust 
 than those of Thoreau and Browning may receive 
 less noble suggestions. It is in vain to search in 
 sudden excitements, which may move in exactly 
 contrary directions at different times of the day or 
 with changing conditions in the nervous system, 
 for any guidance that may enable the hearer to 
 distinguish good music from bad. Neither do they 
 involve a definite conception of a musical com- 
 position as a concrete work of art. The delight of 
 the moment at the train of associated ideas may 
 be recalled in faded colors, but no memory of a 
 thing in itself beautiful in design and execution. 
 
 Just here a qualification must be made, lest 
 I be misunderstood and be classed among the 
 pedants. The raptures such as Milton felt, when 
 the floods of glorious tone dissolved him into ecsta- 
 sies and brought all heaven before his eyes, not only 
 afford us some of the happiest moments of our 
 existence, but when rightly adjusted to our other 
 
 25
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 experiences may become a source of moral refresh- 
 ment and strength. There is in music preemi- 
 nently a beauty of spiritual intimation, of mysterious 
 goings to and fro in the dim passages of memories 
 and hopes, of mirth and tears, of associations in- 
 definable but allied to what we feel to be the best 
 there is in us. A poet like Lafcadio Hearn, who 
 catches in music a reverberation of the joys and 
 sorrows of all mankind, receives a truer communi- 
 cation than the bookish technician who perceives 
 nothing but skilful devices in theme development, 
 counterpoint, or orchestration. I would not dis- 
 parage those delights that come with unformed 
 sound (unformed, I mean, so far as the listener is 
 aware) any more than I would disown the joy in the 
 murmur of winds and waves and the songs of happy 
 birds. We accept them as tokens of health in the 
 universe, and it is a sign of health in ourselves that 
 we exult in them. Doubtless all pure sounds 
 have a significance in our soul life which philosophy 
 has not yet explained. So in music the passionate 
 response of the heart to beauty is the ultimate thing, 
 and in these moments of abandonment learned 
 science and theory may well be left behind. But 
 neither of the two opposed methods of reception — 
 the half-hypnotized absorption and the cold critical 
 analysis — is sufficient alone. Only one who is ca- 
 pable of both is competent to receive all that music 
 has to give. Knowledge and feeling must unite. 
 At the moment of hearing, feeling seems to have it 
 all her own way, but it is the antecedent knowledge 
 
 26
 
 THE NEED OF EDUCATION 
 
 that directs feeling so that she may not go astray 
 and waste herself on what is unworthy. Reason 
 must hold the helm. Music, like all fine art, 
 demands an active exercise of the will, as well as 
 a sensitiveness to physical elements and a vague 
 response to suggestion. 
 
 The first business of a lover of art is to sharpen 
 his faculties of perception. The eye and the ear 
 must be trained to quick discriminations, and these 
 discriminations must be controlled by preliminary 
 knowledge of the function and method of the art 
 in question, in view of the character and limitation 
 of its material and the range of effect permitted 
 by its subject matter. The beauties to which the 
 untrained mind is most alive are those of physical 
 sensation and associative suggestion; those which 
 it fails to observe lie in form, proportion, design, 
 mutual adaptation of details to the central purpose 
 — that is, beauties of workmanship. The disci- 
 pline that one must undergo in order to appre- 
 ciate fine art is largely an exercise of eye and ear, 
 reenforced by the power of coordination, in order 
 that simple sensations may group themselves into 
 images which are the media or the garments of 
 thought. 
 
 Never in art can "thought" and "form" be 
 severed; least of all in music. The artist's vision 
 becomes clear to himself only as he laboriously puts 
 it into form, and his intention becomes clear to us 
 also in the extent to which we are able to follow his 
 processes. A work of art possesses an objective 
 
 27
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 as well as a subjective value. It stirs the imagi- 
 nation and opens depths of human emotion not 
 sounded before; but it also offers delight to the 
 physical eye or the physical ear, and likewise 
 gratifies the intellect when there is seen a masterly 
 adaptation of means to ends. The artist is a crafts- 
 man as well as a seer. The original conception 
 comes to his mind as a germ, not as a complete 
 organism. He devotes all his ability to the de- 
 liberate shaping of his materials, and invents 
 patterns that are in themselves beautiful apart 
 from any associated meaning that may be stated 
 in words. There is a decorative beauty in every 
 art-work as well as a beauty of sentiment. From 
 a purely ornamental design, such as a Rookwood 
 vase or an architectural moulding, to a sonnet of 
 Wordsworth or Rembrandt's etching of the Prodi- 
 gal Son, where the technical element seems lost 
 in the nobility of the thought, there is every degree 
 of emphasis upon the decorative factor. The 
 artist never forgets this, and without an appre- 
 ciation on our part of the balance of rhythmic 
 phrase and juxtaposition of euphonious words, or 
 the artful arrangement of lines and groups and 
 masses, the artist's purpose, so far as we are con- 
 cerned, is not achieved. 
 
 This decorative feature — using the term in its 
 largest sense — marks out one of the paths along 
 which the learner's study must be persistently 
 directed. If his senses are not trained to discern 
 the manifold beauties that are contained in design 
 
 28
 
 THE NEED OF EDUCATION 
 
 and technical manipulation, his judgments will 
 have no secure basis and the very essential of 
 aesthetic appreciation will elude his grasp. His 
 perception of moral values may be exquisitely re- 
 fined, his heart may beat sympathetically to many 
 notes of rapture or pain, and still a whole world of 
 loveliness be closed to him. With attention fixed 
 only upon subject and sentiment, he would perhaps 
 be content with ignorant and awkward execution 
 if the theme appealed to his religious, patriotic, or 
 domestic affections. There are, of course, possi- 
 ble deficiencies on the other side, for which no 
 delicacy of perception, no learning in technique, 
 can compensate. The connoisseur who sees noth- 
 ing in Millet's "Sower" but a superb representa- 
 tion of bodily action is to be pitied for his narrow- 
 ness of mental vision. When Whistler labelled his 
 portrait of his mother an "arrangement in black 
 and gray," on the ground that no one would be 
 interested in the sitter as an individual, but that a 
 skilful contrast of tones was all that an instructed 
 lover of art ought to care for in such a composition, 
 he carried his pet theory to an extreme where those 
 who feel art most deeply are reluctant to follow. 
 All this may be admitted, and still the fact remains 
 that the decorative value in art is the feature in 
 which the great majority even of intelligent people 
 most need to be instructed. The force and sub- 
 tlety of Whistler's portrait are unquestionably 
 affected by the simplicity of the scheme of lines 
 and the arrangement of the sombre shades. The 
 
 29
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 drawing and composition of Raphael, the chiaros- 
 curo of Rembrandt, the atmosphere of Corot are 
 the very life of the works of these men; they are 
 ends as well as means; without them there would 
 be no individuality, no personal communication. 
 They are elements which, if they could be com- 
 pletely severed from subject, would still be worthy 
 artistic aims. The mutilated fragment known as 
 the "Torso Belvedere," from which all definite 
 expression of character has departed with the loss 
 of head and limbs, was nevertheless the object of 
 the loving study of Michelangelo. 
 
 Say what we may in regard to ideas, emotion, 
 the infusion of personality as the aim and justifi- 
 cation of art, still we must not lose sight of the 
 fact that the supreme artists of the world — the 
 Shakespeares, the Michelangelos, the Beethovens — 
 were consummate masters of technique, and only 
 through sovereign technique could they impart 
 their thought and realize their visions. There is 
 no more common error than to suppose that these 
 men and others of the same rank were superior 
 as artists because they felt more and deeper than 
 other men. The difference is not in feeling but in 
 the ability to incorporate feeling in artistic form. 
 It is absurd to suppose that Winslow Homer felt 
 the appalling strength and infinite beauty of the 
 sea more than other painters who failed in the 
 attempt to render them. The "mute inglorious 
 Milton" of Gray never existed. If one is a Mil- 
 ton he will not be mute. Says Ruskin: "Weak 
 
 30
 
 THE NEED OF EDUCATION 
 
 painters, who have never learned their business, 
 continually come to me crying out, 'Look at this 
 picture of mine; it must be good, I had such a 
 lovely motive. I have put my whole heart into 
 it, and taken years to think over its treatment.' 
 Well, the only answer for these people is, ' Sir, 
 you cannot think over anything in any number of 
 years — you haven't the head to do it; and though 
 you had fine motives, strong enough to make you 
 burn yourself in a slow fire, if only first you could 
 paint a picture, you can't paint one, nor half an 
 inch of one; you haven't the hand to do it.' " 
 
 It is indeed the hand, as well as the head and 
 the heart, that makes the artist, and the knowledge 
 of the part played by the hand is indispensable to 
 one who aspires to become a connoisseur. The 
 mysteries of craftsmanship are not intuitively dis- 
 cerned, and the uninitiated never perceive them. 
 Appreciation is not passive, like a simple sensation; 
 and it is the result of effort and judicious training. 
 If a casual lover of pictures were to walk through 
 an art gallery with Mr. Edwin Blashfield or Mr. 
 Lorado Taft he would soon discover that his own 
 world of aesthetic experience was a very limited 
 affair compared with that of his companion. The 
 difference is well illustrated by a passage in Mr. 
 Kenyon Cox's essay on Rodin in his Painters and 
 Sculptors. He is speaking of the statue called 
 "The Danai'd," and describes it as "a single 
 female figure about half the size of life, fallen for- 
 ward in an odd, half-crouching attitude expressive 
 
 3 1
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 of utter despair or of extreme physical lassitude." 
 The average gallery habitue, interested in whatever 
 belongs to life but ignorant of the "points" of good 
 sculpture, would be attracted by the title, would 
 inquire concerning the story of the Danai'ds, and if 
 a person of sensibility would be touched by the 
 suggestion of pathos, and would perhaps notice 
 certain graces of proportion which the figure 
 offered to his sight. But now, as Mr. Cox pro- 
 ceeds, notice what a trained critic sees in this 
 statue: "Everything is largely done, with pro- 
 found knowledge, the result of thousands of pre- 
 vious observations, and the significance of every 
 quarter-inch of surface is amazing. Such discrimi- 
 nation of hard and soft, of bone and muscle and 
 flesh and skin, such sense of stress and tension 
 where the tissues are tightly drawn over the frame- 
 work beneath, such sense of weight where they 
 drag away from it — all this is beyond description 
 as it is beyond praise. And it is all done with ad- 
 mirable reticence, without the slightest insistence 
 or exaggeration, and with such a feeling for the 
 nature of the material employed that the marble 
 seems caressed into breathing beauty, its delicate 
 bosses and hollows so faintly accented that the eye 
 alone is hardly adequate to their perception and the 
 finger-tips fairly tingle with the desire of touch." 
 Here is the report of a connoisseur who has ac- 
 quired the ability to distinguish beauties that lie 
 in the material and the methods of sculpture, 
 beauties that would never be seen by an observer 
 
 32
 
 THE NEED OF EDUCATION 
 
 whose culture was general and not special. Sim- 
 ilar lessons may be drawn from the testimony of 
 those who have made music a life study. Their ad- 
 vantage lies primarily in the fact that, by reason of 
 their knowledge of the nature of musical structure 
 and the laws of performance, their minds are set at 
 such a focus that the qualities of the composition 
 make a clear and logical impression. The critic 
 applies the standards that are pertinent to the case; 
 he grasps the details in proper order and sees how 
 they contribute to fulfil the composer's structural 
 design and emotional conception. His hearing has 
 become discriminative through his experience with 
 works and principles; he knows what to look for, 
 and can grasp relationships as well as perceive 
 details. His memory has acquired possession of 
 many masterpieces which he is able to compare 
 with one another, and also to use as touchstones 
 in the appraisal of other claimants upon his favor. 
 Out of this discipline comes judgment, and finally 
 taste with its exhaustless resources of pleasure. 
 
 A frequent objection to technical study rests upon 
 the fact that increase of knowledge in matters of art 
 brings with it certain penalties. In ascending from 
 the plane of lower to that of higher pleasures one 
 seems doomed to leave behind certain naive en- 
 joyments that arise from a frank and childlike ac- 
 ceptance of everything that gives agreeable stimu- 
 lation to the organs of sight and hearing. As one 
 leaves the condition of paradisaical innocence and 
 approaches critical enlightenment one becomes 
 
 33
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 aware of evil as well as of good; there are shocks 
 of disappointed expectation, followed by sourness 
 and asperity instead of that joy and peace which 
 seem the just recompense of one who goes in quest 
 of beauty. The professional critic is not envied 
 by the art loving public. His calling is supposed 
 to promote an excessive irritability of nerve, an 
 unhealthy tendency to ignore the good and mag- 
 nify the evil, a habit of fault finding until fault 
 finding becomes a pleasure. No honest critic will 
 admit the justice of such an imputation, yet even 
 he sometimes questions if the pains do not over- 
 balance the rewards. Even so magnanimous a 
 spirit as Mr. E. A. Baughan has sometimes at the 
 end of a season entertained the disquieting suspi- 
 cion that, after all, ignorance is really bliss and 
 that wisdom may sometimes run to the excess that 
 verges upon folly. But the critic so minded does 
 not know his own blessedness. He has sources of 
 satisfaction of which the Philistine who "knows 
 nothing about art but knows what he likes" has 
 very little conception. The critic enjoys more than 
 the other because he sees and hears more, and 
 is better prepared to grasp the real significance of 
 what he sees and hears. His occasional distress is 
 only the reverse side of his enjoyment. The cheap 
 popular march or sentimental ballad irritates him 
 just because an etude by Chopin or a song by Grieg 
 makes him so happy. There is even a not ignoble 
 pleasure in his very distaste, because there cannot 
 be a revolt against stupidity and vulgarity without 
 
 34
 
 THE NEED OF EDUCATION 
 
 comparison, and comparison involves even at the 
 moment an under-consciousness of merit elsewhere. 
 There are critics and critics. The true critic is 
 one who sees below the surface of things, distin- 
 guishes the essentials from the accidents, the spirit 
 within the form, and whose nature is so sympa- 
 thetically attuned to that of the artist that he un- 
 derstands him and finds delight in assisting the 
 understanding of others. Swinburne had the truth 
 of the matter in him when he said: "I have never 
 been able to see what should attract men to the 
 profession of criticism but the noble pleasure of 
 praising." As seer, hierophant, and interpreter the 
 critic performs an almost priestlike task. When 
 criticism is inspired by the highest purpose, in 
 which duty blends with privilege, one may even 
 say of it, as has been said of love— "all other 
 pleasures are not worth its pains." 
 
 The serious amateur who in the hearing of 
 music feels a vague stirring as in the presence of 
 something which itself is vague, desires more of 
 the critic's discriminating power. He has heard 
 that music is not only an art of expression but is 
 also an art of form. It enters the soul through 
 many channels. Hearing — as we use the term in 
 respect to a piece of music — is a complex process. 
 In the first place there is the physical consciousness 
 of sounds of a particular pitch, timbre, and in- 
 tensity. We may hear them as we hear the warble 
 of a bird, the mutter of distant thunder, the sigh 
 of the wind; no intellectual reaction need be 
 
 35
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 involved, for these sounds may be unrelated and 
 unorganized. Aside from possible chance associa- 
 tions, which one person may have and another 
 may not, they are mere sense impressions which 
 act in the same way upon people of higher and 
 lower grades of culture. In the next stage, how- 
 ever, there are more refined and intricate processes 
 involved. The tones are no longer detached and 
 isolated, but are combined with one another by 
 an act of will on the part of the composer. This 
 coalescence into logical design, being an intellectual 
 operation, demands an intellectual operation for 
 its apprehension. The hearer perceives plan, sys- 
 tem, order, unified variety. A third stage also 
 appears: each tone or phrase is an emotional cen- 
 tre. The successions and combinations of tones 
 are charged with a potency which their qualities 
 as agreeable sensation and ingenious artifice can- 
 not explain. There is a stirring of the spirit to 
 unknown depths, the final cause of which eludes 
 analysis, but is felt to have its roots where every 
 active impulse toward beauty has its birth. This 
 exaltation and purging of the soul by harmony is 
 doubtless music's highest sanction. There is an 
 experience here for which no other art furnishes 
 an equivalent. Music's very mystery and in- 
 tangibility is the essential condition of much of its 
 peculiar power. Nevertheless an earnest mind 
 cannot be satisfied with a pleasure, however pure 
 and elevating, that quickly dissolves, leaving no 
 residue to be worked over by the memory. If 
 
 36
 
 THE NEED OF EDUCATION 
 
 uninitiated he yet believes that there must be a 
 host of beauties in the works of the masters which he 
 does not perceive. With all his delight in music 
 he confesses that he has no firm standard of judg- 
 ment, that he makes little or no progress in the 
 appreciation of great music because he is at the 
 mercy of his temperament, his habitudes, his preju- 
 dices, and his mental and physical condition at the 
 moment. He would make his musical experiences 
 a means of genuine intellectual gain, developing a 
 power of enjoyment that is active not passive, one 
 that strengthens his faculties of perception and 
 discrimination by means of an exercise that he can 
 supervise and direct to satisfying ends. 
 
 The amateur, too long neglected, is beginning to 
 understand his needs and make them known, and 
 I have already shown that his Macedonian cry is 
 reaching attentive ears. He has no wish to become 
 a brilliant player or vocalist, or if he has, there is 
 no place in his life for the long preparatory drudg- 
 ery. Neither would he be reconciled to courses in 
 harmony and counterpoint. But he does wish to 
 cultivate his ear and his powers of judgment, to 
 know what to listen for, to hear what musicians 
 hear in a musical performance, to learn in what 
 consist the factors that make good music, to know 
 what his musical friends are talking about when 
 they discuss the new men and the new movements, 
 to bring Beethoven and Wagner and Chopin into 
 the circle of his familiars along with Raphael and 
 Rembrandt, Shakespeare and Milton, Thackeray 
 
 37
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 and Tennyson, — in a word he wishes to make music 
 also, along with books and pictures and all beau- 
 tiful things, a means of enriching his inward life. 
 In the succeeding chapters I have undertaken to 
 show what music as a fine art has to offer to the 
 amateur who begins with nothing but the most ru- 
 dimentary knowledge of the formal principles and 
 psychologic conditions of art in general. An ordi- 
 nary sensitiveness to musical impressions is all that 
 is required for admission to the imaginary class that 
 I proceed to form. Let no one misunderstand my 
 purpose, and suppose that I attach supreme value 
 to technicalities because I give so large a space to 
 them. I do so simply because a casual acquaint- 
 ance with technical principles and methods is nec- 
 essary as a means to the higher end, and because 
 that is the knowledge in which the amateur is most 
 deficient. His little learning will not be to him a 
 dangerous thing; he is not to be refused a taste be- 
 cause he cannot drink deep at the Pierian springs. 
 He need not fear that he will lose any of the fine 
 intoxication that was his before. He will no longer 
 say that he cannot see the forest for the trees — he 
 will see trees and forest both. He will learn to 
 adjust his mind so that the beauties of detail will 
 reach him as well as the glory of the whole. "The 
 laboratories," says a French writer, "are crowded 
 with retorts, flowers and leaves are dissected under 
 the microscope. But nothing of all this has spoiled 
 the graces of the springtime or the splendors of 
 setting suns." 
 
 38
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 DEFINITE HEARING: THE PROBLEM 
 OF FORM 
 
 In the discussions that are to follow I shall have 
 in mind that class of music lovers known as ama- 
 teurs or dilettanti, meaning thereby those who do 
 not practice music as a profession, and have little or 
 no expert knowledge. I am thinking of genuine 
 music lovers, the people who compose the serious 
 part of opera and concert audiences, who encour- 
 age music in the home and in society, who like to 
 discuss music and wish to make it more familiar. 
 This enlarged appreciation, I assume, is to be 
 gained chiefly by the ear, for the music lovers for 
 whom this book is written are not required to be 
 masters of the art of reading music. Books and 
 musical reviews in the daily, weekly, and monthly 
 press they will find it for their interest to consult 
 frequently, and some of the best books on dif- 
 ferent branches of the subject will be specified. 
 Lectures on music they will sometimes attend. In 
 fact, I shall have pretty constantly in my mind the 
 worthy band of lecturers whose work in colleges, 
 schools, clubs and other private circles has recently 
 become an important item in our national educa- 
 
 39
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 tional machinery. In this department of musical 
 instruction traditions are still to be established, for 
 there are as many methods as there are teachers, 
 and many of these methods are crude and incom- 
 plete. My purpose is partly to indicate my own 
 conception of the nature and scope of the subject 
 of musical criticism — the topics involved and their 
 mutual relations, the action of musical works upon 
 the ear and mind of the listener, the aesthetic prin- 
 ciples concerned, and the various means by which 
 musical enjoyment may be increased and rational 
 judgment ensured. I shall consider the needs of 
 the learner, the preparation of the teacher (so far 
 as the teacher is allowed to appear within the hori- 
 zon of this volume) and the materials available for 
 both. No exact system of study is proposed, cer- 
 tainly not a complete one. Many things that such 
 a book might properly contain will probably be 
 omitted, either intentionally or inadvertently. I 
 wish to be as discursive as my whim dictates. 
 My temperament is that of an explorer rather 
 than that of a surveyor, and an explorer is one 
 who leaves much to be sought out by the next 
 comer. Suggestion rather than an organized pro- 
 gram is the writer's best service in such a case as 
 this; his best hope that he may be able to per- 
 suade others to enter a fresh field by confirming 
 out of his own discoveries the bright promise of its 
 invitations. 
 
 In its simplest terms the question resolves itself 
 into this: What and how must one hear in listening 
 
 40
 
 THE PROBLEM OF FORM 
 
 to music ? In respect to the what a listener is in 
 quite a different situation from that involved in the 
 presence of any other art. A musical composition 
 exists only as it is performed; it does not really 
 live until it has known a second birth. Moreover, 
 music is movement; it is contained in time and 
 not in space. We may go to an art gallery and 
 study a picture or a statue at leisure; we are not 
 compelled to form a judgment until we have de- 
 liberately examined all the details and put them 
 together in our consciousness. In the case of a 
 literary work the reader may be as deliberate as 
 the picture gazer. The obscurities of Browning or 
 Henry James simply require closer attention and 
 slower progress than the lucid phrases of Tennyson 
 or Hardy; the reader need not go on until he has 
 understood them. But the musical piece passes as 
 on the wings of the wind; we cannot arrest it for 
 the sake of a reinspection. Moreover music is har- 
 mony as well as rhythmic melody; in the simplest 
 song with piano accompaniment there are several 
 parts to follow at the same time, while in a sym- 
 phony, or still more in an opera or oratorio, the 
 abundance and complexity of simultaneous ele- 
 ments not only presuppose vast powers of ana- 
 lytic perception on the part of the human ear, but 
 also seem determined to baffle them. The weak- 
 ness of music in the opinion of many philosophers 
 — if it be a weakness — consists not so much in 
 the character of its impressions as in the difficulty 
 on the part of the hearer of getting any clear 
 
 4i
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 impressions at all. Even the trained musician feels 
 this whenever he goes to a concert. The musical 
 piece is volatile, intangible, evasive; it comes out 
 of silence and vanishes into the unknown again. 
 We are tantalized by this flying tumult of sweet 
 sounds. We suspect that in the flood of harmony 
 there are numberless beauties that escape us. We 
 long to put forth some faculty of seizure that may 
 arrest this phantom and hold it until it gives up 
 all its secrets. If the educated musician is often 
 thus perplexed it is not strange that the untaught 
 amateur, catching a random charm here and an- 
 other there, despairs of getting a definite image 
 and yields to the vague excitement of nerve stimu- 
 lation, or perhaps to the nobler, but no less tran- 
 sient absorption in mystical imaginings, and tries 
 to be content therewith. 
 
 It is evident that these impediments can be 
 overcome only by the development of some faculty 
 which will enable the hearer to apprehend the 
 design of a musical work and perceive some logical 
 necessity in its progress. If the different factors 
 combine into an artistic whole which gives each 
 of them its raison d'etre — if the composer's pur- 
 pose is fully revealed only when the work is grasped 
 entire, as a unity — then it is plain that the cas- 
 ual, disconnected impressions of the average non- 
 musician do not give him the satisfaction which 
 the work is intended to afford. His attention must 
 be directed toward elements and qualities which 
 he has not hitherto perceived. An amount of 
 
 42
 
 THE PROBLEM OF FORM 
 
 technical knowledge must be acquired that is at 
 least sufficient to enable him to discover what the 
 work actually contains and the real significance of 
 each part in the total effect. These factors, not 
 being intuitively discerned, require demonstra- 
 tion, and the novice in matters of musical science 
 gladly accepts the guidance of the expert. 
 
 One who undertakes to assist musically untrained 
 people to a comprehension of the works of the great 
 composers, finds it necessary to ask: What is the 
 actual musical experience of one who has no tech- 
 nical knowledge of the art? What does one who 
 knows nothing of musical science or the laws of 
 musical expression actually get out of a concert, 
 recital, or opera? What is the difference in re- 
 spect to perception and mental reaction between 
 the untaught music lover and the expert critic? 
 It is not easy to find an answer to these questions. 
 The musician may call upon his imagination for a 
 reply, but there is not much satisfaction in this, 
 for it is extremely difficult for him to project him- 
 self into the mental state of one who has formed 
 none of the habits that have become a second 
 nature to one who has spent years in familiar asso- 
 ciation with the practical side of the art. These 
 two individuals inhabit different worlds. Features 
 that are instantly perceived and appraised by the 
 one are overlooked by the other. The adept can- 
 not recall his days of musical innocence, and so he 
 asks for testimony from his non-musical brother, 
 since instruction presupposes some knowledge of 
 
 43
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 the mental status of the pupil. Such information, 
 however, the latter finds it very difficult to give, for 
 how can one furnish a clear account of impres- 
 sions which are in their very nature unclear and 
 elusive ? 
 
 Certain aspects of the non-musician's musical ex- 
 perience will always be a mystery to an investigator 
 
 < as well as to the subject himself. One very radi- 
 cal distinction, however, is plain, and that is to be 
 found in the fact that the musician's hearing of 
 
 I music is definite, while that of the casual hearer 
 A is indefinite. The latter is aware of a number of 
 simple perceptions which may be very delightful 
 even in isolation, but they do not coalesce in his 
 consciousness into the orderly groups and divisions 
 which, in their relations of balance, contrast, and 
 fulfilment, make up a complete work of art. Fur- 
 thermore, not being conversant with the principles 
 of musical organization, he cannot be in that atti- 
 tude of intelligent expectation which the musician, 
 by reason of his specialized knowledge, is able to 
 assume. Hence he fails to notice a great many 
 sounds which the musician perceives because he is 
 more or less awake to their necessity in the tonal 
 scheme. The musician's perception of sounds is 
 reinforced by his acquaintance with the procedure 
 of the art of composition, and he is thus able to hear 
 each phrase as a preparation for that which is to 
 come; his mind is alert, as if about to spring ahead 
 of the actual tones and anticipate their direction, 
 or at least he can connect each passage with what 
 
 44
 
 THE PROBLEM OF FORM 
 
 he has already heard and construct in his mind 
 more or less extensive divisions of the work as he 
 goes along. No musician can do this to such a 
 degree as to seize every detail of a large and intri- 
 cate composition at the first hearing; there is a 
 certain consolation to the amateur in reading the 
 cautious, non-committal estimates of the profes- 
 sional critics on the morning after a first perform- 
 ance of a new symphony. But the critic's train- 
 ing enables him to direct his mind along certain 
 legalized thoroughfares and gather details together 
 into related groups, while to one who listens with- 
 out method the sounds come in heterogeneous 
 confusion, distinguished, if distinguished at all, 
 only in gleams and flashes playing upon a current 
 of vague sonority. 
 
 The primary task of the ambitious music lover, 
 therefore, will be to learn some of the secrets of 
 musical construction, in order that his hearing 
 may take on that quality of definiteness which 
 lies at the basis of a true musical appreciation. 
 " Music," says Edmund Gurney, "may be de- 
 scribed as having a definite or indefinite character 
 according as the individuality of what is pre- 
 sented is or is not perceived; according as the 
 person does or does not grasp something which 
 can be recognized as itself and nothing else when 
 the presentation is repeated, and can be reproduced 
 in memory, not as the mere knowledge of a past 
 fact, but with some vital realization of the actual 
 experience. It is, indeed, obviously natural that 
 
 45
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 any matter presented to the higher senses should 
 exhibit definite aesthetic character in proportion 
 to the degree in which striking form is perceived 
 in it. The mind naturally assimilates and makes 
 completely its own that on which it has brought 
 its own activity to bear, and activity of mind de- 
 mands an order of some kind in the matter on which 
 it works." 
 
 On this plain psychologic principle the learner 
 must take his stand. His first business is to de- 
 velop that faculty which seeks for a systematic 
 connection among audible phenomena. Without 
 design and order — parts possessing a value not 
 in themselves alone but in their contribution to 
 the development of the whole — there is no work 
 of art. "A book," says Alphonse Daudet (and he 
 would have used the same expression for any art- 
 work) " — a book is an organism; if it has not its 
 organs in place it dies, and its corpse is a scandal." 
 As the sounds enter the listener's brain he must 
 strive to organize them there as the composer 
 organized their symbols, to build up a tonal struct- 
 ure in his consciousness, a structure distinct, sym- 
 metrical, self-supporting — not only that the whole 
 beauty of the work may be manifest, but also that 
 its presence may remain established in the memory 
 as a secure possession. Every musician is aware 
 that music is not a random string of vivid sensa- 
 tions passing over like the clouds which leave no 
 wake. To his mind each phrase is a consequence 
 of that which went before and the necessary 
 
 46
 
 THE PROBLEM OF FORM 
 
 antecedent of that which follows. Just as each 
 word in a line of poetry is by itself alone meaning- 
 less, so it is only in their connections and relations 
 that sounds acquire aesthetic value. A single tone 
 may be delightful in its physical effect, but apart 
 from its fellows it has no expression, no character. 1 
 The musician's pleasure comes from an active 
 exercise of the attention directed by anticipation 
 and sustained by memory. He enjoys the evi- 
 dences of skill, of difficulties overcome, of the 
 triumph of the composer or performer over his 
 defiant material, the beauty that lies in reasoned 
 design, development, and proportion. The igno- 
 rant hearer, on the other hand, is the sport of un- 
 known forces. The sounds at any moment drive 
 out of his mind the sounds he heard the moment 
 before. In an orchestral composition he catches 
 the most decided tone colors, he is exhilarated 
 with the grandeur of accumulated crescendos, the 
 fierce rush of the prestos, the electric pulse of the 
 rhythms, and is soothed by the contrasting mur- 
 mur of soft melodies. He enjoys the brilliant ex- 
 ecution of the pianist, the sympathetic voice of the 
 famous singer. He is very conscious of melody — 
 at least in fragments; he is less conscious of har- 
 mony; counterpoint is an unknown tongue. He 
 is often like one who walks through a gallery of 
 paintings, glancing from side to side, catching 
 
 1 Exceptions to this principle, of course, occur in dramatic music, 
 where, for example, a piercing high note, a fortissimo or harshly 
 dissonant chord, or a distant trumpet tone will convey vivid sug- 
 gestion by means of imitation or direct association. 
 
 47
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 glimpses of forms and colors, but when his ex- 
 cursion is over remembers little of what he has 
 seen, and doubts if he is much the wiser for his 
 experience. The musical world of the dilettante 
 is often a sort of twilight region, in which every- 
 thing is indistinct and many things beautiful are 
 quite unseen. 
 
 Out of this misty realm of sensation the ama- 
 teur, as soon as he is enlightened upon the real 
 nature of art, wishes to emerge; he desires to ar- 
 range and solidify his impressions into something 
 coherent, and fortify them with elements which he 
 has not before perceived. In a word, he wishes to 
 hear definitely instead of indefinitely. 
 
 In listening to a piece of music we observe the 
 actual growth of an organic structure; we are 
 witnesses of a process, each detail of which has a 
 certain necessity in the realization of a design. 
 A complete understanding of the work would 
 imply an ability to comprehend not only the 
 composer's ruling motive but also the function of 
 every melodic and harmonic factor in the scheme. 
 The question how a composer works becomes of 
 interest. Many people seem to have the notion that 
 a musical composition is of the nature of an im- 
 provisation, a succession of tones streaming out of 
 a highly excited emotional condition. As regards 
 a song — which in the case of a genius like Schu- 
 bert may be struck out at a white heat and jotted 
 down in a few feverish moments — this is in part 
 true, but not so in respect to a work containing 
 
 48
 
 THE PROBLEM OF FORM 
 
 an abundance of varied ideas and elaborate in or- 
 ganization. Beethoven spent many days in writ- 
 ing the funeral march of the "Heroic" symphony, 
 but we are not to suppose that his thoughts during 
 that time were constantly fixed on mortality and 
 the grave. We think of Tchaikovsky as a man 
 in whom there was an especially direct connection 
 between his moods and his music, but listen to 
 what he says in one of his letters: "Those who 
 imagine that a creative artist can, through the 
 medium of his art, express his feelings at the mo- 
 ment when he is moved make the greatest mistake. 
 Emotions, sad or joyful, can only be expressed 
 retrospectively, so to speak. Without any special 
 reason for rejoicing I may be moved by the most 
 cheerful creative mood, and, vice versa, a work 
 composed amid the happiest surroundings may 
 be touched with dark and gloomy colors." We 
 know that Beethoven and Chopin — composers 
 whose music is charged to a high degree of emo- 
 tional tension — were slow and laborious workers, 
 Beethoven, particularly, being forced to struggle 
 not only with the working out of his themes, but 
 in many cases with the themes themselves, fairly 
 twisting and hammering them into shape before he 
 could begin to make use of them as constructive 
 material. So true is it that a musical composition 
 is a work of conscious reflective design that an 
 actual personal emotion may even stand in the 
 way of the best success in execution. Grieg's 
 funeral march written in honor of his beloved 
 
 49
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 friend, Rikard Nordraak, is on the whole rather 
 commonplace, while thousands have been deeply 
 moved by the pathos of "Ase's Death," written to 
 suit a purely imaginary situation. The sublime 
 "Dead March" in Handel's "Saul" and the awful 
 dirge for Titurel in Wagner's "Parsifal" were cer- 
 tainly not inspired by personal experiences on the 
 part of their authors. On the other hand, it would 
 be impossible to find any connection between 
 Mozart's distressing circumstances in 1788 and the 
 three symphonies of that year — symphonies which 
 seem fairly aglow with the joie de vivre. We need 
 not regret that such is the case. It is the glory of 
 art that its masterpieces are written in uncon- 
 scious sympathy with universal human feeling, 
 and are not the less sincere when they call forth 
 tears such as their creators never shed. 
 
 In spite of this, I trust that I do not need to say 
 that great music is something more than the result 
 of a merely mechanical process. The truth seems 
 to be that the first idea of the spirit and something 
 of the form of a work often come in a sort of 
 instantaneous vision, and the excited mood may 
 often arise from an actual personal experience. 
 The theme itself, which may suddenly flash upon 
 the composer's mind, will often contain implicitly 
 the essential character of the movement, as in the 
 opening measures of Beethoven's Fifth symphony 
 or the Scherzo of Mendelssohn's "Scotch" sym- 
 phony. But the decision how the subject shall 
 be treated and the giving of body and form to the 
 
 5°
 
 THE PROBLEM OF FORM 
 
 idea is a very deliberate process; and when the 
 composer takes pen in hand he must keep his 
 head cool and call upon the result of his years of 
 theoretical training, for his problem now is largely 
 technical. This is even more the case with the 
 composer, especially the instrumental composer, 
 than it is with the sculptor or the painter, for his 
 art is not at all imitative of nature, and so being 
 free from any control by outward phenomena he 
 is bound by the inner necessity of shaping his airy 
 material by the laws which itself decrees. 
 
 It is these laws that the serious music lover wishes 
 to understand, so far as a knowledge of them is 
 necessary to enable him to follow a work in all its 
 parts and take into his mind everything that con- 
 tributes to its essential character. Order is heav- 
 en's first law in art as in nature, and the recogni- 
 tion of orderly arrangement in sounds is the first 
 condition of definite impressions in hearing music. 
 Even if the human mind does not instinctively 
 seek for orderly relations among audible phe- 
 nomena, at any rate a sense of these relationships 
 and a desire for them can easily be awakened. It 
 is a faculty to be cultivated like any other; it is a 
 question of degrees. The craving for system and 
 proportion is betrayed in the simplest folk song, 
 even in the barren repetitions that abound in the 
 music of savages. From such naive devices up to 
 the first movement of the "Heroic" symphony we 
 find in every stage of musical progress the same 
 necessity at work. A musical composition, like a 
 
 5i
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 drama or any other product of artistic contrivance, 
 is a community in which each member ministers 
 to the welfare of the whole, and draws from the 
 whole organism the vital force which maintains 
 its own existence. Says Dr. William Pole: "One 
 may fancy a musical composition which, though 
 it may be divided into measures and groups of 
 measures, consists of a constant succession of 
 heterogeneous ideas, none of which have any re- 
 lation to any others going before or after them. 
 This may be called amorphous music, that is, 
 music without form; and even though the ideas 
 presented might be very good, it would be tiresome 
 and wearying to listen to. All great composers 
 have perceived this, and they have, therefore, ta- 
 ken care to lighten the effort by causing a com- 
 position to contain but few novel ideas, and giving 
 the chief interest by their skilful and musician- 
 like treatment." 
 
 The only fault that might be found with this 
 statement is in the implied reason for this procedure 
 on the part of composers; it is not to make things 
 easy for the listener, but in obedience to an artistic 
 necessity, that regularity of structure has prevailed. 
 Even the classic forms of fugue and sonata, which 
 Dr. Pole evidently has in mind, although their su- 
 premacy has long since passed, contain a principle 
 that has never yet been abrogated. The leader- 
 ship of certain themes and tonalities and the re- 
 turn to them after other melodies and keys have in- 
 tervened is still the method by which a straggling 
 
 52
 
 THE PROBLEM OF FORM 
 
 incoherence is avoided, and consistency, coherence, 
 and unity maintained. " All things," says Thoreau, 
 "are subjected to a rotary motion, either gradual 
 and partial, or rapid and complete, from the planet 
 and system to the simplest shellfish and pebbles 
 on the beach. As if beauty resulted from an ob- 
 ject's turning on its axis, or from the turning of 
 others about it." In musical organisms, from the 
 lowest to the highest, we find application of the 
 universal law of rhythm — we find action and 
 reaction, control and subordination, growth from 
 the simple to the complex, adjustment of elements 
 for the attainment of order, unity, and reasoned 
 progress. 
 
 The sum of the matter is that a musical work, 
 whatever its dimensions, however various and afflu- 
 ent in ideas, however copious in emotional change 
 and contrast, must still, from the most liberal 
 point of view, possess consistency; everything 
 must tend to an impression to which all the parts 
 contribute; so that when surveyed in its en- 
 tirety it will appear that it is one thing and not 
 many things. Like an organism in the natural 
 world, all the parts draw their nourishment from 
 the common current of life, and in turn give that 
 life the means of fulfilling the destiny which it was 
 intended to serve in its own special kingdom. 
 
 William F. Apthorp, in an interesting little essay 
 on The Non-musician's Enjoyment of Music, cites 
 the case of a concert goer who received no intelli- 
 gible impression from orchestral music, all instru- 
 
 53
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 mental music being equally meaningless to him, but 
 who intensely enjoyed Brahms's C minor sym- 
 phony, while Schumann's symphony in D minor left 
 him indifferent, and he asks the reader to explain 
 this anomaly. But Mr. Apthorp's paradox, as he 
 states it, is impossible — the person in question 
 must have obtained some kind of definite impres- 
 sion from the Brahms symphony, else he would not 
 have preferred it to the other. There must have 
 been something more perceived than mere "volume, 
 dynamic force, energy." We speak of the hearing 
 of musically ignorant people as vague, but it is 
 never entirely vague. From even the most be- 
 wildering orchestral complexity of a Strauss or a 
 Reger there will emerge bits of melody, rhythm, 
 and tone color that will convey notions of some- 
 thing salient and individual. Hence the music 
 lover who wishes to increase his enjoyment does 
 not need to be provided with a new faculty — 
 he needs only to be shown how to develop the 
 powers of perception and coordination which he 
 already possesses and to employ them as the very 
 conditions of musical art demand. 
 
 "It is clear," says Miss Ethel Puffer, "that the 
 real musical beauty is in the melodic idea; in the 
 sequence of tones which are indissolubly one, 
 which are felt together, one of which cannot exist 
 without the other. Musical beauty is in the in- 
 trinsic musical form. . . . The perfect structure 
 will be such a unity that it will be felt as one. . . . 
 The ideal musical consciousness would have an 
 
 54
 
 THE PROBLEM OF FORM 
 
 ideally great range; it not only realizes the concat- 
 enation [of harmonies and keys], but it would 
 take it in as one takes in a single phrase, a simple 
 tune, retaining it from first note to last. The or- 
 dinary musical consciousness has merely a much 
 shorter breath. It can 'feel' an air, a movement; 
 it cannot feel a symphony, it can only perceive 
 the relation of keys and harmonies therein. With 
 repeated hearing, study, experience, this span of 
 beauty may be indefinitely extended — in the in- 
 dividual, as in the race. But no one will deny 
 that the direct experience of beauty, the single 
 aesthetic thrill, is measured exactly by the length 
 of this span. It is only genius — hearer or com- 
 poser — who can operate a longue haleine." 
 
 The early lessons in the noble art of listening 
 to music must, therefore, deal much with matters 
 of form and structure. For two reasons — first 
 for the sake of making the hearing definite and 
 complete, and second for the pleasure derived 
 from the ability to recognize the composer's skill 
 in handling the devices that make for artistic per- 
 fection. Even though the scientific elements in 
 art are agencies to higher ends, nevertheless, since 
 they are a sine qua non, a full appreciation of art 
 is not possible without some knowledge of their 
 functions, and the ability to appraise them. The 
 parts which are welded together by the composer's 
 craft are not only beautiful in themselves but still 
 more beautiful in their relations of mutual service. 
 Many people who praise music rapturously miss 
 
 55
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 this great distinctive element, without which there 
 is, properly speaking, no art. What they lose is 
 not only valuable in respect to immediate im- 
 pression but necessary to make the impression 
 permanent. As I have already said, a dim recol- 
 lection of emotional states is not sufficient for one 
 who desires that art should contribute to the riches 
 of the intellectual life. One longs for a concrete 
 image that can be retained, reviewed, and recog- 
 nized at a later appearance, and the condition of 
 this objective reality lies not in memories of pleasant 
 excitement, nor even in memories of harmonic and 
 orchestral color, but in memories of form. Form 
 is not only an indispensable means by which the 
 artist makes clear to himself and communicates to 
 others the impulse that stirred his soul to utter- 
 ance, but it is in itself a thing to be admired by 
 reason of the beauty that lies in proportion, order, 
 and unified variety. The random hearer of mu- 
 sic, like the nonchalant stroller in cathedral aisles, 
 perceives the variety but not the unity. He is not 
 drawn by the intellectual strength that controls the 
 rebellious forces which the artist wields. There 
 is an inexhaustible delight in following the artist's 
 plan as he develops his motives, builds up his de- 
 signs, and adjusts his melodies, rhythms, and har- 
 monies into patterns of grace and symmetry. 
 
 In no art can this factor be omitted by the dil- 
 ettante. In every good painting the artist selects, 
 rejects, and arranges; never does he give a literal 
 photographic reproduction of his subject. Straight 
 
 5*
 
 THE PROBLEM OF FORM 
 
 lines and curves echo or supplement one another; 
 objects balance and relieve one another; masses, 
 colors, lights and shades are arranged for the pur- 
 pose of variety, reinforcement, and concentration; 
 the observer's eye is directed by a multitude of 
 subtle expedients to the central point of interest. 
 Even in literature the same principle holds good. 
 The casual reader who studies Professor Richard 
 G. Moulton's Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist and 
 Professor Bliss Perry's Art of Fiction will have his 
 eyes opened to the importance of form and ar- 
 rangement even in those departments of art where 
 the author had seemed most free to follow nature 
 unrestrained. 
 
 When listening to music is active and not passive 
 there are two mental operations involved, viz., 
 expectation and recollection. One reason, doubt- 
 less, why a musical work that is worthy of repetition 
 is more enjoyed at subsequent hearings than at the 
 first is because these two faculties are more and 
 more alive. Not only is expectation aroused from 
 moment to moment, but expectation is satisfied, 
 giving the pleasure that is at the bottom of a large 
 share of our mental and physical enjoyments — 
 that of relief following a sense of effort. Memory, 
 becoming more exact while at the same time it 
 reaches over a larger surface, retains impressions of 
 beauty when sounds have ceased, and joins them 
 in reinforcement to beauties present and to come. 
 
 In the music lover's initiation into the mys- 
 teries of structure he will make trial of the simpler 
 
 57
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 and more regular forms first, and that means, of 
 course, the so-called classic forms. To plunge into 
 the complexities of Wagner and the subtleties of 
 Debussy before one is able to trace the design of a 
 Mendelssohn "Song without Words" would result 
 only in mental confusion. The commonplace rules 
 of all education are sufficient guides. The classic 
 forms and diatonic harmonies are to be chosen at 
 the beginning because they are the basis of modern 
 musical structure, and the study of them clears 
 away from the student's mind those difficulties 
 that are greatest because they are fundamental. 
 The first chapters in the book of form will, there- 
 fore, deal with the song form, the sonata, the rondo, 
 the variation, and the fugue. 
 
