How far is anyone justified, be he an authority or a layman, in
expressing or trying to express in terms of music (in sounds, if you
like) the value of anything, material, moral, intellectual, or
spiritual, which is usually expressed in terms other than music? How
far afield can music go and keep honest as well as reasonable or
artistic? Is it a matter limited only by the composer's power of
expressing what lies in his subjective or objective consciousness? Or
is it limited by any limitations of the composer? Can a tune literally
represent a stonewall with vines on it or with nothing on it, though it
(the tune) be made by a genius whose power of objective contemplation
is in the highest state of development? Can it be done by anything
short of an act of mesmerism on the part of the composer or an act of
kindness on the part of the listener? Does the extreme materializing of
music appeal strongly to anyone except to those without a sense of
humor--or rather with a sense of humor?--or, except, possibly to those
who might excuse it, as Herbert Spencer might by the theory that the
sensational element (the sensations we hear so much about in
experimental psychology) is the true pleasurable phenomenon in music
and that the mind should not be allowed to interfere? Does the success
of program music depend more upon the program than upon the music? If
it does, what is the use of the music, if it does not, what is the use
of the program? Does not its appeal depend to a great extent on the
listener's willingness to accept the theory that music is the language
of the emotions and ONLY that? Or inversely does not this theory tend
to limit music to programs?--a limitation as bad for music itself--for
its wholesome progress,--as a diet of program music is bad for the
listener's ability to digest anything beyond the sensuous (or
physical-emotional). To a great extent this depends on what is meant by
emotion or on the assumption that the word as used above refers more to
the EXPRESSION, of, rather than to a meaning in a deeper sense--which
may be a feeling influenced by some experience perhaps of a spiritual
nature in the expression of which the intellect has some part. "The
nearer we get to the mere expression of emotion," says Professor Sturt
in his "Philosophy of Art and Personality," "as in the antics of boys
who have been promised a holiday, the further we get away from art."
On the other hand is not all music, program-music,--is not pure music,
so called, representative in its essence? Is it not program-music
raised to the nth power or rather reduced to the minus nth power? Where
is the line to be drawn between the expression of subjective and
objective emotion? It is easier to know what each is than when each
becomes what it is. The "Separateness of Art" theory--that art is not
life but a reflection of it--"that art is not vital to life but that
life is vital to it," does not help us. Nor does Thoreau who says not
that "life is art," but that "life is an art," which of course is a
different thing than the foregoing. Tolstoi is even more helpless to
himself and to us. For he eliminates further. From his definition of
art we may learn little more than that a kick in the back is a work of
art, and Beethoven's 9th Symphony is not. Experiences are passed on
from one man to another. Abel knew that. And now we know it. But where
is the bridge placed?--at the end of the road or only at the end of our
vision? Is it all a bridge?--or is there no bridge because there is no
gulf? Suppose that a composer writes a piece of music conscious that he
is inspired, say, by witnessing an act of great self-sacrifice--another
piece by the contemplation of a certain trait of nobility he perceives
in a friend's character--and another by the sight of a mountain lake
under moonlight. The first two, from an inspirational standpoint would
naturally seem to come under the subjective and the last under the
objective, yet the chances are, there is something of the quality of
both in all. There may have been in the first instance physical action
so intense or so dramatic in character that the remembrance of it
aroused a great deal more objective emotion than the composer was
conscious of while writing the music. In the third instance, the music
may have been influenced strongly though subconsciously by a vague
remembrance of certain thoughts and feelings, perhaps of a deep
religious or spiritual nature, which suddenly came to him upon
realizing the beauty of the scene and which overpowered the first
sensuous pleasure--perhaps some such feeling as of the conviction of
immortality, that Thoreau experienced and tells about in Walden. "I
penetrated to those meadows ... when the wild river and the woods were
bathed in so pure and bright a light as would have waked the dead IF
they had been slumbering in their graves as some suppose. There needs
no stronger proof of immortality." Enthusiasm must permeate it, but
what it is that inspires an art-effort is not easily determined much
less classified. The word "inspire" is used here in the sense of cause
rather than effect. A critic may say that a certain movement is not
inspired. But that may be a matter of taste--perhaps the most inspired
music sounds the least so--to the critic. A true inspiration may lack a
true expression unless it is assumed that if an inspiration is not true
enough to produce a true expression--(if there be anyone who can
definitely determine what a true expression is)--it is not an
inspiration at all.