 The study of form may for convenience be 
 divided into two departments, viz., rhythmic struct- 
 ure and thematic development. For the sake of 
 clearness it seems best to me to transfer the consid- 
 eration of the first to the chapter on melody and 
 rhythm, simply premising that the logical method 
 in instruction would be to exercise the learner in 
 the recognition of the fundamental metrical struct- 
 ure of section, phrase, and period as the basis of 
 order in the variety of rhythmic figuration, before 
 he makes acquaintance with the larger specialized 
 forms, rhythmic arrangement being primary and 
 universal in music, thematic alteration being derived 
 and secondary. 
 
 In the more highly organized musical composi- 
 tions the variation of theme constitutes the device 
 
 58
 
 THE PROBLEM OF FORM 
 
 whose happy discovery, together with the princi- 
 ple of repetition and relativity in tonality and 
 rhythm, gave to musical architecture its sym- 
 metry, unity of design, and stability. Its impor- 
 tance has been variable. The classic masters were 
 content with a few themes, and concentrated their 
 effort on the modification and combination of these, 
 while the invention of a lavish profusion of novel 
 ideas has been more consciously the aim of the 
 romantic composers. Nevertheless, the subjec- 
 tion of themes to ever-changing aspects of shape 
 and color, and the dominance of certain tonalities, 
 have always been held as the chief means by which 
 musical invention is to be restrained from falling 
 into a license and disorder that would defeat its 
 own purpose. The listener, therefore, must hold 
 in his mind the thought of organized develop- 
 ment as he follows a performance phrase by phrase. 
 He must know something of the possibilities that 
 lie in thematic work, the processes employed by 
 the masters in the evolution of movements out of the 
 leading themes and motives. "An exact survey of 
 the nature and means of the art of thematic con- 
 struction," says Arrey von Dommer, "can be ob- 
 tained by any one who can read notes or play the 
 piano to some extent. Whoever accustoms him- 
 self to study music from this point of view will in 
 a short time obtain from any composition a far 
 higher enjoyment. He who considers the matter 
 earnestly will perceive an organic life where be- 
 fore he was conscious only of details, indistinct 
 
 59
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 outlines, detached fragments of melody, rhythm, 
 or harmony. To hear music correctly and with 
 intelligence, to perceive and comprehend a musical 
 composition as a work of art developed organically 
 out of an idea, must always be the effort of the 
 music lover. To accomplish this one must have 
 far more than the ability to be agreeably excited 
 by musical sounds. Where one person is satisfied 
 with a mere superficial pleasure and a comfortable 
 feeling of idle reverie, perceiving nothing but a 
 mere hazy and uncertain succession of tone pictures, 
 the expert musician sees a fulness of animated 
 forms, proceeding from one another and flowing 
 into one another, all closely united by a firm 
 spiritual tie. The artificial enthusiasm, or the 
 hardly concealed indifference, which one often ob- 
 serves in concert halls, even in the performance of 
 masterpieces, shows plainly enough how super- 
 ficially in most cases music is heard, and that in 
 such instances there is a complete absence of any 
 real love of the art. Where one finds himself 
 falling into this, there must by all means be an 
 effort to come into a closer understanding of the 
 subject. The study of the development of themes 
 and phrases is the first condition of a true art under- 
 standing; besides that, it is an inexhaustible source 
 of constantly renewed enjoyment." 
 
 The only amendment that should be made to 
 this very satisfactory statement is that even one 
 who cannot read notes or play the piano need not 
 be shut out from the privilege of recognizing themes 
 
 60
 
 THE PROBLEM OF FORM 
 
 and following them in their chameleon-like changes. 
 A few repetitions of themes will enable the ear to 
 hold them by their salient features, and with ex- 
 perience there will be constant growth in the power 
 of systematic observation. 
 
 At this point it is time to bring in a qualification. 
 It is very easy to overdo the matter in expounding 
 musical analysis, and use it as a means of suppress- 
 ing imagination and chilling emotion. Form, 
 structure, harmony, and counterpoint are to be ex- 
 plained only so far as a knowledge of their laws is 
 useful for the training of the observation and con- 
 firming the power to appreciate aesthetic unity. 
 The novice need not know an inversion from a 
 suspension; double counterpoint need not be even 
 a name to him; these things are no more required 
 for the enjoyment of music than a familiarity with 
 metrical terminology is needed for the enjoyment 
 of poetry. The essential thing is to hear the subtle 
 accents and shades in verse melody, to hear every- 
 thing that goes on in a fine piece of music, not to 
 label and classify scientific devices. Many teachers 
 are so enamored with the theoretical side of their 
 art that they carry the dissection of form to a 
 superfluous excess and encourage pedantry rather 
 than real aesthetic perception. The instructor will 
 often find among his disciples prosaic natures who 
 readily acquire a lively interest in the mechanical 
 construction of musical compositions; they love to 
 see the " wheels go 'round " ; whether a work is beau- 
 tiful or not is a minor consideration, provided 
 
 61
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 it furnishes them an opportunity for gratifying 
 their morbid passion for analysis. Such are to be 
 found in a certain class of Wagner enthusiasts, who 
 are so busy in identifying the " leading motives" 
 which they have found in the "guides" that 
 they are often cold to the splendor and passion of 
 the music. On the other hand there are musical 
 devotees, for whom we should cherish respect, who 
 revolt at this whole process of vivisection. The 
 dry exposition of subject and counter-subject, of 
 phrase and period, of link passage and codetta, 
 is an offence to them. They heap contumely 
 upon the "analytical program." They shout 
 amen to the opinion of Debussy who, as Mrs. 
 Liebich tells us, introduced his salutatory as musi- 
 cal critic of the Revue blanche with the announce- 
 ment that he should endeavor to trace in a musical 
 work "the many different emotions which have 
 helped to give it birth, and also to demonstrate its 
 inner life. This will surely be accounted of greater 
 interest than the game which consists in dissecting 
 it as if it were a curious timepiece. Men in gen- 
 eral forget that as children they were forbidden to 
 dismember their playthings, but they still persist 
 in poking their aesthetic noses where they are not 
 wanted." Felix Weingartner points out a danger 
 from the excessive study of treatises on form and 
 analytic program books, when he says: "As 
 we are trained by reading program books and 
 guides to hear and look at the works not in their 
 entirety but in detail, it is only the small minority 
 
 62
 
 THE PROBLEM OF FORM 
 
 who, on hearing a new composition, consider the 
 general impression of the whole before commencing 
 to consider the details; yet these latter can only be 
 comprehensible by and in view of the ensemble." 
 
 The answer to these objections has been given in 
 the preceding pages. The wisdom of the warning 
 must, however, be acknowledged and the saving 
 doctrine found between the two extremes. On 
 the whole it may be said that the dangers that lie 
 in the emphasis upon technicalities are less than 
 the dangers of ignorance. It is with art as it is 
 with nature — the lore of birds and plants and 
 trees need not check but may stimulate the sense 
 of beauty and the ardor of mystical companionship. 
 The most impassioned writers on nature, the 
 most eloquent, the most alive to the broad aspects 
 and the poetic suggestions, are the men of scientific 
 knowledge, with powers accustomed to minute ob- 
 servation. The discriminating vision, certainly, is 
 not sufficient alone; there must be the large syn- 
 thesis and the impulsive joy. Not every botanist 
 would be an acceptable walking companion for 
 Wordsworth or Hazlitt. When observation has 
 done its work and the sight is cleared, one asks 
 for "that undisturbed silence of the heart which 
 alone is perfect eloquence." The learning of the 
 laboratory may miss the last secret. The rich and 
 rare combination is that of the naturalist's eye and 
 the poet's soul. 
 
 This development of the analytic and the syn- 
 thetic powers in cooperation is one of the finest 
 
 63
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 gains of the study of musical form. This apprecia- 
 tion of form, it must be emphatically observed, 
 should be as liberal and elastic as form itself has 
 proved to be in the evolution of modern music. 
 The classic patterns of sonata, rondo, and fugue 
 served a necessary, an inevitable purpose in the pro- 
 gressive upbuilding of musical art, and the works 
 of Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven stand in monu- 
 mental dignity for the admiration of all coming 
 generations. But in the fulness of time these forms, 
 having served their end, tend to loosen, expand, 
 and disintegrate; the elements of which they are 
 composed — the phrase and the period — readjust 
 themselves into other schemes of design. The 
 later tendency has been to proceed from strict form 
 to free form. The composer is no longer bound to 
 adhere to an authoritative model, which was de- 
 vised when the development of strict form was 
 the supreme requirement for artistic advancement. 
 This technical mastery is at last attained and the 
 composer now makes expression his supreme end, 
 the feeling and the contrast of feeling determining 
 the form, regular or irregular, according to the 
 wilfulness of the moment. This emancipation of 
 the art from the restraints of strict form has been 
 especially manifest in vocal music. Wagner has 
 shown us with admirable clearness in TJie Music 
 of the Future and in Actor and Singer how the 
 aria form, which had become standardized in the 
 opera, forbade a free development of a continuous 
 dramatic idea by breaking up a scene into a num- 
 
 64
 
 THE PROBLEM OF FORM 
 
 ber of isolated fragments which he calls "tunes," 
 consisting of two or three symmetrical divisions, and 
 separated by dry recitatives. Under this plan the 
 action could move only by fits and starts, and no 
 large and comprehensive scheme of poetic develop- 
 ment was possible. It was as if Shakespeare had 
 been compelled to write the speeches of his charac- 
 ters each in a prescribed number of lines and place 
 them at regular distances apart. Nothing less 
 could content Wagner than "turning the whole 
 full stream to which Beethoven swelled German 
 music into the channel of the musical drama." 
 By this he meant not Beethoven's sonata form 
 and proportionally measured periods, but the 
 richness, the unlimited abundance, the continu- 
 ous flow of the Beethoven music, where there was 
 no "framing of a melody," no padding with con- 
 ventional passage work, but where "everything 
 became melody." Wagner's form is a form that 
 is not molded by any mechanical pattern, but one 
 that grows directly out of the buoyant expansive 
 impulse that inspires the poetry and the action. 
 Each situation, each line even, has its own individ- 
 ual movement. The form is completely free. 
 
 The same tendency is seen in the song, from 
 Schubert to Hugo Wolf. In such a song as "Who 
 is Sylvia?" or "Leise fliehen (The Serenade)" the 
 melodic form is conventional and would be as well 
 suited to many other poems. But in "The Phan- 
 tom Double" and "Death and the Maiden," many 
 of the songs of Schumann, most of the songs of 
 
 65
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 Grieg and Strauss, perhaps all of the songs of 
 Wolf, the form of each melody belongs to the 
 particular poem to which it is set and to no other. 
 The form is free, irregular so far as musical design 
 is concerned. And the hearer must perforce listen 
 to the music from the standpoint of the words, and 
 the form beauty is not one of space proportions or 
 a circle of tonalities, but a beauty of adaptation. 
 
 This principle has been carried over to that de- 
 partment of instrumental music known as "repre- 
 sentative" or "illustrative" music. A subject like 
 Liszt's "Preludes" or Strauss's "Death and Glo- 
 rification" — a subject that has literary or pictorial 
 progress and conclusion — cannot follow any one 
 of the orthodox schemes of design. As a whole 
 and in details the music must issue from the poetic 
 idea and imagery. The form is free, and there 
 may be as many forms as there are program sym- 
 phonies or symphonic poems. 
 
 In abstract instrumental music also this eman- 
 cipating impulse has been felt. In such works as 
 Tchaikovsky's last symphony and Chopin's Bal- 
 lades and Fantaisies the composer is as unshackled 
 in the shaping of the entire outline as he is in the 
 invention of his melodies. The themes may or 
 may not "develop" according to the classic method. 
 It is of no consequence where they are repeated or 
 whether they are repeated at all. In succession of 
 keys, in balance of rhythmic figures, the composer 
 is constrained by no outward pressure of custom, 
 but only by an inner compulsion which bids him 
 
 66
 
 THE PROBLEM OF FORM 
 
 put his emotion into a form which will give that 
 emotion an unimpeded outlet. 
 
 There is a class of critics at the present day, in- 
 cluding some of our ablest writers, who joyfully 
 hail these later tendencies as a sign of the abroga- 
 tion of the formal principle, as the triumph of 
 feeling over convention, the close approach to ulti- 
 mate truth. But these writers hardly mean all that 
 they seem to say. The adaptation of parts to a com- 
 mon aim is the very condition of life in art; with- 
 out unification of plan art dies, for incoherence is 
 the negation of art. Their protest is actually di- 
 rected against the despotic subjection of art to 
 certain standardized types of form. Even in Wag- 
 ner's dramas and Elgar's oratorios and Debussy's 
 tone-poems, with their unrestrained pliancy and 
 power of instantaneous adjustment to thought and 
 situation, there is no violation of the supreme law, 
 liberally interpreted. Forms change but form re- 
 mains. 
 
 Form in the bolder practice of the present day 
 grows from within outward. It is plastic, is not 
 bound to imitate an academic model, but is shaped 
 to the special needs of the subject or motive, find- 
 ing its sole business to bring that to expression by 
 whatever novelty of device is most efficient. The 
 music lover, training himself to recognize and fol- 
 low musical structure as a development out of cer- 
 tain germ ideas, must also recognize in every case 
 the purpose for which the form exists, whether this 
 form be strict or free. The error of the oppo- 
 
 67
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 nents of Liszt and Wagner consisted in setting up 
 certain necessary and admirable forms as infal- 
 lible and immutable standards; it was the error 
 of those in all times who have opposed free- 
 dom in art because they could not see that form 
 is a means and not an end. Formlessness indeed 
 is fatal; but at the same time the conception of 
 what constitutes proper form must be left to those 
 who create, and must be allowed to obey and not 
 to control invention. As "the thoughts of men 
 are widened with the process of the suns," so old 
 modes and fashions of expression are left behind. 
 Forms live and grow because the spirit grows. 
 Three hundred years ago Edmund Spenser, in his 
 Hymne in Honour of Beautie, uttered what comes 
 near to the central truth of art: 
 
 "So every spirit, as it is most pure, 
 And hath in it the more of heavenly light, 
 So it the fairer bodie doth procure 
 To habit in, and it more fairely dight 
 With chearefull grace and amiable sight; 
 For of the soule the bodie form doth take; 
 For soule is form and doth the bodie make." 
 
 68
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE BEAUTY OF MELODY AND RHYTHM 
 
 In the foregoing discussion the word form has 
 been used rather vaguely, for my purpose is to 
 study the action of music upon the mind of the 
 music lover so far as it has to do with his immediate 
 enjoyment, and not to draw up a treatise on the 
 scientific materials of music which would pass 
 muster before an examining board of theorists. 
 In speaking of form I have had in mind what 
 Gurney calls " the individualizing element, the ele- 
 ment by which things are known and recognized." 
 Form — melodic, harmonic, or rhythmic — is that 
 which imparts a notion of plan, order, consistency, 
 organization among successions either of single 
 tones or masses of tones. Whether under such a 
 designation as "sonata form" including the whole 
 compass of a composition, or the contour of a com- 
 ponent as small as a single motive, or a chord com- 
 bination that establishes a definite tonality or group 
 of tonalities — form consists in any arrangement of 
 auditory images which gives the notion of some- 
 thing individual and self-consistent. The recog- 
 nition of design and unity amid variety is, as I 
 
 69
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 have tried to show, the prime condition of the 
 appreciation of a musical composition as a work 
 of art. On this basis we can discuss a composi- 
 tion with our neighbor, confident that we have 
 both received impressions that are sufficiently defi- 
 nite to permit comparison of opinions. 
 
 Among the components of musical effect melody 
 seems to claim the first consideration, for whatever 
 may be said of the sensuous charm and expres- 
 sional value of harmony and tone color, it is certain 
 that the fundamental musical consciousness is that 
 of progression from point to point, with the rhyth- 
 mic melodic outline as the essential agency that 
 binds the whole together into a coherent self-sup- 
 porting entity. Rhythmic accent is doubtless still 
 more fundamental as mere sense impression, but 
 as beats of varying degrees of force, or periodic 
 variations of tone lengths, do not in themselves 
 produce a musical outline without a perception of 
 definite changes of pitch, the impression of tune- 
 fulness, with a more or less apparent rhythmic 
 distribution, is the prime source of the average 
 musical experience. Both taught and untaught 
 music lovers are more distinctly aware of rhythmic 
 melody in the first hearing of a piece than of any 
 other feature, and among the untaught hearers 
 nine out of ten are distinctly observant of nothing 
 else, except, perhaps, certain dynamic and color 
 effects in performance. That one passage is louder 
 than another, or that a piccolo shrieks or a 
 kettle-drum rumbles, would, of course, be noticed 
 
 70
 
 MELODY AND RHYTHM 
 
 even by a child; but it could hardly be said that in- 
 telligence is at work in such an observation. When 
 the mind is able to put impressions together in 
 orderly relations, it is melody first of all that 
 awakens the joyful sense of beauty. 
 
 Since the consciousness of melody seems to be 
 so nearly instinctive and universal, the question 
 naturally arises, Can an appreciation of melody 
 be increased by instruction? If by this is meant, 
 Can a love of good melody be awakened by techni- 
 cal explanations; can the points of superiority in 
 certain melodies be pointed out in such a way that 
 general principles can be deduced to serve as in- 
 fallible tests for melody in general, the answer 
 must be negative. If a listener does not feel in 
 his heart that Schubert's "Who is Sylvia?" or 
 the theme of the Larghetto of Beethoven's Second 
 symphony is not a better tune than the latest 
 popular song that came last week and will be 
 forgotten to-morrow, there is no possible way of 
 convincing him. We may tell him that a fine 
 tune has individual character, a sort of positiveness 
 that distinguishes it from others and takes firm 
 hold upon the memory, and he will ask us if "Yan- 
 kee Doodle" does not meet these conditions. If 
 my friend asserts that "Pop goes the Weasel" is 
 a better tune than Wolfram's "Invocation" I may 
 assert the contrary; but my assertion is purely dog- 
 matic,, and I may have no recourse at last except to 
 call him hard names. The only method of bring- 
 ing the Philistine to a better mind would be to give 
 
 7i
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 him a course in themes by the great masters if he 
 would submit to the discipline, and if he inquired 
 why we made these particular selections we should 
 be obliged to fall back on the general consent of 
 the musical world as our warrant. To so slight a 
 degree does anything like established law reign in 
 matters of melody that we are sometimes almost 
 provoked to say that a taste in tunes is as irrespon- 
 sible as a preference in salads or millinery. 
 
 Standards of good and bad in melody we feel 
 that there must be, but when we try to draw con- 
 clusions that will serve as laws we find decisions of 
 equally intelligent arbiters varying with periods, 
 nationalities, customs, and temperaments. There 
 are melodies, to use Han-lick's expression, which 
 "once were beautiful"; and we may also believe 
 that there are melodies, now friendless, that some- 
 time will be beloved. When "Tannhauser" first 
 appeared, the stock accusation against it on the 
 part of many professional musicians and critics 
 was that it had no melody. The same charge was 
 at one time brought against Gounod's "Faust," 
 although to many this will seem incredible. At 
 the first performance of Beethoven's "Fidelio" in 
 one of the Italian cities, an indignant hearer called 
 out, "That isn't music, that's philosophy." Wag- 
 ner is now recognized as a great melodist, but 
 many ardent Wagnerians deny the melodic gift 
 to Strauss and Debussy. They may be correct in 
 this, but in view of past instances a cautious man 
 would hesitate in putting himself on record with
 
 MELODY AND RHYTHM 
 
 such an affirmation. Many lovers of Beethoven, 
 Schubert, and Chopin do not find melody in the 
 organ and piano works of Sebastian Bach, while to 
 the Bach disciple these works are flooded with mel- 
 ody of a high order of beauty. The precisely op- 
 posite effects of Liszt's melody on different critics 
 are well known. Even the fact of spontaneity and 
 originality, which would seem at first thought easy 
 to determine, is constantly in dispute. 
 
 The explanation of many of these anomalies and 
 others similar to them is to be found in habit. 
 The well-known maxim, omne ignotum pro mag- 
 nifico, does not apply to popular musical taste. 
 Melody has undergone progressive changes, es- 
 pecially during the past century, and where melody 
 is not recognized in a new work the explanation 
 will commonly be found in the fact that the themes 
 are unlike those to which the listeners have been 
 accustomed. When composers such as Wagner 
 and Schubert have failed to win approval at the 
 outset the trouble has lain in the novelty of their 
 melodic forms. The difficulty with the average 
 man to-day is very much what it was with many 
 cultivated musicians when "Tannhauser" and 
 "Lohengrin" were first performed — he accepts 
 as melody only those successions of tones in which 
 there is a decided accent at equal distances, and 
 in which the rhythmic phrases that result are so 
 few and so evenly balanced that the mind can 
 follow the simple design with the minimum of 
 effort, and hence easily receives the impression of 
 
 73
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 something distinct and complete. These brief 
 melodic forms, which writers nowadays, following 
 Wagner's appellation, call "tunes" or "dance 
 tunes" to distinguish them from melody in which 
 this simple mathematical proportion is avoided, are 
 based on the more fundamental harmonic rela- 
 tions, with regularly returning cadences and half 
 cadences. No disparagement is implied in this 
 classification, for among these rhythmically square- 
 cut tunes we find some of the finest inspirations of 
 musical genius. Hymn tunes are of this charac- 
 ter, also folk songs, countless themes of surpassing 
 beauty by Mozart, Beethoven, Handel, Schubert, 
 Verdi, and all the great masters of song — melodies 
 which the world has taken into its heart of hearts as 
 a treasure incomparably precious. No training is re- 
 quired to appreciate these, but a restriction to them 
 on the part of the average man forbids him to follow 
 the broader flights to which melody, especially in 
 the latter time, has adventured. Mark Twain, after 
 hearing "Lohengrin," declared that there was only 
 one good tune in the whole opera, meaning, of 
 course, the "Bridal Chorus." It was not that each 
 phrase in this melody would have seemed to him act- 
 ually more beautiful than many other phrases in the 
 work if an equally distinct impression could have 
 been received; but here was something terse, brief, 
 and regular, the whole thing hung together, it was 
 grasped and retained in consciousness as some- 
 thing distinct and tangible. Another hearer would 
 find satisfying melody in the king's prayer and 
 
 74
 
 MELODY AND RHYTHM 
 
 Elsa's appeal, but little or none in the first part of 
 the second act. To many listeners the last act of 
 "The Mastersingers " is a rather monotonous plain 
 diversified by a few melodious outcroppings, such 
 as Walther's "Prize Song," the Quintet and the 
 "Mastersingers' March"; while in "Tristan and 
 Isolde" no such salient points of vantage are to 
 be found. The question here is not of good or 
 poor melody, but the ability to recognize any 
 melodic contour at all. 
 
 Whatever may be said of the possibility of de- 
 veloping taste in melody, it will not be denied, 
 I think, that one persistent aim on the part of the 
 immature music lover should be to develop the 
 power of apprehension beyond the confines of 
 the "tune" into those regions where the great 
 composers have found the amplest melodic free- 
 dom. The hearer must be practiced in following 
 the melodic bounding line over larger and larger 
 spaces. At the same time the unequal divisions, 
 all the elevations and subsidences whose variety 
 and abundance seem at first to disappoint the 
 instinctive demand for unity, must be perceived 
 as essential items in the design. It is only a 
 question of extending the mental embrace to en- 
 fold larger and larger and more and more intri- 
 cate patterns. One takes for the starting point a 
 short and symmetrical form, such as Brahms's 
 "Slumber Song" or MacDowell's "To a Wild 
 Rose"; the next step reaches a form that is larger 
 but without rhythmic diversity, such as Schubert's 
 
 75
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 "Wohin?" or the F major Etude in Chopin's 
 Op. 25; then to "through-composed" songs of 
 Schubert, Schumann, or Strauss, the selections 
 systematically varying in extent and changefulness 
 of structure. The release of the mind from bond- 
 age to the four-measure and eight-measure ratio 
 in metrical division means complete emancipation 
 of the music lover in his appreciation of melody. 
 He can now range freely in the newly discovered 
 regions which modern music has conquered. In 
 the vast serpentine line of Wagner's melos there 
 is a titanic shaping power at work amid all the 
 apparent melodic confusion; just as in the magnifi- 
 cent sky line of the Adirondacks seen from the hills 
 beyond Lake Champlain there is balanced strength 
 and symmetry in the seemingly irregular sweep of 
 the majestic curves. 
 
 That this expansion of the powers of observa- 
 tion will be followed by an increase of taste in the 
 matter of sheer melodic quality cannot be positively 
 asserted, but it seems reasonable to suppose that 
 it must be so. A hearer who has trained his mind 
 to follow all the sinuous windings of the tone 
 stream in a fugue by Bach, a symphony move- 
 ment by Tchaikovsky, or an act in a Wagner 
 drama, joyfully yielding his mind to every ebb 
 and swell because he realizes that the highest ends 
 of artistic expression are answered by this tidal 
 motion, will surely not fail to catch the beauty of 
 the tuneful phrases which are involved at every 
 turn. A new conception of melody will be his, 
 
 76
 
 MELODY AND RHYTHM 
 
 one that will by no means deprive him of his old 
 delight in melody of the simpler forms. 
 
 The secret of the ability to follow all the fluc- 
 tuations of melodic outline and to grasp the mul- 
 tifarious changes of structure, lies in the cultivation 
 of the sense of rhythm. Music, "the ideal mo- 
 tion," consists of a succession of moments filled 
 by sound, and the gratification that comes to the 
 hearer depends for its intensity very much upon 
 his consciousness that the tones and phrases are 
 swayed by some law of order. Everywhere in the 
 universe rhythm persists; wherever there is life 
 there is ebb and flow, action and reaction, oscil- 
 lation, vibration, compensating forces that support 
 and relieve one another, giving to the observer as 
 he surveys them an impression of ease combined 
 with power. If we mystically interpret music as 
 symbolic of the inner life of the universe, it is by 
 virtue of its rhythmic motion. 
 
 It is the opinion of many scholars that rhythm 
 precedes melody in historic sequence, that among 
 the lower races pleasure in the production of tones 
 in regular beats is more primitive than the desire 
 for changes in pitch. Says Richard Wallaschek: 
 "Rhythm, taken in a general sense to include 
 keeping in time, is the essence in music, in its 
 simplest form as well as in the most skilfully elab- 
 orated fugues of modern composers. To recall a 
 tune the rhythm must be revived first, and the 
 melody will easily be recalled. Completely to 
 
 77
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 understand a musical work ceases to be difficult 
 when once its rhythmical arrangement is mas- 
 tered; and it is through rhythmical performance 
 and rhythmical susceptibility that musical effects 
 are produced and perceived. From these several 
 data I conclude that the origin of music must be 
 sought in a rhythmical impulse in man." 
 
 In this dependence upon division of time for 
 intelligibility music conforms to the great law of 
 proportion by which all art is sustained — propor- 
 tion in space in architecture, painting, and sculpt- 
 ure, proportion in time in poetry and the dance. 
 Richard Watson Gilder sings: 
 
 "No poet he who knows not the great joy 
 That pulses in the flow and rush of rhythm; 
 Rhythm, which is the seed and life of life, 
 And of all art the root and branch and bloom." 
 
 In music the marked differences of taste and 
 comprehension among people otherwise of equal 
 intelligence is chiefly due (where tone-deafness 
 does not exist) to the disparities in the ability 
 to perceive order and plan. People say, for in- 
 stance, that they do not " understand" such and 
 such musical compositions. They mean by this 
 that the mind does not adjust itself to the rhythmic 
 plan of the music, that the combinations are too 
 intricate and changeable to be apprehended as 
 definite coherent form, and a sense of bewilder- 
 ment ensues which is fatal to pleasure. No one 
 ever professes inability to understand a simple 
 
 78
 
 MELODY AND RHYTHM 
 
 dance or a march. One may not like it for any 
 reason or no reason, but it will be easy to follow in 
 its rhythmic arrangement and therefore intelligible. 
 Unity without variety is as unsatisfying, in a dif- 
 ferent way, as variety without unity. One reason 
 of the dislike for dances or marches which many 
 feel may be the monotony of the reiteration of strong 
 beats, a perception of regularity that is agreeable 
 at first becoming annoying, because the nerve cen- 
 tres affected are soon wearied by the persistent at- 
 tack upon them. It is evident that the full degree 
 of pleasure is derived when there is variety enough 
 to keep the expectation constantly alive, and a 
 clear enough accomplishment of unAy to give an 
 impression of reason and order in the result. 
 
 The experiences of the individual in his con- 
 tact with ever-increasing variety and freedom of 
 rhythmic design is paralleled by the experience 
 of the race. Composers who have pushed the art 
 of music onward have done so by enlarging their 
 resources of rhythm and producing works which 
 were beyond the ability of most of their contem- 
 poraries to grasp with intelligent satisfaction. It 
 has been writers like Mendelssohn, who did not 
 put any new burden upon the rhythmic appreci- 
 ative faculty, who have been at once understood 
 and approved. 
 
 The first business, therefore, of the lover of music 
 who wishes to keep pace with the progress of the 
 art and open his mind to the beauties that meet 
 him in the works of the best composers, is to 
 
 79
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 strengthen his ability to comprehend complex 
 rhythmic relations. He will find that there are cer- 
 tain tone patterns that are uniform in their regu- 
 larity and very obvious in their reiteration of a few 
 simple figures. The "tunes," which were spoken 
 of in an earlier part of this chapter, are of this 
 class, as well as all passages in which a dancelike 
 movement is given by means of sharp accents re- 
 curring at short intervals. It requires no educa- 
 tion to recognize and follow these persistent beats 
 and parallel phrases — nothing but the ability to 
 keep step in a march or to beat time uniformly to 
 a dance. As music becomes more highly organized 
 these simple rudimentary forms give way to freer 
 forms, and the listener whose rhythmic reactions 
 are narrowly limited finds himself utterly confused 
 by the complex tone patterns which, in their dis- 
 placement of accents, avoidance of cadences, their 
 interweaving of melodic lines and harmonic mass- 
 es, their cross currents and eddies of shifting tones, 
 seem to avoid every semblance of order and sys- 
 tem. And yet it is only a difference of degree. 
 Unity and plan are there as well as in the rudi- 
 mentary figures that are so gratifying to the be- 
 ginner's elementary perceptions. He must sim- 
 ply go to work, with the assistance of some one 
 more adept in these mysteries, to learn the method 
 by which these puzzling combinations resolve into 
 coherence and symmetry. 
 
 The first glance at an elaborate musical score 
 seems to offer to the neophyte a spectacle of hetero- 
 
 80
 
 MELODY AND RHYTHM 
 
 geneous confusion, for if he marks off with his 
 eye the little compartments within the perpendicu- 
 lar bar-lines he discovers a bewildering diversity 
 in the appearance of their contents. A keen lis- 
 tening, however, reveals to him that within this pro- 
 fusion of "sounding arabesques" there are distinct 
 pulses or beats which appear to supply the need of 
 an underlying system of order. In marches, waltzes, 
 and in a multitude of compositions beside, these 
 beats are very aggressive and are followed without 
 much strain upon the attention; in other works, 
 such as fugues, many forms of church music, long 
 sections of Wagner's dramas, the solid bony frame- 
 work, if we may use such a comparison, is dis- 
 solved in a fluid, seemingly shapeless progression 
 of sounds. Nevertheless, in all instrumental com- 
 positions and the vast majority of vocal pieces, the 
 mass of sound — twisting, twining, condensing, ex- 
 panding into every variety of tone outline — rests 
 firmly upon a steady support of beats and simple 
 measure combinations, and the recognition of the 
 underlying principle of order gives to the hearer the 
 happy intimation that within the flood of music there 
 is definiteness and reason. Just as the profusion of 
 ornament upon capitals, architraves, friezes, and cor- 
 nices rests upon columns or arches standing at equal 
 distances from one another, so in music the multi- 
 farious forms of rhythmic figuration are saved 
 from incoherence by the throb of the steady pulses 
 within. Or we may compare the arrangement to 
 curves or waves, the basic or typical curves, which 
 
 81
 
 THE EDUCATION OE A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 are regular, being overlaid by other curves which 
 are free to take any length, to interlace, even at 
 times to interfere with one another. Compar- 
 isons are more or less confusing, but analysis shows 
 that in music are united two rhythmic conceptions 
 — one, which we may call the figuration, giving 
 variety, the other, which we may call the metre, 
 giving simplicity, definiteness of structure, and 
 regularity. The unit of metre is the measure, cor- 
 responding in a general way to the foot in verse. 
 The measure is either double or triple in respect 
 to its accent scheme, these fundamental accents oc- 
 curring at intervals of two, three, or four beats, as 
 indicated by the measure sign — f, f, f, etc. The 
 measure units are themselves combined into distinct 
 groups known as sections, phrases, and periods, the 
 points of separation and union among them being 
 made apparent to the ear by melodic and harmonic 
 means (known to theorists as cadences, half ca- 
 dences, interrupted cadences, and the like) which 
 give the impression of little points of rest to which 
 the music strives, only to take a new leap in its 
 career; or else, still oftener, points where this ex- 
 pectation of a subsidence of movement is disap- 
 pointed, this expectation nevertheless affording 
 a definite point of support for the attention. The 
 normal arrangement of measures which form the 
 sustaining arches of the tone edifice, is in groups of 
 fours, eights, and sixteens. This standard plan is 
 frequently modified, and the eight and sixteen 
 measure outline gives way to divisions of six, nine, 
 
 82
 
 MELODY AND RHYTHM 
 
 twelve, and other irregular successions. Even 
 where the multiple of four is retained, the com- 
 poser loves to evade the formality of the plan by 
 harmonic and rhythmic devices that keep the 
 attention poised over longer curves. A large 
 amount of metrical freedom is allowed the com- 
 poser, but only on the condition that he shall not 
 abuse the privilege and violate the law of balance 
 and proportion. 
 
 It is the comparatively simple metrical order, 
 therefore, on which the hearer must base his at- 
 tention. He must feel the metrical pulse beating 
 in the veins of his own musical consciousness, 
 and from out the tangle of harmonies, melodies, 
 and ornamentation there will emerge the firm out- 
 line of a design which makes everything coherent, 
 and gratifies that innate sense of order which gov- 
 erns the instinctive human activities and is also the 
 ruling principle of art. 
 
 The failure mentally to accompany the rhyth- 
 mic progress of a piece of music is often due, not 
 to a congenital lack of rhythmic faculty, but to the 
 distraction of the attention from the characteristic 
 beat and metrical divisions by other elements which 
 are for the moment more engaging — brilliant pas- 
 sage work, perhaps, or glaring tone color. The 
 last of the merits in good piano playing to be 
 appreciated by the average listener is the phras- 
 ing; but phrasing is simply making the rhythmic 
 structure apparent to the ear. First a general 
 knowledge of the foundation principles of musical 
 
 83
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 design in distribution of metrical accents and 
 groups of accents, then the attention which sets in 
 motion analogous beats and waves in the conscious- 
 ness, and the listener will soon find a new world 
 of pleasure opening within him. The most in- 
 tricate patterns will unfold a world of beautiful 
 balanced forms. With experience there will come 
 the ability to compare work with work and com- 
 poser with composer, penetrating many secrets of 
 style, estimating merit and gladly recognizing 
 mastery. The comparison of the music of a writer 
 like Mendelssohn, who is often subject to rhyth- 
 mic monotony, with the rhythmic affluence and 
 constant surprise of Schubert or Schumann; the 
 study of the remarkable development of Wagner 
 in the command of this side of his art from "The 
 Flying Dutchman" to "Tristan and Isolde"; 
 the analysis of the subtleties and mannerisms 
 of Brahms, of the resistless logic within the pas- 
 sionate ebb and flow of Beethoven, the solution 
 of the rhythmic puzzles offered in some of the 
 works of the Russian school — these interests en- 
 ter strongly into the business of the music stu- 
 dent; and as fast as they are brought to the 
 attention of the amateur they enlarge the reach of 
 his intelligent judgment. As the sounding shapes 
 which once seemed all confusion begin to move in 
 his consciousness in reasoned order and mutual 
 aid his mind dilates with a sense of ease; he seems 
 to play, as in a native element, in these waves of 
 tone. The contrivances for temporary disturbance 
 
 84
 
 MELODY AND RHYTHM 
 
 such as syncopation, irregular rhythm, and cross 
 rhythm; interlacing curves in fugal counterpoint, 
 where unlike melodic figures seem struggling for 
 the mastery and rhythm seems lost in its own very 
 abundance; the restraint of the tonal whirl from 
 lawless confusion by the grasp of a few master 
 figures or as (often in Beethoven) by a single mas- 
 ter figure; the devices for imparting a sense of 
 tension, concentration, and climax, or of relaxation, 
 subsidence, and relief, — these tokens of creative 
 genius, almost rivalling the living forms of nature in 
 affluence and beauty, are to music what the ner- 
 vous system is to the human organism. Through 
 this vibrating network the soul of the music is 
 revealed. It is not merely the means of obtain- 
 ing unity amid diversity, it is the very life of music 
 itself. 
 
 The close parallel that exists between the ac- 
 cents and rhythmic groupings of music and the 
 posturings and evolutions of the dance is almost 
 too obvious to require statement. It is not out of 
 place, however, to call attention to the usefulness 
 of dancing, both to the observer and the partici- 
 pant, through the exercise it affords to the rhyth- 
 mic sense. The revival of the dance in our time 
 on a higher plane than of old, both on the stage 
 as an art of expression and in the public schools as 
 a physical and aesthetic stimulus, is, I believe, a 
 wholesome sign. The dance, like music, has a two- 
 fold aesthetic potency: first, of complex and unified 
 movement, giving pleasure to the eye by its flow- 
 
 85
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 ing lines that interweave in living patterns of grace, 
 and second, the communication of mental states 
 through the symbolism of posture and gesture. 
 "The artistic dancer," says Mr. Bliss Carman, 
 "uses bodily motion as a poet uses words, as a 
 musician uses tones, as a painter uses colors — 
 as an appeal not so much to our reason as to our 
 sense and spirit — as a means of enlivening and 
 gladdening our nature, making us more sensitive 
 to beauty, more spontaneous in glad emotion, more 
 sane and balanced in general well-being." That 
 the art of dancing, once cultivated by philosophers, 
 law givers, and priests as an essential in the train- 
 ing of the body and in the free play of the spirit, 
 has been degraded in the uses of the modern stage, 
 need not deceive us concerning its possibilities of 
 beauty both physical and intellectual. We can 
 have little conception of what the ancient dance 
 was in the period of its ripest culture. A few 
 passages in the old writings "send the imagination 
 wistfully across the ages, straining, as it were, to 
 see what must have been some of the loveliest scenes 
 in Greek life" (Royal Cortissoz). The only ade- 
 quate indication of what the dance must have been 
 when treated with profound seriousness by a 
 people to whom beauty was a constant necessity 
 of life, is to be obtained from descriptions of Jap- 
 anese dances, such as the account of the ceremonies 
 of the Bon-odori, the Festival of the Dead, in 
 Lafcadio Hearn's fascinating book, Glimpses of 
 Unfamiliar Japan. A troop of girls are dancing 
 
 86
 
 MELODY AND RHYTHM 
 
 in the moonlight in the temple court, near the 
 ancient place of tombs: 
 
 "Under the wheeling moon, in the midst of the 
 round, I feel as one within the circle of a charm. 
 Verily this is enchantment; I am bewitched, be- 
 witched by the ghostly weaving of hands, by the 
 rhythmic gliding of feet, above all by the flitting 
 of the marvelous sleeves — apparitional, soundless, 
 velvety as a flitting of great tropical bats. . . . 
 Always the white hands sinuously wave together 
 as if weaving spells, alternately without and within 
 the round, now with palms upward, now with palms 
 downward; and all the elfish sleeves hover duskily 
 together, with a shadowing as of wings; and all 
 the feet poise together with such a rhythm of com- 
 plex motion that, in watching it, one feels a sensa- 
 tion of hypnotism, as while striving to watch a 
 flowing and shimmering of water. . . . More and 
 more unreal the spectacle appears, with its silent 
 smilings, with its silent bowings, as of obeisance 
 to watchers invisible; and I find myself wondering 
 whether, were I to utter but a whisper, all would 
 not vanish forever, save the gray mouldering court 
 and the desolate temple and the broken statue of 
 Jizo, smiling always the same mysterious smile I 
 see upon the face of the dancers." 
 
 Such enchantments can be woven by but two of 
 the arts — the dance and music. What is music 
 but the transmigration into tone of the immemorial 
 and world-embracing spirit of the dance? In 
 ancient times music was feeble and insignificant, 
 
 87
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 but a compensation, almost an equivalent, was 
 found in the beauty and expressiveness of bodily 
 movement. The decline of the dance in modern 
 times may be due to the development of a still 
 nobler substitute. Not only the spirit, but the 
 form of the dance has passed into modern music; 
 historically the rhythms of instrumental music, and 
 by adoption the rhythms of secular vocal music, 
 are to a large extent derived from the popular dance. 
 This may be almost intuitively discerned by one 
 who, in listening to a performance by orchestra or 
 piano, gives himself up, with closed eyes and 
 rhythmic sense alert, to the swing and throb of 
 the sounding forms. And whenever one has an 
 opportunity to watch the dance in its best estate 
 upon the stage, or in its most spontaneous form in 
 folk dances, it will be found, I think, that the ap- 
 preciation of the beauty that lies in music's "ideal 
 motion" will be increased by the practice of the 
 eye in tracing, amid the successions of bodily pose 
 and gesture and evolution, the harmony of regulated 
 and balanced change. 
 
 88
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE BEAUTY OF HARMONY 
 
 The pleasure in melodic flow and rhythmic ac- 
 cent is universal except in the case of those un- 
 fortunates who are unable to recognize differences 
 of pitch or regularity in recurring beats, and it re- 
 quires, as I have tried to show, only such cultiva- 
 tion as will enable the hearer to follow composers 
 in their elaboration of certain simple elements. 
 With harmony, however, the case is somewhat dif- 
 ferent; a larger mental reach and a more tenacious 
 grasp are required to comprehend its relations; 
 and although individuals differ here as elsewhere, 
 it may safely be said that a recognition of the beauty 
 that lies in artistically managed combinations of 
 simultaneous sounds and the richly varied color 
 schemes of contrasted tonalities is the last among 
 the musical appreciations to be acquired. Since the 
 progressive development of harmony did not begin 
 until as late as the twelfth century, it has been the 
 fashion even among historians of music to ignore the 
 existence of any harmonic sense up to that time, 
 holding that the music of primitive and ancient 
 peoples is unison only. This view can no longer be 
 
 89
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 maintained, for it is certain that many savage tribes 
 recognize the existence of musical intervals, that 
 they often sing two and even more parts, and it is 
 more than probable that similar experiments were 
 made among the cultivated nations of antiquity. 
 Professor John C. Fillmore, who made extensive 
 researches in the music of the North American 
 Indians, was undoubtedly not deceived in the ap- 
 parent pleasure manifested by some of his dusky 
 friends when their unison melodies were supplied 
 with simple chords. What we call the beginning 
 of counterpoint and harmony in the Middle Ages 
 was merely the first fruitful recorded attempt to 
 devise a system and evolve a theory of harmonic 
 relations; the demand for a richer and more ex- 
 pressive utterance than successions of single tones 
 could supply already lay dimly in the human con- 
 sciousness. The dependence of melody upon 
 harmony must also be recognized. Wallaschek 
 justly remarks that "there is of course no doubt 
 that our feeling for and comprehension of har- 
 mony have been developed by time, but so has our 
 feeling for melody." "Primitive harmony is no 
 doubt very rude, but primitive melody is precisely 
 of the same kind." "If we compare a modern song 
 with an air of savage races we find the latter very 
 short, restricted to two or three tones and the 
 same phrase constantly repeated, while our musical 
 themes are worked out, built up, prolonged and 
 varied so as to form a coherent, elaborate melody." 
 It does not follow that the inability of the savage 
 
 90
 
 THE BEAUTY OF HARMONY 
 
 to invent a tune of more than one kind of melodic 
 figure is due to his deficient sense of harmony; it 
 is probably due rather to his incapacity for sus- 
 tained thought and invention, for the early Grego- 
 rian chant system, long before the employment of 
 part singing in the church, contained melodies of 
 great length, elaborateness, and variety. But these 
 Gregorian melodies are at the same time rambling 
 and for the most part irregular, except so far as the 
 text to which they are set gives them something 
 like rhythmic order; it is only on the basis of 
 definite tonality and the relationship of tonalities 
 involved in chord structure that a melody that is 
 proportioned, balanced, and satisfying to the mod- 
 ern ear can be developed. 
 
 This process was long ago virtually completed 
 and the psychologic results of it have become the 
 inheritance of every person that is in any way sus- 
 ceptible to the influences of music. The fact re- 
 mains, however, that a consciousness of the beauty 
 and the technical wonders of modern harmony is, 
 with the average untrained music lover, the weak- 
 est of all the impressions that compose his musical 
 world. It is true, of course, that the modern ear, 
 however unrefined, takes cognizance of a chord as 
 a concrete entity, so that the most unmusical per- 
 son feels that something is lacking when a singer 
 sings or a violinist plays without accompaniment. 
 Nevertheless, with the common man the harmonic 
 images are rather nebulous and countless beauties 
 that enchant the musician are to him practically 
 
 9i
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 non-existent. His hearing of a musical perform- 
 ance, so far as harmony is concerned, is like indi- 
 rect vision to a stroller out of doors. In the latter 
 case there is a dull consciousness of a multitude of 
 shapes and lights and colors forming a sort of misty 
 fringe around the objects directly perceived; in the 
 former a stream of sounds various in force, color, 
 and fulness of texture, but unruled by any obvious 
 plan, and with a thousand points of interest blurred 
 in the mass. 
 
 The musical inquirer, therefore, will seek the 
 advice that will aid him in developing the faculty 
 by which he may select, compare, and compre- 
 hend while dealing with chord progressions and 
 combinations of moving parts. The amateur 
 whom I have in mind will be content with the out- 
 lines of the vast science of harmony — just enough 
 to enable him to sift the masses of sound that enter 
 his brain and to recognize in them a certain reason 
 and order. He should be initiated into a few of 
 the fundamental distinctions of consonance and 
 dissonance, of major and minor, of diatonic and 
 chromatic harmony, of cadence and half-cadence, 
 of affiliations and oppositions among tonalities, 
 of modulation, of the means by which logical re- 
 lations and symmetrical design are accomplished 
 in the succession of contrasted keys. The reason 
 is clear — even a smattering of theoretical knowl- 
 edge puts the hearer on the watch, and he is able 
 to capture fugitive beauties that once eluded him. 
 It can be shown by examples how sometimes a 
 
 92
 
 THE BEAUTY OF HARMONY 
 
 striking point in the melody really depends for its 
 effect upon a peculiar harmonic change; how 
 harmony is sometimes used merely to support and 
 enrich the melody, again for the sensuous delight 
 in sonorous and gorgeously colored chords, and 
 again as a means of definite, characteristic ex- 
 pression. The learner must form the habit of 
 listening down through the tone substance, follow- 
 ing the movement of successive figures in the inner 
 and lower parts, instead of confining his direct at- 
 tention to the upper voice. He must be vigilant 
 to catch the ceaseless changes of consonance and 
 dissonance, of major and minor, of open and close 
 harmony, and the most delicate contrasts of har- 
 monic color. He may begin with the simpler har- 
 monies, the so-called diatonic, in which key 
 changes by sharps, flats, and naturals are few and 
 slight; choosing German chorales, or themes for 
 variation by Beethoven, or simple songs by the 
 great German Lied writers, in order that he may 
 learn to appreciate the beauty that lies in plain 
 solid harmony as handled by masters. Compar- 
 ing these with the thin popular ditties of the day 
 he will at once obtain an insight that will be little 
 short of a revelation. After that, his ear may be 
 practiced in more richly colored and more intri- 
 cate patterns, until the treasures of the great mod- 
 ern harmonists — the Wagners, the Chopins, the 
 Griegs, the Francks — will charm without tantaliz- 
 ing him. 
 
 The difficulty of learning to follow harmonic 
 
 93
 
 THE EDUCATION OE A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 progressions is not so great as at first appears. 
 For a chord, like a single tone, is one thing and 
 not three or four things — that is, so far as the 
 immediate impression is concerned. The musi- 
 cian, as Browning's Abt Vogler puts it, frames 
 out of three sounds "not a fourth sound, but a 
 star." These starry things called chords are al- 
 most infinite in their possibilities of color arrange- 
 ment. When we count up the triads, sevenths, 
 ninths, and altered chords in the major and minor 
 keys the number is by no means immense, but 
 their available combinations are practically end- 
 less. The finest ear will miss a great deal in rapid 
 passages abounding in chromatic changes, and 
 the wise music lover will take pains to hear copi- 
 ously harmonized pieces over and over again. As 
 in any exercise of the senses, improvement comes 
 with practice; and when guided by a few general 
 principles, and with the habit formed of listening 
 to everything from the bottom to the top, he will 
 finally obtain possession of an enjoyment which, 
 it seems to me, is greater and more lasting than 
 even the pleasure in melody and rhythm. It is a 
 fact with most music lovers that melody and 
 rhythm, captivating at first, will sooner or later 
 lose their welcome freshness, while a fine bit of 
 harmony gives a satisfaction that no amount of 
 repetition can diminish. 
 
 The method of listening to all the simultaneous 
 parts at once must also be employed in hearing 
 songs, operas, solo performances of violin music — 
 
 94
 
 THE BEAUTY OF HARMONY 
 
 everything in which a performer plays or sings a 
 single part with the accompaniment of another in- 
 strument or an orchestra. The majority of listen- 
 ers to fine singing or violin playing are hardly 
 conscious of the accompaniment at all, although, 
 as in an immense amount of the later dramatic 
 and concert music, a large proportion of the beauty 
 and expression, often the leading melody itself, 
 is given to the orchestra or the piano. The mod- 
 ern song, for example, is very often a duet for voice 
 and instrument, and the hearer who attends only 
 to one part misses the half or more than half. 
 Mr. Lawrence Gilman is quite right in saying that 
 instead of finding fault with Wagner's works on 
 the ground that the vocal parts are without musical 
 interest or emotional meaning when detached from 
 the -orchestral support, one should see that the 
 same thing is true of any writing for the voice al- 
 lied with modern harmony in the accompaniment. 
 Inexperienced music lovers are constantly falling 
 into mistakes of judgment when they disparage 
 vocal works because the voice part does not carry 
 them away on tuneful wings. Let them give heed 
 to the accompaniment and there they will find their 
 recompense. 
 
 The ear must also be persuaded to the accept- 
 ance of combinations at which it naturally rebels. 
 The experience of the race of musicians who in 
 ancient Greece and the European Middle Ages 
 knew only the octave, fifth, and fourth as conso- 
 nances, afterward admitted thirds and sixths, but 
 
 95
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 balked at sevenths unprepared; then snatched a 
 fearful joy from haphazard sharps and flats; 
 then long afterward proceeded from the diatonic 
 principle to the chromatic, accepted the harshest 
 dissonances, and now have become reconciled to 
 the audacities of Strauss and Debussy and talk 
 bravely of quarter steps in the good days to come, 
 — this experience of the race often finds a reduced 
 analogue in that of the music lover who trustfully 
 allows his appreciation of novel effects of sound to 
 grow by exercise. As he becomes familiar with 
 the achievements of the masters in applying to ex- 
 pressive uses the endless resources of harmony, he 
 is almost ready to declare, not that he is develop- 
 ing a latent faculty, but acquiring a new one. He 
 hears what he never heard before, and with each 
 new experience his powers of observation and co- 
 ordination increase. He perceives that music has 
 more dimensions than he had supposed. He 
 learns to delight in the collision of masses with 
 masses, of the infinite gradations of tone color as 
 chord impinges against chord, dissonances resolve 
 into consonances, the fair-hued threads of sound 
 intertwine in patterns as subtle as those woven 
 upon Oriental looms, no longer seeming incoherent 
 and purposeless but obedient to an intelligent will 
 which brings light and order out of chaos. 
 
 Then there is counterpoint, that austere and in- 
 tricate science, the bete noire of students and ama- 
 teurs. Entrance must be made into this labyrinth, 
 just far enough to enable the ear to adjust itself to 
 
 96
 
 THE BEAUTY OF HARMONY 
 
 follow a number of simultaneous melodic parts, 
 and obtain the definite impression that follows the 
 recognition of organized plan. The learner would 
 do well to add subject, answer, counter-subject, im- 
 itation, stretto, and episode to his interesting col- 
 lection of technical specimens, but he need not be 
 confused by a multitude of contrapuntal subtle- 
 ties that do not contribute to the actual pleasure 
 of his hearing. When he learns to divide his at- 
 tention between two melodic progressions (a feat 
 which Rousseau in a paradoxical moment pro- 
 nounced impossible) he is on the borders of a new 
 world; he will at last discover an unimagined 
 pleasure in tracing the concurrent progress of 
 three or four semi-independent parts as they wreathe 
 themselves together in supple designs; he will 
 wonder at the composer's skill, and the climaxes 
 will produce a tenfold effect by reason of his 
 ability to follow their cumulative preparation. It 
 must not be forgotten that form in itself, however 
 correct, is not necessarily a beautiful thing, as we 
 speak of musical beauty. The tedious sonatas 
 of Czerny and the immortal sonatas of Beethoven 
 are built upon the same general scheme of design, 
 and the cleverest and most regular fugue may 
 be unutterably dreary. The recognition of con- 
 trapuntal structure is but a means to an end; the 
 beauty of a fugue, like the beauty of any other musi- 
 cal work, is one of melody, harmony, and rhythm, 
 and the listener should keep his mind open to these, 
 relying upon his acquaintance with structural de- 
 
 97
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 vices to adjust his perceptions at the proper 
 focus. 
 
 In order that the student may appreciate the 
 value of a fugue he must also be taught what not 
 to expect, for if he looks for the buoyant sweep- 
 ing melody, stirring dance rhythms, and pungent 
 harmonic contrasts of the freer modern forms, his 
 disappointment will blind him to the special char- 
 acteristic beauties that actually lie before him. 
 Beautiful bits of melody occur incessantly in the 
 fugues of Bach, but they may be called incidental 
 rather than primary, restricted by the necessity that 
 compels the melodic details to contribute to the 
 working out of a somewhat rigid scheme of design. 
 In the nature of the case their purpose seems deco- 
 rative rather than emotional. The fugue is more 
 general in its expression than most other musical 
 forms; it is not the natural channel for individ- 
 ual feeling. Hence the contrapuntal style has al- 
 ways been extensively employed in church music, 
 for here the suggestion must be that of an ab- 
 stract devotional mood, rather than the projection 
 of an impassioned individual sentiment. As a 
 means of training the ear, however, the fugue is of 
 unequalled value in the appreciation of the new 
 music as well as of the old. For, beginning with 
 the later works of Beethoven, the polyphonic 
 principle has been asserting itself more and more, 
 under modified conditions, in every form of music. 
 Following the modern tendency toward fulness 
 and complexity and the enrichment of every detail, 
 
 98
 
 THE BEAUTY OF HARMONY 
 
 all the masters of the later time have plunged into 
 the most exhaustive contrapuntal studies, and the 
 works of Wagner, Brahms, Strauss, Debussy, Elgar, 
 Franck are hardly less marvels of abstruse learn- 
 ing than those of the great contrapuntists of the 
 eighteenth century. Witness the simultaneous 
 presence of the three leading themes in the Over- 
 ture to "The Mastersingers of Nuremberg" — 
 indeed the whole score of this drama is a repre- 
 sentative instance. Hardly less in the works of 
 Schubert, Schumann, Chopin, Grieg, MacDowell 
 — to mention only a few of the romantic group — 
 must we learn to divide our consciousness and listen 
 not merely for chord masses and surface melody, 
 but also for the rise and fall of inner voices. In 
 songs, piano pieces, religious music, operas, cham- 
 ber music, symphonies, the polyphonic method 
 plays so huge a role that without the ability to dis- 
 cover and trace the movement of simultaneous parts 
 whole treasuries of expression will be locked in 
 darkness, and the key that might open the casket 
 lost beyond recovery. 
 
 In view of these facts there is no more useful 
 practice for the music lover who is training his 
 perceptions than listening to string quartet per- 
 formances. Here are no sensational effects, no 
 dazzling displays of tone color as in orchestral 
 music, no overwhelming masses of sound, no vivid 
 contrasts, nothing to bewilder, nothing to distract 
 the attention from the melodic outlines; the physi- 
 cal materials are reduced almost to the lowest 
 
 99
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 terms. Each instrument carries on a silver thread 
 of melody; each has an equal right to considera- 
 tion. Success in string quartet writing involves 
 the ability to handle four melodic voices with 
 the utmost skill of the contrapuntist's art. The 
 pleasure that the mind of the hearer receives 
 greatly consists in tracing the ingenious and grace- 
 ful lines as they interweave into a tissue of intri- 
 cate and constantly varied patterns. He must fol- 
 low four voices at once, so that no grace of melody 
 or delicacy of shading on the part of any instru- 
 ment shall escape his notice. This affords a con- 
 clusive test by which the music lover may know 
 how far the training of his ear has proceeded. 
 
 The practical conclusion to be drawn from the 
 discussion of technique and form which has hither- 
 to occupied us, is that the proper hearing of music 
 demands the ability to hold the attention fixedly 
 for considerable periods of time upon one order 
 of impressions. No argument is required to show 
 that the power of close unwavering attention is the 
 prime condition of any worthy intellectual ac- 
 quisition. Most people are defective in this power 
 of sustained observation, and there is no more 
 efficient corrective than a conscientious, determined 
 study of musical works through the ear. It is 
 undoubtedly more difficult to attend to a succes- 
 sion of auditory images than to visual images. 
 This is true even in single impressions; whereas 
 in music there are many simultaneous attacks 
 upon the ear. Consider what it means to listen to 
 
 ioo
 
 THE BEAUTY OF HARMONY 
 
 an orchestral performance — to observe the con- 
 current threads of melody with the multitude of 
 rhythmic figures, the resulting harmonies, modu- 
 lations, and changes of tonality; to identify the 
 different instruments and seize the ever-shifting 
 gleams of tone color in their multifarious combi- 
 nations. In the concert hall the eye must suspend 
 its usual activities, the mind must cease that aim- 
 less wandering which is its usual occupation with 
 all of us. Careful listening to music is an exercise 
 in mental athletics, and the ability, which grows 
 with discipline, to hold the volatile thought in the 
 firm clutch of the will is not the least of the serious 
 music student's gains. 
 
 IOI
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 PERFORMANCE: THE ART OF THE 
 PIANIST 
 
 Reference has already been made to the ob- 
 vious fact that the impressions of music depend 
 upon the abilities of an interpreter or a group of 
 interpreters, added to those of the composer; that 
 while an expert musician can derive considerable 
 satisfaction from silent score reading, the ordinary 
 music lover is in no such happy case, but must 
 obtain his musical joys by the grace of certain 
 people who perform in his presence for hire or 
 good will. Moreover, the question of skill and 
 imagination on the part of the performers enters 
 so largely into the problem, that the very quality 
 of beauty lies almost as much in their control as it 
 does in the brain of the composer, so that to an 
 inferior composition there may be imparted an 
 unexpected charm, or a masterpiece be made al- 
 most ridiculous. Besides this, there are elements 
 of delightfulness in performance which do not 
 enter into the composer's calculation at all, but 
 belong to the special technique of reproduction. 
 The enjoyment of music, therefore, involves an 
 
 j 02
 
 THE ART OF THE PIANIST 
 
 appreciation of the art of the performer, and the 
 music lover who is undergoing education in the 
 practice of listening must acquire knowledge of 
 the principles and methods of playing and singing 
 in their various departments. 
 
 I have chosen to confine the discussion of these 
 principles to the specific instances of piano playing 
 and solo singing. A study of performance by 
 orchestra, string quartet, and chorus, and upon 
 violin, organ, and other instruments would involve 
 a great deal of repetition, and does not seem to 
 me to be required in view of the discursive purpose 
 of this volume. The lover of music should cer- 
 tainly become familiar with the constitution of the 
 orchestra, the powers and limitations of the violin 
 and organ, and the general laws that distinguish 
 choral song from solo singing and orchestral play- 
 ing. Instruction in these matters can easily be 
 obtained by inquiries from experts, or from cer- 
 tain excellent treatises which this book of mine is 
 not required to duplicate. I have selected piano 
 playing and solo singing because they come con- 
 stantly into the music lover's experience, and be- 
 cause they are typical of performance in general. 
 The principles of musical expression are very 
 much the same whatever the medium employed, 
 and the amateur who is able to judge intelligently 
 the work of a pianist or vocalist will only require 
 acquaintance with a few technical matters to re- 
 ceive right impressions from all the other means 
 of interpretation. 
 
 103
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 Let me pass at once, then, to the question of 
 performance in general and afterward to the dis- 
 cussion of the particular departments of the per- 
 former's art which I have chosen. 
 
 There are so many applications of the word art 
 to activities that are diverse, from the "art" of 
 swimming or fencing, to poetry or sculpture, that 
 in our despair of finding a common basis for them 
 all we sometimes resolve to refuse the designa- 
 tion to any but a very restricted and unquestion- 
 able category. When a distinct and permanent 
 "work of art" is produced, one shaped out of pre- 
 existing materials, designed for self-expression or 
 the giving of pleasure rather than for utilitarian 
 or didactic ends, or where a decorative value is 
 added to practical convenience — in such prod- 
 ucts of design and fancy as a memorial arch, a 
 poem, a statue, a picture, a piece of music, a 
 chiselled vase, or jewelled ornament — we are on 
 safe ground when we speak of the laws and methods 
 of fine art. 
 
 There appears now another division of activities 
 to which in common parlance the name of art is ap- 
 plied, in which an impression of ordered and 
 imaginative beauty is conveyed, but without any 
 embodiment of the impulse in tangible or enduring 
 shape. I refer to the arts of performance, such as 
 dancing, acting, poetic recitation, and musical re- 
 production. In what sense are these functions 
 artistic? Is the term by which they are honored 
 in common speech justified to the reason? 
 
 104
 
 THE ART OF THE PIANIST 
 
 It is evident that there is need here of still an- 
 other classification. Dancing stands apart from 
 the other activities mentioned in that no "work of 
 art" is at hand, no score, text, or design to which 
 one may refer for suggestion or comparison; the 
 means of effect are bodily movements and atti- 
 tudes which vanish with the moments in which 
 they appear. They had, indeed, a previous ideal 
 existence in the mind of the performer, and they 
 have a subsequent existence in the memory of the 
 spectator, but there is nothing to which the term 
 form can be applied, and so far from there being 
 anything concrete or tangible involved the display 
 is a vision which comes from the void and into the 
 void returns. Nevertheless it would seem pedantic 
 utterly to refuse the term art to dancing in its best 
 estate. It is not merely the overflow of physical 
 health and vigor in moving lines of grace — it is 
 not wholly sensuous, but is capable of a wide range 
 of emotional expression. Among the Greeks and 
 the Japanese — nations preeminently endowed with 
 the love of beauty in form and movement — the 
 dance was and is esteemed an art worthy of the 
 supervision of the best minds — an art pleasing to 
 men and gods. And although in modern times, at 
 least as a stage entertainment, it has fallen from its 
 former dignity, there are signs that a revival is at 
 hand, and the dance, refined and regulated, may 
 take a higher place than it has lately held among 
 the agencies that quicken the sense of beauty and 
 promote health of body and mind. 
 
 i°5
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 Still less are we justified in refusing the title of 
 art to the actor's craft. In certain particulars his 
 work is related to that of the dancer, in that he 
 employs means that are not external to himself but 
 are identified with his own physical organization. 
 In the use of different timbres and degrees of vocal 
 force for purposes of expression he is allied to the 
 singer. In his case also there is produced no 
 "work of art" which survives the moment of 
 presentation. The actor stands apart from the 
 dancer and undoubtedly above him, in that the 
 actor's whole aim is to present in visible and audi- 
 ble guise conceptions of the mind which have al- 
 ready been put into permanent literary form. 
 This work of literary art, however, is not yet com- 
 plete; an essential element is lacking. A play is 
 not a literary work merely; the actor adds an ele- 
 ment which fulfils the intention of the author, 
 and in so doing he shows himself not a mechanical 
 imitator but a collaborator who contributes some- 
 thing individual and original. Many effective 
 plays could be named in which, during entire 
 scenes, the poetic idea is largely conveyed by 
 vocal timbre, facial expression, attitude, gesture, 
 and the various details known as "business," the 
 words alone seeming to offer nothing very signifi- 
 cant. Indeed, complete plays, such as the famous 
 U Enfant prodigue, have been performed in dumb 
 show, plays abounding in incident, with interest- 
 ing development of plot and character. Let one 
 read the text of the scene in which Macbeth, with 
 
 1 06
 
 THE ART OF THE PIANIST 
 
 his mind keyed to its murderous intent, has the 
 hallucination of a dagger in the air. One may 
 read the lines and not be greatly moved; but let 
 one witness the scene as realized in the actual pre- 
 sentment by a competent actor, and it will ap- 
 pear that the poet's words are hardly more than a 
 suggestion from which the player creates a terri- 
 ble picture of a man in whose soul ambition, fear, 
 compassion, and incipient remorse are fiercely con- 
 tending. A painter might portray Macbeth at this 
 moment and his picture would be a work of art; 
 the actor's performance is likewise the outcome of 
 thought, design, adaptation of means to an end 
 first conceived in the imagination, lacking only the 
 element of permanence in some form that can be 
 touched and reproduced in a copy. None the 
 less is it art, for the poet's words are but symbols 
 and indications; they are tame and cold until the 
 actor, employing vocal sounds and bodily organs 
 as material, brings the thought in its fulness to the 
 eye and ear of the beholder. 
 
 The arts of poetry, painting, and sculpture, there- 
 fore, reproduce phenomena of nature and human 
 emotion with something added, viz., the person- 
 ality of the artist. The actor's craft is an art by 
 second intention, in which literary expression, al- 
 ready reproduction, passes through a second proc- 
 ess, and becomes subject to another addition. Each 
 process is art, because something preexisting in 
 more or less crude and unorganized form is worked 
 over by a new application of emotion and contriv- 
 ance into a beautiful embodiment of an idea. 
 
 107
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 Now music as an art is nearly allied to the drama 
 in that the work of the original creator remains in 
 abeyance, in an embryo state we might say, await- 
 ing the second birth through which it enters into 
 completeness of life. This subsequent activity 
 under the hands of the performer is likewise a re- 
 sult of artistic contrivance; we call it reproductive, 
 but like the actor's portrayal it is much more than 
 that. The performer is not concerned simply with 
 transmitting the intention of the composer — the 
 composition is a medium by which he confides to 
 his hearers an emotion that has become his own. 
 It is well enough to say as a counsel of moderation 
 that the player or singer should lay aside self- 
 consciousness and love of personal display and 
 devote himself to the interpretation of the com- 
 poser's thought, but in fact, since he is himself 
 endowed with a musical temperament, with the 
 craving for self-expression that belongs to every 
 normal human being, he cannot efface himself and 
 become literally and completely the author's tool. 
 His very constitution that turns him to the study 
 and practice of music implies a certain likeness 
 between his impulse and that of the composer. 
 The bkck symbols upon the page are transmuted 
 into living voices. The performer forgets that they 
 have been loaned to him to use as the composer's 
 representative, he conceives them as his own; they 
 are his own for the moment, and if he be truly a 
 master he persuades the hearer into the same belief. 
 
 In this process the performer, of course, ex- 
 presses himself not as he is in the constant rela- 
 
 108
 
 THE ART OF THE PIANIST 
 
 tions of daily life, but as he is in the mood of exal- 
 tation excited by the touch of the music. His effort, 
 like that of the actor, is the deliberately imaginative 
 one of identifying himself with the work in hand. 
 There is a sort of double consciousness at work. 
 Without the loss of self-control and the power of 
 instant adaptation of means to ends, he sinks him- 
 self in the substance of the composition and lives 
 its life, which for the time being is the whole of 
 life for him. This is the explanation of the power 
 of great performers upon the stage or the concert 
 platform. The player feels no difference between 
 the role or the music and his own personality. 
 What was external has become internal. There is 
 a large margin of self-determination allowed him; 
 the author's conception is given to him tempo- 
 rarily for his personal use, and he making it his 
 own remoulds it nearer to his heart's desire. 
 
 No other art, not even the drama, is so depend- 
 ent upon a mediator as music. Music unper- 
 formed is a dead thing, and there is no medium 
 into which it can be translated. On the musical 
 staff the notes are stationary; they imply motion 
 but they do not move. The rapidity of the suc- 
 cession of sounds, their grouping and shading, 
 are determined to a large extent by the player's 
 thought. The composer, to be sure, gives all the 
 general directions in regard to tempo, dynamics, 
 etc., and there are certain principles and traditions 
 which are generally accepted and handed down by 
 authority; but in art, laws are very frequently re- 
 
 109
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 pealed, and precedents have no power of self-en- 
 forcement. In spite of all checks and balances 
 the composer is quite at the performer's mercy. 
 Wagner attributed the failure of the "Tannhau- 
 ser" overture at its first performance at Leipzig 
 to the lack of understanding of the work on the 
 part of the conductor. Franz Liszt, in one of his 
 Travel Letters of a Bachelor of Music, complains 
 bitterly of the misunderstanding on the part of 
 the audience from which composers often suffer by 
 reason of unintelligent performance. "The poet, 
 the painter, or the sculptor," he says, "brings his 
 work to completion in the quiet of his atelier, and 
 when it is completed, there are publishers to circu- 
 late it, or museums in which it may be exhibited; 
 no mediation is necessary between the art work 
 and its judges. The composer, on the other hand, 
 must have recourse to interpreters who are often 
 incompetent or indifferent, and make him suffer 
 by reason of a rendering that is perhaps true to 
 the letter, but utterly fails to reveal the thought of 
 the work and the genius of the author." 
 
 We have all heard pianists who were easily mas- 
 ters of every mechanical difficulty, but whose play- 
 ing was cold and monotonous. Nothing is more 
 common in musical criticism than the complaint 
 that a certain pianist has failed to grasp the essen- 
 tial mood of a musical work or the spirit of a 
 composer. This player, it may be said, is a mas- 
 ter of technique, but he should not try to play 
 Chopin. Another is at home in the late romantic 
 
 JIO
 
 THE ART OF THE PIANIST 
 
 school, but he has no proper conception of Bach or 
 Beethoven. Another turns a bold and passionate 
 fancy of Schumann into a bit of sentimental trifling. 
 Another, inferior to many in brilliancy, illuminates 
 everything he plays, and imparts to long familiar 
 compositions an unsuspected eloquence. As the 
 works of the great composers pass through the 
 hands of skilled and sympathetic performers they 
 are constantly revealing new beauties. A pianist 
 who is on the road to mastership, and even after 
 he has attained that exalted degree, keeps certain 
 great works constantly before him, and as the years 
 go on his playing of them is more or less insen- 
 sibly modified, changing with his mental growth, 
 with his experience of life and art. Alexander 
 McArthur tells us that a pupil once protested to 
 Rubinstein that since he knew the "Waldstein" 
 sonata thoroughly he did not need to practise it 
 any longer. "Don't you?" said Rubinstein sadly; 
 "Well, you are eighteen and I am sixty. I have 
 been half a century practicing that sonata and 
 I need still to practice it. I congratulate you." 
 No thought here on the part of the great Russian 
 that a musical piece is a finality whose repro- 
 duction requires only technical dexterity and obe- 
 dience to rules. I can even conceive it possible 
 that a musical work may take a deeper place in 
 the soul of a student than it had in the mind of its 
 author. Handel would probably be much aston- 
 ished if he knew the uses to which his "Largo" 
 (originally a song to a plane tree in his opera 
 
 in
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 "Xerxes") has been put. One who has felt his 
 whole being quiver under Mischa Elman's mar- 
 velous performance of Schubert's "Ave Maria" 
 may easily believe that the composer's intention 
 was more than fulfilled. Anton Seidl, it is said, 
 could not conduct the last movement of Tchai- 
 kovsky's "Symphonic pathetique" without tears. 
 Was Seidl simply following the directions of the 
 score, and was the result only a matter of formal 
 prescription and drill ? When the orchestra, sub- 
 missive to his will, extorted the very last throb of 
 anguish from those amazing chords, had Seidl no 
 share in the creative act? If one denies that he 
 had, perhaps it would be convincing to hear the 
 work (as was once my misfortune) performed by 
 an orchestra as competent as Seidl's, but led by a 
 conductor inferior to him not only in musicianship, 
 but also in imagination and sensitiveness of heart. 
 It has become a frequent complaint among the 
 musical critics of the press that pianists as a rule 
 refuse to present new works to the public, confin- 
 ing their programs to a limited range of standard 
 compositions of masters who are dead. There 
 is good ground for this dissatisfaction on the part 
 of those who have the progressive interests of art 
 in view. It is probable, however, that the gener- 
 ality of listeners are contented with this condition 
 and there are certain obvious reasons why they are 
 so. There is one possible explanation that is not 
 quite so obvious, and that is that every famous 
 work is in one sense a novelty when performed by a 
 
 112
 
 THE ART OF THE PIANIST 
 
 great pianist. "Hamlet" and "Romeo and Juliet," 
 supremely great as they are as literary works, 
 would hardly maintain their attracting power gen- 
 eration after generation if their leading roles were 
 always acted in precisely the same manner in every 
 detail. It is not simply "Hamlet " or "Romeo and 
 Juliet" that one goes to see, but Forbes- Robert- 
 son's Hamlet, it may be, or Julia Marlowe's Juliet. 
 And so when a veteran concert goer pays his fee 
 to hear a famous pianist play the " Sonata Appas- 
 sionato" or Schumann's Concerto, it is not merely 
 to hear an old work, every note of which he can 
 anticipate, but a work renewed under the in- 
 dividual treatment of the player. From Harold 
 Bauer he will receive one impression, from Pach- 
 mann another, from Careno another, from Mrs. 
 Zeisler or Hofmann or Godowski a "reading" that 
 is different still. No performance of a classic is 
 ever final. There is always something to be said 
 by the next comer. There are two factors in the 
 exhibition, and the second can never be calculated. 
 The charm of musical performance is partly the 
 charm of surprise. Zola defined a work of art 
 as a bit of nature seen through a temperament. 
 In music, as in a drama, there is a second inter- 
 mediary stage, and in playing, singing, or conduct- 
 ing we have a work of art seen through a tempera- 
 ment. The performer receives the work from the 
 author, and when he gives it forth again it has un- 
 dergone a mysterious change. It has not simply 
 been touched with new color, it has been quickened 
 with a new spirit. 
 
 "3
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 In all this there may be found, I think, the reply 
 to those who protest against the "star system." 
 They are right, of course, when admiration of the 
 star means indifference to the composition, or if 
 that admiration is directed solely to mere tricks 
 of virtuosity. But they are wrong if they over- 
 look the fact that the star is or may be also an 
 artist who creates the work anew at every represen- 
 tation; that in music the work and the perform- 
 ance cannot be separated in consciousness; that 
 the greater the performance the greater the work. 
 
 The lover of music finds, therefore, that he 
 must know something of the laws of performance 
 as well as the laws of composition. What is good 
 playing and good singing? he will ask. In what 
 is one executant superior to another? Are there 
 rules by which judgment can be guided? An in- 
 telligent person does not wish to applaud a de- 
 fective performance any more than he is content to 
 enjoy a poor composition. He wants not only an 
 opinion of his own, but also reasons with which to 
 confirm it. The hopeless differences of view among 
 his critical friends over the merits of this or that 
 performer may perhaps give him pause by show- 
 ing him that infallibility is not attainable. This is 
 true, however, in all art matters; it does not fol- 
 low that there are no principles by which one may 
 be guided to safe and sane conclusions. 
 
 The music lover whom I have in mind in all 
 these discussions is called, not so much to bestow 
 awards of praise or censure, as to observe, appreci- 
 ate, and enjoy. The appraisal of values, leading to 
 
 114
 
 THE ART OF THE PIANIST 
 
 judgments, will follow enlightenment, but inquiry 
 must come first. The question, therefore, is similar 
 to that which we have already considered in our 
 study of form and composition — what does musi- 
 cal performance offer us? What are we to look 
 for in playing or singing? And also — following 
 the line which we have opened in the beginning of 
 this chapter — what does the performer add out 
 of his own taste, knowledge, and genius? What 
 does he do that is not commanded him by the 
 composer? Then, finally, what is the distinction 
 between good and evil in musical reproduction? 
 
 Taking piano playing as a type of musical per- 
 formance in general, for reasons already given, we 
 have now to ask — in what respect is the pianist 
 an artist? What is his part in determining the 
 character of a composition as it reaches the lis- 
 tener's ear? He has before him a number of 
 leaves of paper on which are printed certain black 
 characters, most of them notes and rests, others 
 consisting of indications for delivery. A very 
 slight consideration shows that the notes and other 
 conventional signs which compose a musical score 
 direct the player's action up to a certain point and 
 there leave him. There are slight variations of 
 tone length, regulations of speed from moment 
 to moment, contrasts and blendings of shades, re- 
 fined use of the pedals, subtleties of phrasing — in a 
 word, a host of sensitive adjustments which con- 
 stitute expression and impart life, buoyancy, and 
 finesse. These cannot be indicated with precision 
 
 "5
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 by the system of notation as it now exists. Fort- 
 unate indeed are we that it is so, for were it other- 
 wise the player's task would afford but little in- 
 spiration; two pianists of equal technical skill 
 would produce exactly the same effect. The in- 
 exhaustible charm of the masterworks, however, 
 lies largely in the fact that no such mechanical 
 reiteration is possible. The most stolid piano 
 thumper that ever tormented a critical audience 
 must give something that has not precisely existed 
 before. His performance, as Touchstone said of 
 Audrey, may be a poor thing but it is his own. 
 On the other hand if the pianist is a man of genius 
 we have the splendid spectacle of two original 
 forces at work. Liszt's playing of Beethoven, 
 writes Wagner, "was not mere reproduction, but 
 real production." There is fire in every great 
 work, but it is latent and must be rekindled under 
 the breath of the player's will. 
 
 It may be necessary to remind the reader at this 
 point (and I ask him to bear it in mind all through 
 this discussion) that the determination of the play- 
 er in regard to the "reading" of musical works is 
 very plainly, one may say narrowly, restricted. 
 His freedom is not license. No capricious or 
 spasmodic renderings are to be tolerated. Mau- 
 passant's injunction to the novelist — "give us 
 something fine according to your temperament" — 
 may be applied to the pianist, but he must remem- 
 ber that it will not be fine unless it conforms to 
 the eternal laws of art. He must look up to the 
 
 116
 
 THE ART OF THE PIANIST 
 
 composer as his master. His work must be chast- 
 ened by reverence. He must not wilfully push 
 his own personality into the foreground, and by 
 a false straining after originality, by mannerisms 
 and exaggerations, do violence to the author's in- 
 tentions. He has many guides in history, scholar- 
 ship, and tradition that must be respected. This 
 side of the vexed question of the pianist's duty will 
 be considered later; meanwhile a recognition of it 
 must be held in reserve while we go on to consider 
 the privileges of the player as an original thinker. 
 
 In a letter discussing certain points in piano 
 playing Edward MacDowell once wrote, "Black 
 notes on white paper are the despair of composers." 
 He meant by this that our system of notation is 
 incomplete, so that while the composer can show 
 what notes are to be sounded, he is only partly 
 able to indicate in what manner they are to be 
 sounded, and consequently is more or less at the 
 mercy of the performer. I have tried to prove that 
 the art gains more than it loses by this state of 
 things, and that the world of performers and mu- 
 sic lovers will never share the composer's regret. 
 Let us now come close to details, and taking the 
 words of MacDowell as a text inquire just what are 
 the elements of performance that cannot be set 
 down in black notes on white paper. 
 
 Take first the question of tempo. The com- 
 poser puts at the head of his piece a direction, con- 
 sisting of a word or two, which shows his wish 
 as to the general rate of speed, such as Adagio, 
 
 117
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 Andante, Allegro. No one supposes that these 
 or other expressions of the same nature signify 
 an exact number of beats to the minute. Adagio 
 means slowly or leisurely, but the Italian word 
 is as indefinite as the English. Andante may 
 indicate one pace to one person, another to an- 
 other, and to the same person it will vary with 
 the composition. Wagner explains that there are 
 two kinds of Allegro movement, each requiring a 
 special kind of treatment. Sebastian Bach did not 
 put directions for tempo at the head of his pieces; 
 who shall determine at what rate of speed they 
 should be played? Metronome marks are more 
 exact, but they are far from being an infallible 
 reliance. At the most they indicate the general 
 movement of a composition, not the alterations 
 that must constantly occur. They often serve as 
 fetters to players or conductors that submit to them. 
 Wagner at one time made extensive use of them 
 in his dramas, but afterward decided that it was 
 best on the whole to leave the question of tempo 
 to the taste and musicianship of the conductor. 
 
 The amount of time to be occupied in the per- 
 formance of a composition as a whole is, however, 
 the easiest part of the problem. Rarely does a 
 piece of considerable length or variety of style re- 
 quire an exactly uniform rate of motion from be- 
 ginning to end. The beauty of an interpretation 
 consists to a very large extent in the varying de- 
 grees of speed in the different divisions, periods, 
 and phrases. It is the feature to which the com- 
 
 118
 
 THE ART OF THE PIANIST 
 
 poser gives the least thought in his orders to the 
 player, and consequently it is in this particular that 
 pianists are most at variance with one another. 
 Nowhere else are taste and judgment more in de- 
 mand than here; nowhere else are perversions and 
 eccentricities more abundant. Condemnations by 
 critics of the "conceptions" of players or con- 
 ductors will be found in the great majority of cases 
 to apply to tempo. Wagner goes so far as to say 
 that "the whole duty of a conductor is comprised 
 in his ability always to indicate the right tempo. 
 His choice of tempi will show whether he under- 
 stands the piece or not. With good players the 
 true tempo induces correct phrasing and expres- 
 sion." The determination of the "true tempo," 
 however, is not so easy. " I have often been aston- 
 ished," says Wagner again, "at the singularly 
 slight sense for tempo and execution evinced by 
 leading musicians." In spite of uncertainty in 
 the practical application of the principle of speed 
 variation, in the privilege itself is found the ele- 
 ment which gives to music its delightful suggestion 
 of ease, grace, and elasticity. A too rigid tempo 
 gives a suggestion of friction, of resistance some- 
 where; a flexible tempo is motion as free, confi- 
 dent, and joyous as the flowing of winds or ocean 
 tides. Those buoyant fluctuations of movement 
 that we hear in a masterly performance, those un- 
 expected contrasts, those languishing retards, those 
 fiery accelerations, those delicate balancings of 
 phrase against phrase, those affectionate lingerings 
 
 119
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 upon lovely modulations, those almost impercepti- 
 ble delays as if to give a beautiful chord a little 
 more time to resound along the corridors of the 
 memory, those tender caressing familiarities, those 
 impetuous defiances, all those bold liberties which 
 prove the tone masses submissive to the player's 
 will, the direct manifestation of his emotion — how 
 eloquent, how illuminating they are! 
 
 That the composer should say to the player that 
 here and here, and thus and thus, shall he make 
 these expressive alterations of speed is impossible. 
 Rarely does he attempt to do so. Here and there 
 he will write ritardando or accelerando, but pre- 
 cisely how much slower or faster, or exactly at 
 what instant these changes begin, cannot be indi- 
 cated. In the wide spaces of the piece, however, 
 no directions are given. The composer implicitly 
 says to the player: In the matter of tempo I put 
 myself in your hands, your musicianship is the arbi- 
 ter; if my music sounds dull and monotonous you 
 must take a part or the whole of the blame, if other- 
 wise a goodly share of the honor shall be yours. 
 
 It is well known that it is Chopin who has 
 brought the beauty that lies in tempo modification 
 most palpably into notice, and that under the 
 title tempo rubato, or " stolen time," it has become, 
 we might say, self-conscious. These liberties, 
 however, are not as lawless as the term would 
 seem to imply, for the alterations of tempo that 
 give elasticity to a performance are so adjusted and 
 balanced in good playing that the sense of poise 
 
 1 20
 
 THE ART OF THE PIANIST 
 
 is never lost. Like all other elements of expres- 
 sion they must be regulated by conscious artistic 
 purpose. The very nature of Chopin's music im- 
 plies this freedom of movement, but it is now 
 granted, although in less degree, in the works of the 
 classic masters. Even in Bach's fugues, where a 
 machine-like stiffness once passed for orthodoxy, 
 a more natural and human treatment is allowed. 
 That this liberty may be abused we all know. 
 There are agreements among musicians that have 
 acquired the binding force of laws, and must not be 
 violated at the player's caprice. A prelude by 
 Bach or an adagio by Beethoven is of a more rigid 
 mould than a nocturne by Chopin and must be 
 rendered with more sobriety and reserve. The 
 player must constantly remind himself that free- 
 dom in tempo does not mean unsteadiness, and 
 that the rate of speed in each phrase does not de- 
 pend solely upon its own separate interest, but still 
 more upon its relation to its companion phrases. 
 We must have in music a sense of equilibrium, of 
 stability. A careless, spasmodic hurrying and re- 
 tarding leads only to flabbiness and inconsequence. 
 The second of the constituents of expression 
 that rest mainly upon the player's determination 
 consists in differences of loudness and softness, 
 also known as nuance, or light and shade. The 
 composer makes a rather liberal use of the marks 
 for different degrees of force, such as f., p., sf., cres., 
 dim., but every pianist knows that it is for himself 
 to decide just how these signs shall be interpreted, 
 
 121
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 and also that his performance must be full of ac- 
 cents and modifications of tone volume which the 
 writer does not attempt to indicate. Composers 
 differ greatly in the abundance of their dynamic 
 signs, but at the best they can do no more than 
 suggest the relative values of these changes, while 
 the absolute values, the exact amount of force, de- 
 pend upon the player's physical command of tone, 
 the construction of his instrument, and still more 
 upon his musical feeling and judgment. Even 
 the extreme marks pp. (softest) and ff. (loudest) 
 are indefinite. The softest possible and the loudest 
 possible are never indulged in by a player of dis- 
 cretion. Not only must fortissimo be subjected to 
 the final law of tone beauty (in spite of the fact 
 that this law is often grossly violated by famous 
 pianists) but its degrees vary greatly according to 
 circumstances. A rapid run in single notes cannot 
 possibly be made as loud as a detached chord, 
 although the composer may use the ff. sign for both. 
 On the other hand, the softest possible tone would 
 be inaudible except perhaps to the performer him- 
 self. If these extreme signs are so inexact, what 
 shall be said of the grades between, only a few 
 of which are designated by the composer? The 
 printed dynamic signs are like the more obvious 
 elevations and depressions in a distant landscape — 
 innumerable are the undulations between. 
 
 Even the signs which the composer takes pains 
 to insert are often ignored by the player, some- 
 times justly, sometimes unjustly. I have heard 
 
 122
 
 THE ART OF THE PIANIST 
 
 Anton Rubinstein make a diminuendo in a Beetho- 
 ven sonata where the author had written a cres- 
 cendo, and vice versa. What pianist ever ends 
 Chopin's delicate F sharp Impromptu with a 
 crash, as the composer seems to demand? Mr. 
 W. S. B. Mathews tells that he once prepared a 
 class for MacDowelFs "March Wind," which the 
 composer was to play in public, that he carefully 
 called attention to every nuance in the piece, and 
 that to his consternation MacDowell played it fortis- 
 simo from beginning to end. The composer, cer- 
 tainly, has a larger privilege in respect to his own 
 work than the ordinary performer, but this instance 
 shows that he does not always attach the same seri- 
 ousness to the expression marks that he does to 
 the notes, and that within certain limits they may 
 be considered as suggestive and provisional rather 
 than arbitrary. 
 
 After all, it is the broader, more general scheme 
 of light and shade that is furnished by the com- 
 poser. The finer gradations, those subtle and im- 
 measurable modifications of dynamic value which 
 make a composition a palpitating, coruscating 
 thing of beauty, are wholly under the player's will. 
 The simplest piece is inexhaustible in the oppor- 
 tunities it affords for tone variety. Listen to a 
 rapid, clearly articulated scale, filled with undu- 
 lating crescendos and diminuendos and rhythmic 
 accents. Listen to a surging double arpeggio, its 
 waves of tone rising and falling as majestically as 
 the billows of the sea. Or a series of pure sonorous 
 
 123
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 chords, pressed with a perfect adaptation of the 
 lingers in order to secure solidity and balance, with 
 a melody singing brightly upon their surface. Or 
 a skein of delicate filaments of sound, with a single 
 rich tone ringing through them like the far-away 
 call of a horn. These things are among the lux- 
 uries of sensation, and unlike many luxuries they 
 bring no surfeit. 
 
 The study of these effects is for the pianist the 
 task of a lifetime. The desire for tone beauty 
 must be a veritable passion if he is ever to attain 
 true artistry. Not less must the music lover ap- 
 preciate its worth, ever be quick to detect it, and 
 train his perceptions to respond to the most deli- 
 cate gradations in beautiful sound both in nature 
 and in art. 
 
 "The tone sustained with equal power," said 
 Wagner, "is the basis of all expression." This 
 was said of vocal and orchestral music, and al- 
 though an evenly sustained tone is impossible with 
 the piano (since by reason of the mechanism the 
 tone diminishes from the instant it is struck) yet it 
 has always hovered before the minds of the great 
 players as an ideal, the very longing for it affect- 
 ing their touch and treatment. To prolong the 
 short and relatively dry tone of the piano to the 
 greatest possible extent has always been the aim of 
 manufacturers; but the limit is soon reached, and 
 players are often forced to fall back upon a system 
 of disguises and pretences, the instrument assuming 
 a virtue that it does not possess. In gaining the 
 
 124
 
 THE ART OF THE PIANIST 
 
 notion of sustained tone without the actuality the 
 listener's fancy works as well as that of the player. 
 He is more credulous than any speculator. He 
 wishes to be deceived. There are even ways by 
 which a tone may apparently be made to swell after 
 being struck — an effect that is very beautiful, 
 and legitimate because beautiful. 
 
 We speak of a pianist's "singing touch" as one 
 of his most admirable merits. There is no more 
 frequent injunction at the present day than that the 
 tone must have a pure singing quality, no matter 
 how rapid, intricate, or violent the passage may be. 
 "Do not think of striking your notes," exclaimed 
 Rubinstein, "think of singing them!" This in- 
 junction forbids the short, dry, unsympathetic 
 tone one often hears, as well as the harsh, brassy, 
 clanging stroke in which even reputable players 
 often indulge. In piano playing as well as in 
 orchestral and violin playing the pure, rich, sus- 
 tained tone of the human voice at its best must 
 be the standard. 
 