Again suppose the same composer at another time writes a piece of equal
merit to the other three, as estimates go; but holds that he is not
conscious of what inspired it--that he had nothing definite in
mind--that he was not aware of any mental image or process--that,
naturally, the actual work in creating something gave him a satisfying
feeling of pleasure perhaps of elation. What will you substitute for
the mountain lake, for his friend's character, etc.? Will you
substitute anything? If so why? If so what? Or is it enough to let the
matter rest on the pleasure mainly physical, of the tones, their color,
succession, and relations, formal or informal? Can an inspiration come
from a blank mind? Well--he tries to explain and says that he was
conscious of some emotional excitement and of a sense of something
beautiful, he doesn't know exactly what--a vague feeling of exaltation
or perhaps of profound sadness.
What is the source of these instinctive feelings, these vague
intuitions and introspective sensations? The more we try to analyze the
more vague they become. To pull them apart and classify them as
"subjective" or "objective" or as this or as that, means, that they may
be well classified and that is about all: it leaves us as far from the
origin as ever. What does it all mean? What is behind it all? The
"voice of God," says the artist, "the voice of the devil," says the man
in the front row. Are we, because we are, human beings, born with the
power of innate perception of the beautiful in the abstract so that an
inspiration can arise through no external stimuli of sensation or
experience,--no association with the outward? Or was there present in
the above instance, some kind of subconscious, instantaneous, composite
image, of all the mountain lakes this man had ever seen blended as kind
of overtones with the various traits of nobility of many of his friends
embodied in one personality? Do all inspirational images, states,
conditions, or whatever they may be truly called, have for a dominant
part, if not for a source, some actual experience in life or of the
social relation? To think that they do not--always at least--would be a
relief; but as we are trying to consider music made and heard by human
beings (and not by birds or angels) it seems difficult to suppose that
even subconscious images can be separated from some human
experience--there must be something behind subconsciousness to produce
consciousness, and so on. But whatever the elements and origin of these
so-called images are, that they DO stir deep emotional feelings and
encourage their expression is a part of the unknowable we know. They do
often arouse something that has not yet passed the border line between
subconsciousness and consciousness--an artistic intuition (well named,
but)--object and cause unknown!--here is a program!--conscious or
subconscious what does it matter? Why try to trace any stream that
flows through the garden of consciousness to its source only to be
confronted by another problem of tracing this source to its source?
Perhaps Emerson in the _Rhodora_ answers by not trying to explain
That if eyes were made for seeing Then beauty is its own excuse for
being: Why thou wert there, O, rival of the rose! I never thought to
ask, I never knew; But, in my simple ignorance, suppose The self-same
Power that brought me there brought you.
Perhaps Sturt answers by substitution: "We cannot explain the origin of
an artistic intuition any more than the origin of any other primary
function of our nature. But if as I believe civilization is mainly
founded on those kinds of unselfish human interests which we call
knowledge and morality it is easily intelligible that we should have a
parallel interest which we call art closely akin and lending powerful
support to the other two. It is intelligible too that moral goodness,
intellectual power, high vitality, and strength should be approved by
the intuition." This reduces, or rather brings the problem back to a
tangible basis namely:--the translation of an artistic intuition into
musical sounds approving and reflecting, or endeavoring to approve and
reflect, a "moral goodness," a "high vitality," etc., or any other
human attribute mental, moral, or spiritual.
Can music do MORE than this? Can it DO this? and if so who and what is
to determine the degree of its failure or success? The composer, the
performer (if there be any), or those who have to listen? One hearing
or a century of hearings?-and if it isn't successful or if it doesn't
fail what matters it?--the fear of failure need keep no one from the
attempt for if the composer is sensitive he need but launch forth a
countercharge of "being misunderstood" and hide behind it. A theme that
the composer sets up as "moral goodness" may sound like "high
vitality," to his friend and but like an outburst of "nervous weakness"
or only a "stagnant pool" to those not even his enemies. Expression to
a great extent is a matter of terms and terms are anyone's. The meaning
of "God" may have a billion interpretations if there be that many souls
in the world.
There is a moral in the "Nominalist and Realist" that will prove all
sums. It runs something like this: No matter how sincere and
confidential men are in trying to know or assuming that they do know
each other's mood and habits of thought, the net result leaves a
feeling that all is left unsaid; for the reason of their incapacity to
know each other, though they use the same words. They go on from one
explanation to another but things seem to stand about as they did in
the beginning "because of that vicious assumption." But we would rather
believe that music is beyond any analogy to word language and that the
time is coming, but not in our lifetime, when it will develop
possibilities unconceivable now,--a language, so transcendent, that its
heights and depths will be common to all mankind.