 This problem involves also that of quality or 
 timbre in piano tone, in respect to which there 
 are many delusions abroad. It would be easy to 
 show that the player has but very slight power — 
 perhaps none at all — of altering the quality of tone 
 by his way of pressing the keys, that force and 
 duration are the only elements he can control by 
 his touch alone, leaving out the modification that 
 can be effected by the pedals. Nevertheless there 
 is a vast difference in sheer sensuous tone beauty 
 
 125
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 in the playing of different pianists. This is not the 
 place to explain all the causes of these differences. 
 They consist mainly, perhaps wholly, in extremely 
 minute shades and degrees of blending and con- 
 trasting the two elements of duration and loudness. 
 The love of color and the thought of color will, 
 however, strongly influence the touch in piano 
 music. Hans von Biilow sometimes suggested to 
 his pupils that they think here and there of a flute, 
 a 'cello or a horn. No one knew better than he 
 that a pianist cannot in the least imitate the timbre 
 of any orchestral instrument; piano tone is piano 
 tone and never anything else. But the thought of 
 an instrument so luscious in quality and so full in 
 sustaining power as a 'cello or a horn would in- 
 sensibly affect the touch and the disposal of dy- 
 namic relations. This modern emphasis upon tone 
 color in piano playing is one manifestation of the 
 universal demand for sensuous beauty in all art 
 which is so marked a feature of our time. Color 
 in painting, color in photography, color in orches- 
 tration, color in singing, color in piano playing — 
 these are the response to the quickened sensitive- 
 ness of eye and ear which every new chromatic in- 
 vention in picture or music helps in turn to promote. 
 Artists even speak of color in an etching or en- 
 graving, meaning of course that color is suggested. 
 And so in piano playing tone color is suggested, 
 the mind is stimulated so that it impulsively throws 
 over the music a sort of prismatic veil which is 
 none the less delightful for being so largely an 
 
 126
 
 THE ART OF THE PIANIST 
 
 illusion. Art is full of suggestion, and it asks the 
 beholder to cooperate with the producer. The 
 whitest pigment is a thousand degrees less bright 
 than sunlight, but De Hoogh and Turner and 
 Monet paint sunlight to the perfect satisfaction of 
 the observer. It is one of the wonders of music 
 that an instrument essentially so cold and mono- 
 chromatic as the piano can take on so many lovely 
 tints and reenforce melody and harmony with 
 sounds so delicious to the sensual ear. Of all this 
 the composer, with his black notes on white paper, 
 gives but a remote intimation. It is the contribu- 
 tion of the performer in his capacity of artist. 
 
 Another means of obtaining beautiful changes of 
 tone color, to which the listener should attend, is 
 in the use of the pedals. A master is known by his 
 pedalling as well as by the exploits of his fingers. 
 The composer or editor may, of course, set down 
 pedal marks, but they are at the best inadequate, 
 often inexact, and an experienced player gives 
 little or no heed to them. Even to an immature 
 performer they are an awkward kind of assistance 
 and the sooner he learns to do without them the 
 better. An accomplished pianist simply conceives 
 a certain tone effect and employs the pedal for the 
 production of that effect. He subjects tone ad- 
 justment by means of the pedals to an elaborate 
 analysis, until at last, with the growth of experience, 
 his pedalling becomes a second nature, and his 
 foot responds to his thought as automatically as 
 his hand. 
 
 127
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 The question now arises, What is it that the 
 pedals do? There is probably no other feature 
 in piano playing that is so misunderstood, not 
 only by the general public but also by piano stu- 
 dents. The pedal that is managed by the right 
 foot is persistently called the "loud pedal," which 
 designation is a complete misnomer. It is easy 
 to see, if one thinks about it, that the damper 
 pedal cannot possibly make the sounds louder. 
 The degree of loudness in the case of a sounding 
 string depends upon the amplitude of the vibra- 
 tions, and in piano music the amplitude of the vi- 
 brations depends upon the amount of force with 
 which the hammer comes against the string. When 
 a single key is struck and the pedal is not pressed, 
 a damper rises; when the pedal is pressed, all the 
 dampers in the instrument are raised. This can- 
 not affect the amplitude of the vibrations. Every 
 player knows that the damper pedal enables him to 
 continue the tone after his finger has left the key, 
 — the most important mechanical invention in the 
 history of the art, for without it our magnificent 
 treasure of piano music, founded by Beethoven, 
 could never have come into existence. 
 
 But the damper pedal, as I have already inti- 
 mated, does more than sustain the tones that are 
 struck; it makes them more rich and sympathetic to 
 the ear and enables the player to obtain variety of 
 tone color. It is easy to see how this is done. Every 
 musical tone is compound instead of simple. A 
 fundamental tone, indicated by a note upon the staff 
 
 128
 
 THE ART OF THE PIANIST 
 
 and produced by the vibration of the whole string, 
 contains also other tones made by vibrations of 
 parts of the string. These " resultant tones," "over- 
 tones," " harmonics, " or " upper partials," as they 
 are -variously called, cannot ordinarily be distin- 
 guished from the fundamental tone, but they color 
 it, imparting its peculiar quality or timbre. In a 
 violin or clarinet these overtones are very promi- 
 nent; in a flute or organ diapason pipe they are 
 much less so. In the piano they are to be reck- 
 oned with. Put the damper pedal down and all 
 the dampers are raised. That leaves all the strings 
 free or "open," and some that are not struck will 
 vibrate slightly by reason of the impingement upon 
 them of the secondary air waves that are stirred by 
 the string that is struck by the hammer. The 
 strings whose vibration thus produced can be heard 
 by the normal ear are those of the octave, the 
 twelfth, and the second octave above the smitten 
 string, and in a fine grand piano perhaps one or 
 two more. It follows that the sounds that come 
 from a piano are richer in quality when the dam- 
 per pedal is used than when it is idle. 
 
 The soft pedal, which has but recently, compar- 
 atively speaking, come into its own as a means of 
 tone beauty, does not merely make the sounds 
 softer, it alters their timbre. In a grand piano it 
 makes the hammer strike two strings instead of 
 three; that alone would produce a modification 
 of the tone, while at the same time the third string, 
 although not touched, vibrates sympathetically 
 
 129
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 with a delicate, veiled, shimmering quality that gives 
 a peculiar mellow and sympathetic effect to the 
 combined impression. The soft pedal takes from 
 the instrument its characteristic brilliancy, afford- 
 ing such contrasts that the player will often em- 
 ploy it even with a strong touch, carrying the 
 special effect produced by this apparatus into broad 
 sonorous tone masses. 
 
 The study of the pianist in the use of the damper 
 pedal, in spite of its coloristic possibilities, lies 
 chiefly in its function as a tone-sustaining con- 
 trivance. The piano is unique among instruments 
 in its ability to prolong tones when the player's 
 fingers are busy with new ones, and the opportuni- 
 ties thus afforded for variety, fulness, and grandeur 
 of tone effect are numberless. To press and re- 
 lease the pedal at exactly the proper instant, to 
 produce continuity of sound with never the slightest 
 confusion in the harmonies, to blend, distribute, 
 and contrast all the varieties of tone color that are 
 latent in the instrument without excess or barren- 
 ness, and to do all this without losing distinctness 
 of articulation or blurring the outline of the rhyth- 
 mic figure — here is a field of endless study for 
 the player and delight to the appreciative listener. 
 A pianist is indeed a past master of the art of pedal- 
 ling when the most greedy ear is satisfied and the 
 most sensitive ear can detect no flaw. 
 
 Last to be considered among the contributions 
 made by the player is phrasing. This term signi- 
 fies the disclosure to the ear of the rhythmic struct- 
 
 130
 
 THE ART OF THE PIANIST 
 
 ure of a piece. The firm metrical basis and the 
 intricate rhythmic figuration must be as distinctly 
 in the consciousness of the player as in that of the 
 composer. All the rhythmic laws of musical art 
 must be familiar to him in practice if not in theory, 
 and his skill of hand must so reenforce his sense of 
 structural design that the listener will never be for 
 a moment in doubt concerning the essential factors 
 in the tonal ebb and flow. Under the player's 
 hand the entanglements of the interwoven threads 
 are unravelled. All becomes clear, symmetrical, 
 orderly. He imparts to the music a suggestion of 
 naturalness, of spontaneity; there is poise, buoy- 
 ancy, and balance; there is the ecstasy of vibration, 
 the throb of life. This art requires incessant study 
 and the most vigilant care. There have been pian- 
 ists, such as Hans von Billow, who were especially 
 distinguished for their clear-cut scholarly phras- 
 ing, other elements of effect being often sacri- 
 ficed to that. Other players, who have delighted 
 more in masses of sound and splendid tonal con- 
 trasts, have not taken such extreme pains to make 
 every thread of tissue evident. We seem to have 
 here two classes of pianists — the scholarly, reflec- 
 tive, and analytical, with an extremely refined sense 
 of form; and the bold, impetuous, and impression- 
 istic, whose minds are intent upon the broader 
 lights and shades and masses rather than upon 
 minute dissection. The first love to make the work 
 transparent, holding to the light every detail of 
 organization. The second will often obscure detail 
 
 *3 J
 
 THE EDUCATION OE A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 for the sake of breadth, concentration, and color. 
 Either tendency in excess leaves something to be 
 desired; the consummate artist of the keyboard will 
 grant to every means of beauty its true measure, 
 not sacrificing the mass for the sake of the parts 
 nor the parts for the sake of the mass. He will 
 finish each item cleanly, but will remember that 
 motives and phrases, like the lines and colors of a 
 painting, find their value not in isolation and de- 
 tachment, but in their relation to one another and 
 to the whole. 
 
 There are four means by which the structural 
 grouping of tones is made apparent, viz. accents, 
 alternations of longer and shorter tones, breaks in 
 the succession of sounds (including phrasing by the 
 damper pedal), and crescendo and diminuendo. 
 In the application of these rhythmic devices the 
 player is certainly more restricted than in the mod- 
 ification of tempo or in shading. It is a matter 
 of knowledge with him, of musical scholarship, 
 rather than of personal preference. That is to say, 
 tempo and shading are very greatly subject to the 
 player's feeling and imagination, and may measur- 
 ably differ in the performance of the same compo- 
 sition by the same player at different times, or under 
 the hands of players who are unlike one another in 
 temperament. Phrasing, however, is either right 
 or wrong; within the successions of melodies and 
 harmonies there dwells the essential rhythmic de- 
 sign dictated by the inherent laws of musical con- 
 struction. There is the metrical foundation es- 
 
 132
 
 THE ART OF THE PIANIST 
 
 tablished by the beat and the measure grouping, 
 while the rhythmic figuration springs from it in 
 tropical luxuriance. Both alike must be rescued 
 from confusion and when offered to the ear brought 
 under the control of artistic design. In effecting 
 this the player must chiefly rely upon his scholar- 
 ship and his musical instinct, for the means which 
 the composer possesses for indicating the proper 
 phrasing are very incomplete. This fact is made 
 evident by the numerous and bewildering books 
 on rhythm and the phrased editions of the classic 
 composers — the product of an outlay of labor and 
 thought of which the layman has little conception. 
 An extensive knowledge of rhythmic laws and of the 
 peculiar rhythmic styles of the great piano com- 
 posers must be a part of the mental equipment of 
 the pianist. In the digital analysis of the intricate 
 minutiae of structure the performer must give a 
 multitude of accents not indicated in the general 
 metrical scheme — he must often vary the time 
 values of individual notes, must make breaks in 
 the tone current which are not marked in the score, 
 must use crescendo and diminuendo for the stirring 
 of the rhythmic waves to their progressive rise and 
 fall. The curving lines, or slurs, which abound 
 in musical scores are sometimes employed as 
 phrasing signs by composers, but so irregularly and 
 with such disregard of system that the player who 
 should direct his phrasing by them would produce 
 the most unhappy results. Even the elucidations 
 of scholarly editors do not always agree. It is only 
 
 *33
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 by a highly developed rhythmic sense, a firm grasp 
 of musical structure, years of study and experience, 
 a technique so perfect that in the most rapid and 
 difficult passages every shade of tone and every 
 variety of touch are under complete control, that a 
 performer is able to solve all the mysteries of the 
 phrasing art and become infallibly true to those 
 laws of form that give to musical works their com- 
 plex order, their inner logic, their plastic grace, and 
 their architectonic strength. 
 
 The player who makes an intelligent study of 
 rhythm will not confine his analysis to the smaller 
 groupings of period and section and phrase, but 
 will also attend to the larger divisions in which 
 these are contained; he will hold in his mind the 
 entire framework of the piece and will give to his 
 hearers an impression of solidity and mutual sup- 
 port among the parts. In this, the highest grade 
 of rhythmic interpretation, there will be heard 
 marked dissimilarities among players. One will 
 unravel the texture with the utmost care, separat- 
 ing the phrases and rounding off the outlines of 
 all the details with an almost finical nicety, at the 
 same time so regardless of the larger unity that the 
 work will appear like a mosaic of brilliant spots 
 with no suggestion of continuous development and 
 comprehensive organization. I have heard the 
 first movement of Beethoven's "Sonata Appassio- 
 nata" so treated — each phrase highly polished but 
 no grasp of the movement in its vast reach and 
 cumulative force. It was an affected, self-conscious 
 
 134
 
 THE ART OF THE PIANIST 
 
 performance; the fierce onrush, which should be 
 like that of a river at the spring flood, checked and 
 diverted by an over-desire for finish. It was 
 "faultily faultless," like Tennyson's Maud. A 
 master player will grasp the work in its entirety; 
 while giving the characteristic beauty to each 
 feature, he will have the complete form distinctly 
 present in his mind, so that every passage will be 
 a preparation for that which is to follow and a con- 
 sequence of that which has gone before. He will 
 also apprehend the essential emotional character 
 of the composition — passionate, merry, languish- 
 ing, solemn, pathetic, or whatever it may be — and 
 every phrase will receive its proper treatment as a 
 contributing factor in the larger purpose. 
 
 Perfection of phrasing might be said to be the 
 supreme sign of mastership, since it is closely united 
 with control of tempo and shading. Furthermore, 
 it implies large executive resources, for if a pian- 
 ist plays up to the limit of his technique an ar- 
 tistic command of phrasing, nuance, and tempo 
 will surely be wanting. There will be a suggestion 
 of effort, perhaps of strain, and the sign of this, 
 even where no false notes are struck, will be a 
 lack of clearness and freedom in shading and 
 phrasing. But when the performer is able, at 
 any chosen tempo and in spite of every technical 
 difficulty, to present the work in its true emotional 
 atmosphere, luminous in every detail, perfectly ar- 
 ticulated and balanced, buoyant with conscious re- 
 serve of power, rejoicing in freedom while obedient 
 
 135
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 to law, then the grateful auditor will be ready to 
 confer the degree of artist summa cum laude. 
 
 In what has been said thus far it may seem that 
 too much stress has been laid upon the player's 
 liberty. But I have thought that a discussion of 
 the art of the pianist from this point of view would 
 be of most value to the music lover who desires to 
 know something of the higher criticism in piano 
 music. There is, of course, another side to the 
 story. The pianist's work is based on laws and 
 principles to which he must submit, however great 
 his genius. It is only after long training and ex- 
 perience that he can be allowed to give loose rein 
 to his own natural impulses. Looming above him, 
 warning and guiding him, is the authority of ar- 
 tistic laws which are as imperative as natural for- 
 ces. These decrees are final because they are the 
 expression of something inherent in the very con- 
 stitution of the human mind. Next below these 
 ultimate commands are methods, styles, customs 
 which have acquired the sanction that is drawn from 
 the consensus of the most intelligent practice. As 
 the generations come and go experiments of every 
 conceivable kind are made; certain procedures, not 
 being justified by sober reflection, are abandoned, 
 while others are maintained because in the long 
 run they agree with the matured sense of artistic 
 propriety. Hence arise what are called "tradi- 
 tions." These traditions, however, are not ab- 
 solutely rigid. There is no finality in art, because 
 where there is mental activity and an insatiable 
 
 136
 
 THE ART OF THE PIANIST 
 
 search for truth even the works of the older mas- 
 ters will be seen through an atmosphere created 
 by the temper and experience of the age, and a 
 changed point of view will modify their aspect. 
 The master pianist may say, Why should not I 
 also have a share in the making of tradition? 
 Mendelssohn and other musicians of his time no 
 doubt believed that the tradition of the perform- 
 ance of Beethoven's symphonies was once for all 
 established, but then came Wagner, Liszt, Billow, 
 Richter and their disciples, and the tradition under- 
 went a change. In piano playing there are ca- 
 pacities for varying beauty in the improved instru- 
 ment that were undreamed of by Mozart and 
 Beethoven; the performer, therefore, may add 
 color to their works and is not required to pre- 
 serve the dry light of the old time. The master 
 pianist must hold the balance between two incli- 
 nations — one to deny his own instinct toward self- 
 expression and efface himself in presence of the 
 composer, the other to ignore the composer's au- 
 thority and give free rein to his own egotism. 
 
 But what is the proper balance? There indeed 
 is the difficulty. All admit that the player must be 
 true to the spirit and meaning of the composer, 
 but since the composer's intention must be mainly 
 inferred from the composition itself there comes 
 that latitude of interpretation, that exercise of 
 the performer's judgment, taste, and musicianship 
 which gives to piano recitals their perpetual in- 
 terest. The pianist, like the actor, is a man of 
 
 *37
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 his time. Contemporary tendencies in art will 
 show themselves in piano playing as in other fields 
 of expression. Certain general principles, how- 
 ever, stand sure. Mozart must not be played like 
 Tchaikovsky, nor a Beethoven Adagio like a Cho- 
 pin Nocturne. It is not a question of period, 
 however, as some seem to assert, but of style. A 
 composer of the present who should write like Mo- 
 zart must be played like Mozart, and not with the 
 contrasts of speed and dynamics that are proper 
 to a Liszt Rhapsodic But there is a more or less 
 necessary connection between the style of a com- 
 poser's work and his period; hence the player 
 must be familiar with the history of his art in order 
 that he may be conscious of the background of 
 every typical work, and enter sympathetically into 
 the special character which it may possess as the 
 reflection of the ideals and methods of its age. 
 
 There abides the old antithesis between "sub- 
 jective" and "objective" playing. The subjective 
 player makes the work his own, he discharges 
 through it his own temperament, and he never 
 plays it twice in exactly the same way. The objec- 
 tive player treats the work as external to himself, 
 he aims to perform it, to the best of his knowledge 
 and belief, precisely as the composer would do; he 
 fixes in his memory every dynamic sign, he scru- 
 pulously follows the tradition, and he endeavors to 
 play the work in the same manner at every repe- 
 tition down to the smallest details. Rubinstein said 
 to a pupil, "Play as you feel. Is the day rainy? 
 
 138
 
 THE ART OF THE PIANIST 
 
 Play it in one way. Is it sunny? Play it in an- 
 other way." A player of the school of Mendelssohn 
 would probably have said: This way, or this, is 
 correct; so must it always be done. 
 
 The discussion is of little moment, for strictly 
 speaking there is no such thing as purely subjective 
 or purely objective performance. The happy lim- 
 itations of our notation system forbid the latter, 
 and as for subjective playing there is only one sort 
 that is completely such, and that is improvising. 
 In former days extemporaneous playing, in which 
 the pianist was composer and executant at the 
 same instant, was the summum bonum, the ulti- 
 mate test of mastership. But in these latter times 
 the pianist gains his crown through his ability as 
 an interpreter of the works of other men. Un- 
 doubtedly something has been lost by the change. 
 If we are to trust contemporary report, the unpre- 
 meditated performances of Beethoven and Liszt 
 exhibited a splendor, a fire, and an eloquence of 
 appeal that are not paralleled in the deliberate 
 reproductions of the modern method. The gain, 
 however, has more than balanced the loss. A 
 Beethoven or a Liszt appears only once in a gen- 
 eration, while Paderewski and Hofmann and the 
 noble army of their compeers keep ever before us 
 the glorious works of the great tone poets, endowed 
 by the love and the imagination of the interpreter 
 with the magical, ever-renewed charm of re-crea- 
 tion. The master player gives to his performance 
 a glow and an energy as of an improvisation, but 
 
 139
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 he is saved from exaggeration and egotistic strain- 
 ing after originality by a humble deference to the 
 composer and a reverence for the established laws 
 of his art. At the keyboard, under the excitement 
 of the moment and the nervous stimulation that 
 comes from the enthusiasm of his audience, he 
 will often put forth powers unsuspected even by 
 himself, and will produce effects apparently un- 
 premeditated. But, like the wise actor, he will not 
 trust wholly to "the inspiration of the moment," 
 and it will probably appear that these seeming 
 novelties of treatment, these outbreaks of excep- 
 tional ardency, are simply the intensifying of effects 
 planned in the study chamber and kindled by the 
 electric contact of the milieu and the moment into 
 a splendor which the calm of the practice hours 
 could not anticipate. Under such excitements 
 flashed those impassioned displays of which gray- 
 haired contemporaries of Liszt and Rubinstein 
 speak with bated breath and uplifted eyes. 
 
 It appears from this examination of the pianist's 
 art that the music lover has in piano music a very 
 large field for study and a provision for ever in- 
 creasing delight. He will first look for finished tech- 
 nique — for rapidity, force, and clarity in brilliant 
 work, for singing tone and perfect equipoise of mel- 
 ody and harmony under all circumstances. The 
 shading must be full of variety, balanced and dis- 
 tributed like the lights and darks in a fine painting; 
 the crescendos and diminuendos must rise and fall 
 with majestic ease; there must be fulness without 
 
 140
 
 THE ART OF THE PIANIST 
 
 confusion, force without violence, delicacy without 
 weakness; a perfect adaptation of the touch, from 
 the crispest staccato to the sustained clinging legato, 
 to the essential character of the passage; above all 
 and everywhere a faultless drawing of the melodic 
 and rhythmic line, the contour and body of every 
 figure clearly revealed and placed firmly upon the 
 metrical foundation. With all this assumed as an 
 evidence of the technical competence of the player, 
 the question of the truth of his interpretation, never 
 perhaps to be finally settled (since the decision is 
 so much affected by personal preferences), will be 
 submitted to that larger knowledge of the laws of art 
 and of the diverse ideals of the masters which the 
 seeker after critical wisdom will constantly labor 
 to acquire. 
 
 141
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE ART OF SONG: MUSIC AND POETRY 
 
 The conscientious lover of music, who wants a 
 prop for his judgments more stable than caprice, 
 encounters certain peculiar difficulties when the 
 art of song is in question. And yet it would seem 
 at first thought that all men might instinctively 
 feel and estimate alike. Singing comes nearer to 
 being universal than any other formal expression of 
 emotion. Every impulse that draws men together 
 in the fraternity of a common need has always 
 chosen melody as the most natural, the most appro- 
 priate, and the most efficient means of expressing 
 the consciousness of spiritual solidarity. No other 
 agent is so powerful in stimulating the mental ex- 
 citement that is the forerunner of action. Politi- 
 cal and religious leaders know that song is more 
 effective for their ends than rhetoric. Luther's 
 battle was half won when the people began to sing 
 the hymns of the Reformation. Not less endeared 
 is song as an outlet for the more ideal cravings of 
 the individual heart. Love seems always to imply 
 melody, or at least the tuneful impulse. So nat- 
 ural is the connection here that Darwin was led to 
 
 142
 
 MUSIC AND POETRY 
 
 believe that the very origin of music is to be found 
 in the love calls of the half-human progenitors 
 of mankind. Among the ancient cultivated nations 
 and in a multitude of instances among the simpler 
 races and lower social grades to-day, poetry and 
 music are inseparable. Song is preeminently the 
 social art. It is the only means of artistic expres- 
 sion that can be employed by a large number of 
 people at the same instant and in the same manner. 
 If my neighbor and I can sing in all sincerity the 
 same songs, then for the time being we have es- 
 tablished a close tie between one another; we see 
 into each other's hearts and find there something 
 that makes us brothers. 
 
 Out of this universal impulse toward vocal ex- 
 pression, which in ordinary conditions remains 
 crude and rudimentary, a fine art has emerged, and 
 men of genius have put into consummate musical 
 utterance those emotional impulses which had 
 already been crystallized into poetry. Their mel- 
 odies are then taken from the cold page and trans- 
 muted into impassioned sound by men and women 
 who are trained in accordance with refined princi- 
 ples of reproductive art. The sway over our spirits 
 exercised by this twofold creative act is due to our 
 consciousness that these singers are our interpreters 
 as well as interpreters of the composers. Their per- 
 formances are only the farther stage of a process 
 which begins everywhere in the world when a tender 
 longing desires the relief of utterance, for in the 
 most elaborate development of vocal art there is 
 
 x 43
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 a ground tone of simple feeling that is under- 
 stood by every heart that is in tune with nature. 
 From the crooning of a monotonous lullaby by 
 some lowly mother in cabin or wigwam to the splen- 
 did display of a Sembrich or a Caruso before ap- 
 plauding thousands there is simply the special de- 
 velopment of a general faculty. For this reason, 
 perhaps, the world at large feels a more direct in- 
 terest in acting and singing than in any other form 
 of artistic exercise. The actor and singer are car- 
 rying on activities which have been more or less 
 operative in our own experience. We have all used 
 speech and gesture and have at some time sung, 
 whereas comparatively few have played an instru- 
 ment, carved, painted, or made verses. The differ- 
 ence is that the professional performance is deliber- 
 ate and cultivated instead of spontaneous; out of 
 a universal unartistic custom there has been evolved 
 a very exquisite form of specialized art. 
 
 It may be that this very nearness to nature may 
 account for the fact that the vast majority of those 
 who frequent theatres and concert halls are quite 
 incapable of an accurate critical judgment upon the 
 performances of actors and vocalists. " Of all the 
 branches of musical performance," says Mr. W. J. 
 Henderson, "singing is that about which the great 
 majority of music lovers know the least. The 
 general public makes very little discrimination be- 
 tween the work of a de Reszke or a Melba and 
 that of a fourth rate Sunday night concert singer 
 who has paid the manager to give her an appear- 
 
 144
 
 MUSIC AND POETRY 
 
 ance." Elsewhere Mr. Henderson explains this by 
 saying: "The public is not an expert, never was 
 and never will be. It is idle, careless, and indif- 
 ferent to the critical questions of art." This diag- 
 nosis leaves untouched the deeper question why the 
 public is so short-sighted, unconscious of the higher 
 truths in art. The public is indeed ignorant, care- 
 less perhaps, but I am sure not altogether indif- 
 ferent. It applauds what it believes to be good. 
 The gallery god gives boisterous approbation to the 
 most atrocious ranting, not from wanton delight in 
 making a noise, but because from his point of view 
 the performance is right and he has a social duty 
 to perform in encouraging merit. 
 
 The ridiculously false judgments to which Mr. 
 Henderson alludes are of course due to ignorance, 
 but there are many ignorances, and the one blind- 
 ness that explains many other errors, it seems to 
 me, is the failure of the average man to grasp the 
 antithesis between art and nature. That art is art 
 precisely because it is not nature, is a statement 
 that bewilders him. To him the one thing needful 
 in art is imitation. Before a landscape painting 
 he asks, Is it natural? In a portrait he sees no 
 merit except that of superficial likeness. Poetry 
 says nothing to him because it is a non-natural 
 speech which he does not understand, or it interests 
 him in proportion as it comes near to prose. In 
 the drama his warmest approval is given to crude 
 reproduction of actual everyday life. And so in 
 respect to singing, it is to the material, viz., the 
 
 145
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 voice, in its more obvious and sensational qualities, 
 that the average man confines his attention, to- 
 gether with the accessory means of personal ap- 
 peal, such as the singer's physical charm, presence, 
 or magnetism. He is unobservant of those acquired 
 and specialized elements that give so much pleasure 
 to the connoisseur. 
 
 Another reason for the inability of the majority 
 to appreciate fine singing is to be found in the fact 
 that song is a composite art. The voice is used 
 for a twofold purpose, and each of its functions is 
 to some extent unfavorable to the full exercise of 
 the other. That is to say, the voice is a musical 
 instrument capable of giving pleasure by inarticu- 
 late sound, like a violin, and it is also a medium for 
 the conveyance of thought by means of words. 
 Sustained musical phrases, with changes of pitch 
 and shading, interfere with distinct enunciation; 
 and on the other hand, the effort at distinct enun- 
 ciation is unfavorable to the maintenance of pure 
 tone quality and sustained delivery. Song, there- 
 fore, is to a certain degree a compromise. Musi- 
 cal sound, whose office is to enchant the ear by 
 its sensuous loveliness, is bound to the service of 
 words imparting definite concepts. The listener's 
 attention is directed to both — the abstract tone for 
 the joy of it, and the pronunciation of the text for 
 the understanding of it. Where two factors, un- 
 like in their psychologic effect, are striving to gain 
 possession of the listener's attention, he often finds 
 that the impression of one or both is imperfect. 
 
 146
 
 MUSIC AND POETRY 
 
 Even when the singer employs a foreign language, 
 the dilemma is not evaded, for the listener is per- 
 fectly aware that the singer is not articulating 
 meaningless syllables, that the style of the music 
 and the delivery are strongly conditioned by the 
 text, and if he cares for anything besides the 
 mere tickling of his ear he tries to get some inti- 
 mation of what the performer is singing about. 
 To some extent, in any case, his attention is di- 
 vided, turned now in one direction now in another, 
 so that the point in which he is least instructed, 
 viz., vocal technique, escapes him, and song as a 
 fine art becomes in his consciousness song as crude 
 auditory sensation or verbal declamation. 
 
 So much for the practical difficulties in the im- 
 mediate art of hearing. They are made more un- 
 certain by being involved in a long debated theo- 
 retical question which concerns the whole problem 
 of the relation of tone to text in vocal music. 
 Which is the more important of the two? If one 
 must yield to the other, which shall it be? Does 
 the poetry exist for the sake of the music, or the 
 music for the poetry? How does a decision for 
 either claimant affect the ideal and method of the 
 art of singing? According to his verdict will be 
 the music lover's judgment and appreciation of the 
 vocal art. It is worth while to state the problem 
 with considerable fulness, for it will shed light not 
 only upon singing, but also upon the whole ques- 
 tion of vocal music in song, oratorio, church music, 
 and opera. 
 
 147
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 Among those who give serious attention to vocal 
 music in the capacity of listeners two types of mind 
 appear. There is first the man in whom the love of 
 music per se is so paramount that it drives all other 
 considerations into the background; language is 
 only incidental, giving occasion for musical sounds; 
 the listener's pleasure consists in music considered 
 as beautiful tone brilliantly executed, not in music 
 as the bearer of sentiment defined in words. The 
 second type lays emphasis upon literary and dra- 
 matic values; to him poetry and action are of su- 
 preme consequence; the office of music is to reen- 
 force the power of words as representative of ideas. 
 There are even minds of a cast so predominantly 
 literary that music is an interference, an intruder 
 that gets in the way of verse, and they would re- 
 duce music to almost complete subordination. It is 
 well known that Goethe's indifference to the songs 
 of Schubert was the result of a jealousy for the art 
 of poetry; music in his conviction must never be 
 so assertive that the listener's attention would be 
 deflected from the words. Hence he preferred the 
 simple strains of Zelter with their gentle melodies, 
 and the pale harmonies that did no more than fur- 
 nish a slender support to the voice. William Butler 
 Yeats, the Irish poet, goes even further than Goethe 
 in his protest against the allurements of music. 
 He confesses that there is something about music 
 that he does not like, and he discovered the reason 
 when a friend one day spoke to him some verses, 
 with her fingers lightly passing over a stringed 
 
 148
 
 MUSIC AND POETRY 
 
 instrument which she held upon her knees. " She 
 spoke to a little tune," says Mr. Yeats, "but it was 
 never singing. A singing note would have spoiled 
 everything." He explains his aversion to ordi- 
 nary song in this wise: "When I heard anything 
 sung I did not hear the words, or if I did their 
 natural pronunciation was altered, or it was 
 drowned in another music which I did not under- 
 stand." 
 
 This suppression of music in deference to poetry 
 satisfies Mr. Yeats because poetry is his passion, 
 but to minds differently constituted the mere 
 "speaking to a tune" would be extremely tan- 
 talizing, because there is just enough of musical 
 suggestion to arouse a desire that is constantly 
 thwarted. In melodrama, which some people, 
 even musicians, esteem, where a reciter employs 
 ordinary speech and a piano or an orchestra per- 
 forms a richly evolved accompaniment, the antag- 
 onism is still more decisive, for there is no pretence 
 at amalgamation. These two devices are merely 
 evasions of the difficulty. What is wanted is a 
 union of poetry and music upon such terms that 
 each shall be allowed a large measure of its natural 
 right, neither completely subjected to the other, both 
 so adjusted in stable equipoise that each shall 
 enhance the pleasure that is derived from its fellow. 
 A unity so perfect as this seems practically impos- 
 sible to attain. The listener cannot give equal at- 
 tention to both poetry and music at the same time. 
 Their forms, their methods of action, the faculties 
 
 149
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 engaged in their reception are so unlike that the 
 effort to follow the diction of verse with mind in- 
 tent on poetic values, interferes with the effort to 
 follow the timbre, form, and rhythm of music with 
 mind alert to musical values. 
 
 One of the most interesting details in the history 
 of music is found in the annals of the conflict for 
 supremacy between the two factors in song. In a 
 chant the rhythm of the lines imposes itself upon 
 the tones, and the avowed purpose of the music 
 is to emphasize the text. In the unison Gregorian 
 chant, which constituted the music of the church 
 in the early Middle Ages before part-writing was 
 invented, music was already striving to break loose 
 from its thraldom. The " ornate " or " florid " chant 
 was known in early times, even among the nations 
 of antiquity, the voice on occasion soaring away 
 in a flight of rapid notes on a single vowel — a 
 crude but significant attempt to secure an inde- 
 pendent exercise of the musical impulse. With the 
 development of the intricate choral counterpoint of 
 the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries the 
 demand for musical freedom showed itself in an- 
 other guise: words were lost and their sense ob- 
 scured in a tangled web of crossing melodies, and 
 the written notes were often decorated with florid 
 improvised embellishments. Popes and bishops en- 
 deavored to repress this tendency and maintain the 
 claims of the sacred text against the musical ex- 
 travagancies of the theorists and choristers, but 
 with little success. The passion for musical indul- 
 
 150
 
 MUSIC AND POETRY 
 
 gence was too strong to be curbed even by the tra- 
 ditional reverence for the liturgy. 
 
 When a reaction came, it was outside the fold of 
 the church. The Florentine inventors of the opera 
 at the close of the sixteenth century, revolting 
 against the obscuration of the word in the har- 
 monic confusions of the church chorus, produced 
 a kind of musical declamation in which music, 
 reduced almost to its lowest terms, served merely 
 to bring the text into clear relief, occasionally em- 
 ploying a more tuneful strain out of deference to the 
 natural behests of the musical ear, but avoiding 
 whatever would disturb the concentration of the 
 mind upon word and action. It seemed to Peri, 
 Caccini, and Cavaliere that the problem of dramatic 
 music was solved, but they did not make suffi- 
 cient allowance for the musical passion rooted in 
 the Italian heart. The genius of Italy in the sev- 
 enteenth century was musical, not literary. The 
 triumph of verse over melody was short-lived. 
 Melody was slowly disengaged from the simple dry 
 stile parlanie, and when it "found itself" in the 
 middle of the century there was an outburst of ec- 
 static song in the opera houses, and in the churches 
 also, that fairly turned the heads of the gay world 
 of Europe. Italian opera composers and their im- 
 itators in every land sprang up by hundreds, and 
 with one accord they surrendered themselves heart 
 and soul to the seductions of the aria. Singers 
 trained to give to this melody all the splendor that 
 can be conferred by delicious voices and the last
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 perfection of technique swarmed in every capital in 
 Europe. All ranks were captivated by the novelty 
 and the voluptuous fascinations of the new art, 
 and the vocal feats and the social triumphs of the 
 great singers read like the tales of romance. Never 
 before or since was any form of art expression so 
 completely the despot of its age. 
 
 The effect upon poetry, plot, and action can 
 easily be conjectured. It is difficult to maintain 
 two monarchs in one realm, and music in the giddi- 
 ness of its success reduced its dramatic partner to 
 a position of abject inferiority. The Italian grand 
 opera, as it waxed on the side of melody and vo- 
 calism, waned on the side of plot, character, and 
 action. It became stereotyped into a barren, me- 
 chanical formalism. Everything was contrived by 
 the composer and librettist in the interest of the 
 singer purely as virtuoso. The opera came to con- 
 sist of a score or more of arias with an occasional 
 duet, the whole stitched together by monotonous 
 recitatives. A mechanical plan of three divisions 
 was contrived for this aria, and lines were stretched 
 and words repeated so that the text might fit it, 
 instead of the music growing directly out of the form 
 and meaning of the verse. The composer became 
 the vassal of the singer; his mission was not so 
 much to write fine music as it was to contrive musi- 
 cal formulas that would be favorable to the display 
 of the vocal art of this or that popular favorite. 
 The singer had the right to take whatever liberty 
 with these melodies his fancy or conceit suggested, 
 
 iS 2
 
 MUSIC AND POETRY 
 
 substituting favorable for unfavorable vowels, in- 
 terpolating the most astonishing flourishes and ca- 
 denzas at every opportune or inopportune moment. 
 It must not be supposed that there was no thought 
 of expression on the part of these magnates of the 
 opera. They were praised for pathos as well as 
 for brilliancy, and we know that timbre and truth 
 of shading were considered in the schools as well as 
 volubility of throat and strength of lungs. But 
 poetry in the opera had grown so weak that the 
 sentiments to be expressed became conventional- 
 ized; words were little valued except as affording 
 ' : a suggestion for music; very little of natural truth 
 remained in these cold and artificial pretences at 
 musical dramas. 
 
 In such conditions the playwright found no in- 
 spiration, and he contrived his scenes and verses 
 simply in order that he might provide the number 
 of arias that the "laws" of the opera required. 
 The public became connoisseurs of vocal art as the 
 public is not to-day. Criticism was expended only 
 on quality of voice and execution, and woe to the 
 singer who transgressed the canons of technique in 
 the slightest particular — no truth of action or 
 fine feeling for poetic sentiment could save him 
 from the wrath of his outraged patrons. 
 
 This tendency toward an exaggerated speciali- 
 zation, exquisite as its results often were in their 
 impression on the senses, could not hold the favor 
 of those who demanded in art truth to the deeper 
 facts of life and the satisfaction of the intellect, and 
 
 153
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 even in the heyday of its glory the Italian ideal of 
 song met vigorous opposition. Satirists derided 
 the hollow pretension of the opera stage. The 
 French grand opera, founded fifty years after the 
 Italian, although it had its own conventions and 
 artificialities, maintained variety of action, pure 
 declamation, and respect for the written word as 
 cardinal principles, and gave the dance and chorus 
 a prominent place in the dramatic scheme. The 
 opera buffa and the opera-comique took their char- 
 acters from contemporary life and insisted upon 
 comic talent, interesting situation, and lively poi - 
 trayal of homespun sentiment. Handel's oratorioi 
 which soon after 1740 took the place of the thread- 
 bare Italian opera in the regard of the British pub- 
 lic, gave worthy expression to the grandest ideas, 
 and worked directly and indirectly to elevate the 
 standards of taste in respect to both subject and 
 treatment. Then came the reforms of Gluck 
 between 1760 and 1780, based on the endeavor, as 
 he expressed it in his preface to "Alceste," "to 
 reduce music to its proper function, that of sec- 
 onding poetry by enforcing the expression of the 
 sentiment and the interest of the situation, with- 
 out interrupting the action or weakening it by 
 superfluous ornament"; setting "no value on 
 novelty as such unless it was naturally suggested 
 by the situation and suited to the expression." 
 The influence of these precepts, uniting with a 
 powerful dramatic instinct, was seen in Mozart's 
 later operas. Beethoven wrote "Fidelio" in order 
 
 154
 
 MUSIC AND POETRY 
 
 to glorify womanly devotion, and made it his 
 first aim to embellish his theme with all his im- 
 mense resources of musical expression. Weber and 
 Spohr in Germany, Cherubini, Spontini, Mehul, 
 and Meyerbeer in France, held aloft, in spite of 
 occasional wavering, the standard of Gluck's prin- 
 ciples. A reaction toward "the tyranny of the 
 singer" appeared in the brilliant group of Italian 
 composers in the early part of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury, of whom Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, and the 
 young Verdi were chief, — but this reaction was not 
 complete, for these men, although they revived the 
 ancient glories of Italian bel canto and were willing 
 enough to sacrifice poetic value and dramatic truth 
 to vocal display if the two ideals ever came into 
 conflict, often sought to reconcile them, and we 
 ought to acknowledge that they really believed, 
 although in a rather unintelligent way, that the 
 things their characters said and did were worth 
 saying and doing, and that their music on the 
 whole possessed fitness as well as sensuous beauty. 
 The evident conviction on the part of the later 
 Italian and French masters, that poetry and plot 
 had received all the consideration they were en- 
 titled to in such a form of art as the opera, might 
 have been accepted by the world if the overwhelm- 
 ing personality of Wagner had not appeared, de- 
 claring himself commissioned to destroy the Italian 
 superstition and to fulfil the incomplete tendencies 
 that he found in the better class of French and Ger- 
 man opera. Not content with demanding an equi- 
 
 155
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 librium of forces, he bluntly maintained that mu- 
 sic must yield to poetry and action. In his most 
 elaborate confession of faith, Opera and Drama, 
 he lays down, as the rock basis of his reform, the 
 maxim that the radical error of the opera had al- 
 ways been in making musical effect the end and 
 the drama the means, whereas in a true musical 
 drama the poetic element should be the end and 
 the music the means. It would be easy to show 
 that Wagner was often inconsistent, and that in 
 many passages in his dramas the commanding im- 
 pression is just as much a one-sided musical effect 
 as it is in any work of his "erroneous" predeces- 
 sors. In such scenes, for example, as the "fire 
 charm," Briinnhilde's awakening, the following 
 duet between Briinnhilde and Siegfried, the sword 
 forging, Siegfried's dirge, Isolde's death song, and 
 the quintet, "prize song," and final chorus in "The 
 Mastersingers," there is no apparent effort to make 
 the drama the end and the music merely a means. 
 The difference between Wagner and his rivals in 
 such situations is a difference in sheer musical 
 inventive power and a radical difference in form. 
 
 One recent composer at least, viz., Debussy in 
 "Pelleas and Melisande," has succeeded in execut- 
 ing Wagner's avowed intention with what may be 
 called complete consistency. That is to say, that 
 the music, however beautiful, is so thoroughly the 
 enveloping atmosphere of the play that the lis- 
 tener is never turned by the sounds of voices and 
 instruments from his concentration upon the action.
 
 MUSIC AND POETRY 
 
 In this remarkable work there is the most perfect 
 blend and fusion of scene, poetry, and music that 
 has yet been accomplished except in a few isolated 
 moments in Wagner's work. But is this the final 
 solution of the problem ? Is this the complete and 
 perfect music-drama for which the world has been 
 waiting, as Debussy's disciples affirm? Other 
 critics complain that this work lacks musical inter- 
 est. In this controversy we are landed again upon 
 the old debatable ground. Why, it is asked, should 
 the musical interest be sacrificed, or even subor- 
 dinated, to the dramatic ? May not Wagner's prin- 
 ciple, when carried to its farthest consequence, be 
 wrong, and did he not do well to be inconsistent 
 when his inconsistency gave us the most magnifi- 
 cent, the most profoundly emotional music that 
 ever issued from the human brain? Why should 
 people be censured if they go to the opera for mu- 
 sical enjoyment rather than for the gratification of 
 a taste for poetry and action, as unquestionably the 
 vast majority of them do ? Is not opera rightly to 
 be classed as a phase of musical art rather than a 
 phase of literary art ? Debussy's work is so far an 
 interesting exception to the rule, and there is no 
 sign that the public will ever treat the opera as a 
 mere substitute for the spoken drama. Never- 
 theless, the work of Gluck and Mozart and Wag- 
 ner and the later Verdi has not been in vain. The 
 opera will never relapse to its former condition in 
 which poetic subject was a matter of indifference 
 and the actor was lost in the singer. Time has ac- 
 
 157
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 complished its revenges for violations of truth; the 
 operas that have survived their generation and are 
 established in the esteem of thoughtful minds have 
 been those that are strong on the dramatic side. 
 
 The war between word and tone has also been 
 fought out with equal lack of conclusiveness in the 
 domain of lyric song. But in this field the sacri- 
 fice of poetic interest to vocal display has never gone 
 to such lengths as in the opera. Indeed the in- 
 stances have been comparatively rare in which 
 either lyric composers or lyric singers have been 
 content to treat the voice merely as an apparatus 
 for sensational virtuosity. Such an abuse can 
 hardly exist when any heed is given to literary 
 merit in the selection of verse for musical setting, 
 and the fact has been that the best song composers 
 have as a rule chosen poems that possess beauty 
 in thought and diction, and have written music 
 not simply for the sake of independent melodious 
 charm, but rather with an eye to the appropriate 
 expression of the text. The reason for this differ- 
 ence between song and the opera is perfectly clear. 
 The lyric poets do not commonly write their verses 
 simply for the musicians to make songs of; the 
 poetry, however it may seem to invite musical treat- 
 ment, is intended to stand alone, and thus having 
 no end beyond itself it is the expression of the best 
 skill of the author. The opera libretto, on the 
 contrary, is never planned to make an independent 
 impression; the writer's purpose is not to produce 
 a literary and dramatic work of self-dependent in- 
 
 158
 
 MUSIC AND POETRY 
 
 terest, but a more or less mechanical verbal contriv- 
 ance that will be adapted to the special exigencies 
 of scenic and musical effect according to theatrical 
 conventions. Librettists as a rule are not poets 
 "by the grace of God," but clever adapters of 
 scenes, mechanical artificers of verse, whose aim 
 is not literary but musical effect. The opera com- 
 poser rarely finds a dramatic poem that can be used 
 as it stands, he must have one built for him out of 
 new or old material. The song writer, on the con- 
 trary, is never at a loss for a text; the world is full 
 of beautiful poetry waiting, without the slightest 
 need of alteration, for his use. There is no excuse 
 for him if he chooses verse of inferior quality; and 
 when he has taken his text, if he has in him the 
 love of poetry (and if he has not he does not deserve 
 to be called a song writer at all) he treats it with 
 veneration, and makes it his dearest hope that he 
 may be able to do something worthy of the noble 
 art to which he has joined his own. 
 
 It is the spirit of church music and the folk song 
 that has been transmitted to the lyric art song, 
 not the spirit of the opera. The very conception, 
 method, and environment of the opera, with its 
 elaborate machinery, its combination of mediums 
 — scenery, action, vocal music, orchestral music — 
 its necessity for instantaneous and stirring effect, 
 all encourage spectacularism. The finer shades of 
 emotion, the more tender communing of mind 
 with mind, require the more delicate vehicle of 
 the lyric. The opera has always been the favor- 
 
 159
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 ite entertainment of a limited number, not to say 
 of a separate caste; the music of the people has 
 been church music and lyric song. The Greeks 
 knew the subtle affinity that draws music into 
 the embrace of poetry; the Minnesingers and 
 Troubadours knew it; in the Elizabethan age this 
 mutual passion was recognized and blessed. But 
 not until the nineteenth century has this wedlock 
 been crowned with an offspring that perpetuates 
 the dual strength and loveliness of its parentage. 
 The age of the great German song composers was 
 coincident with the revival of lyric poetry under 
 the hands of Goethe, Schiller, and the roman- 
 ticists. In fact, it lies in the nature of the case that 
 in this branch of musical art the composers wait 
 upon the poets, the musicians finding little inspira- 
 tion in prosaic and commonplace verse. Another 
 striking illustration is the rise of the brilliant group 
 of French song composers of the last half century, 
 following the outburst of French lyric poetry begun 
 in the works of Andre Chenier and continued in 
 Lamartine, Victor Hugo, De Musset, Gautier, Alfred 
 de Vigny, Leconte de Lisle, Verlaine, and their com- 
 peers. Schubert, who leads the brilliant host of 
 modern song writers, exemplifies the controlling 
 tendency of his school by seeking his texts among 
 the works of such men as Goethe, Schiller, Heine, 
 Shakespeare, Scott, and the poets of his day and 
 country who expressed, although with varying 
 ability, the genuine emotions of the common heart. 
 This guiding motive was adopted by his successors, 
 
 1 60
 
 MUSIC AND POETRY 
 
 and so stimulating was this ideal to the inventive 
 powers of every musician who had accepted truth 
 to the inner life of the soul as the law of his art, 
 that the lyric inspiration swept like a spiritual 
 trade wind over the world, and Schumann, Franz, 
 Brahms, Jensen, and Wolf found worthy emulators 
 in the Norwegians Grieg and Kjerulf, the Rus- 
 sians Rubinstein and Tchaikovsky, the Hungarian 
 Liszt, the Bohemian Dvorak, the American Mac- 
 Dowell,and the Frenchmen Faure, Godard, Duparc, 
 Saint-Saens, Massenet, and Debussy. These com- 
 posers, with many others hardly less worthy of 
 esteem, have discovered an art in which music and 
 poetry penetrate one another in a mingling so com- 
 plete that each word finds an inevitable correlative 
 in a musical tone, poetic line and musical phrase 
 twinborn, mutually dependent and inseparable. 
 Every lover of song has in his memory scores of 
 lyrics of which it might be said that music has not 
 so much added a new means of expression to verse 
 as it has drawn forth an emotion which words can 
 but partly reveal, and endowed poetic utterance 
 with a new attribute. 
 
 In this union the poetry remains the motive 
 power determining the course of the composer's in- 
 vention. His purpose is not, as in former periods, 
 to produce something that is in and of itself mu- 
 sically pleasing, but rather, taking possession of 
 verse in which genuine human feeling is appro- 
 priately rendered, to fashion such a setting for this 
 jewel that the most subtle refinements of poetic 
 
 161
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 suggestion shall find their convincing counterpart 
 in musical chord or phrase. Vocal music thus de- 
 clares its correspondence with what is perhaps the 
 most productive tendency in nineteenth century 
 art, viz., direct, truthful characterization. Absolute 
 fitness of style is the demand, the most subtle and 
 direct interpretation, even though formal beauty 
 and superficial sensuous charm be sacrificed. 
 
 The most eminent exponent of this tendency in 
 opera is, of course, Richard Wagner. He is like- 
 wise an eloquent champion of it in his critical and 
 autobiographical writings. No plainer statement 
 of this principle and its consequences in the com- 
 position of melody could be made than that of 
 Wagner, in A Communication to My Friends. If 
 the reader will refer back to what has been said 
 in the section on melody in this book, Wagner's 
 statement will be clear. "Wherever," he says, "I 
 had to give utterance to the emotions of my dra- 
 matis persona, as shown by them in feeling dis- 
 course, I was forced entirely to abstain from this 
 rhythmic melody of the Folk [that is, the conven- 
 tional structure of four and eight measure metre]: 
 or rather, it could not occur to me to employ that 
 method of expression; nay, here the dialogue it- 
 self, conformably to the emotional contents, was to 
 be rendered in such a fashion that, not the melodic 
 Expression, per se, but the expressed Emotion should 
 rouse the interest of the hearer. The melody must 
 therefore spring, quite of itself, from out the verse; 
 in itself, as sheer melody, it could not be permitted 
 
 162
 
 MUSIC AND POETRY 
 
 to attract attention, but only in so far as it was the 
 most expressive vehicle for an emotion already 
 plainly outlined in the words. With this strict con- 
 ception of the melodic element, I now completely 
 left the usual operatic mode of composition; inas- 
 much as I no longer tried intentionally for custom- 
 ary melody, or, in a sense, for Melody at all, but 
 absolutely let it take its rise from feeling utterance 
 of the words." 1 
 
 In judging the merits of this later style of "con- 
 tinuous music" as applied to song and opera, one 
 must recognize the difference between the idea of 
 a lyric poem and that of a dramatic scene. There 
 are, indeed, varieties of lyrics, but the strict defi- 
 nition of such a poem is that it presents a single 
 thought or sentiment, permitting its phrases to alter 
 in changing circumstances, allowing the thought to 
 reveal new aspects under varying lights, letting 
 the fancy play around it, yet essentially one mood, 
 one conception, not describing the events that pro- 
 duced the feeling or anticipating its consequences, 
 but a direct immediate presentation of the feel- 
 ing itself, with just enough of incident to localize 
 and determine the feeling and bring it into relief. 
 When the mood has been set forth in a clear 
 and appealing way the purpose of the poem is 
 accomplished. Hence in a multitude of lyrics suit- 
 able for musical setting the old form of tune, re- 
 turning upon itself, leading back to its first strain 
 and its first key, even repeating the tune note 
 
 1 Translation by William Ashton Ellis. 
 163
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 for note in the successive stanzas, is perfectly ap- 
 propriate. Schubert was not in error as to his 
 form when he wrote "Who is Sylvia?" and "Faith 
 in Spring." The treatment in these songs is as 
 proper as the quite different method in "The 
 Phantom Double" and "The Erl King." Even 
 in the opera the conventional song form may still 
 be admissible where the action becomes stationary 
 and the actor expresses a feeling that requires a 
 considerable amount of time for its unfolding. 
 Delila's song, "My Heart at Thy Sweet Voice," 
 in Saint-Saens's "Samson and Delila" is not to 
 be condemned on any just principle of musico- 
 dramatic propriety. But in the large stretches of 
 an opera scene the present-day insistence upon 
 dramatic truth accepts Wagner's principle with 
 certain modifications. In a true drama there must 
 be constant life, change, and movement; a frequent 
 arrest for the sake of vocal display leads inevitably 
 to the old abuses. With the reassertion of dramatic 
 reality and poetic interest the form becomes more 
 continuous, expansive, and flexible, and the en- 
 forcement of the law that musical form must grow 
 inevitably out of the matrix of the verse compels 
 formalism to give way to direct and intimate ex- 
 pression. 
 
 All the musical forms that ever existed are, it 
 seems to me, still valid. Their justification, how- 
 ever, rests upon their fitness to the thought, verse 
 diction, or situation which calls them into life. 
 Even the colorature song, which composers no long- 
 
 164
 
 MUSIC AND POETRY 
 
 er write, is often able to vindicate its reason for 
 being. Even Wagner speaks of " the classic noble- 
 ness of the Italian vocal art of earlier times." 
 But the former acquiescence in musical charm at 
 the cost of truth was a sign of an imperfect criterion 
 of judgment. Another, which we believe to be 
 higher, has taken its place. 
 
 The effect of the new principle and method in 
 lyric and dramatic music upon the vocalist can 
 easily be understood. The singer who adopts the 
 interpretative conception accepts the sovereignty 
 of poetry and makes the expression of the poet's 
 mind the end and aim of his effort. He feels the 
 poetry through and through. He studies it as the 
 actor studies his lines. His vocal style, his tone 
 color, his determination of speed and dynamics, his 
 phrasing — all issue from the endeavor to keep the 
 thought of the text uppermost in his mind. In the 
 singing of a typical artist of this school there are 
 three creative personalities in alliance for one com- 
 mon end; poet, composer, and singer are actuated 
 by a single purpose, and the listener finds that his 
 attention is not wandering in a maze of distracting 
 sounds, but directed along the path marked out by 
 the poet's imagination. 
 
 The music lover will now naturally ask if the 
 two ideals presented in the history of song — per- 
 fect vocal technique as an end in itself, and su- 
 preme emphasis upon poetic expression — are com- 
 patible with one another. Need there be conflict 
 between them? Does insistence upon the most 
 
 165
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 refined vocalism involve any sacrifice of truth of 
 pronunciation and poetic emphasis, or may im- 
 purity of voice or flaws in execution be excused in 
 return for perfect declamation and strong intel- 
 lectual and emotional conception ? There are cer- 
 tainly conspicuous instances in which one has been 
 exalted over the other, and singers of both types 
 have had enthusiastic admirers. The consum- 
 mate flower of the Italian bel canto has been dis- 
 played in later days in the singing of Adelina Patti. 
 Mr. Henry T. Finck says of her: "Niemann was 
 no doubt right in pronouncing her the most 
 perfect vocalist of all times." "The ordinary epi- 
 thets applicable to a voice, such as sweet, sympa- 
 thetic, flexible, expressive, sound almost too com- 
 monplace to be applied to Patti's voice at its best." 
 "Her voice has a natural sensuous charm like a 
 Cremona violin, which it is a pleasure to listen to 
 irrespective of what she happens to be singing. 
 It is a pleasure, too, to hear under what perfect 
 control she has it; how, without changing the qual- 
 ity of the sound, she passes from a high to a low 
 note, from piano to forte, gradually or suddenly, and 
 all without the least sense of effort. Indeed her 
 notes are as spontaneous as those of a nightingale." 
 In later years she showed more and more anxiety 
 to win renown as a dramatic singer, and here, 
 Mr. Finck says, "the vocal style which she ex- 
 clusively cultivated proved an insuperable obstacle. 
 Although free from the smaller vices of the Italian 
 school, she could not overcome the great and fatal 
 
 1 66
 
 MUSIC AND POETRY 
 
 shortcoming of that school — the maltreatment of 
 the poetic text. She could not find the proper 
 accents required in operas where the words of the 
 text are as important as the melody itself. Hav- 
 ing neglected to master the more vigorous vowels 
 and expressive consonants, she cannot assert her 
 art in dramatic works. Her voice, in short, is 
 merely an instrument." 
 
 As a conspicuous example of a singer of the op- 
 posite kind we have had in recent years Dr. Lud- 
 wig Wiillner, who was advertised at his first ap- 
 pearance in this country as " a great singer without 
 a voice." Here was a rather startling challenge to 
 established notions of the vocal art. Dr. Wiillner 
 has in a high degree the abilities of an actor. His 
 literary knowledge is extensive and his taste that of 
 a man of broad culture. He can enter sympathet- 
 ically into a very wide range of poetic conceptions. 
 In articulation, pronunciation, emphasis, variety 
 of expression, mastery of all the nuances of feeling 
 — boisterous humor, tenderness, pathos, and grim- 
 mest tragedy — flexibility in adaptation of style to 
 subject, accumulative force in working up emo- 
 tional climaxes — in all these features his truthful- 
 ness of conception (barring an occasional tendency 
 to exaggerate) and vividness of presentation are 
 extraordinary, and the impression he produced has 
 had few parallels in the annals of music in America. 
 The first enthusiasm beginning to abate, voices of 
 protest were heard. High critical authorities de- 
 clared that the art of pure song had rights which this 
 
 167
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 great musical declaimer constantly violated; that 
 his voice lacking sensuous charm, and his method 
 betraying indifference to the classic laws which the 
 acknowledged masters of three centuries had pro- 
 mulgated, he was undoing the work of earnest and 
 conservative vocal teachers, and misleading the criti- 
 cal judgment of the public into the belief that bad 
 intonation, harshness of tone, and lack of all the 
 vocal graces are matters of little consequence pro- 
 vided that "expression," especially "dramatic ex- 
 pression," is assured. Is singing, the objectors 
 ask, the rendering of poetry by means of tones 
 that are charming to the ear under all circum- 
 stances, or is it a matter of accents and tempos 
 and dynamics with merely rhetorical ends in view, 
 unregardful of the laws of musical beauty and per- 
 fection which have hitherto been maintained in 
 vocal and instrumental music alike? 
 
 The musical public seems to be divided upon 
 this issue. In every country vocal sins are perpe- 
 trated by distinguished performers and pardoned 
 in the interest of what is called "interpretation." 
 On the other hand, many frequenters of operas 
 and concerts — probably the majority — are heed- 
 less of all considerations except purity, brilliancy, or 
 flexibility of voice. Madame Patti and Dr. Wiillner 
 have both had their unqualified admirers; and 
 yet reason and experience would seem to declare 
 that neither affords the model to which the earnest 
 singer should aspire. Beautiful singing is not 
 wholly poetic expression, for the voice is an in- 
 
 168
 
 MUSIC AND POETRY 
 
 strument on which one plays for the delight of the 
 ear. Neither is it pure tone and finished technique 
 wholly, for without uncovering the soul that dwells 
 in poetry it cannot move the intellect. Both qual- 
 ities — emotional expression and technical com- 
 pleteness — may unite, and there is no inherent 
 reason why they should not supplement and sus- 
 tain each other. It is no doubt true that in the 
 lyric drama and German Lied there has been in 
 some quarters a disregard of vocal perfection as a 
 result of reaction against the one-sidedness of the 
 old Italian school, but no considerable portion of 
 the world will ever be content with bad singing 
 under any pretence. Another reaction is now in 
 progress, the nature of which is shown by the asser- 
 tion that is becoming frequent among the best writ- 
 ers, that there is but one right way to sing, whether 
 the music be that of Mozart, Handel, Schubert, or 
 Wagner. Harshness of tone, a jerky explosive style, 
 an audible gasp when taking breath, a perpetual un- 
 steadiness, a lazy sliding from note to note — these 
 vices are not expressive, and are no more to be in- 
 dulged in the modern declamatory music than in the 
 classic bel canto. This law finds no obstacle to its 
 enforcement in the fact that composers nowadays 
 aim more at writing music that is characteristic 
 than music that is formally beautiful in the classic 
 sense. Emphasis may shift from one side to an- 
 other, and composers may risk audacities of expres- 
 sion from which their forbears would shrink in 
 dismay; nevertheless, singing remains an art and 
 
 169
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 cannot survive unless it obeys the universal laws of 
 its kingdom. Just as a drama so naturalistic that 
 the time-honored principles of acting must be abol- 
 ished would not be good art; just as a painting so 
 literally imitative that the criteria of draftsman- 
 ship and composition that have been maintained by 
 every master from the beginning are defied, would 
 not be good art; so any alliance of poetry and 
 music for ends whose realization would put ugliness 
 of sound in place of beauty would be self-destruc- 
 tive. No art is expected always to remain isolated 
 and solitary; the arts may combine for purposes 
 which one alone cannot accomplish; but in this 
 union they are not required to deny their original 
 natures, they must still remain capable of giving 
 separately that special and peculiar pleasure for 
 which they were individually endowed. 
 
 170
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE ART OF SONG: THE TECHNIQUE 
 OF THE SINGER 
 
 There need be no quarrel with the assertion 
 that the end and aim of technique is expression. 
 Pure vocalism, however, is not merely a means. A 
 lovely voice, perfectly controlled, is in itself a cause 
 of happiness not to be repented of, even leaving out 
 of the account its relation to words. Lyric and 
 dramatic interpretation and trained mechanism 
 need never be set over against one another as di- 
 vergent in aim, and they should not be separated 
 in the consciousness of the singer or hearer. Never- 
 theless, there is so marked a tendency in certain 
 quarters to disregard the classic traditions of re- 
 fined voice production in the supposed interest of 
 "expression" that it seems worth while to devote 
 a short chapter to the technical principles involved 
 in good singing. There is all the more reason for 
 this in the fact that the great majority of music 
 lovers are so ignorant of what constitutes correct 
 singing that when they hear a voice which gives 
 an excitement to their nerves by its sensuous quality, 
 especially by its brilliancy or power, they applaud 
 
 171
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 and go away satisfied, indifferent to many faults or 
 merits which an intelligent critic condemns or 
 praises. 
 
 An appreciation of skill in singing is certainly a 
 necessary part of a music lover's education. The 
 principles involved are so few and so easily stated 
 that no one need mistake them. As this book is 
 not a technical treatise on any branch of musical 
 art, but an attempt to show the amateur how and 
 where to direct his observation, a brief enumera- 
 tion seems to be all that is required. 
 
 The laws of good vocalism which it is needful to 
 bear in mind may be placed in two categories, one 
 including the proper production and management 
 of tone, the other dealing with suitableness of style 
 to the sentiment of the text. In the first case the 
 laws are essentially the same as those that are in- 
 volved in the playing of instruments in which sus- 
 tained tones capable of shading are produced, such 
 as the violin, clarinet, or horn. Up to a certain 
 point the critical listener will be safe in his judg- 
 ments if he compares a singer's execution with that 
 of a violinist. In fact, a singer, as well as a lover 
 of singing, can learn much by listening to fine 
 violin playing. 
 
 In the first place, the hearer will expect that the 
 tones of the singer's voice will be pure and agree- 
 able. One would suppose that there need be no 
 mistake on this point, but every critic has noticed 
 the singular fact that a voice will often sound neu- 
 tral or even unpleasant to one ear and beautiful to 
 
 172
 
 THE TECHNIQUE OF THE SINGER 
 
 another. In such cases prejudice or some kind of 
 accessory or association will have a good deal to do 
 — friendship perhaps, or admiration for a singer's 
 mental or moral qualities, strongly affecting the 
 impression made upon the ear. Such questions 
 as this, however, may be left out of the account. I 
 shall assume that sensuously beautiful tones are 
 immediately appreciated by people with a normal 
 auditory apparatus. The warning that is required 
 must be addressed to those who perceive voice 
 quality and nothing else. 
 
 It is not surprising that where physical beauty of 
 tone exists it should often drive all other considera- 
 tions out of the field. There is no other sensation 
 received by ear or eye that is capable of giving 
 quite that thrill of rapture that is felt when the 
 nerves of hearing are swept by a flood of glorious 
 tones issuing from the throat of a great singer. 
 One's whole frame seems to quiver in sympathetic 
 vibration. This extraordinary effect is not merely 
 physical, it is also psychological. It is "the cry 
 of the human," and it is the deepest soul in us that 
 makes reply. We call a lovely voice "sympa- 
 thetic," and there is a world of associations involved 
 in that word, some near, some remote, passing 
 down to us through uncounted generations that 
 have aspired, suffered, and enjoyed. The ecstasy 
 kindled by an entrancing voice has a source deeper 
 than we know. Its communications are beyond 
 all measure subtle and extended. It is the admo- 
 nition of the higher instincts, it is a visitation that 
 
 *73
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 redeems us for the moment from the thraldom of 
 space and time. Individual interests give way to 
 those that are common and universal. No one 
 need apologize if his nature responds with whole- 
 hearted enthusiasm to such an appeal as this. 
 
 A voice capable of producing such effects through 
 its timbre alone is rare, and even such a voice is 
 to a large degree dependent upon certain powers 
 that are not native but acquired — accomplish- 
 ments that are secured only by prolonged and in- 
 telligent labor. This art, like every other, is built 
 upon science. The proper emission and control of 
 tone, without which natural gifts are of no avail, 
 are attainments that are deliberate, self-conscious, 
 and to a large extent mechanical. They are mas- 
 tered only after years of assiduous study under the 
 direction of wise and experienced teachers. These 
 acquired technical habitudes enter into the account 
 in a. listener's enjoyment, whether he is fully con- 
 scious of the fact or not, and, as in all appreciation 
 of art, a knowledge of the problems and the diffi- 
 culties involved has much to do with his satisfac- 
 tions. A little instruction shows him that good 
 singing, merely on the side of tone production, is not 
 a simple matter, and that it is well for him to ac- 
 quire certain other perceptions besides his unre- 
 flective recoil to the mere physical impact of sound. 
 
 The first necessity in fine singing is that the tones 
 shall be true in intonation, that is to say, the voice 
 must be exactly on the pitch in every note, and 
 every tone must be carried through without the 
 
 174
 
 THE TECHNIQUE OF THE SINGER 
 
 slightest wavering, whether the notes be long or 
 short, loud or soft, high or low, and whether the 
 passage be quick or slow, shaded or uniform. To 
 the average listener a voice will seem beautiful if 
 the intonation is perfect, although it may be quite 
 ordinary so far as timbre is concerned. This per- 
 fect accuracy of pitch and firmness of tone, which 
 is in itself very agreeable and seems to make other 
 virtues possible, ought, we think, to be a matter of 
 course. Just here, however, appears the very sin- 
 gular fact that singing out of tune and singing with 
 an unsteady flow of sound are not uncommon on 
 the dramatic and concert stage, that famous sing- 
 ers are often guilty of one or both faults, and that 
 many audiences appear not to be offended thereby. 
 There have, indeed, been times when singers actu- 
 ally cultivated the tremolo, and audiences accepted 
 it as a new beauty that had come as a blessing into 
 the world. The tremolo, it is said, became the 
 fashion in Paris, and afterward in other musical 
 centres, because it was employed by Rubini, the 
 most adored tenor of the first part of the nineteenth 
 century, in his later years to conceal the deteriora- 
 tion of his organ. In this singular fact we have an 
 illustration of a prevalent trait in human nature. 
 "It is only a few years ago," says the English an- 
 thropologist, Edward Clodd, "when a royal per- 
 sonage had an affection of the knee which caused 
 her to walk lame, that 'society' affected what 
 was called the 'Alexandra limp.'" As beautiful 
 as a limp is in walking, so is the tremolo in singing. 
 
 175
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 People have tried to defend the tremolo against the 
 strictures of the judicious on the ground that as 
 'cello players employ it persistently it ought to be 
 equally permitted to singers. But the vocal trem- 
 olo and the quivering of a string under the finger 
 of a 'cellist are not the same thing. The player 
 keeps his ringer on the same spot and his vibrato 
 is without change of pitch. If he slid his finger 
 up and down the string while making it tremble, 
 the effect would be similar to the tremolo of a 
 singer and would be thoroughly reprehensible. A 
 vibrato effect may sometimes be employed by a 
 singer in an intensely emotional situation, but only 
 exceptionally. A persistent "wobble" is as much 
 out-of-tune singing as persistent flatting. It is 
 even worse, for flatting has the merit of consist- 
 ency at least, and may be due to temporary con- 
 ditions for which the singer is not wholly to blame. 
 A confirmed tremolo is a nerveless, spineless, de- 
 bilitated thing, a mark of infirmity and a frequent 
 forerunner of collapse. It is due to physical weak- 
 ness or false vocal method. It is never to be ap- 
 proved, but sternly condemned or charitably pitied. 
 The great secret of a tone that is always steady, 
 always pure, always true, is in the management of 
 the breath. A discussion of the proper method of 
 breathing does not belong here; indeed, the lis- 
 tener should not be reminded that breath is being 
 taken, except as noble tone and masterly phrasing 
 lead his curiosity back into the causes of these 
 beauties. There must be no hitching up of the 
 
 176
 
 THE TECHNIQUE OF THE SINGER 
 
 shoulders when the lungs are filled, no audible as- 
 piration at the attack, no breathiness in the sound, 
 no escaping air from the lungs that is not turned 
 into tone. The hearer must be allowed to forget 
 that the singer is a human being with a limited 
 lung capacity; the breath must be taken secretly, 
 and its volume so sustained that the singing will 
 give an impression of exhaustless resources, like the 
 rising and falling of the breeze on a summer's day. 
 
 Wagner's maxim, already quoted, that "the tone 
 sustained with equal power is the basis of all ex- 
 pression," applies with as much force to singing 
 as to orchestral playing. The fundamentals of 
 the method taught by the old Italian masters, says 
 Mr. W. J. Henderson, were "the pure legato and 
 sonorous, beautiful tone." It was said by a contem- 
 porary of Rubini in his prime that this great singer 
 "can so control his breath as never to expend more 
 of it than is absolutely necessary for producing the 
 exact degree of sound he wishes. So adroitly does 
 he conceal the artifice of respiration that it is im- 
 possible to discover when his breath renews itself, 
 inspiration and expiration being apparently simul- 
 taneous, as if one were to fill a cup with one hand 
 while emptying it with the other." Seek the round 
 pure tone and the firm legato, it may be said to 
 vocal students, and all other graces shall be added 
 unto you. The critical listener, at any rate, should 
 be content with nothing less. 
 
 Not only should this control of tone be equally 
 evident in all parts of the voice from the lowest note 
 
 177
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 to the highest, but the quality of tone should be 
 virtually the same throughout the singer's compass. 
 This reads like a counsel of perfection; a literal 
 enforcement of it might seem oppressive; the critic 
 must be charitable. Absolute similarity of sound 
 from one extreme of pitch to another does not ex- 
 ist in the case of any orchestral instrument, and 
 it seems rather too much to demand it literally 
 of the human throat. There are singers, justly 
 recognized as great, whose voices change some- 
 what in character in different parts of their range. 
 Rarely, if ever, does nature give equality in timbre 
 and volume as a primary endowment. Somewhere 
 in the voice occurs the natural "break," above 
 which the novice finds a constriction, as though 
 the vocal chords were squeezed together in order 
 to resist all further upward progress. We need 
 not enter into the vexed question of "registers," 
 over which vocal teachers have so long disputed 
 with an unbecoming acrimony; it is enough to say 
 that in almost every voice there is at least one point 
 where the tones tend to become weak and veiled, 
 and beyond that point to undergo a change in 
 quality. It is the teacher's business to remove this 
 obstacle and so train the tone delivery that the 
 broken instrument shall be mended and the transi- 
 tion from one part of the voice to another made 
 smooth and open. The perfect singer will not give 
 the impression that there are two or three voices in 
 the throat, but only one. Where the triumph over 
 nature is complete the effect may be compared to 
 
 178
 
 THE TECHNIQUE OF THE SINGER 
 
 the playing of a passage of two octaves or so upon 
 a single violin string. More commonly, however, 
 among good singers the effect is more analogous to 
 playing on all the strings of a violin. There is an 
 appreciable difference between the G and E strings, 
 but the tone is always the string tone. It is quite 
 possible that a voice perfectly uniform in quality 
 throughout, if such a voice could exist, would be 
 somewhat cold and monotonous, lacking the power 
 of changing the color for expressional needs. The 
 demand, therefore, is especially that the voice be 
 equally pure and under control everywhere, pass- 
 ing from one region to another without apparent 
 effort, always maintaining suppleness, steadiness, 
 and accuracy of intonation. 
 
 In good singing each tone will begin exactly on the 
 proper pitch without any sliding or groping after 
 the tone, and the tone will be round and firm from 
 the very first instant. The beginning of a tone is 
 called the attack. With a good attack the tone 
 sounds as if it had been already formed in its per- 
 fection and were only waiting to be set free. There 
 is no suggestion of timidity or uncertainty. There 
 is none of the aspirated or clucking sound at the 
 beginning of a phrase such as one often hears in im- 
 perfect vocalism. A good attack is like the prompt 
 opening of an organ pipe; there are no premonitory 
 symptoms of tone, no unmusical instant, however 
 brief; the tone fully formed leaps into being, round, 
 buoyant, pellucid like the drops that spring from a 
 fountain. 
 
 179
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 And as tones and phrases begin so should they 
 end. The tone vanishes not as if the breath were ex- 
 hausted; it does not slide or tremble into extinction, 
 but the impulsion of breath is suddenly withdrawn 
 and the tone instantly ceases while still in its per- 
 fection. It makes no difference in what part of 
 the voice the tone may be, upon what vowel or con- 
 sonant it may be engaged, whether it is loud or 
 soft, or what may be the nature of the expression — 
 the tone must be perfectly formed and perfectly 
 controlled at its inception and its close. Perfect 
 attack and finish are very beautiful to hear, and 
 they imply many things that are highly creditable 
 to the performer. 
 
 With proper tone formation, perfect breath con- 
 trol, accurate attack and release, and the easy 
 blending of the registers once acquired, the singer 
 should be able to maintain accuracy in these par- 
 ticulars through all the innumerable degrees and 
 transitions of force and speed upon which variety 
 and truth of expression depend. One of the most 
 beautiful effects in music is the "swell," the in- 
 crease and diminishing of a tone by imperceptible 
 gradations. It may be compared to a perfect curve 
 in drawing — a beautiful thing in itself aside from 
 any ulterior purpose of expression or design. It 
 gives to the voice and to stringed and wind instru- 
 ments a means of pleasure which instruments like 
 the piano and harp do not afford, and which even 
 the organ cannot give except by a sort of subterfuge. 
 This ornament, as employed in singing, is techni- 
 
 180
 
 THE TECHNIQUE OF THE SINGER 
 
 cally known as the messa di voce. It is one of the 
 final evidences of the singer's command of his in- 
 strument. Let a vocalist begin a tone softly, with 
 a perfect attack, enlarge it to full volume so grad- 
 ually that the listener cannot distinguish the succes- 
 sive instants of increase because there are none, 
 any more than there are straight lines in a circle; 
 then let the singer reduce the sound by the same 
 inappreciable gradations until it seems to taper to 
 a point and vanish, one hardly knows when — all 
 without the least suspicion of wavering or change 
 of quality — and we have one of the most delectable 
 effects that the vocal art can offer. In successions 
 of notes or phrases we may have the same mastery 
 of nuance, and with it the song attains life, freedom, 
 warmth, and color. 
 
 Agility and power in a high degree are demanded 
 in certain kinds of music, but as they are not re- 
 quired in all they are not to be accounted indis- 
 pensable, like the qualities that have just been 
 mentioned. The vocalists that have been most 
 adored by the great public, however, have been 
 those that excelled in brilliancy and force. The 
 multitude enjoys most whatever appeals to the 
 raw nervous susceptibility, and among all the sen- 
 sations that enrapture the senses and heat the blood 
 few can compare with the feats of agility for which 
 the kings and queens of song in the golden days of 
 bel canto were celebrated. A cool person in a 
 theatre when a Catalani, a Farinelli, or a Tetraz- 
 zini had broken melodv into a dazzling shower of 
 
 181
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 coruscations might be excused for believing that 
 the audience had suddenly been transformed into 
 a horde of maniacs. When one looks at the records 
 in print of some of the cadenzas delivered by the 
 singers of the florid school, one can faintly imagine 
 the effect upon the auditory nerves when these 
 passages were shaken forth upon the air by such a 
 voluptuous organ as that of a Jenny Lind or an 
 Adelina Patti. Aside from the sensuous quality of 
 tone, these acrobatic vocal feats gratify the univer- 
 sal love of the marvelous, exciting the admiration 
 that every one feels in the presence of some supreme- 
 ly skilful triumph over difficulties. It is said that 
 Rossi, a famous singer of the seventeenth century, 
 could sing a chromatic trill chain of two octaves up 
 and down again, all in one breath. Farinelli, of 
 the eighteenth century, vanquished a noted trum- 
 pet player in a public contest, surpassing his rival 
 in power and in rapidity of utterance. Thomas 
 Ryan, in his Recollections of an Old Musician, tells 
 of a cadenza composed by Julius Benedict for 
 Jenny Lind, to be sung by the "Swedish Nightin- 
 gale" at the end of a cavatina. "The cadenza 
 was sung without accompaniment; it covered two 
 pages of music paper, and was written in a style 
 suited to an instrumental concerto. Toward the 
 end there was a sequence of ascending and descend- 
 ing arpeggios of diminished sevenths, which flowed 
 into a scale of trills from a low note to one of her 
 highest; then dwelling very long on that note and 
 trilling on it, she gradually returned to the theme of 
 
 182
 
 THE TECHNIQUE OF THE SINGER 
 
 the cavatina, when it was perceived that her won- 
 derfully fine musical ear had unerringly guided her 
 through the mazes of the long cadenza and brought 
 her to the tonic note of the piece with surprising 
 correctness of intonation." 
 
 It is not wise wholly to disdain these marvels of 
 laryngeal virtuosity as though they were of the 
 same grade of value as the feats of Japanese gym- 
 nasts. Trills, runs, skips, and staccatos, when 
 combined with varied tone colors, accents, changes 
 in volume and rate of speed, may have an expres- 
 sive purpose as well as a decorative charm. It is 
 a noticeable fact, however, that while the popular 
 love of ornamental singing seems to be as strong 
 as ever and an accomplished exponent of "colora- 
 ture" will still excite a prodigious furore, neverthe- 
 less the composers who furnish the material for it 
 are wholly of the past, and the Tetrazzini type of 
 singer must fall back upon the threadbare operas 
 of the Italian and French composers of the early 
 part of the nineteenth century. Mr. Henry T. Finck 
 speaks of this interesting fact as a "mystery." 
 "Why," he asks, "have the composers of all coun- 
 tries given up writing florid music when the public 
 at large evidently likes it better than anything else, 
 demands it with applausive violence and showers 
 diamonds on the Pattis and Sembrichs, the Melbas 
 and Tetrazzinis who provide it?" He goes on to 
 show that not only the German and French opera 
 composers, but also the composers of Italy, where 
 florid song had its birth and its richest bloom, have 
 given it up completely. 
 
 183
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 This failure of the composers to give the public 
 what it craves does seem at first thought a little 
 puzzling, but it is not the first time in the history of 
 art that artists have chosen to obey the higher laws 
 rather than seek notoriety and emolument by cater- 
 ing to the whim of the sensation-loving populace. 
 The composers of the last half of the nineteenth 
 century have seen a great light, and they have nobly 
 chosen to "follow the gleam." Moreover there is 
 no credit to a musician in writing florid cadenzas. 
 Nothing is easier. They require no skill. Any- 
 body who knows one key from another can do the 
 trick. And further, in these colorature arias of 
 the old school the composer is obliged to withdraw 
 into the shade, while the singer flourishes in the full 
 glare of the lime light. No composer who respects 
 himself and his art will willingly take such a 
 humiliating position of subordination. "The old 
 order changeth, yielding place to new." The style 
 of music brought into vogue by Wagner and his 
 successors, driving out the obvious tunes and the 
 conventional vocal embroideries of the Rossini- 
 Bellini-Donizetti school, has lifted the composer to 
 his rightful station, and now, secure of his position, 
 he refuses longer to sacrifice himself to the honor 
 and glory of the limber throated vocalist. All this, 
 perhaps, may serve as a partial solution of the 
 "mystery." 
 
 The study of colorature song, in spite of its 
 abuses, is of advantage to every singer, for the prac- 
 tice of it promotes flexibility and control. A vocal- 
 ist who is skilled in it lias a voice that is under 
 
 184
 
 THE TECHNIQUE OF THE SINGER 
 
 subjection for all kinds of music, just as a pianist 
 needs highly developed fingers for the sake of 
 equality of touch and perfect command of shading 
 even where technical demands are moderate. The 
 singer should give the impression of ease and 
 security at all times, no indication of effort should 
 appear no matter how difficult the passage, and in 
 every phrase each note must be as distinct as it is 
 in the playing of an Ysaye or a Godowski. Be- 
 sides this, florid music is not out of date, nor will 
 it ever be, even though composers have abandoned 
 it. The singing of Handel and Mozart requires a 
 voice exceedingly supple and fluent, and Handel and 
 Mozart stand among the immortal masters of song. 
 The listener will demand that all music of what- 
 ever type shall be sung with a clear-cut delivery of 
 every note; that a chromatic scale shall be a suc- 
 cession of plainly distinguishable half-steps and not 
 a portamento slide; that a trill shall accord with 
 its definition and not be a flutter on one note, nor 
 fall under such a blasting characterization as that 
 of a caustic critic of our day when he described a 
 vain attempt at this ornament as "a gargle which 
 the singer meant for a trill." The practice of 
 colorature song is indispensable even to a singer 
 who does not fully master it and never intends to 
 display it in public, for it aids the vocalist in the 
 attainment of abilities which all the styles require, 
 on the Emersonian principle that one must often 
 aim above the mark to hit the mark. 
 
 Sufficient lung power to give the proper shading 
 
 i85
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 and manage the emotional climaxes is of course 
 expected. This is so obvious that nothing more 
 need be said about it, except to warn the music 
 lover against the abuse of the loud tone as well 
 as of the high tone. This abuse has always been 
 palpable and monstrous; its proper parallel is found 
 in the ranting of a fifth rate melodramatic stage 
 villain. A note emitted with a shriek many de- 
 grees higher than the usual compass of the throat, 
 or a thunderous roar that shakes the chandeliers, 
 will generally bring down the house in a tumult 
 of applause, no matter how inappropriate it may 
 be or how destitute of every beautiful quality. A 
 dog will wag his tail when his ears are rubbed; 
 an audience will howl with delight when a tenor 
 rushes to the footlights, spreads his arms and peals 
 out a high C like an engine whistle; — the differ- 
 ence of intelligence between the canine and the 
 human at this moment is not great. The passion 
 for the big voice and the high voice regardless of 
 all other considerations is the enemy of every fine 
 feeling and encourages nothing but coarseness, vul- 
 garity, falsehood. To singers addicted to such 
 claptrap and to music lovers who applaud it, 
 Hamlet's advice to the players is forever pertinent. 
 After all is said about voice and technique (and 
 it must be admitted that pure tones, skilfully con- 
 trolled, are to be sought for with zeal unceasing), 
 yet the higher criticism affirms that these things 
 are tributary to expression, that singing is the 
 rendering of words with a view to reenforcing the 
 
 186
 
 THE TECHNIQUE OF THE SINGER 
 
 ideas, sentiments, and emotions set forth in the 
 text. The music lover must not be wholly car- 
 ried away by a ravishing voice and flawless exe- 
 cution; he must listen through the tones to the 
 words and must insist that the singer, like the 
 actor, shall enunciate distinctly and pronounce 
 correctly, and that every detail of phrasing, tone 
 color, shading, and tempo shall be guided by the 
 one unflagging determination to make the style 
 of the song suit the spirit and diction of the verse. 
 To sustain the correct sound of the vowels and 
 the precise articulation of the consonants, and at 
 the same time preserve the proper quality and 
 amount of tone, is no doubt extremely difficult in 
 many situations, and the singer is constantly under 
 temptation to sacrifice the former to the latter. 
 The hearer should make due allowance for these 
 impediments in view of the fact that he is listening 
 to music as well as to words, that the crispness of 
 enunciation in ordinary speech is not possible in 
 singing, with its frequent prolongation of a vowel 
 over many notes and the special stress laid upon 
 the musical vowels as compared with the unmu- 
 sical consonants. Taking these considerations into 
 account, the listener has the right, nevertheless, to 
 expect that within the limits prescribed by the 
 very nature of the vocal art the singer should re- 
 main faithful to the belief that song is one way of 
 delivering words, and that the Tightness of his 
 work consists not only in the general conformity 
 of style to the poetic sentiment, but also in the 
 
 187
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 observance of all the refinements of vowel and con- 
 sonant articulation. 
 
 It is not simply that the hearer has a right to 
 know what the singer is singing about. Purity 
 and truth in the mere technical utterance depend 
 much upon verbal accuracy. "The sheet anchor 
 of vocalists," says the eminent baritone David 
 Ffrangcon-Davies in his stimulating book, The 
 Singing of the Future, " ought to be pure pronun- 
 ciation — pure in regard to linguistic fitness and 
 arising from general culture. Pure pronunciation 
 (musical, sustained, fitting) once achieved insures 
 right tone production, and consequently right tone." 
 "As good actors' tone fits the word, so also must 
 good singers' tone fit the word. The sung word 
 should have the penetrating power which belongs 
 to the fine elocutionist." "Vocal efficiency de- 
 pends on mental efficiency. The character of the 
 word and not of the tone per se is the safeguard." 
 
 Furthermore, true artistry in song implies intel- 
 lectual culture, for a careless disregard of the high 
 claims of language indicates lack of education 
 and of genuine delicacy of feeling. Especially 
 must those who sing in English be heedful of this 
 law, for the English language, with its unpar- 
 alleled variety of vowel and diphthongal sounds 
 (twenty or so may be distinguished) and its crowd- 
 ing of consonants, is the most difficult of the 
 tongues to pronounce perfectly while maintaining 
 a pure musical intonation. "Two of the greatest 
 tests of diction," says Mr. Louis Arthur Russell, 
 
 1S8
 
 THE TECHNIQUE OF THE SINGER 
 
 "are in sustaining correct vowel quality with all 
 varieties of emotional color, and the ability to sus- 
 tain a given emotional color throughout a phrase 
 including a variety of consonants. This art is rarely 
 exhibited in the English language among singers 
 to-day." And in respect to consonants, Mr. Rus- 
 sell says: "The explosive element, the click or 
 puff, the breath rush or tick of consonant making, is 
 not musical, therefore it becomes the task of the 
 singer and the intellectual talker to avoid all noise 
 in consonant emission, and to give the articulating 
 effect of these mechanical parts of words without 
 destroying the legato flow to which the vowels 
 lend such kindly service." 
 
 There is no more striking illustration of the ideal 
 sought by the most advanced modern singers, both 
 in music-drama and song, than is found in Richard 
 Wagner's eloquent tribute to Ludwig Schnorr von 
 Carolsfeld, whose Tannhauser and Tristan revealed 
 even to the composer unknown depths in his own 
 creations. In this tribute to his lamented friend and 
 co-worker the master makes but a single passing 
 allusion to his "mellow, full, and brilliant voice," 
 and of tone formation, attack, agility, and compass 
 there is not a word. It was the artist's supreme 
 portrayal of "the torturing conflict in Tannhauser's 
 soul" that stirred the composer's enthusiasm, "his 
 frenzy of humiliation" in the second act, "the 
 ecstasy of humiliation" in the third act; the great- 
 ness of conception and vehemence of delivery in 
 the last act of "Tristan and Isolde," by virtue of 
 
 189
 
 THE EDUCATION OE A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 which, in spite of the intricacy and intensity of the 
 orchestral music, "all attention, all interest, was 
 centred in the actor, the singer," the orchestra being 
 "wholly effaced by the singer, or — to put it more 
 correctly — part and parcel of his utterance." 
 
 From Rossi with his chromatic chain of trills, 
 and Farinelli, driving the humiliated trumpeter 
 from the field, to Ludwig Schnorr and Albert 
 Niemann, intent only on forcing the word and the 
 emotional situation into the consciousness of the 
 auditor, the ideal of the vocal art has indeed made 
 a long and devious journey. In the old days 
 passion and psychologic interest tame and con- 
 ventionalized, plot and text without independent 
 interest, contrived only to give occasion for the 
 display of technical skill; in the latter days the 
 most acute emotions, elemental almost super- 
 human passions, projected by a Wagner or a 
 Strauss with an energy that bewilders the mind 
 and shakes the heart. In one case the beauty of 
 physical sound and delicate manipulation, in the 
 other the beauty of intellectual conception, dra- 
 matic accent, truth to the facts of the human spirit 
 in its most urgent self-realization. 
 
 Let the noblest features in these two ideals be 
 combined and the consummate artist, godlike 
 among his fellows, would appear. It is not im- 
 possible. Once and again the world has seen a near 
 approach to the longed-for paragon. Wagner at 
 least never for a moment believed that poetic ex- 
 pression and refined vocalism were exclusive of 
 
 190
 
 THE TECHNIQUE OF THE SINGER 
 
 one another, that there is any inherent disharmony 
 in their natures. The principles and standards 
 of great singing are now virtually agreed upon, and 
 the lover of music need not go astray in his judg- 
 ments. The style may alter under the varying exi- 
 gencies of recitative and aria, opera singing, church 
 singing, song singing, the bel canto of Handel, the 
 declamation of Wagner, — but the universal laws 
 of the art remain, the application of them adjust- 
 ing itself to the multifarious shades of thought and 
 feeling that give to poetic works their special form 
 and spirit. Appropriateness of delivery to theme, to 
 musical and poetic character, must always be the 
 amateur's desire. Back of the tone, inspiring, di- 
 recting, coloring it, is the word. If both demands 
 — technical perfection and truth of expression — 
 are gratified, then let the hearer rejoice — rejoice 
 because a noble artist has come into the world, 
 and because he is himself able to appreciate a 
 finished achievement of art. 
 
 191
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF EXPRESSION: REPRE- 
 SENTATIVE MUSIC 
 
 Every thoughtful lover of music finds that both 
 before and after the enjoyment of masterpieces a 
 multitude of questions spring up in his mind, all 
 pointing toward the one supreme, inclusive prob- 
 lem of art. What is the real nature of music? he 
 will inquire. What is the ultimate motive that 
 inspires the creations of its masters? What does 
 it mean to me ? W T hat part does it play in the full 
 life which I live in common with others? In my 
 appreciation of it, what is the value of the tech- 
 nical features which I am told I ought to under- 
 stand? Is the study of form, harmony, methods 
 of performance sufficient in itself, or is it a prepa- 
 ration leading on to higher issues? That music 
 is an art of expression rather than a temporary 
 amusement for the sense seems plain to all who 
 look beneath its surface, otherwise it never could 
 have gained the place in human affairs which the 
 ages have assigned it, never could have won its 
 unshakable hold upon human affection. If music 
 is an art of expression, what does it express? 
 What are the scope and limits of its expressive 
 
 192
 
 THE PROBLEM OF EXPRESSION 
 
 power ? What are the means that music possesses 
 for that utterance which reaches below the sense 
 perception, below the acquirements of the under- 
 standing, transmits a message from the soul of the 
 composer to the soul of the listener, and estab- 
 lishes a sympathy between any single hearer and 
 his neighbors in the concert hall? What may we 
 look for when we hear music — shall we receive 
 definite communications of thought and the awa- 
 kening of the visual imagination as in poetry, or is 
 regulated sound restricted to the stirring of a 
 vague and intangible sense of awe or delight like 
 that which one feels in cathedral aisles or among 
 the parterres of artfully arranged gardens? In a 
 word, has music a meaning? And if so, is this 
 meaning imparted by direct action of sound or 
 through association of ideas? These questions, 
 and many more, come before the lover of music 
 who wishes to derive the utmost value that the art 
 is able to afford. 
 
 Some of these queries can never be fully an- 
 swered; the attempt to discover the final secret of 
 the power of tone upon the emotional nature leads 
 to an insoluble mystery. The fact that this mys- 
 tery is present in every musical experience is one 
 cause of the peculiar fascination. The music 
 lover finds, however, that his excitation by music 
 is due at times to the direct, immediate action 
 of sound, at other times partly or wholly to 
 association of ideas. In the first case the word 
 "expression" is somewhat misleading, for it neces- 
 
 J 93
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 sarily carries the notion of something to be ex- 
 pressed, and that something other than the very 
 essential nature of the means of expression. For 
 example, we say that a piece of music is beautiful, 
 not that it expresses beauty; that it is, perhaps, 
 rapid, not that it expresses speed. To be sure, we 
 may say that a piece expresses cheerfulness, but 
 as a multitude of compositions, totally unlike in 
 melody, harmony, and rhythm, may convey the 
 same notion, the mere fact of suggesting cheerful- 
 ness adds very little to the value of the music to 
 our minds. It might be better to apply Edmund 
 Gurney's term "impressive" to music of indeter- 
 minate meaning, rather than expressive, for if we 
 feel such music to be beautiful and uplifting, our 
 enjoyment seems to be brought down to a lower 
 plane if we justify it on the ground of a state of 
 mind that is transient and superficial. 
 
 One discovers at the very beginning of ac- 
 quaintance with music that it does not remain at 
 the stage of vague suggestion, but has something 
 in its veins that enables it to ally itself with ideas 
 that inhabit a world outside of that purely abstract 
 sphere to which it is confined so long as we think 
 of it as composed only of artificial combinations of 
 sounds. A great deal of music seems to us not 
 merely impressive but expressive, and we often find 
 our minds turned in definite directions, leading to 
 actualities, when we seek to explain the hold it 
 has upon us. So strong is the conviction on the 
 part of many music lovers that no music is without 
 
 194
 
 THE PROBLEM OF EXPRESSION 
 
 some background of precise thought or feeling, that 
 they constantly speak of fine music or fine per- 
 formance as "expressive," regardless of the classi- 
 fications of the aestheticians, suspecting that differ- 
 ences among musical works in this respect are 
 differences of degree and not of kind, and that even 
 the most formal and abstract type, such as a clas- 
 sic sonata, fugue, or set of variations, is stealthily 
 trying to impart something that its composer had 
 seen or felt, and has a significance beyond that of 
 mere tonal decoration. 
 
 In the present chapter I am concerned with the 
 expressive power of music as distinct from its im- 
 pressiveness, seeking to indicate to the music lover 
 what he may properly look for besides mere agree- 
 able tone patterns; striving also to assist him to 
 form just judgments upon some of the attempts on 
 the part of composers to win for their art a rep- 
 resentative power, akin to that of the arts which 
 convey exact ideas and deal with accepted symbols 
 and concrete imagery. I shall try to remove cer- 
 tain misapprehensions to which many casual hearers 
 of music are subject, showing what the composers 
 who are identified with the various types of music 
 really attempt to do, and suggesting the proper 
 manner of applying those standards of apprecia- 
 tion by means of which the different degrees and 
 methods of musical expression may be kept dis- 
 tinct in the listener's mind. 
 
 In order to clear the ground a few preliminary 
 explanations are necessary. 
 
 *95
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 The world of musical composition is divided into 
 two main departments, viz., vocal music and in- 
 strumental music. Vocal works are themselves 
 commonly composed of two elements, the voice 
 part and the accompaniment. In the former the 
 apparatus that produces the tone is not used for 
 that purpose only, but also for the communication of 
 definite thought. The ideas set forth by the words 
 control the form and style of the music, and the 
 tones, therefore, do not exist merely for giving 
 pleasure to the ear, but also for the sake of bringing 
 the mind of the hearer into accord with certain 
 clearly realized conceptions. The music becomes 
 not merely impressive, but representative or illus- 
 trative. 
 
 Instrumental works may be divided into two 
 general classes: first, those which are concerned 
 with the musical imagination solely, which contain 
 no indication of any connection in the composer's 
 mind with an experience or fancy that is derived 
 from the external world, requiring of the hearer 
 no knowledge of any fact, physical or metaphysical, 
 beyond the rhythms, combinations, and tone colors 
 of the musical piece itself. The listener may 
 interpret such music in terms of concrete imagery 
 if his bent of mind inclines him that way, — he may 
 see dancing peasants in a Mozart rondo or a kneel- 
 ing worshipper in a Beethoven adagio — but this is 
 his own affair, for the composer gives him no hint 
 that tends to turn his thought away from the con- 
 templation of pure musical beauty. Works of this 
 
 196
 
 THE PROBLEM OF EXPRESSION 
 
 character have no precise titles, — only such labels 
 as serve to indicate form, tempo, or general charac- 
 ter, such as sonata, fugue, prelude, theme and va- 
 riations, andante, presto, scherzo, etude, nocturne, 
 fantaisie, reverie, caprice, and the like. Any one 
 of these designations would apply to a large num- 
 ber of pieces of quite dissimilar style. Such music 
 is called "abstract" or "absolute" music. 
 
 The other class of instrumental compositions is 
 known as "representative," "illustrative," or "pro- 
 gram" music. The composer puts at the head 
 of his work a title or description which applies 
 directly to this particular piece and could belong 
 to no other. It associates the music at once 
 with a definite conception that can be told in 
 words; it arouses the image making faculty in 
 the mind of the listener; it invites him to receive 
 the music not as an emissary from a world of 
 abstraction known only to the musical conscious- 
 ness, but as an ally of poetic ideas, as a work 
 whose peculiar character is drawn from an experi- 
 ence preliminary to it, and derives a considerable 
 part of its value from the clearness with which it 
 illustrates an idea that has in itself an independent 
 interest. The composer chooses a character, scene, 
 or story from history, myth, or poetry, or he recalls 
 a personal observation of nature or human life, 
 or perhaps invents a tale or picture for himself, — 
 then calling upon his powers of musical creation 
 he writes a work which will be molded and col- 
 ored by the literary or pictorial antecedent. Some- 
 
 197
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 limes, as Schumann tells us, the music, begun with- 
 out any such object in view, suggests a train of 
 thought or imagery to the composer, the mental 
 eye, gradually awakened, holds fast to certain 
 outlines amid the sounds, and the phrases condense 
 and shape themselves under this new influence. 
 Examples of this tendency could be adduced by 
 the hundreds, — overtures to modern operas; sym- 
 phonic poems, such as Liszt's "Tasso," Strauss's 
 "Death and Glorification"; program sympho- 
 nies, such as Beethoven's " Pastoral" and Raff's 
 "Leonore"; piano "character pieces," such as 
 Schumann's "Carnaval," Liszt's "Years of Pil- 
 grimage," MacDowell's "Sea Pieces" and "Wood- 
 land Sketches." It is evident that here is a close 
 analogy to vocal music. The difference is that no 
 words are heard during the progress of the music; 
 it is a sort of inarticulate song or drama; the 
 subject once announced in the title or "program" 
 retreats into the background of the listener's con- 
 sciousness, only to be evoked in a shadowy way as 
 he discovers in the tone color and rhythms a 
 mysterious something that guides his fantasy as 
 well as delights his ear. 
 
 In the attempt to determine the nature and the 
 extent of the expressive power of music, we feel the 
 need of drawing comparisons between music and 
 the other arts, surveying her boundaries and theirs, 
 discovering where these boundaries diverge and 
 where they coincide or overlap. Does expression 
 in music, we ask, signify the same as expression in 
 
 198
 
 THE PROBLEM OF EXPRESSION 
 
 poetry, or does the word involve a special and dis- 
 tinctive connotation of its own? In order that 
 speech and music may combine in mutual support 
 they must have some element in common. In order 
 that music may appear as appropriate to text or 
 title in song, opera, or symphonic poem it must at 
 least be able in itself to turn our mind in a definite 
 direction, and the current of feeling that is set in 
 motion by the words find itself drawn by a subtle 
 affinity to the feeling aroused by the music. 
 
 Writers on aesthetics love to separate the arts 
 into two classes, viz., arts of presentation and arts 
 of representation. The second category includes 
 poetry, sculpture, and painting, — representative by 
 reason of the fact that the subject matter with 
 which they deal exists before the work of art comes 
 into being, and is susceptible to an indefinite num- 
 ber of forms and modes of treatment. Poetry may 
 have for its subject a state of mind or an outward 
 event or scene. Any kind of visible object, or an 
 imaginary object having no counterpart in nature 
 but composed of forms that have an actual exist- 
 ence in other relations (such as an angel or a 
 centaur), may be the subject of a statue or a picture. 
 In representative art, in other words, the idea and 
 the form are not completely identical. These arts, 
 even poetry, have also been called arts of imitation, 
 because they reproduce in new guises and rela- 
 tions that which has already been the object of 
 observation or experience. 
 
 In the presentative arts, on the other hand, in- 
 
 199
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 eluding music, architecture, and the various artistic 
 crafts (such as pottery, metal work, wood and ivory 
 carving, textiles, etc.) the representative or imitative 
 element is either absent or is reduced to such sub- 
 ordination that the beholder is but casually re- 
 minded of anything that has been the object of a 
 previous experience. The idea, generally speaking, 
 is contained in the form, virtually identical with it, 
 and has no existence separate from the artist's con- 
 ception. The forms are abstract, proportional ar- 
 rangements of lines, masses, colors, or tones; the 
 beauty is in the pattern or design apart from those 
 resemblances that would move us to demand truth 
 to nature as a fundamental condition of approval. 
 This statement must, of course, be qualified; a 
 representative element often exists, there is a bor- 
 rowing from nature; leaves and flowers may 
 afford patterns for ornamental work in cornice and 
 vase designs, — even animal and human forms may 
 be so used; music sometimes admits imitations 
 or at least obvious suggestions of natural sounds. 
 But in all these cases truth to nature is subservient 
 to a decorative purpose. A decoration may be de- 
 fined as a form of artistic contrivance which has 
 its interest in itself, apart from any object depicted 
 or thought conveyed. Architecture, music, and 
 the artistic crafts may be called arts of decoration, 
 as distinct from the arts that teach or inform as 
 well as please. 
 
 This division of the arts into presentative and 
 representative has, however, little value besides 
 
 200
 
 THE PROBLEM OF EXPRESSION 
 
 convenience of classification; in a deeper view of 
 the case the distinction everywhere breaks down. 
 They are all presentative as well as representative, 
 impressive as well as expressive, for they exist 
 primarily not to give instruction or to reproduce 
 nature, but to give pleasure. They offer them- 
 selves frankly to the senses; they make us glad, not 
 because we have received an addition to our store 
 of information, but because they have warmed and 
 fed our emotional nature, awakened a conscious- 
 ness of a purer ideal, stimulated a keener sym- 
 pathy by the communication of spirit to spirit. 
 Poetry, painting, and sculpture may indeed be em- 
 ployed for the purpose of conveying scientific or 
 moral truth, — other things being equal, the higher 
 the truth the higher the worth of the work of art. 
 But just at the moment when this definite instruc- 
 tive or homiletic purpose becomes the apparent 
 aim of the work, the appeal to the aesthetic sense 
 becoming merely incidental, then the very element 
 that constitutes art tends to withdraw from the work 
 or from the receiver's consciousness. Never ought 
 the decorative principle to be ignored. The out- 
 lines, modelling and grouping in sculpture, the 
 arrangement of lines, colors, lights, and shadows 
 in a painting, the rhythm, metre, and mellifluous 
 disposition of vowels and consonants in verse — 
 these decorative features are essential even if we 
 refuse to agree with the advocates of art for art's 
 sake in considering them all-sufficient. The en- 
 lightened connoisseur looks at once for sculptural 
 
 201
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 qualities, pictorial qualities, or poetic qualities. 
 Says Russell Sturgis: "What has the sculptor to 
 say so important as this, — come and see this new 
 combination of masses beautifully composed, made 
 up of details beautifully modelled?" The strong- 
 est motive can never commend a picture to a dis- 
 cerning eye if it is not beautifully wrought in com- 
 position, drawing, tone, and harmony of tints and 
 shades. A fine picture is always a fine pattern. 
 A painter will make a portrait not simply for ac- 
 curacy of likeness, but also for satisfaction of the 
 art sense; he will so contrive composition, adjust 
 pose, and arrange shades and colors that the picture 
 will give pleasure to a connoisseur who knows not 
 the name or station of the sitter. A landscape by 
 Turner may not give a correct topographical rep- 
 resentation of any place on earth. The Aphro- 
 dite of Melos is perhaps not an Aphrodite at all; 
 but it does not matter, — nameless and with the 
 arms that might have revealed her identity forever 
 lost, she is no less the object of the world's un- 
 wavering homage. In all these instances there is 
 indeed truth, — it is truth that gives them their 
 ultimate validity; but it is not scientific truth or 
 in the ordinary use of the word ethical truth; it is 
 general, not particular truth, a truth that is iden- 
 tified with beauty and finds its warrant in the 
 pleasure of the sense, and beyond that in the con- 
 sciousness that through these beautiful forms we 
 come into vital relations with a mystic reality that 
 survives all change. 
 
 202
 
 THE PROBLEM OF EXPRESSION 
 
 This same element, that stirs the emotion by 
 immediate action of the sense without the aid of 
 the defining power of the understanding, is found 
 even in poetry, and must be reckoned with if one 
 would know the secret of the spell that is woven 
 by metric accents and the selected harmonies of 
 words. The writer chooses his words not merely 
 as symbols of ideas, but also for the beauty of 
 sound and rhythmic vibration obtained by skilful 
 adjustments of accents, metrical groups, rhymes, 
 assonance of vowels and consonants. These 
 musical effects, as they may properly be called, 
 are not only employed for the sake of the charm 
 of lilting cadence and artful modulation of sound, 
 but they possess the expressive quality of music, 
 the especial mood which the poet desires to 
 arouse being in no slight degree dependent upon 
 his use of the metrical and verbal devices which 
 suggest various degrees of motion and force. Ev- 
 ery poet considers carefully the need of a corre- 
 spondence between the form of the verse and the 
 thought and imagery, an ecstatic spring song re- 
 quiring one kind of metre, an elegy another, a 
 battle piece another, and so on. Many of the 
 world's famous poems are not remarkable for 
 originality or depth of thought, but endure by 
 virtue of a certain haunting sweetness that is not 
 in the imagery alone, but equally in their melody. 
 
 The element to which I allude is that which van- 
 ishes when the Mneid or the Antigone is translated 
 into English prose; it is found in "the surge and 
 
 203
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 thunder of the Odyssey," in the voluptuous swell of 
 Swinburne or Victor Hugo; it is the dying fall 
 that comes soothingly upon the senses in an ode 
 of Keats. It is the quality that becomes faint even 
 to vanishing when verse is read in silence. There 
 is no need to say, of course, that poetry is vastly 
 more than this, that a man may be a master of 
 verbal music and after all have little that is worth 
 saying. Poetry is, no doubt, less dependent than 
 any other art upon the sensuous and formal ele- 
 ments, but how much sound and form have to do 
 even with the meaning itself any one can discover 
 if he will take any great piece of verse, say a son- 
 net by Milton or Wordsworth, change the order of 
 the words, substitute synonyms, break up the 
 rhythms into unrhythmical phrases, and then see 
 how much even of the sense is left. Such an 
 experiment will afford an important lesson in the 
 primer of poetry, yes, in the primer of art. 
 
 Still less in the other arts can the spiritual message 
 be separated from the form. There is an utterance 
 that is not the language of speech; it is incapable 
 even of translation into words. It is found, as we 
 have noticed, in the artful tracing of lines, grada- 
 tions, and colors in painting, setting up a sort of 
 rhythmical movement in consciousness as the eye 
 passes from one point to another. It is found in 
 the proportioned masses and decorative patterns 
 of architecture, in the lines and bosses of sculpture, 
 in the buoyant measured evolutions of the dance, 
 in the mellow sound of a voice, in the molding of 
 
 204
 
 THE PROBLEM OE EXPRESSION 
 
 a vase, or the opulent colors of a Persian rug. It 
 is a communication more ancient than speech, and 
 it is intuitively understood by all who have attained 
 a truly self-conscious life. It is the business of the 
 art lover to clear his senses and cultivate in himself 
 that capacity which responds to the touch of beauty 
 in whatever guise of shape or color or sound. The 
 common man, being confined to language for the 
 conveyance of his mental states, finds it difficult 
 to realize that there are other very potent means 
 of expression — that there are pictorial, sculptural, 
 and musical ideas as well as verbal ideas. The 
 appreciation of art expands as soon as one perceives 
 that there are broad regions of spiritual experience 
 which words cannot traverse, and that the other 
 arts find spheres of action beyond the line where 
 language ends. We must, therefore, study their 
 mode of utterance — their technique, in a word, 
 for "the sensuous material of each art," to employ 
 Walter Pater's classic statement, "brings with it a 
 special phase or quality of beauty, untranslatable 
 into the forms of any other, an order of impressions 
 distinct in kind. These impressions have this in 
 common, however, that they give pleasure to the 
 senses of sight or hearing; and this beauty is an 
 end and not a means — adding nothing, it may be, 
 to that experience and efficiency which the or- 
 dinary mechanical duties of the day require, but 
 giving us consciousness of a fuller, more perfect 
 life, in which our separate existence is for the 
 moment merged." 
 
 205
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 It is in view of this attribute of all fine art which 
 I have endeavored to describe that Walter Pater, 
 in his well known essay already cited, declares that 
 music "is the true type and measure of perfected 
 art," because "music presents no words, no mat- 
 ter of sentiment or thought separable from the 
 special form in which it is conveyed to us." All 
 art, Pater goes on to say, is constantly laboring that 
 the form, the mode of handling, "should become an 
 end in itself, should penetrate every part of the 
 matter." "Art is always striving to be indepen- 
 dent of the mere intelligence, to become a matter 
 of pure perception, to get rid of its responsibility 
 to its subject or material." "It is the art of music 
 which most completely realizes this artistic ideal, 
 this perfect identification of form and matter. In 
 its ideal, consummate moments, the -end is not 
 distinct from the means, the form from the matter, 
 the subject from the expression; they inhere in 
 and completely saturate each other; and to it, 
 therefore, to the condition of its perfect moments, 
 all the arts may be supposed constantly to tend 
 and aspire. . . . Therefore, although each art has 
 its incommunicable element, its untranslatable or- 
 der of impressions, its unique mode of reaching 
 the 'imaginative reason,' yet the arts may be rep- 
 resented as continually struggling after the law or 
 principle of music, to a condition which music alone 
 completely realizes." 
 
 That such a tendency as Pater here declares is 
 found in all art may be disputed — his statement 
 
 206
 
 THE PROBLEM OF EXPRESSION 
 
 is too sweeping. That the "idea" is not separable 
 from the special form it has taken is to a certain 
 extent true of all art — the very definition of art 
 is involved in this — but the fusion is more com- 
 plete in some instances than in others. There are 
 works of sculpture and painting which appeal 
 "directly to the roots of emotion and sensation," 
 and stir the mind in ways which words are quite 
 unable to explain. Take, for example, Michel- 
 angelo's recumbent figures upon the Medici tombs, 
 and consider the number of wholly unsatisfactory 
 interpretations that have been drawn from them — 
 unsatisfactory not because the sculptor expressed 
 nothing in the statues, but because he expressed 
 so much, expressed ideas so profound that language 
 fails to encompass them. It was not affectation 
 that impelled John Addington Symonds, in pres- 
 ence of these grand and mysterious shapes, to call 
 up phrases of Beethoven. For it is only music that 
 has the power of evoking ideas so mighty and ex- 
 tended as those which Michelangelo's oppressed 
 giants so dimly body forth. Sculpture and music 
 are the arts most adequate to render the one uni- 
 versal theme of all art, which is the striving of the 
 soul for release from all that restricts its powers. 
 
 Although Pater's assertion in regard to art in 
 general needs to be qualified and limited, his state- 
 ment in regard to the nature of music, that the 
 subject is not distinct from the expression, may be 
 accepted. Change a note in a passage and the 
 idea is changed, for the passage has no meaning 
 
 207
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 apart from the particular note successions that com- 
 pose it. Neither can music define or describe or 
 personify. Music is sometimes called a language, 
 but it is not a language. Words are artificial 
 counters which have been agreed upon by all mem- 
 bers of any nation or tribe as standing for certain 
 objects or mental concepts. But there are no 
 tones or groups of tones which have been adopted 
 as symbols of particular objects of perception or 
 thought. I may say, for instance: The white birch 
 tree is putting forth green leaves. The verb, the 
 nouns, and the adjectives are conventional collo- 
 cations of sounds and letters applied by common 
 consent to certain objects or processes. But there 
 are no chords or musical phrases that have been 
 fixed upon to convey the notion of tree, leaf, growth, 
 whiteness, or greenness. A composer may have a 
 budding birch tree in his mind when he writes a 
 piece of music, and his composition will have 
 delicacy, lightness, grace; but the listener may be 
 reminded of a very different object, or of no object 
 at all. 
 
 In comparing music with poetry, John Addington 
 Symonds writes: "The sphere of music is in sen- 
 suous perception; the sphere of poetry is in intel- 
 ligence. Music, dealing with pure sound, must 
 always be vaguer in significance than poetry, which 
 deals with words. We cannot fail to understand 
 what words are intended to convey; we may very 
 easily interpret in a hundred different ways the 
 message of sound. . . . The exact value of a 
 
 208
 
 THE PROBLEM OF EXPRESSION 
 
 counter is better understood when it is a word 
 than when it is a chord, because all that a word 
 conveys has already become a thought, while all 
 that musical sounds convey remains within the 
 region of emotion which has not been intellectual- 
 ized. Poetry touches emotion through the think- 
 ing faculty. If music reaches the thinking faculty 
 at all, it is through fibres of emotion. But emotion, 
 when it has become thought, has already lost a 
 portion of its force, and has taken to itself a some- 
 thing alien to its nature. Therefore the message 
 of music can never rightly be translated into 
 words." Mr. Birge Harrison compares music to 
 color in the art of painting. "Both are sensuous 
 and passional, playing directly upon the emotions 
 and producing their effects by some mysterious 
 appeal to the subconscious, whose ways have as 
 yet eluded us. Both, in their highest expression, 
 come nearer to the perfect ideal of beauty as felt 
 and understood by humanity than any other form 
 of art. Finally, both are stimulating and men- 
 tally suggestive, while attempting no direct intel- 
 lectual expression." 
 
 In the interest of the intelligent appreciation of 
 music, it is important that these distinctions should 
 be anchored in our minds lest the true beauty and 
 meaning of music escape us. Language is defi- 
 nition and limitation; music by itself alone does 
 not limit or explain; when acted upon by pure 
 tone we are transported into a region without 
 boundaries. For the moment that world is real, 
 
 209
 
 THE EDUCATION OE A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 but it has not the reality of previous non-musical 
 experience. 
 
 All this is true, and yet it is also true that com- 
 posers and music lovers have not been satisfied 
 with this vague and generalized impression which 
 cold analysis would at first sight seem to prove is 
 music's only province. Music has always been 
 straining at its tether, striving to break away from 
 its bondage and enlarge its field of action. A 
 marked trait in music is the effort which Pater 
 notes in passing as characteristic of all art — an 
 endeavor to pass into the condition of some other 
 mode of utterance and assume prerogatives that 
 belong more strictly to the heritage of its sister 
 arts. The art which music most persistently strug- 
 gles to supplant, or else to bring into an alliance 
 for mutual advantage, is the art of language. 
 Hence the prevalence of "program" or "repre- 
 sentative" music in later days, and the union of 
 verse and tone in lyric and dramatic song from the 
 very beginning of speech and melody. 
 
 The alliance of words and music has been con- 
 stant through the greater part of human history. 
 Abstract instrumental music, in a state so devel- 
 oped and specialized that it can be dignified with 
 the title of fine art, belongs only to the last three 
 centuries. It had its period of infancy, of gradual 
 awakening to self-consciousness in the seventeenth 
 century, of independent vigor and balance of 
 faculty in the epoch of the Bachs, Haydn, and 
 Mozart in the eighteenth century, of complete 
 
 210
 
 THE PROBLEM OF EXPRESSION 
 
 adaptability of form to the needs of expression in 
 the masters of the nineteenth century, beginning 
 with Beethoven. In the first two of these epochs, 
 when independent instrumental music was pass- 
 ing, with many growing pains, from feebleness 
 into full self-possession, tone wedded to words in 
 opera, oratorio, and church music was exhibiting, 
 under the hands of Gluck, Mozart, Handel, and 
 Sebastian Bach, the enormous power of expression 
 it contains when free to take its character from 
 the suggestion of precise thought and definite situ- 
 ations. Taught by the success of these endeavors, 
 composers grew more and more inclined to carry 
 over the quality of direct characteristic expression 
 to abstract instrumental music, in which there was 
 to be found a freedom and variety of style that 
 could not exist in the human voice alone on account 
 of its physical limitations. This effort led to the 
 rupture of the old strict instrumental forms of 
 sonata, fugue, and rondo, as in Beethoven's last 
 quartets and sonatas, where the instruments seem 
 at times almost to usurp the faculty of speech. 
 The next step (not in chronological order neces- 
 sarily, but as an evolutionary stage) was program 
 or representative music, where new forms and 
 treatment appeared as required by conceptions to 
 which the composer gave his hearers a clew in 
 title, program, motto, or allusion. Every piece 
 of representative music, therefore, is in greater or 
 less dimensions a "song without words," a voice- 
 less lyric, epic, or drama, claiming to employ in an 
 
 211
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 independent sphere the special powers of expres- 
 sion which music had demonstrated while still in 
 the leading-strings of text and stage action. 
 
 Representative music is by no means a phenom- 
 enon peculiar to the nineteenth century, but appears 
 in many crude productions of the youthful and 
 infantile periods. But in the nineteenth century 
 means of emotional utterance before unsuspected 
 have been disclosed in the natural progress from 
 strictness to freedom in form, and in the perfection 
 of instruments; and so far has the expressive 
 power of tones been carried that music at times 
 seems on the way to the invention of symbols that 
 will come near to appropriating some of the pre- 
 rogatives of language. 
 
 In this aspect of the situation the music lover 
 finds a problem much more profound than that of 
 training his faculties of observation in the tracing 
 of harmonies, rhythms, and forms. This prelim- 
 inary exercise in the appreciation of form is neces- 
 sary, as I have tried to show, but it is only pre- 
 liminary. No thinking mind will remain content 
 with the mere admiration of skill in fashioning 
 tone patterns of intricate device, or the mechanical 
 dexterity of a pianist or the pyrotechnics of a col- 
 orature singer. The emotion must be aroused, 
 and in works of human contrivance it is only 
 emotion that can beget emotion. The composer 
 must have felt something, — what did he feel ? 
 There is a man behind the work and he is imparting 
 something of himself, — what is that something? 
 
 212
 
 THE PROBLEM OF EXPRESSION 
 
 Works of musical art are not put together in ac- 
 cordance with mathematical formulas, — they come 
 from life and they share the stirring unexpectedness 
 of life. Music lovers have never been content with 
 a pleasure that depends upon the merely decora- 
 tive function of music, and music, as we have 
 seen, is ever struggling to liberate itself from the 
 confinement that seems inherent in its very mate- 
 rial. Music is a mighty intensifier of emotions and 
 moods; moreover it produces in the mind such a 
 state of tremulous expectancy that it becomes eager 
 to move in definite directions, just as when acted 
 upon by words or external incitements of any kind. 
 Liturgies, dramatic, epic, and lyric poetry have 
 always joined hands with music because in this 
 union there was an added strength. The most 
 universal and powerful interests — religion, patriot- 
 ism, and the love of the sexes — have always sought 
 music as a reenforcement of their appeals. All this 
 could hardly be true if there were no correspond- 
 ence between music and the other means of expres- 
 sion. One would not associate together a piece of 
 music and a bit of purely decorative work — an 
 architectural molding or a drawing-room frieze — 
 and imagine that the former was in any way a 
 reflex or interpretation of the latter. We may say 
 with confidence that there is no music that is abso- 
 lutely unexpressive — a meaningless, empty play of 
 sounds. The music may be comparatively trivial, 
 but its effect is not that of a phenomenon wholly 
 external to ourselves. Every positive rhythm, 
 
 213
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 every rise and subsidence of tone volume, every 
 distinctive tone color sets something in motion 
 within us, and that something is felt as an ingrown 
 constituent of our emotional life. 
 
 This impression is due primarily to the nature of 
 tone as unlocalized, pervading our whole nervous 
 organization and setting it in vibration; and sec- 
 ondly to our notion of music as something moving, 
 the phrases as they succeed one another seeming to 
 contain an idea that constantly advances until a 
 foreseen goal is reached. The world within us and 
 the world without us are perceived in terms of flux 
 and change; movement is a manifestation of energy 
 and implies to us life. Music is likewise move- 
 ment, energy, and action; and when we add the 
 emotional elements of rhythm and changes of 
 force, speed, and color, this movement, this life, 
 gives us the impression of proceeding from con- 
 sciousness and manifesting consciousness. The 
 musical movement may be swift or slow, now 
 accelerated, now delayed, suggesting notions of 
 ardency or languor, impatience or indolence, ac- 
 cession of vitality or loss of the same. A compo- 
 sition may hasten at its close into prestissimo — 
 energy triumphant; or it may end retarded, sig- 
 nifying exhaustion or relief after the strain of effort. 
 Within this movement there are incalculable varie- 
 ties of rhythm, accents, interruptions, ever chang- 
 ing relations of longer and shorter notes, figures of 
 innumerable modifications, all held in the control of 
 regular beats and ordered measures — a counterpart 
 
 214
 
 THE PROBLEM OF EXPRESSION 
 
 in sound of the gestures and attitudes which make 
 physical action so vivid an expression of feeling. 
 
 Equally abundant and positive are the expres- 
 sional effects produced by the degrees of loud 
 and soft — contrasts startling in their vehemence, 
 shades of tone exceedingly minute and subtle in 
 suggestion, not less efficient than changes of speed 
 for conveying ideas of force in variation and con- 
 trast. Not less definite in significance are the 
 changes between high notes and low notes, be- 
 tween consonance and dissonance. Lightness and 
 heaviness, ease and constraint, elation and depres- 
 sion, sweetness and harshness, ecstasy and anguish 
 — these and a host of other intimations may be 
 offered in terms of differences of pitch and interval. 
 Then there are the modifications of tone color, at 
 times suggestive of the human voice or sounds of 
 external nature; again imparting precise ideas by 
 association, as the trumpet with war, the horn 
 with the hunt and forest life, the flute and oboe 
 with peaceful idyllic surroundings; again moving 
 the mind to a less direct expectancy, as when the 
 trombone peals in tones of solemn grandeur, or 
 the bassoon or the viola diffuses around us an 
 atmosphere oppressive with ominous voices. Take 
 all these elements — pitch, speed, shading, con- 
 sonance and dissonance, rhythm, timbre, force — 
 try to conceive all their varieties of combination, 
 contrast, and succession, and no speculation is able 
 to declare the time when their possibilities of sug- 
 gestion will be exhausted. 
 
 215
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 It is not strange, then, that with the hearing of mu- 
 sic the imagination wakes from its slumber. Hardly 
 a strain can be found in all the array of the world's 
 music that may not be united to some reality of 
 the soul's experience. Music is a continuous met- 
 aphor. The antithesis between abstract and char- 
 acteristic beauty — between absolute and repre- 
 sentative music — is constantly dissolving. Music 
 contains not a mere general undefined charm of 
 tones sensuously colored and ingeniously grouped 
 like geometrical patterns on the wall of a Moorish 
 mosque, but a beauty that is distinctive and deter- 
 minate; not simply lifting the soul that it may 
 subside again to the same level as before, but mov- 
 ing it in a particular direction and establishing it 
 upon a new mount of vision. It is, therefore, no 
 strained artificial connection with life that has 
 been forced by the composers upon music; the 
 relationship is in the nature of things, and the 
 vocal composers and the writers of program music 
 have sought to explore all the affinities by which 
 music shows itself qualified in its special way to 
 act as an exponent as well as an adornment of life. 
 
 Tn spite of all these considerations, there is still 
 controversy over that form of music known as 
 program or representative music. Although it has 
 been accepted by a very large portion, probably the 
 larger portion of the musical world, and is the 
 most marked tendency of the day, there are many 
 who deny its legitimacy and resist its progress. 
 Few, indeed, would affirm that music is to be 
 
 216
 
 THE PROBLEM OF EXPRESSION 
 
 classed as a merely decorative art, that it has no 
 power of expression whatever; and yet there is a 
 type of mind that takes what one may call the 
 mystical attitude toward music, prefers to escape 
 from the world of actuality when listening to it, 
 and interprets it, if at all, in the spirit of Thoreau, 
 Browning, and Hearn, as I have quoted them in a 
 former chapter, finding in it a refuge from the 
 concrete, the definite, and the limited. Others 
 wish that their fancy should not be fettered by 
 words, title, or program, but would sketch their 
 own pictures and dream their own dreams. The 
 adherent of the abstract school asks with a tone 
 of triumph if the program school has any works 
 to show that are comparable to the titleless sym- 
 phonies and quartets of Beethoven, Schubert, 
 Schumann, Brahms, and Tchaikovsky, and the 
 sonatas, etudes, ballades, scherzos, and impromptus 
 of Chopin. The program advocate points to the 
 revelation made by Wagner of the sublime possi- 
 bilities of music when directed to definite pictorial 
 and expressional ends, speaks of program music 
 as yet in its infancy, and affirms that the ferment 
 of experiment in representative concert music of 
 to-day is prophetic of an epoch that will mark an 
 advanced stage in musical evolution. 
 
 Wisdom decrees the grateful acceptance of the 
 noble achievements of both schools. In the house 
 of art there are many mansions. We can rejoice 
 that music has now gone so far that every tem- 
 perament, every opinion, may find that which is 
 
 217
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 suited to its need. Our old principle comes back 
 again to guide us, — does any single work fulfil its 
 intention ? Is it adapted to its special end ? Does 
 it satisfy the demand of one who takes his critical 
 footing upon the composer's own ground? Is it 
 beautiful, strong, and complete as judged by the 
 laws that are involved in the class to which it be- 
 longs? The judgment of works of program music 
 is not based upon the same evidence that applies 
 to abstract music. Let us accept both, and compare 
 individual works, not with one another, but with 
 the standard which the purpose of each implies. 
 
 Let us now see what are the privileges and the 
 obligations of the composer of program music, 
 and what also must be the attitude and the prepa- 
 ration of the music lover who wishes to judge 
 fairly and enjoy rightly. 
 
 It must first be observed that the presence of a 
 specific title does not necessarily make a piece of 
 music representative. Many works that are classed 
 as program music are such only in name. It is 
 well known that composers often write a piece in 
 the abstract way, under the direction of the merely 
 musical impulse, and then hunt about for a title that 
 will commend the piece to the hearer's interest. A 
 work of representative music is properly one in 
 which the title very obviously belongs to that 
 particular work and to no other. There must 
 be something in the harmonies, rhythms, and tone 
 colors that inevitably moves the mind to seek affili- 
 ations in the world outside musical forms, and the 
 
 218
 
 THE PROBLEM OF EXPRESSION 
 
 title comes in to lend assistance. The value of 
 the preliminary subject or program to the instru- 
 mental composer is plain. It is to him what a 
 text or plot is to the writer of a song, oratorio, or 
 opera. His musical invention is stimulated; new 
 forms, new harmonies, rhythms, and tone colors 
 spring to life in his imagination under the touch of 
 some external image or inward recollection. To 
 the wide prevalence of this incentive is largely due 
 the vast expansion of musical resources that is a 
 distinguished feature of our age. It is a tendency 
 which has emancipated music from laws which 
 would soon have become burdensone. Strict forms 
 relax as a new principle of cohesion is substituted. 
 Inexhaustible variety ensues in all the appliances 
 of musical expression, and invention rejoices in 
 the thought that complete freedom is allowed so 
 long as truth to the spirit of the subject is main- 
 tained. The old law of conformity to type having 
 been abrogated, each work acquires an individu- 
 ality. Music thus joins with the characteristic ten- 
 dency of the nineteenth century, by which art has 
 broken away from academic authority, permitting 
 the artist, whether he be poet, painter, sculptor, or 
 musician, to follow gladly the dictates of his own 
 genius, to choose whatever subject in nature or 
 human life seems to him worthy of presentation, 
 and to treat it in his own personal way, not a con- 
 ventional way taught in the schools, encouraging 
 him to find beauty in character as well as in form, 
 to break down the barrier that formerly existed 
 
 219
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 between art and the larger human concerns, to 
 make art in the broadest sense a confederate of 
 reality. The spirit of the artist now has free play, 
 and art, shaping itself anew, creates a new tech- 
 nique while it pursues a new ideal. 
 
 It is, of course, possible that music, like painting 
 and sculpture, may go so far in this direction that 
 ugliness results instead of beauty. Music has so 
 little power of characterization that the loss of 
 sensuous beauty cannot be made good by those 
 compensations which the other arts have at their 
 command. A picture like Watts's "Mammon," or 
 a portrait of a court dwarf by Velasquez, where 
 ugliness becomes a means of conveying truth, can 
 have no precise counterpart in a musical composi- 
 tion. Composers, however, are showing discon- 
 tent with the precept, accepted hitherto as involved 
 in the very nature of music, that expression must 
 not go beyond the pleasure of the ear. Something 
 much like musical realism — if such can exist — is 
 attempted by Richard Strauss and others of his 
 school. Strauss affirms by implication that music 
 may deal with what is physically or morally repul- 
 sive, and may, even logically must, become ugly in 
 fulfilling its office of dramatic expression. It is 
 possible that the musical world will eventually 
 grant to music this privilege of foregoing beauty 
 for the sake of characterization. If so, restriction 
 will probably be applied to the choice of the sub- 
 ject for representation rather than to the expressive 
 development of music itself. 
 
 220
 
 THE PROBLEM OF EXPRESSION 
 
 How far harshness and formal license may be 
 carried for the sake of expression is one of the 
 absorbing aesthetic questions of the day. The 
 determination is not quite the same in program 
 music as in the opera. The two cases are not 
 quite parallel. Characterization will give less dis- 
 pleasure in dramatic music when it runs to ex- 
 tremes of violence and roughness because the 
 musical effect does not stand alone; it is only one 
 ingredient in a compound in which words, action, 
 and scenery take up music into themselves and 
 subdue it to the common intent. But in a concert 
 orchestral piece the program, once read, is put 
 aside and fades into the background of conscious- 
 ness, and the music asserts itself as unrelated 
 sound rather than as a reflection of this or that con- 
 crete idea. It must never be forgotten that in vocal 
 music the distinct content of thought lies in the 
 words and not in the music. In program music 
 the content of thought has been given us before 
 the music began, and the music has but a feeble 
 and indirect means of keeping that thought alive. 
 The disadvantage of a program that consists in a 
 long series of details, as in Berlioz's "Symphonie 
 fantastique" and most of the symphonic poems of 
 Richard Strauss, is either that the mind will be 
 turned away from the music in the effort to follow 
 the program by means of the memory or, worse 
 still, by means of the printed description, or else 
 in concentrating the attention upon the sounds for 
 the sake of the enjoyment of the ear the music 
 
 221
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 will often appear incoherent and pointless. One 
 might maintain, therefore, that music which re- 
 quires the accompaniment of an elaborate story for 
 its interest is an aesthetic error. Where the effort 
 is successful in any particular instance, the success 
 will be due to the composer's wisdom in selecting 
 his subject, his ability to write music that is not 
 wholly dependent upon the poetic thought for its 
 effect, and his skill in maintaining by means of 
 tone the vivid impression of the emotional ground- 
 work even after the details which supply the motive 
 have withdrawn from the listener's mind. The dif- 
 ficulties indeed are great; so great that program 
 music is still in the experimental stage. 
 
 I have spoken of the value of a program to 
 the composer in quickening his invention and in- 
 ducing variety in his forms and colors. Now what 
 is the value of a program to the listener? It is 
 not simply that the program makes the music 
 intelligible. Good wine needs no bush, and the 
 music of a master may fill our rapture to the brim 
 through the sufficient glory of melody and harmony 
 alone. The real value of a program, it seems to 
 me, is that, like the words of a song or the plot 
 of an opera, it arouses a preliminary mood, begets 
 an expectation. The music is not required to 
 awaken the hearer from a passive state; his mind 
 is already active, on the alert for a beautiful thought 
 or image, and when the music arises two pleasures 
 have been created — the pleasure in beautiful 
 sound, and the pleasure of the inward eye or the 
 
 222
 
 THE PROBLEM OF EXPRESSION 
 
 memory of something known and already loved. 
 The hearer receives, perhaps, some noble thought 
 in a vesture of fitting words, such as Lamartine's 
 vision of life, chosen by Liszt for illustration in his 
 symphonic poem, "The Preludes." Or it may be 
 the woful story of Francesca and Paolo; the moving 
 fate of the lovers of Verona; the sweet village idyl 
 of Hermann and Dorothea; some splendid legend 
 from the Greek myths or the Arthurian cycle; a 
 romance of Arabian chivalry. Or the composer 
 puts at the head of his piece a name, a hint, an 
 allusion that brings before us some intimate scene 
 of domestic life dear to the common heart. Or it 
 may be some glorious aspect of nature, moonlight 
 on still water, a stormy sea, a forest glade, summer 
 twilight with the gathering host of stars, mountain 
 summits where the sunrise plants its banner and 
 winds chant their monotonous, everlasting song. Or 
 the title may contain the mere intimation of joy or 
 sorrow — a touch of nature that makes the whole 
 world kin — a mood, a longing, a desire for human 
 fellowship, a religious hope. In all these cases not 
 only does the music offer an interest of characteri- 
 zation, but the listener finds his mood attuned to 
 the touch of a two-fold beauty, and when the 
 sounds begin they are haunted by another charm 
 drawn from the presence of a cognate loveliness 
 antedating the music, but now become a part of 
 the endearing spell that is woven upon his im- 
 agination. 
 Accepting program music, not only as legiti- 
 
 223
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 mate on aesthetic principles, but also as an inevi- 
 table stage in the evolution of tonal art, the music 
 lover has only to consider the value to himself of 
 the particular works of this class that may come 
 to his attention. He may inquire, Is the sutject 
 worthy of the use the composer has made of it? 
 Is it suited to the special nature of musical expres- 
 sion? Does the music conform to the idea ? And, 
 most of all, does it have an artistic value over and 
 above its cleverness as illustration? Music that 
 has no merit in itself is none the better because 
 the composer has shown a fine poetic taste in his 
 choice of a motive. Many inferior musical pieces, 
 like unworthy individuals, are received into good 
 society on the strength of reputable introductions. 
 It is a common error in respect to vocal music, — 
 a beautiful poem, a sublime Scripture, a strong 
 oratorio theme or opera plot will often beguile the 
 hearer into imputing to the music a merit which it 
 does not possess in its own right. It is the old 
 trap into which so many fall who are always, often 
 unwittingly, looking for literary values in art 
 instead of musical or pictorial or sculptural values. 
 Equally in error is the listener who cares only for 
 music in the abstract, ignores the subject, judges 
 the music as he judges an untitled sonata or string 
 quartet, pronouncing the music good or bad as 
 the melodies and harmonies please him or do not 
 please him. If the title or program meant noth- 
 ing in relation to the composer's inspiration he 
 would not have chosen it, and if it meant something 
 
 224
 
 THE PROBLEM OF EXPRESSION 
 
 to the composer it means something to the hearer. 
 One of the fundamental canons of art criticism is 
 that the critic must take the artist's standpoint, 
 and appraise the work in accordance with the com- 
 pleteness with which it fulfils its author's intention. 
 Program music always contains features which 
 would not be there if they had not been suggested 
 by certain elements in the program, and the 
 critic must interpret them with an eye to their 
 character as illustrative material. It is the same 
 principle that holds in vocal music, and it is con- 
 trary to reason to accept the principle in the one 
 form of art and reject it in the other. And yet 
 men have implicitly disowned it even in vocal 
 music. Long struggles were needed to get it 
 adopted in the judgment of the opera. Wagner's 
 early opponents were in most cases people who 
 refused to hear his music as an outgrowth of the 
 poetry and the scene, and because they could not 
 find in his works that particular form and quality 
 of melody to which they had been habituated they 
 tried their utmost to drive those superb creations 
 into outer darkness. Judged by this false standard 
 some of the finest modern songs would miss their 
 aim, even if they were not declared positively offens- 
 ive. If the composer has something definite to ex- 
 press and conveys it with telling force, then the 
 music takes into itself some measure of the beauty 
 or power of the poetic theme, and although one kind 
 of value may seem to be sacrificed for another, yet 
 if the composer is a master of his art and can 
 
 225
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 penetrate the harsh or irregular music with the 
 heart throb of a genuine emotion the hearer re- 
 ceives an abundant compensation. 
 
 It is the duty of the hearer, in the case of rep- 
 resentative instrumental music, song, cantata, or 
 opera, to possess himself of the poetic subject — 
 the program in program music, the poem in the 
 song, the plot and significance of the characters 
 in the opera — as fully as possible before the work 
 is performed; then with his mind properly adjusted 
 in view of the composer's intention he will be in a 
 position to do justice to the composer's achievement. 
 Considering the vast range of suggestion which 
 modern music covers, this obligation involves rather 
 large acquisitions on the part of the habitue of 
 concerts and operas. Only an encyclopedic knowl- 
 edge of history and literature would enable one to 
 meet all the works of the modern composers with 
 a sufficiently prepared mind. In order to realize 
 this, let one peruse such books as Mr. Lawrence 
 Gilman's Story of Symphonic Music, Mr. George P. 
 Upton's Concert Guide, or any of the numerous 
 handbooks of operatic plots. Intimate acquaint- 
 ance, however, is more profitable than special 
 "cramming," and other things being equal the 
 man of wide familiarity with the records of human 
 thought will have an advantage over another 
 whose literary experience is more restricted. It 
 is obvious that one who has never read A Mid- 
 summer Night's Dream will miss much of the 
 charm of Mendelssohn's overture. He will get 
 
 226
 
 THE PROBLEM OF EXPRESSION 
 
 the melodies and tone colors, but he will not get 
 the characterization. And a conductor who puts 
 this overture on a concert program will not 
 print an abstract of the play — a certain amount of 
 knowledge of Shakespeare on the part of the audi- 
 ence he will take for granted. A composer who 
 draws his motive from the Hebrew Scriptures, 
 from The Iliad, from Faust, from The Divine 
 Comedy, from The Idylls of the King, from the 
 Greek or Norse mythology, assumes an acquaint- 
 ance on the part of the public which every music 
 lover should wish to justify so far as he himself 
 is concerned. His general culture should be able 
 to meet the composer's challenge, but if it does 
 not, let him not despise the help which the com- 
 mentators offer him. 
 
 I have said that all music is in a certain sense 
 expressive, representative. Notwithstanding, the 
 most literally imitative piece of program music ex- 
 ists for something better than description or illus- 
 tration, its worth, if it is worth anything, is that it 
 transcends its theme. The aestheticians have shown 
 us that the school of realism in painting and fiction 
 can never fulfil its avowed intention because an ex- 
 act reproduction of nature is impossible in art, and 
 that the painter or writer must render nature as he 
 sees it, and can never escape the law that every im- 
 pression is modified by the nature of his tempera- 
 ment, his habits, and his convictions. In music 
 realism, in the conventional sense of the theorists, 
 does not exist at all; the most literally minded 
 
 227
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 among the program composers gives us not a de- 
 lineation, but an emotional reaction delivered to the 
 listener in abstract musical terms. The musician's 
 forms are of his own creation, having no models in 
 nature. His materials — notes of various pitch and 
 timbre, combined in rhythmic phrases and har- 
 monic groups — have primarily an independent 
 beauty of their own, and secondarily an expressive 
 character through symbolism, analogy, and associa- 
 tion, together with a very slight imitative quality 
 which acts far more by suggestion than by an 
 actual reproduction of natural sounds. 
 
 In view of this let the music lover accept the 
 expressive gift of music, lending due weight to the 
 real purpose of text or program and its ability to 
 guide the imagination, and then listen with mind ab- 
 sorbed in the music and not intent on finding pict- 
 ures or stories in every passage that strikes him 
 as unusual. People ask, What does this or that 
 music "mean"? What does the opening phrase 
 of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony mean? And one 
 imagines that something of great importance has 
 been added when one is told that Beethoven said: 
 "Fate knocks at the door." The trivial "inter- 
 pretations" in which musicians sometimes indulge 
 move one to something stronger than impatience. 
 A professor of music in one of our colleges, writ- 
 ing in a magazine on the subject of teaching musi- 
 cal appreciation, advises that students be encour- 
 aged to look for descriptions in the pieces they 
 hear. He cites a passage in Chopin's Ballade in 
 
 228
 
 THE PROBLEM OF EXPRESSION 
 
 G minor, and says that it depicts a cavalcade of 
 knights and ladies. Is a group of men and women 
 on horseback very important to us? Does the 
 glorious music of Chopin's masterpiece appeal to 
 nothing deeper than a child's delight in a circus 
 procession? Will this expounder of the sublime 
 in terms of the trivial inform us which phrase 
 describes a horse's tail, which chord is a knight's 
 plume or a lady's head-dress? The poet Sidney 
 Lanier, after asserting in Music and Poetry that 
 "musical tones have in themselves no meaning 
 appreciable by the human intellect," a few pages 
 farther on, with delightful inconsistency, gives us 
 an "interpretation" of Beethoven's Seventh sym- 
 phony, in which he imagines the composer " com- 
 ing back from a journey under bases of moun- 
 tains and telling us what he saw," and speaks 
 approvingly of some one's comparison of the third 
 movement to "the flight of bats and swallows from 
 a ruin." Is not this pathetic? Alas for him, be 
 he poet or clown, whose mind is occupied with 
 bats when breathed upon by that heavenly song in 
 D major! 
 
 If those who give their lives to music are misled 
 into degrading their musical experiences, the odd 
 perversities of the uninstructed need not surprise 
 us. A psychologist, who is investigating the phe- 
 nomena of musical receptivity, informs me — what 
 perhaps I should have known before — that cer- 
 tain literalists believe, for instance, that music 
 may express anger, and to such an extent that one 
 
 229
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 who hears it will feel indignation even to the mani- 
 festation of it in flushed cheeks and clenched fists. 
 If such an effect could occur and were at all fre- 
 quent, orchestral conductors would need to take 
 precautions for their safety, for no one could tell 
 when such music as that of Wagner's Alberich 
 robbed of his gold might excite some choleric 
 occupant of a front seat in the parquet to actual 
 physical violence. 
 
 Let us take high ground in our musical enjoy- 
 ments, and believe that in the last resort the essen- 
 tial things in music are so profound that only her 
 own idiom can declare them. We may properly 
 give the rein to our imagination, but let us not 
 pervert the composer's message or transgress the 
 laws of art. What music is, in its final analysis, 
 even its masters do not know. Schumann, while 
 explaining that musicians are often affected by out- 
 ward influences and impressions, declares that 
 "people err when they suppose that composers 
 prepare pens and paper with the deliberate prede- 
 termination of sketching, painting, expressing this 
 or that." "Where the youth of eighteen hears a 
 world-famous occurrence in a musical work, a man 
 only perceives some rustic event, while the musi- 
 cian probably never thought of either, but simply 
 gave the best music that he happened to feel within 
 him just then." 
 
 The problem of the nature and extent of musical 
 expression is the most difficult in art. Each music 
 lover must solve it for himself. It is beyond doubt 
 
 230
 
 THE PROBLEM OF EXPRESSION 
 
 that there are hidden meanings in multitudes of 
 works that bear no title and are connected with 
 no text. Tchaikovsky wrote his explanation of 
 his fourth symphony for Madame von Meek, not 
 for the public. We know that his impressive and 
 baffling "Symphonie pathetique" had a pro- 
 gram, but that is all we know. Beethoven un- 
 questionably could have given titles in many cases 
 where he refrained. The music of every great 
 composer is certainly molded and colored by his 
 conceptions of life, his joys, and his sorrows. To 
 say that a composer keeps himself out of his music 
 is to say that his music has no life. Chopin's 
 "revolutionary etude" was surely not the only 
 outburst of distress that his works contain. "My 
 music," said Schubert, "is the outcome of my 
 genius and my misery." Berlioz's extraordinary 
 Memoirs may be read as an indirect commentary 
 on his compositions. Wagner's "Tristan and 
 Isolde" and Schumann's songs of the year 1840 
 are the outburst of emotion excited by peculiar 
 influences belonging to a distinct epoch in their 
 lives. And so we might go on inferring revelations 
 in unknown instances from the many that we know. 
 In these mysteries lies much of the peculiar fas- 
 cination of music. Within just and reasonable 
 bounds we may accept them, and use them to 
 enlarge our sympathies while our senses rejoice in 
 the abstract beauty of sound. 
 
 We must observe, however, that program 
 music is not completely supplanting its sister in 
 
 231
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 the household of art, as many critics seem to 
 believe. Abstract music, so called, is not out of 
 date, any more than music without words, as 
 Wagner held, has accomplished all that is in it to 
 do. A strong program tendency is indeed ap- 
 parent, increasing perhaps, but as yet by no means 
 dominant. Most of the symphonies of Tchai- 
 kovsky, Dvorak, and others of the later school, all 
 the symphonies of Brahms, are without titles or 
 programs. The illustrative experiment has hardly 
 touched the vast field of chamber music. Few 
 of the numerous piano and violin concertos have 
 definite subjects. Moreover, it does not yet ap- 
 pear that the program symphony and the sym- 
 phonic poem have greater achievements to show 
 than the symphonies of Beethoven, Schubert, and 
 Brahms, the D minor and C major symphonies of 
 Schumann, and the Fifth of Tchaikovsky; neither 
 has illustrative piano music surpassed the creations 
 of Chopin, whose designations of ballade, nocturne, 
 etc., are not titles in the sense in which the student 
 of program music uses the term. These and 
 other great works of the abstract school may be in- 
 terpreted indeed, but in terms of our own emo- 
 tional consciousness, and this perhaps will com- 
 mend them more strongly to our affections than 
 those works which, by reason of their descriptive 
 titles, involve an interest that is partly or wholly 
 objective. In the long run those works of art will 
 be most cherished which emanate spontaneously 
 from the inner spiritual life of the artist, as com- 
 
 232
 
 THE PROBLEM OF EXPRESSION 
 
 pared with those that are made in accordance with an 
 influence that is purely external. The latter, how- 
 ever masterly in invention and design, will often bear 
 a more or less evident stamp of artificiality. We 
 know that Beethoven's greatest works are the ex- 
 pression of his own moods and spiritual struggles, 
 and I am sure that they are more impressive on 
 that account than if we knew that they were musi- 
 cal reproductions of incidents in his own life or the 
 attempted portrayal of scenes in history or fiction. 
 After all it matters little, for in the last analysis 
 music is in its essential nature universal and sub- 
 jective. In its inability to describe events, in its 
 unrivalled power to idealize, lies its glory. Let the 
 partisans of the abstract and the program schools 
 wrangle and exhort. Both are justified, both have 
 their necessary place in the economy of art, and 
 when we look below the surface we see that they 
 have a common basis. We have only to accept the 
 composer's evident intention as a guide to the 
 appraisal of his work, and to measure every musi- 
 cal production by the artistic principles which its 
 special nature involves. After all, the different 
 types of art reach very much the same purpose by 
 different ways. One great law sustains them all. 
 " Truth," says Professor Dowden, "is the means 
 of art; its end is the quickening of the soul." 
 
 233
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 MUSICAL HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY 
 
 How much should the amateur know of the his- 
 tory of music and the lives of the composers he 
 loves? Is it necessary that he should know any- 
 thing? He does not need to be told that musical 
 works are not solitary, that all attach themselves 
 by a thousand invisible fibres to one another and to 
 a world of thought and feeling from which their 
 individual form and quality are drawn; but what 
 signifies this to the one whom they momentarily 
 address in theatre, church, or concert hall? Noth- 
 ing, perhaps, if the beautiful is merely the agree- 
 able, if it has done its utmost when it has given us 
 a few passing sensations of pleasure, shutting us 
 off from all the constant fellowships of the reason 
 and the understanding. At the moment of hearing 
 music we are, undoubtedly, more conscious of the 
 isolation than of the fellowships; mental concen- 
 tration, as we have seen, is the condition of full 
 appreciation; but the music lover I have in mind 
 would not be satisfied if this absorption in purely 
 personal sensations, delightful and essential as they 
 are, were all that music had to offer him. Music, 
 
 234
 
 HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY 
 
 like all art, has, primarily, a social value. In the 
 first place it establishes a bond of sympathy be- 
 tween the individual hearer and his fellow worship- 
 pers at the shrine of art. King Ludwig of Bavaria 
 deceived himself when he imagined that those per- 
 formances of his splendid opera company which he 
 ordered for himself alone, gave him the highest 
 degree of satisfaction that music can afford. And 
 in the second place, when we survey music as a 
 historic art, the product of an evolution due to 
 known and to unknown causes, as representative 
 of certain world movements and as the expression 
 of the soul life of its creators, men like unto our- 
 selves who addressed themselves directly to us in 
 their works, appealing for our sympathetic com- 
 prehension — then a new order of gratifications is 
 set up in our minds, the highest and best, I am 
 ready to believe, that art can furnish. 
 
 A work of art is not of any greater worth aestheti- 
 cally because it marked a crisis in a composer's life 
 or reflected a certain phase of culture or manners. 
 But the fringe of associations, the human sugges- 
 tions, that gather around it stir our imagination 
 into very profitable activity as soon as our quest 
 extends into the region they inhabit. Whatever 
 affects the state of the mind in presence of a work 
 of art enters, whether we are immediately aware 
 of it or not, into our judgment of its personal worth. 
 So far as a critic is conscious of the background, 
 looks for the larger fact which gives to the work its 
 existence and support and finds in it a human docu- 
 
 235
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 ment, so far will it offer him a peculiar kind of in- 
 terest which is unknown to him who studies it in 
 isolation and detachment. If we can bring our- 
 selves to believe that the value of art is a social value, 
 then we shall use works of art as a medium of com- 
 radeship between ourselves and the soul of their 
 creator and the soul of their time. We speak of 
 representative music as especially characteristic of 
 the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, but in a very 
 real sense all great music is representative. Not 
 only the program music of our day, which strives 
 to assume the prerogatives of poetry and painting, 
 but even in the classic period, when art, to borrow 
 the words of Vernon Lee, "exists for art's own 
 sake, when men ask it only for the beautiful, when 
 it stands in full independence" — this classic phase 
 is also a product of evident conditions, and it means 
 more to us if we go outside of it and survey the 
 social and artistic tendencies of its time. Moreover, 
 when we say that a work of art appeals or should 
 appeal to us completely severed from external con- 
 ditions, just as it is in itself, we forget that the im- 
 pression of a work of art is never simple, but always 
 very complex. It is the result of many predisposi- 
 tions perpared by a multitude of personal experi- 
 ences and associations. A work of art cannot make 
 identically the same effect upon any two persons, 
 for the receiving faculty, depending as it does upon 
 a complex train of habits and mental activities, can- 
 not be precisely the same in both. The emotional 
 response is largely conditioned by the kind and de- 
 
 236
 
 HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY 
 
 gree of individual expectation. If historic, social, 
 and personal associations cluster around a musical 
 composition the hearer's state of expectancy is very 
 unlike that of another in whose mind this particular 
 kind of atmosphere is lacking. There is more sat- 
 isfaction to us if there seems a revelation of life in 
 the music; if the man Beethoven or the man Schu- 
 bert speaks to us in his works; if the elegant, witty, 
 formal, eighteenth century finds a voice in the 
 prim old harpsichord suites and Neapolitan arias; 
 if the fervor of German piety and the dogmatic 
 austerity of Lutheranism are heard in the cantatas 
 of Sebastian Bach, and the passionate cry of 
 modern pessimism and disenchantment is echoed 
 in the bitter strains of Tchaikovsky. 
 
 I am well aware that I have now entered upon 
 debatable ground, and I must be very careful of 
 my words lest my meaning be misunderstood and 
 I seem to play fast and loose with established aes- 
 thetic principles. Such analogies as I have adduced 
 may easily be pushed too far. That way lies the 
 sentimental "interpretation" of music which has 
 justly aroused the scorn of clear thinkers. Protest 
 against it has driven certain writers to the opposite 
 extreme. Critics of the school of Hanslick and 
 Gurney deny that the effect of music owes any- 
 thing to historic or personal associations. "There 
 is no indirect way," says Gurney, "in which music 
 can make good that claim to our interest and at- 
 tention which only its own beauty can enforce. 
 . . . When we turn to the actual position of music 
 
 2 37
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 in the present day, to the actual effect of those 
 works which have any sort of true vitality, we shall 
 find that the extraordinary power or popularity of 
 the art is due to the isolation of its sphere, to the 
 very fact that its roots have their place apart in our 
 physical and spiritual nature, and know nothing 
 of the interest or the disturbances of intellectual, 
 social, or political life." Similarly, although much 
 nearer to the real point, Matthew Arnold utters a 
 warning against the fallacy that may arise in our 
 judgments of poetry by applying the historic esti- 
 mate. "By regarding a poet's work," he says, "as 
 a stage in [a] course of development, we may easily 
 bring ourselves to make it of more importance as 
 poetry than in itself it really is." 
 
 In these objections there is certainly much truth, 
 and the study of the history of art will lead to many 
 errors if it persuades us in any instance to substitute 
 an archaeological or social or any kind of auxiliary 
 value for the inherent aesthetic value. Arnold, 
 however, goes on to add to his maxim a qualifica- 
 tion which seems to me to touch the core of the 
 issue. "The use of this negative [that is, historic 
 or biographic] criticism is not in itself; it is entirely 
 in its enabling us to have a clearer sense and a deeper 
 enjoyment of what is truly excellent. To trace 
 the labor, the attempts, the weaknesses, the failures 
 of a genuine classic, to acquaint oneself with his 
 time and his life and his historical relationships, 
 is mere dilettantism unless it has that clear sense 
 and deeper enjoyment for its end." 
 
 238
 
 HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY 
 
 The acceptance of this principle will clear away 
 many doubts from the mind of the teacher of musi- 
 cal appreciation who feels that the study of the art 
 cannot wisely be severed from its historic and so- 
 cial background. His business is with the intelli- 
 gent application of the principle. He must cer- 
 tainly bear in mind that the aesthetic values are 
 primary, that a work is no more deserving of ad- 
 miration because it is a link in a chain of develop- 
 ment, that a dull piece of music is no less unprofit- 
 able because it happens to have been produced in 
 connection with a momentous revival of religion, 
 that the world cares little for the joys and sorrows 
 of a composer unless his music is in itself beautiful. 
 But when it is beautiful the enjoyment of it seems 
 somewhat more worthy and leaves a more perma- 
 nent impress when it is reenforced by a conscious- 
 ness of the human impulses from which it sprung. 
 It is another thread that binds us to our kind. 
 For Gurney's statement is not true that "music 
 knows nothing of the disturbances of intellectual, 
 social, or political life." Of political life perhaps 
 not, but it is a very superficial view of music, par- 
 ticularly nineteenth century music, which sees in its 
 phenomena no correspondence with intellectual and 
 social changes. The time will come when some 
 scholar, equipped with sufficient learning and 
 philosophic acumen, will exhibit modern art and 
 literature floating on the great tide within which the 
 thoughts, passions, and aspirations of the race are 
 moving, and he will not exclude music from his 
 
 2 39
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 survey. We may concede to Gurney that these 
 large considerations may have nothing to do with 
 our instant enjoyment of a concert or opera when 
 new and unfamiliar works are before us; yet when 
 we deliberately study all the phenomena of music 
 from every side we feel instinctively that music 
 is something more than Hanslick's "sounding ara- 
 besques," something more even than the embodi- 
 ment of fugitive emotion detached from the current 
 of life; that in it the soul of humanity finds a voice 
 and expresses in its own mysterious way certain 
 vital elements that help to compose the temper of 
 its age. 
 
 It seems to me that the statement made in a for- 
 mer chapter in regard to the value to the hearer of 
 the subject or program in representative music 
 may be extended to explain — in a very general 
 way — the significance to the music lover of the 
 history of his art. As in representative music the 
 ideas and feelings that the music endeavors to ex- 
 press are conveyed to the hearer in advance and the 
 mind is prepared to receive certain extra-musical 
 impressions in addition to the pleasure of abstract 
 sound, — so it may be said that the knowledge of 
 historic relations in music gives an enlargement to 
 our consciousness, and music which for the mo- 
 ment may seem an all-sufficient fact remains in our 
 thought as part of a greater fact. And because the 
 problems of the past are the problems of the emo- 
 tional life of all times, the student comes to per- 
 ceive that in the history of the art he loves there is 
 
 240
 
 HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY 
 
 to be found evidence of experiences akin to his own, 
 and he is helped to realize that in his musical joys 
 he is one of a vast congregation, bound to multitudes 
 in many lands and ages by one of the most tenacious 
 of those sympathies that evince a common nature 
 among the races of men. 
 
 These principles are almost self-evident in the 
 case of the more definitely expressive of the arts, such 
 as poetry and painting. They are not self-evident 
 in music; in fact they are so recondite, so impossi- 
 ble to demonstrate in detail, so difficult to formu- 
 late in words, that it is not strange that some deny 
 their validity altogether. But music comes from 
 so deep a source, it is so universal, it has undergone 
 so many changes under external as well as internal 
 conditions, that it would be simply evading a diffi- 
 culty to deny that it is also in the broad sense a 
 representative art. In applying the canons of his- 
 toric interpretation to music we must only be 
 watchful to maintain proper reserve. 
 
 Art history is the re-creation of the world around 
 the artist. It tells us whence he drew his forms, 
 his styles, his methods, and the special tendency of 
 his genius in its practical activity. It helps us to 
 explain works by showing how they came to be, 
 the influences that stirred and molded them. 
 The prime impulse, certainly, is the artist's genius, 
 and that we cannot fathom. But, as Emerson 
 said, "the greatest genius is the most indebted 
 man." His works are largely the product of his 
 environment, which includes his early educational 
 
 241
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 influences. Chopin before the full development of 
 the piano would not have been the Chopin we 
 cherish now; Sebastian Bach, taken in childhood 
 to Italy and brought up among the artistic, religious, 
 and social conditions there prevailing, would have 
 become — we know not what. Art history shows 
 the influence of race, of family, of education, of 
 external circumstances favorable and unfavorable, 
 of patronage, of prevailing contemporary ideas. 
 It enables us to understand the condition of public 
 taste and the special demands which institutions, 
 locality, etc., laid upon the composer's work. It 
 tells us also how the artist was constrained by the 
 degree of technical development which his art had 
 attained, by the nature of the materials he was 
 forced to use. Art is the expression of emotion in 
 some medium appealing to the senses. The com- 
 prehension of any art requires a recognition of 
 the necessities imposed by the medium, — as for 
 example the state of the language in comparing 
 Chaucer with Shakespeare and Tennyson, the in- 
 ferior knowledge of pigments, drawing, composi- 
 tion, and perspective possessed by the earlier Italian 
 painters as compared with the later. 
 
 Guided by this principle the student of music sees 
 that he must not expect to find in Beethoven's sym- 
 phonies the orchestration of Wagner, nor the har- 
 mony of Elgar and Franck in the oratorios of Han- 
 del. Thus enlightened — and here is the gist of the 
 whole matter — he is thrown back and his attention 
 concentrated upon the elements of power that are 
 
 242
 
 HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY 
 
 actually present in Handel and Beethoven. In no 
 other art does the technical attainment of the period 
 exert so compelling an influence upon the style as 
 it does in music. Making the proper allowance for 
 this, and also for the action of race, epoch, common 
 ideals, and social conditions, the student who has 
 developed the historic sense is able to employ the 
 standards of judgment that are applicable to each 
 composer and school. He learns what to look for, 
 and especially what he has no right to look for. 
 If historic study had no other result than this it 
 would be more than justified, for it has seemed to 
 me that there is no more frequent cause of non- 
 appreciation and false judgment than this of de- 
 manding in musical works, especially those of the 
 older masters, qualities which in the nature of the 
 case they cannot possess. The great secret of criti- 
 cal justice is in the ability to measure works by the 
 standards that are applicable to them. When this 
 habit is formed the student is prepared to take the 
 proper point of view. He escapes the errors that 
 arise from faulty perspective. Getting into the 
 artist's world the observer becomes as one of his 
 contemporaries. He attains that prime condition 
 of true critical judgment and rational enjoyment of 
 art, which is — sympathy. 
 
 It must still be kept in mind that aesthetic values 
 are distinct from historic values, and it is quite con- 
 ceivable that a passion for historic investigation or 
 textual criticism may exclude the spontaneous un- 
 reasoning delight in beautiful things, such as an 
 
 243
 
 THE EDUCATION OE A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 impulsive school girl finds in Chopin or Grieg. I 
 certainly am not one of those who would exchange 
 the rapture of a Wordsworth or a Whitman in the 
 presence of nature for that of a geologist over the 
 unexpected discovery of glacial scratches. But 
 still there is a point where aesthetic values and his- 
 toric interests may meet and sustain one another. 
 The question of the effect produced by a work of 
 art is only partially a question of the work in and 
 of itself — it is even more a question of the mental 
 attitude of the beholder or hearer. Every mental 
 experience is the result of all the mental experiences 
 that have gone before; it is the latest term of a 
 series. The immediate impression of a piece of 
 music is certainly an aesthetic one, not scientific, — 
 emotional, not intellectual. Nevertheless the 
 aesthetic impression, which seems at the time so 
 simple and immediate, is really a bewildering com- 
 pound made up of a mingling of all past percep- 
 tions and appreciations and habits. The study of 
 the history of music is one of the formative in- 
 fluences which unconsciously sway the receptive 
 sensibility. It is a liberalizing process; it makes 
 the mind hospitable to a multitude of considerations 
 which assist the proper estimate of works of various 
 schools. It gives the mind that flexibility which 
 enables it to shift its ground and take a station 
 from which the work may be seen clear of in- 
 tervening prejudices. The preliminary discipline 
 seems to lend the needed warrant to the accuracy of 
 the aesthetic emotion; it is a partial guarantee 
 
 244
 
 HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY 
 
 against self-deception. For the best results of 
 knowledge come when we are unconscious of it 
 as a mere process of intellectual acquisition, and it 
 has become a part of feeling. Knowledge ceases 
 to be reflective and abstract only when it has be- 
 come resolved into immediate insight and direct ex- 
 perience. 
 
 There is no study connected with art in which "a 
 saving grace of common sense" is more required 
 than the history of music. When the culture of an 
 amateur is involved, and not the research of a spe- 
 cial investigator, it seems plain that only those fields 
 of history need to be considered that bear some rela- 
 tion to his own situation and needs as an amateur. 
 And yet even here an enthusiastic music lover will 
 wish to avoid a too narrow restriction. The breadth 
 of vision that comes from wide excursions will af- 
 fect, although indirectly, every musical experience. 
 Nevertheless certain schools and periods are far 
 more important to him than others. The music 
 lover is not called upon to exchange aesthetic 
 pleasure for the entertainment of curiosity and 
 speculation. I am ready to agree with Mr. W. 
 C. Brownell that to a man thoroughly alive his 
 own period is more important than any other. 
 But this does not mean that works produced in his 
 own period are necessarily and always more service- 
 able to him than those of the past. It is not a 
 matter of date but of actual living power. The 
 "Well-tempered Clavichord" is more to us of the 
 twentieth century than, let us say, the piano works 
 
 245
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 of Brahms. It is not that the "Well-tempered 
 Clavichord" was a great work for its time, but that 
 it is a great work now. In the productions of the 
 older time there is more reserve, less lavishness in 
 color, less agitation of surface than in those of the 
 late romantic epoch, but in their reflection of the 
 moods which are the inheritance of all the genera- 
 tions they have no date, but are contemporary with 
 the latest expression of genuine human emotion. 
 The old boundary lines which were made artificially 
 to separate successive periods from one another 
 have been removed; the men of old time are our 
 ancestors not merely in the flesh, but also in men- 
 tal and moral habit; while modes of expression 
 change, fundamental feelings which issue in liter- 
 ary and artistic forms remain essentially the same. 
 The difference is one of varying emphasis upon 
 this or that phase of experience, this or that view 
 of the universe with the resulting reactions, also a 
 difference in the means available for expression,- — 
 but there is no emotional state, no consequent mode 
 of utterance from the rudest to the most refined 
 that cannot be accepted, either in reality or imagi- 
 natively, as our own. We are in touch at every 
 moment with the heart of all mankind. In the 
 words of the ancient poet, nothing that is really 
 human is foreign to us. Every artist and thinker 
 who had a sincere message for his own age has 
 also a message for the present and the future. 
 
 If a student of the history of music enjoys the 
 services of a teacher a word of admonition to that 
 
 246
 
 HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY 
 
 teacher may not be out of place. He must have con- 
 victions and preferences; — if he is not extremely 
 wise and honest he will mistake prejudices for con- 
 victions and magnify his predilections into general 
 laws. There is safety in placing one's chief reli- 
 ance on works and composers that have survived 
 the storms of controversy and stand before the 
 world's regard in the calmness of assured victory. 
 There is no essential difference of opinion among 
 intelligent people in respect to the organ and 
 clavier works of Sebastian Bach, the sympho- 
 nies of Beethoven, the songs of Schubert, and 
 the piano works of Chopin. Many other com- 
 posers are eminent for specific unmistakable quali- 
 ties, and there is no difficulty in distinguishing the 
 salient beauties of recognized masterpieces. In 
 cases where there are honest differences of opinion 
 among equally competent authorities the teacher 
 should be liberal enough to refrain from attempt- 
 ing to enforce his own views and disparaging the op- 
 posite. He may, for example, greatly admire Men- 
 delssohn, at the same time being willing to admit 
 that many good judges deny to Mendelssohn a 
 place in the first rank of composers. The teacher's 
 only honest course in such a case is to give the rea- 
 sons for praise and dispraise that are advanced 
 from both sides, and help his pupils to weigh opin- 
 ions in the face of representative works and to 
 form conclusions for themselves. I do not need 
 to enlarge upon the value of this discipline in the 
 formation of character. For character is rather 
 
 247
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 to be chosen than much learning, and a flexible, 
 catholic, wide open mind is the best result of 
 the study of the history of music or any other 
 study. 
 
 Besides the temptation to dogmatic assertion there 
 is another danger into which the freedom and irre- 
 sponsibility of a lecturer's position are prone to 
 lead him, and that is the natural tendency to lay 
 undue emphasis upon subjects in which he himself 
 is especially interested. He may be engaged in re- 
 searches in some abstruse department of history, 
 such as mediaeval notation or the development of 
 musical instruments. He may have some favorite 
 composer upon whom he loves to dilate. His tem- 
 perament may incline him to linger in some single 
 attractive field, such as church music or the folk 
 song. It is hard for him to restrain his enthusiasm 
 before his class, and he will need to check his in- 
 clination to place his own sympathies above his 
 pupils' needs. It is proper enough that a teacher 
 of art should have his hobbies, but he must learn 
 to curb them in the lecture room. He must never 
 lose sight of proportions; he must not forget that 
 the functions of the special investigator and those 
 of a lecturer to ingenuous seekers after truth are 
 distinct. The safeguard is in a broad and systema- 
 tized plan, calculated in advance and maintained 
 with unflinching determination, for the teacher who 
 simply follows the lure of each day's suggestion will 
 often find at the end that he has wasted time in 
 agreeable side excursions, while the view of the 
 
 248
 
 HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY 
 
 subject which his class has acquired remains frag- 
 mentary, disproportioned, and obscure. 
 
 In the critical study of art there are three groups 
 of materials, viz., the actual works of art, contem- 
 porary records bearing upon them and the condi- 
 tions that produced them, and the commentaries of 
 critical scholars. The first-hand scrutiny of musi- 
 cal compositions is the alpha and the omega of the 
 student's task. It should be the effort of every 
 teacher of musical history to bring before his pu- 
 pils as many of the representative works of the 
 masters as possible, and to set them to studying these 
 works on both the structural and the expressional 
 sides. This seems as commonplace a remark as 
 any lover of platitudes could desire; but it is by no 
 means superfluous, for I have found, after long and 
 sometimes irritating experience, that the majority 
 of students are more inclined to read about works 
 of musical art in histories and critical essays than 
 to make direct attack upon the works themselves. 
 The reason for this, I think, is partly indolence, 
 partly a modest distrust of their own critical judg- 
 ment when it comes to giving definite reasons. It 
 is one of the many aspects of that trait in human 
 nature which prefers submission to authority in 
 place of the independent exercise of the reason. 
 Here is, perhaps, the noblest opportunity of the 
 teacher in helping his pupils to acquire the investi- 
 gating spirit and to gain confidence in their own 
 conclusions. 
 
 There are, of course, many periods and schools 
 
 249
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 whose production it is not possible for the pupil 
 personally to examine. The seventeenth century, 
 for instance, will always be more or less of a terra 
 incognita, which the average student can see only 
 through the eyes of men like Sir Hubert Parry who 
 have boldly explored its devious ways. Few of 
 the vast multitudes of the church compositions of 
 the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries are accessi- 
 ble. Even in the case of the available works of 
 the nineteenth century composers, the money cost, 
 especially of operas and orchestral scores, is a for- 
 midable obstacle. In respect to the majority of 
 works and schools, teachers and pupils alike must 
 depend upon the reports of special investigators. 
 And even in the cases of composers whose produc- 
 tions can be known to the student at first hand, he 
 must not go to the extreme of personal independence 
 and neglect the commentaries that have been written 
 by men of learning and discernment. These com- 
 mentaries will not merely give information, they 
 will suggest and stimulate, they will prevent or 
 correct false interpretations and narrow views. It 
 follows that the instructor must know what are the 
 best books in the various departments of his sub- 
 ject, he must be able to perceive the difference be- 
 tween a philosophic treatment of a theme and one 
 that is scrappy and superficial. He must know 
 how to make allowance for the personal equation 
 and estimate the critic's competence in view of his 
 temperament, education, and aesthetic principles. 
 With all due recognition of the usefulness of books, 
 
 250
 
 HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY 
 
 the teacher must, however, keep his pupils as far 
 as possible face to face with actual living works. 
 He must encourage them to inquire and explore so 
 far as their means extend, employing the opinions 
 of others only as provocation and guidance in the 
 formation of their own. For this point must ever 
 be made emphatic, — the study of the history of 
 music is not merely for the purpose of accumulating 
 facts, but far more for discovering the meaning and 
 uses of facts and training the critical faculty. And 
 the desired end is found not in the instant results 
 alone, but in the acquisition of a correct method, 
 the preparation of the ground for study and achieve- 
 ment in the future. No matter how short a dis- 
 tance the teacher may have gone in his own origi- 
 nal research, he must know what are the accepted 
 methods of historical investigation, so that by and 
 by his pupils may be able to get along without him. 
 This should always be the teacher's aim, — to 
 show his pupils how to walk safely when they are 
 obliged to walk alone. 
 
 A host of questions will arise to tax the teacher's 
 wisdom, but the art of arts in lecturing, as in read- 
 ing, is that of skipping. There is no more danger 
 of over-scantiness than there is of over-fulness. 
 The teacher who is loaded with his subject will 
 often revel in details, forgetting the wise saying of 
 Voltaire that the secret of being a bore is to tell 
 everything. In economy of material, in selection, 
 adjustment, and balance, so that nothing essential 
 is omitted and nothing superfluous introduced, the 
 
 251
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 teacher may himself exhibit some of the shining 
 qualities of an artist. He will do well to contrive 
 his own scheme and not indolently adopt that of 
 another. He may think best to study with his 
 class the chief composers in chronological order. 
 In that case he will state in terse form the distin- 
 guishing traits of each master, with the illustration 
 of a few works in which these traits are especially 
 apparent. He may, however, prefer to trace the 
 development of the principal forms, such as the 
 symphony, opera, song, piano music, church mu- 
 sic. Whatever the system, the larger attention 
 should be given to the forms and composers that 
 touch most closely the pupil's life and needs. In 
 American schools, for example, the history of piano 
 music, the song, orchestral music, church music, and 
 the oratorio should have much more time than the 
 history of the opera. This does not mean that the 
 opera should be neglected, for since an important' 
 motive of a history course is the preparation for 
 the musical experiences of the student's future, the 
 whole theory of the opera should be considered, 
 and a general acquaintance formed with the sub- 
 jects and salient characteristics of those lyric 
 dramas that have gained a secure place in the 
 world's regard. But in the wisest division of time 
 that which is most representative at the present 
 day should have preference over that which has 
 merely a historic or local interest. 
 
 Those who have a decided leaning toward any 
 single department of musical art will naturally 
 
 25 2
 
 HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY 
 
 wish to become familiar with the history of their 
 specialty, and this preference may well be en- 
 couraged. The pianist should be at home in the 
 annals of his instrument and its music, the singer 
 familiar with the history of the song, the organist 
 and choir leader with the ideal and development 
 of church music and its relation to the various 
 modes of religious worship. Yet no phase of music 
 can be isolated; for of all the separate departments 
 of musical art is it true, as Emerson sings of the 
 factors in human society: 
 
 "All are needed by each one; 
 Nothing is fair or good alone." 
 
 To rise to the highest view of our theme, neither 
 does the whole history of music stand alone. Music 
 can never be separated from the larger life of the 
 world. The fascination of the study of its history 
 lies in its relation to the whole course of civilization, 
 for although it is, so far as definite expression is 
 concerned, the most remote of the arts from the 
 ordinary phenomenal life, it is at the same time, 
 as Lotze declares, the most social of the arts, and 
 its constant striving after new forms and adapta- 
 tions is the reflection of tendencies in society which 
 reveal themselves also in arts, philosophies, man- 
 ners, and institutions. Nothing is more observable 
 in the recent progress of music than its intimate 
 connection with literature, as shown in the opera, 
 cantata, and program music of the nineteenth cen- 
 
 253
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 tury. The different styles of church music are the 
 outgrowth of necessities in the creeds, traditions, dis- 
 ciplines, and ceremonies of the great ecclesiastical 
 orders. The national movements in those countries 
 which have but recently entered the current of 
 musical progress, such as Russia, Bohemia, Nor- 
 way, and Finland, are to be interpreted only as we 
 refer them back to still deeper stirrings of the popu- 
 lar self-consciousness. To sound these depths of 
 musical suggestion would require an abundance of 
 knowledge and a capacity for philosophic general- 
 ization that can hardly be expected of a musical 
 scholar. It is enough to say that these relation- 
 ships exist, and that the recognition of them, even 
 afar off, is a mighty kindler of enthusiasm. No 
 breadth of culture, no acquaintance with lan- 
 guages, literature, art, and history is superfluous to 
 the one who wishes to solve the meaning of music 
 and interpret its message to the ages. A lifetime 
 is far too short to compass the circuit of its rela- 
 tions. The magnitude and difficulty of such studies 
 should be to every student not a discouragement 
 but an inspiration. 
 
 In studying the history of music we learn to 
 merge our scanty personal experience in the ex- 
 perience of the race. We acquire the open mind, 
 the liberal judgment. We forsake prejudices and 
 observe art works in their universal aspects. Crit- 
 ics of the scientific order tell us that we must 
 repress personal predilections and apply to works 
 of art standards that are established by the con- 
 
 254
 
 HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY 
 
 sent of the best minds. This is practicable only so 
 far as we are able to make the judgments of the 
 best minds sincerely our own because our reason 
 assents to them, for an opinion accepted merely 
 on the authority of a name can never coerce us 
 much after we have forgotten its terms. Every es- 
 timate, to be worth anything, must be a personal 
 estimate. It follows, therefore, that it is our duty 
 to make this estimate comprehensive and just, so 
 far as it lies in our power. In this adjustment of 
 the receiving mind to the work in hand we accept 
 the aid of history, — not only the history of forms 
 and productions, but also the history of taste. In 
 the sifting process of public opinion we find the 
 only really trustworthy test of artistic value, for by 
 this we discover whether a work has in itself a corre- 
 spondence with genuine human need. Great works 
 appear greater and small works appear smaller 
 when brought before the tribunal of history. 
 
 Deference to the verdicts of history, however, 
 does not annul the student's right of private judg- 
 ment. "The salt of all aesthetic inquiry," says 
 Walter Pater, "is what, precisely what, is this to 
 me." It makes a vast difference, however, what 
 there is in this me, what faculty of response to that 
 which is strongest and finest and most human in 
 art. There is little value in any culture of the in- 
 tellect that is kept apart from sympathetic contact 
 with the great heart of the world. When the mind 
 has become expanded by the entrance of the large 
 human sympathies, the reactions in the face of par- 
 
 255
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 ticular works and groups of works will be different 
 from those that are felt when there is no conscious- 
 ness of art's permanent social relations. Through 
 the sympathetic action of his art the student is able 
 to enter into the spiritual life of his fellow-men, and 
 to feel that he is at one with them in some of the 
 nobler interests of the soul. The ultimate purpose 
 of the study of the history of music is to increase 
 musical appreciation in the deeper sense of the 
 term, to enrich the inner life by making it receptive 
 to all those quickening influences which music in 
 its evolution through the centuries has gained the 
 power to exert. 
 
 Besides the historic background which imparts 
 the social interest to groups of works and schools 
 of composition, there is often to be found a closer 
 and more intimate revelation where a work pos- 
 sesses a quality which can plainly be interpreted as 
 a communication of the composer's self — his tem- 
 perament, experience, and attitude toward life. 
 Through a vast amount of music, especially that 
 of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, runs 
 what may be called a lyric quality, — behind the 
 work we discover the man. Not the man merely as 
 musician, as master of musical science, or inventor 
 of themes and forms, but the man like ourselves, 
 who might have expressed himself in literary terms 
 if his talent had led him that way. These personal 
 deliverances cannot be directly demonstrated to be 
 such; the composer is no doubt often unconscious 
 
 256
 
 HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY 
 
 that he is uncovering his heart; yet the message 
 seems plainly lurking in the depths of his tones. 
 As the yearning, tormented soul of Michelangelo 
 is unveiled in the grandiose forms, the speaking 
 countenances, and the strained attitudes of the sub- 
 lime figures in the Medici chapel and the prophets 
 and sibyls of the Sistine, just as the insatiable cu- 
 riosity concerning life and the sympathetic love for 
 all mankind are seen in the portraits and religious 
 pictures of Rembrandt, so in the masterpieces of 
 modern music a human heart may be found beat- 
 ing amid their melodies and harmonies, and we 
 greet not merely the clever fabricator of tone struct- 
 ures but a living, striving, suffering companion. 
 I am quite sure that, in the last analysis, this recog- 
 nition of fellowship with great characters is the 
 deepest source of pleasure, as it is the most salutary 
 result, in the study of art. The intense desire that 
 every lover of music has to know more about the 
 great composers as men, through their biographies, 
 letters, conversations, anecdotes, and the testimony 
 of their acquaintances, is associated with a belief 
 that their music contains more or less of the ele- 
 ments of a confession. 
 
 We find, to be sure, a school of artists and critics 
 who repudiate any concern with the subjective ele- 
 ment in literary, plastic, or musical works. The au- 
 thor may be morally good or bad, they maintain, 
 optimist or pessimist or anything you please, it is of 
 no consequence; it is the work and our psychical re- 
 actions that are important to us, not the author. 
 
 257
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 Flaubert, proclaiming the most extreme principles of 
 realism, exclaimed: "The man [that is, the author] 
 is nothing, th wo.k is everything," and apparently 
 convinced himself that in his own novels nothing 
 of himself is to be found. "But is it possible," 
 asks Bourget, "that a work can possess an exist- 
 ence in itself and different from the mind that pro- 
 duced it ? Does not a creation of an artist — pict- 
 ure or statue, poem or romance, piece of music or 
 of architecture — have for its first condition that 
 of being the transparence of a sensibility, the reve- 
 lation, direct or symbolic, of a certain soul?" It is 
 unquestionable that the composer conceals himself 
 in his music far more completely than the lyric poet 
 is able to do, but even his art is not a complete dis- 
 guise — there will be something in his melodies and 
 harmonies that betrays him. Is not the soul of 
 the music really the soul of the man? Does it not 
 help us in studying Beethoven to know something 
 of him as he knew himself? Do we not find in 
 many of his letters an almost painful effort to im- 
 part something which comes to fuller utterance in 
 his music ? Are we not more powerfully affected by 
 that music, are we not more likely to feel human 
 sympathy as well as aesthetic pleasure, if we have 
 learned something of the composer's joys and sor- 
 rows, his spiritual struggles and victories? Would 
 his music make the same appeal to our descendants 
 as it does to us if every record of his life were to be 
 blotted out, if they could know nothing of his per- 
 sonal traits or the conditions under which his works 
 
 258
 
 HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY 
 
 were produced, the affliction of his deafness and 
 his beloved nephew's ingratitude, his solitude, his 
 friendships, his proud independence, his boisterous 
 humor, his unsteady temper, the strange mingling 
 of coarse manners with tenderness as sweet as that 
 of a woman, his vague religious yearnings, his love 
 of nature, his democratic principles, his lofty ideals, 
 his passionate devotion to his art, his unwearied 
 quest of perfection? Sir George Grove raises the 
 question if a certain superficiality in Mendelssohn's 
 work may not be due to his unfailing good fortune 
 and habitual high spirits. Was Schubert correct in 
 saying that his best music was the product of his 
 misery as well as of his genius? The question of 
 the precise nature of the relation between a com- 
 poser's music and his life and character is a baffling 
 one, and an eagerness to look everywhere for ex- 
 act correspondences leads to that sentimentalism 
 which, as in the study of the history of music, we 
 must carefully avoid. In a multitude of instances 
 such direct connection cannot be discovered — as 
 for e ample between Beethoven's joyous Second 
 Symphony and the doleful "will" of about the same 
 date, — yet it is certain that a man's outward acts 
 and displays of temperament proceed from inner 
 causes that are just as mysterious to us as the act 
 of artistic creation, and to say that there is no re- 
 lation between the emotional life as shown in works 
 of beauty and the emotional life as shown in those 
 outward signs by which men interpret the inner 
 life, would be to assert that music stands isolated 
 
 259
 
 THE EDUCATION OE A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 from the other arts, falsely called its sisters, and is 
 merely a formal play of pleasant sounds, as super- 
 ficial, as meaningless as its detractors have ever 
 maintained. 
 
 While we must be on our guard against carrying 
 our curiosity concerning a musician's life into ir- 
 relevant gossip, we are more than justified when 
 we seek to draw from the records everything that 
 may help us to understand the man as he really 
 was. The most illuminating aids to this sympa- 
 thetic comprehension will be found in the letters 
 of composers, especially n the correspondence of 
 men like Schumann, Wagner, Liszt, and Tchai- 
 kovsky, who had both a love of introspection and 
 a gift of literary expression. Nothing is more 
 striking in the annals of recent music than the in- 
 tense desire on the part of these representative 
 musicians, and of many others in less degree, to 
 expose to friendly scrutiny their most cherished 
 convictions and desires. To the art critic these 
 documents are indispensable, for they abound 
 in the most instructive discussions upon practical 
 and theoretical musical questions, besides throw- 
 ing light upon the author's own intentions in his 
 creative work. In some of these writings artistic 
 affairs are uppermost, in others personal, domestic, 
 or social concerns predominate. In Wagner's let- 
 ters both the artist and the man in every conceiva- 
 ble relation are revealed with an unexampled abun- 
 dance and minuteness. As volume after volume of 
 his letters issues from the press we almost wonder 
 
 260
 
 HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY 
 
 how he found time for any other occupation. But 
 these letters and his theoretical books and pamphlets 
 are to a large extent explanatory of his dramas — 
 and these dramas, as he distinctly tells us, are always 
 the embodiment of his opinions and his longings, 
 the one passion of his life not being fame or wealth 
 but to be understood. The fascinating enigma 
 of Tchaikovsky's character almost ceases to be an 
 enigma as we read his letters to Madame von Meek; 
 a very essential element in the biography of this per- 
 turbed spirit is to be seen, for example, in his ex- 
 planation to her of the meaning of his Fourth sym- 
 phony. No one can mistake the direct relation- 
 ship between the letters of these musicians I have 
 mentioned and their compositions; their tastes, 
 aims, and temperaments are found in both modes 
 of expression. In Tchaikovsky's Fourth and Sixth 
 symphonies we recognize the same swift alternation 
 of moods, the brooding melancholy, the fierce re- 
 volt, the weakness of will, the unstable compound 
 that results from the mingling of ungoverned im- 
 pulse (so common in the Slav) with western cul- 
 ture that we observe in the records of his life. 
 Liszt's joyous bonhomie, cosmopolitan sympathies, 
 overflowing vitality, and exuberant enjoyment of 
 whatever is romantic, picturesque, and splendid are 
 evident in his compositions and in his delightful 
 Travel Letters of a Bachelor of Music. No less do 
 Schumann's taste for the more inward and senti- 
 mental phases of literary romanticism and his 
 love of simple domestic pleasures find expression 
 
 261
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 in his correspondence, his essays, his piano pieces, 
 and his songs. 
 
 This intimate relation between art and personal 
 life, and this propensity to supplement musical 
 production with definite explanations, is becoming 
 more and more characteristic of the present age. 
 The offices of composer and expounder are fre- 
 quently united; the world wants the composer's 
 opinions of his own work and of the work of others; 
 the musician has become a man of affairs, and his 
 relation to the public is far more direct and inti- 
 mate than of old. He comes more than half way 
 to meet his patrons, and takes every pains to be 
 understood by them. The composer of the nine- 
 teenth century is not only nearer to us in time than 
 his forerunner of the eighteenth, but he is nearer in 
 the eager approach of his heart, in his almost pa- 
 thetic appeal for comprehension. In this self-rev- 
 elatory character of his work he is as strictly a child 
 of his age as the contemporary painter, poet, or 
 romancer. The period of abstraction in music was 
 past when Beethoven employed the standard forms 
 as channels through which he poured the burn- 
 ing stream of his own passionate self-consciousness. 
 Music has ever since, in spite of partial reversions 
 in such men as Mendelssohn and Brahms, been 
 intensely individual, a cry of the man as well as of 
 the age. It is music with a purpose. The public 
 is well aware of this, it loves more and more to dis- 
 cover personality in art creations, and hence the 
 demand for musical biographies, reminiscences, 
 
 262
 
 HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY 
 
 diaries, and letters expands from day to day. In 
 this attraction to the spiritual adventures of its 
 heroes the public seems to confirm the assertion of 
 Richard Wagner that "the severance of the artist 
 from the man is as brainless an attempt as the di- 
 vorce of soul from body"; and that "never was 
 an artist loved nor his art comprehended unless 
 he was also loved — at least unwittingly — as man, 
 and with his art his life was also understood." 
 
 There is little danger, I think, that the music 
 lover will fail to make the necessary discrimina- 
 tions in this department of musical interpretation. 
 Not in every composer, by any means, do we find 
 this direct and self-revealing individualism. Among 
 artists we find two classes, viz., the subjective and 
 the objective. In poetry, Goethe, who tells us 
 that all his poems were occasional poems called 
 forth by real circumstances, that all he published 
 were "fragments of a long confession," is the type 
 of the subjective artist; Schiller, who went outside 
 of himself for his material and built up his pieces in 
 deliberate workman-like fashion, with cool, system- 
 atic regard to proper form and technique, is the type 
 of the objective artist. The same antithesis we find 
 in painting between Da Vinci or Rembrandt and 
 Raphael. Wagner is preeminently an example 
 of the subjective musician; his dramas are as much 
 a part of the author's self as are the poems of Shel- 
 ley and Byron. The eighteenth century opera com- 
 posers before Mozart and Gluck are purely ob- 
 jective; their works were produced to order and 
 
 263
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 according to contract, their subjects were wholly 
 conventional, their music constructed in accordance 
 with rule and tradition. The personal interest in 
 their work is nil, and nothing that we know of their 
 history or character is of any value to us in the ap- 
 preciation of their work. This is almost enough 
 in itself to account for the oblivion into which these 
 operas have fallen. Opera, like the spoken drama, 
 is indeed essentially an objective art, for the au- 
 thor's purpose is to reflect nature as he sees it around 
 him, not as it is in his own inner brooding. Never- 
 theless the modern opera, like the spoken play, is 
 becoming more subjective, and the Strausses and 
 the Debussys of our time are no more anxious than 
 our Ibsens and Maeterlincks to keep themselves 
 altogether out of their work. 
 
 With the composers of abstract instrumental mu- 
 sic the problem is not so easy. It is more a matter 
 of intuition than direct perception when we find 
 the man behind the music. Nevertheless nothing 
 can be more plain than that such men as Schumann, 
 Grieg, Tchaikovsky, Dvorak, and MacDowell, per- 
 haps, indeed, most of the leaders of nineteenth cen- 
 tury music, wrote not because they chose, but be- 
 cause they must, that they had that within them 
 which forced its way out, a burden upon their 
 souls that gave them no peace until it was dis- 
 charged. They were not journeymen under em- 
 ploy, like so many musicians of the preceding cen- 
 turies, but free independent spirits who spoke not 
 to order, or in conformity, but as their own separate 
 
 264
 
 HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY 
 
 irrepressible genius bade them speak. The state- 
 ment of Wagner, quoted above, must not be taken 
 to apply to all composers but only to those of the 
 self-conscious order to which he himself belonged; 
 but the application can be made to the greater num- 
 ber of the masters whom we most love, and it will be 
 found, I think, that the music that touches us most 
 deeply and which we retain in our memories is the 
 music in which the lyric element is most apparent. 
 One practical suggestion is necessary here. In 
 employing this somewhat hazardous method of in- 
 terpretation which I have advised, the student must 
 take note of the stage in a composer's development 
 to which any given composition belongs. Every 
 composer of note has to pass through a season of 
 formalism, when he is learning how to use his tools, 
 getting together the material for self-expression. 
 In this early period he will be more or less under 
 bondage to his predecessors, and in absorbing their 
 work he will, in spite of himself, model his own pro- 
 duction after their manner. There is nothing of 
 the mature Wagner in "Rienzi"; there is much of 
 the contemporary Vienna school in the first trios 
 and sonatas of Beethoven; there is little individ- 
 uality in the early symphonies of Schubert; Verdi 
 did not find himself until he was past fifty. Marked 
 originality sometimes appears almost at the out- 
 set, as in Schubert's songs and Schumann's piano 
 pieces, but even with these composers the law 
 will be found to hold good in other forms which 
 they cultivated. Wagner, in his Communication to 
 
 265
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 My Friends, makes the very profound observation 
 that every artist of real importance is made what 
 he is under the direction of two orders of impres- 
 sions, viz., artistic impressions (meaning thereby his 
 lessons from the technical study of his art and the 
 influence of other composers) and impressions of 
 life. The student of music who wishes to get to 
 the heart of the works of his favorite masters will 
 take both these orders of impressions into account. 
 In the first period of a composer's life the artistic 
 impressions will usually be the strongest, but as he 
 grows older he will come more and more under the 
 sway of spiritual forces and they will gradually 
 give a more personal color to his work. 
 
 It follows from what has been said that in study- 
 ing and teaching the history of music, biography 
 must not be kept apart from the development of 
 form and technique. Better too much of it than 
 too little. Keep the personal human element in the 
 foreground. The understanding of every com- 
 poser's work involves the question of how it came 
 to be, and we must go wide and deep in our search 
 for causes. 
 
 266
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE MUSIC LOVER AND THE HIGHER 
 
 LAW 
 
 The good of all ages who have been imbued with a passion 
 for righteousness, have never hesitated to spend themselves 
 generously for the cause they loved, the advancement of good- 
 ness; nor should those who care for what is beautiful ever 
 hesitate to give themselves as liberally to make beauty prevail 
 in the world. — Bliss Carman, The Poetry of Life. 
 
 In the foregoing pages I have endeavored to show 
 the amateur, who begins with no knowledge of 
 musical theory, some of the principles of musical 
 design and expression. I have tried to correct the 
 common opinion that nothing is needed in the cult- 
 ure of the listener except frequent association with 
 beautiful works and the frank surrender to imme- 
 diate impressions. I trust also that I have suc- 
 ceeded in demonstrating that a knowledge that will 
 immensely increase the permanent benefits to be 
 derived from music can be obtained by any one who 
 is ignorant of musical science, by following methods 
 which are applied, mutatis mutandis, to the study 
 of the arts of design. 
 
 There still remains a doubt in the minds of many 
 earnest people, who will refuse to entertain the 
 claims of art unless they can see that it makes a 
 
 267
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 positive contribution to moral and intellectual prog- 
 ress. What has it to do with conduct? they will 
 ask. How does it help one to meet the practical 
 issues of every day? Does it give steadfastness to 
 one's higher purposes? Are the hours which its 
 votaries dedicate to it a preparation for faithful ser- 
 vice in the world, or are they an indulgence which 
 tends to weaken the will and promote a selfish 
 indifference to the prosaic commonplace interests 
 upon which, nevertheless, the health of the com- 
 munity depends ? Is not the passion for art, when 
 given free scope, mentally and morally injurious, or 
 at best ethically neutral, because it tempts one by 
 visions of exquisite delight away from the active 
 duties and the larger sympathies ? 
 
 These questions, which are constantly raised an 
 respect to art and to aesthetic culture, seem at first 
 sight to apply more directly to music than to the 
 representative arts and literature. The latter are 
 more closely connected with constant life and with 
 mental and moral ideas. They bring life and its 
 permanent activities directly before us. We can- 
 not resist the thought that they are designed to 
 instruct as well as to give pleasure, to bring the 
 consciousness into contact with physical or mental 
 energies as well as to make the sensibilities more 
 delicate. They unite the world of outer experience 
 directly with the inner world of emotion. A large 
 acquaintance with life, therefore, seems necessary 
 for their full appreciation. 
 
 Music, on the other hand, remains enclosed in 
 
 268
 
 MUSIC AND THE HIGHER LAW 
 
 a palace of its own creation, which seems almost 
 like a prison so excluded is it from the world of 
 change and conflict. It is in the world, but appar- 
 ently not of it. It seems at times little more than 
 a fair illusion; to us, as to Jean Paul Richter, it 
 tells of that which we have not seen and shall not 
 see. When Matthew Arnold proclaims his famous 
 dictum that poetry is at bottom a criticism of life 
 — the application of ideas to life — even if we re 
 fuse to accept it as a complete statement, we con- 
 fess that it contains a large measure of truth. If 
 he had also applied the same test to painting and 
 sculpture we should not reject it utterly. But no 
 one, I think, would assert that music is a criticism 
 of life — the application of ideas to life. Arnold's 
 further claim that "the substance and matter of 
 the best poetry acquire their special character from 
 possessing, in an eminent degree, truth and seri- 
 ousness," would again not be wholly inapplicable 
 to the other representative arts, but could hardly 
 be made for music. Seriousness, yes; but to speak 
 of truth in connection with music would be to use 
 a term without meaning unless we apply to music 
 Keats's declaration, questionable elsewhere, that 
 "beauty is truth, truth beauty." It is, therefore, 
 hardly a cause for surprise that philosophers and 
 moralists often look with suspicion upon the fasci- 
 nations of music, and would restrict musical in- 
 dulgence on intellectual and ethical grounds, or 
 else would insist that some practical counter inter- 
 est should be at hand to neutralize the spell 
 
 269
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 which the enticing goddess of sound throws over 
 her adorers. William James has thus solemnly 
 spoken from his professorial pulpit: "The habit 
 of excessive indulgence in music, for those who 
 are neither performers themselves nor musically 
 gifted enough to take it in a purely intellectual 
 way, has probably a relaxing effect upon the char- 
 acter. One becomes filled with emotions which 
 habitually pass without prompting to any deed, and 
 so the inertly sentimental condition is kept up. 
 The remedy would be never to suffer one's self to 
 have an emotion at a concert without expressing it 
 afterward in some active way. Let the expression 
 be the least thing in the world — speaking genially 
 to one's aunt, or giving up one's seat in a street car, 
 if nothing more heroic offers — but let it not fail 
 to take place." 
 
 Professor Vida Scudder assumes a still more 
 austere mien as she brings this sweeping charge: 
 "There is a class to whom the stimulus offered by 
 music is on the whole a demoralizing influence. 
 In their quiet and well ordered existence, where the 
 sensational must be found not in external events, 
 but in subjective experience, the thirst for a subtle 
 form of emotional excitement becomes the domi- 
 nant motive of life. If the end of life be purpose- 
 ful activity and the function of emotion be simply 
 to stimulate to action — then it must be seen that 
 among the influences to which the oversensitive 
 nature can subject itself there is none more dan- 
 gerous and pernicious than music. For, more than 
 
 270
 
 MUSIC AND THE HIGHER LAW 
 
 any other power on earth, music arouses emotion 
 without furnishing any hint of an end to which the 
 emotion shall be directed." 
 
 This would be a formidable indictment if its 
 premises and its implications in regard to the nat- 
 ure and consequences of the musical experience 
 could be wholly accepted. As a general principle 
 it is undoubtedly true that the end of life is pur- 
 poseful activity, but surely this does not mean that 
 we should be in a condition of physical or mental 
 restlessness every hour of our waking existence. 
 As it is the duty of some to think in solitude while 
 others perform in the great world's eye, so there is 
 a time in each man's life for escape from the duties 
 that grind and wear, and from the emotions that 
 know no peace until they have gone forth in action. 
 There is a place for contemplation, for the refresh- 
 ment that follows a visitation of heavenly beauty, for 
 the inward happiness which may indeed strengthen 
 vis for purposeful activity when the proper time 
 for it comes, but which our instinct tells us is a 
 worthy and wholesome thing in itself, regardless of 
 ulterior aims. In poetry, in art, in music there 
 is, in Bliss Carman's words, "a power that stills 
 our superficial, unnecessary self and allows our 
 wiser, deeper self a moment or an hour of free- 
 dom." James implies that the first duty after a 
 musical experience is to forget it as soon as possi- 
 ble, implicitly denying that one carries away from 
 the concert hall anything that can profitably be re- 
 lived in memory and become a restorer of the jaded 
 
 271
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 spirit for the next day's toil. Music is an ex- 
 pression of life, and the works of the great com- 
 posers are the projection of the spirit of men who 
 thought deeply, wrought heroically, and imparted 
 to their music the strength they won from conflict 
 with the baffling mysteries and the stern oppositions 
 of the world. "To quicken our life into a higher 
 consciousness through the feelings is the function 
 of art," said Professor Dowden, and every one who 
 takes music seriously and has come to understand 
 its breadth and height would indignantly combat 
 an assertion that music does not possess this quick- 
 ening power. "The emotions which I experience 
 while hearing music," says John Addington Sy- 
 monds in his Diary, "in beautiful scenery, before 
 fine pictures, in cathedrals, at the thought of noble 
 men — these enable me to understand and to en- 
 joy, intensify the glow of life, and raise me to a 
 higher sphere." Any one who feels in himself this 
 consequence of great music need not distress his 
 soul with fears that his active energy will thereby 
 be undermined. 
 
 It must nevertheless be confessed that there is 
 a side of aesthetic indulgence in which peril lurks, 
 and no honest lover of art will refuse to face the di- 
 lemma. On this subject a few things may perhaps 
 profitably be said. In the first place these perils 
 are not confined to music, and there is a rank in- 
 justice in singling her out as a more dangerous se- 
 ducer than her sisters. Certain writers are fond 
 of asserting the superiority of poetry, painting, and 
 
 272
 
 MUSIC AND THE HIGHER LAW 
 
 sculpture to music because, as one of them declares, 
 " they give us ideas to apprehend as well as beauty 
 to enjoy." There is nothing more profitless than 
 discussions over the superiority or inferiority of 
 one art to another, but it may be asked, what is it 
 for which the world has always adored art — its 
 "ideas" or its beauty? The harm that the art 
 enthusiast may incur is in a too passionate love of 
 the sensuous, in detaching a special beauty from 
 its proper relation to life, and in so concentrating 
 his gaze on a superficial fascination as to permit 
 it to hypnotize him and paralyze his will. It is a 
 matter of record that this evil is as often found in 
 a devotion to poetry and the arts of design as to 
 music, and the fact that they are more directly con- 
 nected with actual life does not make their en- 
 chantments any less malign. I am not alluding to 
 their ability to corrupt by actual representation, but 
 rather to the tendency of the art voluptuary to 
 yield to that subtle, deceiving form of self-indul- 
 gence which exhausts his sympathy with the toils 
 and sorrows of his fellow men while he imagines he 
 is cultivating the finest capacities of his nature. 
 D'Annunzio, in his novel, II Piacere, has vividly 
 portrayed in Andrea Spirelli a nature whose moral 
 decadence had been accelerated by his surrender 
 to the utmost allurements of the senses. "Urban- 
 ity, atticism, love of all delicacies, predilection for 
 singular studies, aesthetic curiosity, refined gallantry 
 were hereditary qualities in the house of Spirelli." 
 Following his father's maxim that " one must make 
 
 273
 
 THE EDUCATION OE A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 one's own life as one makes a work of art," Andrea 
 had adopted as his one aim in life the ambition to 
 develop his sensitiveness to impressions at every 
 cost. Penetrated, impregnated with art, thirsty for 
 pleasure, tortured by an ideal, by nature and edu- 
 cation abhorring pain, he was vulnerable every- 
 where. "In the tumult of contradictory inclina- 
 tions he had lost all volition and all morality. The 
 will, in abdicating, had yielded her sceptre to the 
 instincts, and the aesthetic sense was substituted for 
 the moral sense." Eventually corruption did in 
 him its perfect work. 
 
 Andrea Spirelli is by no means an isolated phe- 
 nomenon in modern literature. In fact romancers 
 of recent times, especially the French, seem to take 
 an almost morbid pleasure in depicting the causes, 
 progress, and results of those spiritual maladies that 
 arise from over-indulgence in delicate specialized 
 sensations. And it is not in fiction alone that we 
 meet examples of moral decline accompanied by 
 the most exquisite aesthetic sensibility. The lives 
 of such men as Alfred de Musset, Paul Verlaine, and 
 Ernest Dowson illustrate the dire possibilities that 
 attend the cult of that form of beauty whose sacra- 
 ments are not consecrated by virtue and adminis- 
 tered in holy fear. There are also more robust 
 spirits than those I have named, men and women 
 whose ideals of art have been lofty and whose labors 
 have been of lasting benefit to society, yet in whose 
 lives there have been episodes that point an equally 
 salutary if less melancholy moral. So numerous 
 
 274
 
 MUSIC AND THE HIGHER LAW 
 
 are the instances of intense artistic activity coupled 
 with indifference to certain generally accepted ethi- 
 cal sanctions, that it is not strange that many should 
 incline to the belief that it is the natural tendency 
 of the aesthetic passion to undermine the founda- 
 tions of the sterner virtues. 
 
 Such a conclusion is grossly exaggerated and can 
 be held only in company with a superficial view of 
 the nature of art and its history. It cannot be 
 denied, however, that there are peculiar tempta- 
 tions against which the art enthusiast and the artist 
 also should be fortified. The artist and the art 
 lover live in an ideal world, and their elevation above 
 the prosaic routine of ordinary life seems often to 
 lift them above the conventional virtues and obli- 
 gations. Examples of ethical unconcern in union 
 with superior artistic achievement occur most con- 
 spicuously in those periods of art, such as the 
 Renaissance and the nineteenth century romantic 
 epoch, when all the conditions stimulated an in- 
 tense individualism. In periods such as that of the 
 Gothic architecture and sculpture, where the artist 
 works upon general ideas and hides himself in 
 production of a common type, the artist's temper is 
 serene because he feels no antagonism. The artists 
 of the Renaissance and the romantic period, on the 
 other hand, were in arms against an established 
 order, and the latter especially, in defying traditional 
 authority and asserting independence in emotion 
 and its expression, were frequently led into revolt 
 against social usages which seemed to them involved 
 
 275
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 in the Philistinism against which they waged a sort 
 of holy war. License in matters of conduct seemed to 
 them a logical corollary from the freedom of thought 
 which they rightly claimed. A somewhat similar er- 
 ror will beguile the eager connoisseur if he is not on 
 his guard. Even when actual moral relaxation does 
 not ensue, there may be a luxurious abandonment 
 to a one-sided culture which entails impatience with 
 humdrum responsibilities, and eventually an ener- 
 vation of that motive force that is needed for the 
 efficient performance of commonplace domestic and 
 social duties. The art voluptuary is always in dan- 
 ger of falling into that state of which Gautier speaks 
 when he says of Gerard de Nerval that "the pro- 
 gressive invasion of dreams had gradually rendered 
 it impossible for him to live in an environment where 
 realities move." 
 
 The life of an artist offers a compensation 
 for his frequent loss of hold upon external fact; 
 he puts his emotion into form, he creates an- 
 other fact, often so pure and lovely that his own de- 
 tachment becomes a virtue because it is a necessary 
 condition of a productiveness so beneficial. The 
 dilettante, on the other hand, receives and enjoys at 
 the cost of another's toil, while himself producing 
 nothing. He often sinks into a state in which effort, 
 for the time being at least, would be a burden, and 
 the very work that was brought into existence with 
 labor and pain may become to him a cause of lan- 
 guor and apathy. 
 
 Does this homily, it may be asked, at all concern 
 
 276
 
 MUSIC AND THE HIGHER LAW 
 
 the music lover? Is there any risk in the musical 
 infatuation equal to that which often lies in the other 
 aesthetic cravings? On one side of the indictment 
 a defense can be entered. The fact that "music 
 arouses emotion without furnishing any hint of an 
 end to which the emotion shall be directed," in- 
 stead of constituting an especial snare, it seems to 
 me comes near being a saving grace. Poetry and 
 painting present to the imagination and the sight 
 not only emotions, but objects and ends. This mu- 
 sic cannot do. I am aware that many hold the 
 belief that music can be moral or immoral, religious 
 or irreligious per se. This is an error that is 
 closely related to the notion that music alone can 
 represent or describe actual concrete objects and 
 definite sentiments. The demoralizing influence 
 which some ascribe to the music of certain operas 
 is not in the music, but (if it exists at all) in the texts 
 and situations. A degrading idea may be associa- 
 ated with a musical strain, but the probability is 
 that this idea will fade away when the music is re- 
 called. Music has a wonderful cleansing property. 
 Professor George Santayana's statement that "art 
 registers passions without stimulating them," and 
 that "in stopping to depict them it steals away their 
 life," — while somewhat in excess of the truth in 
 respect to literature and the representative arts, 
 is very near the truth in respect to music. It is 
 doubtful if music has the power of registering pas- 
 sion; it can hardly even suggest it unless one is 
 predetermined to find it there. Certain it is that 
 
 277
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 music often throws over an unworthy theme a veil 
 of such magical illusion that ugliness is turned into 
 beauty, vice into purity. It is her glory that when 
 permitted to act in freedom her communications are 
 always innocent. We may call music good or bad, 
 but we mean that it is well or ill composed. We 
 may call it strong or weak, noble or trivial, refined 
 or coarse, but we use these terms in a musical sense, 
 not attaching to them any notion of approbation or 
 disapprobation on ethical grounds. Sensuous de- 
 sire and gross intrigue disappear from Beaumar- 
 chais's "Marriage of Figaro" when Mozart exor- 
 cizes the evil spirit by the touch of his happy, guile- 
 less music. Many people find it hard to accept 
 these statements; the music has become so blended 
 in their minds with the idea or picture that has been 
 arbitrarily attached to it that they impute the effect 
 of one to the other. Moreover, those who philoso- 
 phize are often more prone to imagine experiences 
 of others than to make an exact study of their own. 
 All this seems to me so plain that when I find 
 even learned musical critics imputing ethical or un- 
 ethical qualities to abstract music without words, 
 scene, or even title, I confess myself sorely bewil- 
 dered. A well known writer of our day finds 
 Chopin's music "saturated with the color and mood 
 of sex." Schumann's D minor symphony is "that 
 obvious autobiography of triumphant love." No- 
 tice the word "obvious." Brahms, Liszt, Raff, 
 Tchaikovsky "were thrall beyond any other alle- 
 giance to the persuasions of sexual emotion; music 
 
 278
 
 MUSIC AND THE HIGHER LAW 
 
 makers haunted and enchained by the glamour of 
 the erotic." The writer is not offering this as a 
 mere subjective impression — the erotic music of 
 these men, he asserts, "makes no concealment, as 
 it admits no doubt of its origin." Is there not here 
 an odd jumble of psychologic and aesthetic confu- 
 sions? The music of Brahms (Brahms the austere, 
 Brahms the academic, so often pedantic, so often, 
 we must confess it, dull) making no concealment 
 and admitting no doubt of its origin in sexual emo- 
 tion! Perhaps, also, certain music is pea-green, 
 while other music smells of heliotrope or garlic, 
 — such asseverations have been solemnly made. 
 There is harm in such lucubrations as I have quoted 
 because they mislead many confiding music lovers, 
 persuading them, it may be, that poison lurks in 
 a thing that is really pure, and this is almost as rep- 
 rehensible a disservice as to persuade one that a 
 harmful thing is innocent. A unique property of 
 music is in that plasticity which enables it to take 
 whatever stamp the fancy may choose to impress 
 upon it. It suffers the hearer to conjure up what- 
 ever imagery his temperament or his theory may 
 suggest; but when he is enthralled by visions that 
 seem to him to assume reality within this tone 
 world of magic, let him consider that he is en- 
 tangled, like Merlin, in spells of his own weaving. 
 
 In this realm of the impalpable, toward which 
 music so smilingly beckons, there may be pitfalls 
 concealed among the flowers. But we shall not 
 escape them by wholly misconceiving their nature. 
 
 279
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 When we speak of an emotion without an object, 
 objectionable because there is no outlet afforded for 
 instant action, we are in danger of falling into the 
 trap that lies in an uncertain meaning given to the 
 word emotion. To feel pity at the sight of real 
 suffering, and then let it evaporate in tearful regret 
 taking no trouble to relieve, — such abortive emo- 
 tion is more likely to weaken than fortify the char- 
 acter. But when we use the word emotion to signify 
 the mental stirring before a work of art, it carries 
 very different connotations. The feelings aroused by 
 a drama are not the feelings that would be aroused 
 by corresponding incidents in real life. The illu- 
 sionized spectator in the story, who leaped upon the 
 stage to assault the successful villain, quite mis- 
 understood the province of art. The murder of 
 Desdemona has not the horror of reality. The 
 loves of Antony and Cleopatra do not tempt us to 
 emulation of their unholy excess; and it is not the 
 warning of the tragic consequence that defeats the 
 evil suggestion, but the intellectualizing, idealizing 
 power of poetry. It is hardly correct to say that the 
 emotion felt in music and other noble art has no 
 end to which it may be directed. It is itself an 
 end in the same sense that a religious emotion is 
 itself an end. No one is reasonably required to 
 turn every high mood into an instantaneous im- 
 pulse to action. If this mood, whether it comes 
 from music or any other pure source, makes one 
 to any extent or in any particular a better man, 
 then a worthy end is served. The deeds will follow 
 
 280
 
 MUSIC AND THE HIGHER LAW 
 
 when the proper occasion comes for them. And 
 so music, while it may not arouse a zeal for speedy 
 effort, may yet have other offices not less worthy. 
 Through its power to soothe and refresh, to sym- 
 bolize what is pure and holy, to promote the social 
 consciousness by effecting a sense of fellowship 
 with others in a refined experience, to brace the 
 mind for coming duties by the tonic of joy, to 
 lighten care and soften the hardness of adversity — 
 through these blessed ministries has music earned 
 the praises which the wise ones of the earth have 
 always lavished upon her as an inspiring ally in 
 moral culture and humanitarian progress. When a 
 man feels himself thus exalted by music, when the 
 glow of tenderness pervades his being as he goes 
 home from a concert hall, he should not be ready 
 to banish the impression. Even so kindly an act 
 as speaking genially to his aunt would be wrong 
 for him were it to bring him down abruptly from 
 the soul's height which, as Wordsworth reminds 
 us, is so difficult to keep. 
 
 In view of the conditions that prevail in this 
 country and the mental habits of our people, it does 
 not appear that either music or any other form of 
 art is destined soon to become an influence that 
 makes for social anaemia. But we may reach that 
 point at last. If one uses art in such a way that 
 it becomes a de-intellectualizing agency, to the de- 
 moralizing stage is only a step. The national re- 
 proach lies in the fact that, while we are beginning 
 to encourage art, we use it as a detail in our pur- 
 
 281
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 suit of ostentation and pleasure, not for the incor- 
 poration of noble ideals or as an element in the dis- 
 semination of such ideals among the various ranks 
 of society. We have not learned to take art seri- 
 ously; we have no distinct knowledge of the pur- 
 pose that the arts, when made a part of religion and 
 patriotic aspiration, have fulfilled in history; we 
 have no resolute ambition to bring them into the 
 deeper currents of our life. A superficial dilettant- 
 ism is still characteristic of many who take notice 
 of art, while the attitude of the great majority 
 is that of stupid disrespect. It may be that this 
 indifference is slowly giving way, but if so the dan- 
 ger is that those who leave the crowd of the obtuse 
 and join the circle of the amateurs will do so with- 
 out bringing with them any very stern determina- 
 tion to use art as a means of adding to the true 
 riches of the soul. The gain is not great if there is 
 merely a multiplication of the horde that sees only 
 the sensuous side of art, skimming its surface for 
 a taste of momentary delectation, finding nothing 
 that strengthens the understanding or reenforces the 
 agencies that make for enlightenment and virtue. 
 
 So far as music is concerned (and the rules of 
 health are the same in all the arts) the individual's 
 safeguard against the enfeeblement which may re- 
 sult from over-indulgence in the sweets of this most 
 intoxicating of aesthetic enjoyments is, it seems to 
 me, twofold. In the first place we may say, para- 
 phrasing a well known maxim respecting the evils 
 of democracy, that the cure for the possible ills of 
 
 282
 
 MUSIC AND THE HIGHER LAW 
 
 music is more music. By this I mean more music 
 of the highest order, together with a preparation 
 of mind that enables one to discriminate between 
 the qualities that fade and the qualities that endure, 
 and an artistic conscience that refuses to find satis- 
 faction in work that is not sincerely felt and skil- 
 fully wrought. Anything less than this is injustice 
 to one's self, injustice to the art, and injustice to 
 the musician who asks that he shall not be exposed 
 to the temptation of degrading his work in order 
 that he may live. 
 
 In the second place, the conscientious amateur 
 will escape the danger that lies in wait for those 
 who are too much at ease in the musical Zion, if 
 he will add his own momentum to those blessed 
 efforts, that are springing up all over this country, 
 to bring the sweet companionship of music to those 
 who live far from the centres of culture, to those 
 who are forming their taste in colleges and schools, 
 and to those who toil with their hands for daily 
 bread. In this age of humanitarian endeavor, he is 
 indeed an alert observer who can count the move- 
 ments for the welfare of men which make their ap- 
 pearance every day; it would not be strange if he 
 overlooked the efforts which are organized in many 
 of our cities for the musical benefit of the masses. 
 This is not the place to enumerate them or to de- 
 scribe the happy results that flow from them. It 
 is enough to say that the common belief that the 
 people prefer bad music to good is everywhere re- 
 futed. The tribute that has been paid by a promi- 
 
 283
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 nent critic to the service of the People's Symphony 
 concerts in New York would be applicable to other 
 similar institutions. In speaking of the large and 
 enthusiastic audiences he says: "These people are 
 learning what music is; what the composers have 
 created and set before them for the information of 
 their intellect and the warning of their imagination. 
 They are true and humble and devoted music 
 lovers, and in their homes the tone art will be a 
 part of the daily thought of their children and come 
 into its own." 
 
 In spite of the influences that are now in action 
 for the dissemination of good music among all the 
 social groups, the taste of the vast majority is still 
 debased, and the amount of vulgar, trashy music 
 heard at the thousands of cheap pleasure resorts 
 is appalling. Yet there is comfort in the belief 
 that the masses seize eagerly upon music of the 
 "cheap and nasty" variety because they have not 
 been able to hear any other. Good music, at least 
 decent music, prevails when it is given a chance, and 
 although Gresham's law may be true in the world 
 of finance it has no counterpart in the world of 
 tone. No one ever devoted himself with unselfish 
 zeal to the improvement of the public taste who 
 did not find encouragement, and, if he persevered, 
 a reward beyond his hopes. Philanthropists have 
 only just begun to see what the elevation of the 
 people's amusements would do for public content- 
 ment and public morals. Here is a field in which 
 all can try experiments. One result at least is 
 
 284
 
 MUSIC AND THE HIGHER LAW 
 
 sure, — any one will find that his artistic pleasures 
 will contribute to his moral growth if he seeks 
 cordially to share them with his neighbor. If any 
 harm ever comes from the indulgence of a love for 
 art it will be because that love is egotistic, because 
 it loses sight of the fact that the enjoyment of one, 
 however refined and pure it may appear to be, is a 
 delusion unless it is of such a kind that it can unite 
 with the interest of all. 
 
 At the end of this long argument framed for the 
 justification of the study of music to the reason, 
 and in deprecation of certain deductions which 
 something in music's nature seems so prone to 
 encourage, the feeling comes over me that I have 
 played an ungrateful, half-treacherous part in seem- 
 ing to imply that any apology should ever be needed 
 for whole souled devotion to this queenliest and 
 most beneficent of the arts. When her pure ac- 
 cents fall upon our ears, transmitted to us by those 
 prophets and high priests of Beauty whom we call 
 composers, when our whole being trembles with a 
 joy which we know contains no admixture of evil 
 because it is not of the world in which our feet 
 stumble and our hands are soiled, — in these rapt 
 moments we may easily be moved to think that 
 our hard won scientific lore, our calm critical ap- 
 praisals, are after all impertinent, for what can 
 music ask of us, what can anything fair and holy 
 ask of us, except unsuspicious acceptance and glad 
 surrender? If we are told, while still under the 
 
 285
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 sway of some sublime harmony, that music is of 
 inferior worth because it is detached from life, we 
 are tempted to ask our monitor, with something 
 like indignation, what he means by life; if there 
 is no life except what we can see and touch; and 
 whence, if not from life — life that is very full, 
 very rich, and near to the centre of Being — can a 
 communication of such ineffable beauty proceed? 
 There is something inferior and partial in a 
 phase of life that has nothing in it to which music 
 can suggest a counterpart, for music, more than 
 any other form of human expression, tells us of a 
 sphere into which we can rise where contradictions 
 are removed and discords resolved. Perhaps the 
 mystics to whom I have referred, such as Thoreau 
 and Hearn, who are lifted by music "above the 
 mire and dust of the universe," hearing "reminders 
 of our destiny," who are haunted in music by "the 
 pains and joys of lives innumerable," — perhaps 
 they have seen more deeply than the critics and 
 theorists and are the true soothsayers. It is the 
 unique praise of music that the humble and suffer- 
 ing ones, in every age and in every land, have sought 
 in the folk song for abiding consolation; that religion 
 has found her offices of worship grow cold when 
 deprived of music's presence; that patriotism has 
 found in melody its most potent stimulus to heroic 
 deed; that every phase of domestic life, from the 
 cradle to the grave, has always and everywhere been 
 sweetened and sanctified by this blessed ministry. 
 It has ever been the purpose of music to increase 
 
 286
 
 MUSIC AND THE HIGHER LAW 
 
 the joy of the world. In the last analysis this is 
 the supreme aim of all art and its chiefest glory; 
 and what words can there be that are eloquent 
 enough to give sufficient honor to whatever helps to 
 convince men that they are born for happiness? 
 And thus every man who brings beauty nearer to 
 his fellows and makes them love it more is a mission- 
 ary of a sacred cause, a herald of peace and good 
 will. 
 
 There are agencies that lift men into moods that 
 are blithe and hopeful, in which strength is re- 
 newed and faith rekindled, and one of them is 
 music. In spite of exceptions so rare that they 
 emphasize the rule, it is a fact of deep significance 
 that music, the universal art, to which men have 
 confided the most cherished experiences of their 
 souls, is an art that tells of gladness. The student 
 of the world's literature is constantly touching a 
 vein of disillusion and despair, and his contact 
 with many of its rarest minds often leaves him 
 depressed. But at the sound of music cares and 
 distresses are overborne, and the soul is set adrift 
 on a tide that flows toward radiant horizons. Not 
 that music has no sympathy with sorrow, but when 
 she enters into places of mourning she does so not 
 to make more poignant the agony of grief, but 
 rather to console. And this triumph of the soul 
 of which music testifies is no mere distraction, 
 bringing false comfort by concealing the truth. It 
 imparts strength because its majestic movement 
 tells of tireless power; it opens vistas of hope be- 
 
 287
 
 THE EDUCATION OF A MUSIC LOVER 
 
 cause its golden tones bear no trace of the dis- 
 cordant sounds of earthly struggle and lamenting. 
 Let us not fear, then, lest we bestow too much 
 thought upon music, or lest we be overzealous 
 in furthering its interests in the community. We 
 have only to watch that we love it wisely, study 
 it broadly and seriously, train our perceptions to 
 catch the whole of its meaning and not a fragment, 
 strive to discover the relation of music to life, and 
 not vainly imagine that he honors music, or does 
 good service to himself, who takes the nattering 
 unction to his soul that his taste separates him from 
 those who lack what he is pleased to call culture. 
 Art, when rightly understood, promotes fraternity 
 and not exclusiveness. The revival of art and its 
 adoption into the system of popular education is 
 a sign of health in our age, and to it every loyal 
 citizen should give heed and lend his aid in bring- 
 ing its benefits close to the public need. His prep- 
 aration for this service, when the art of music is in- 
 volved, will be first of all in his education as a 
 true music lover. He will seek association with 
 the great tone masters, he will confidingly yield his 
 spirit to the healthful currents that flow from their 
 strong spirits. He will so nourish his musical ap- 
 preciations that his consciousness of the vital things 
 in the art will flourish with his general mental 
 growth, with his advancement in taste, with his in- 
 creasing reverence for all things that are excellent 
 and fair. Convinced that strength and enlarge- 
 ment come from music when its social and individ- 
 
 288
 
 MUSIC AND THE HIGHER LAW 
 
 ual quickening power is rightly applied, he will find 
 the warrant of his discipleship in the zeal to assist 
 every unselfish effort to open highways for this 
 emissary of good in its gladsome errand among 
 men. 
 
 289
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 The following is an incomplete list of non-techni- 
 cal books that will prove valuable to the amateur 
 music lover. Histories, biographies, dictionaries, 
 and text books are not included. Should the 
 reader wish to extend his researches further, he will 
 find in the author's The Study of the History of 
 Music a very ample list of works touching all 
 sides of musical knowledge. 
 
 Ambros (A. W.). The Boundaries of Music and Poetry. Tr. 
 
 by Cornell. New York: Schirmer, 1893. 
 Baughan (E. A.)- Music and Musicians. London: Lane, 
 
 1906. 
 Coerne (L. A.). The Evolution 0} Modern Orchestration. 
 
 New York: Macmillan, 1908. 
 Combarieu (Jules). Music, Its Laws and Evolution. Inter- 
 national Scientific Series. New York: Appleton, 1910. 
 Ffrangcon-Davies (David). The Singing of the Future. 
 
 London: Lane, 1906. 
 Finck (H. T.). Chopin and Other Musical Essays. New 
 
 York: Scribner, 1894. 
 . Songs and Song Writers. New York: Scribner, 
 
 1900. 
 . Success in Music and How It Is Won. New York: 
 
 Scribner, 1909. 
 Gilman (Lawrence). Phases of Modern Music. New York: 
 
 Harper, 1904. 
 
 291
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 Gilman (Lawrence). Stories of Symphonic Music: A Guide to 
 
 the Meaning oj Important Symphonies, Overtures, and 
 
 Tone Poems from Beethoven to the Present Day. New 
 
 York: Harper, 1904. 
 Glyn (Margaret H). The Rhythmic Conception oj Music. 
 
 New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1907. 
 Grove (George). Beethoven and His Nine Symphonies. 
 
 London: Novello, 1896. 
 Gurney (Edmund). The Power of Sound. London: Smith, 
 
 Elder & Co., 1880. 
 Hadow (W. H.). Studies in Modern Music. 2 vols. New 
 
 York: Macmillan, 1892-3. 
 Hale (Philip), editor and author. Program Books 0} the Boston 
 
 Symphony Orchestra. Published annually by C. A. 
 
 Ellis. 
 Henderson (W. J.). Modem Musical Drift. New York: 
 
 Longmans, 1904. 
 
 . Preludes and Studies. New York: Longmans, 1891 
 
 . The Art oj the Singer. New York: Scribncr, 
 
 1906. 
 
 . The Orchestra and Orchestral Music. New York: 
 
 Scribner, 1899. 
 
 . What is Good Music? New York: Scribner, 1898. 
 
 Kobbe (Gustav). How to Appreciate Music. New York: 
 
 Moffat, Yard & Co., 1910. 
 Krehbiel (H. E.). How to Listen to Music. New York: 
 
 Scribner, 1897. 
 Lavignac (Albert). Music and Musicians. Tr. by Mar- 
 chant. New York: Holt, 1905. 
 Mason (D. G.). A Guide to Music. New York: Baker 
 
 & Taylor Co., 19 to. 
 . The Orchestral Instruments and What They Do. New 
 
 York: Baker & Taylor Co., 1910. 
 Mason (D. G.) and Surette (T. W.). The Appreciation oj 
 
 Music. New York: Baker & Taylor Co., 1910. 
 
 (An explanation of the chief musical forms, with special 
 
 reference to the works of Bach and Beethoven.) 
 
 292
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 Mees (Arthur). Choirs and Choral Music. New York: 
 Scribner, iqoi. 
 
 Newman (Ernest). Musical Studies. London: Lane, 1905. 
 
 Niecks (Frederick). Programme Music in the Last Four Cen- 
 turies. London: Novello, 1907. 
 
 Parry (C. H. H.). The Evolution 0} the Art of Music. New 
 York: Appleton, 1896. 
 
 Pole (William). The Philosophy of Music. London: Triib- 
 ner, 1879. 
 (An explanation of the principles of musical science.) 
 
 Riemann (Hugo). Catechism of Musical ^Esthetics. Tr. 
 byBerewunge. London: Augener, no date. 
 
 . Dictionary of Music. Tr. by Shedlock. London: 
 
 Augener. 
 
 Symons (Arthur). Studies in Seven Arts. New York: 
 Dutton, 1906. 
 
 Upton (G. P.). The Standard Concert Guide: A Handbook 
 of the Standard Symphonies, Oratorios, Cantatas, and 
 Symphonic Poems for the Concert Goer. Chicago: 
 McClurg, 1908. 
 
 . The Standard Operas. Chicago: McClurg, 1908. 
 
 Wagner (Richard). On Conducting. Tr. by Dannreuther. 
 London: Reeves, 1887. 
 
 W T allaschek (Richard). Primitive Music. London: Long- 
 mans, 1893. 
 
 293
 
 V 
 
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