[19] See an interesting article by Max Vancsa--_Zur Geschichte der
Programm-Musik_--in Nos. 23 and 24 of _Die Musik_ (1903).
[20] The reader will of course not take this to mean that a piece of
programme music should sound just as well when played as absolute
music, _i.e._ should be as interesting to the man who does not know the
programme as to the man who does. Against that current fallacy I argue
further on.
[21] The term "poetic" is used as a kind of verbal shorthand. A piece
of music may be suggested by a drama, a novel, a historical event, a
poem, a philosophical treatise (like _Also sprach Zarathustra_), or
anything else. The one phrase "poetic music" will conveniently cover
the æsthetic facts involved in all these modes of suggestion.
[22] That is, sound _quâ_ sound (music), _plus_ sound congealed into
definite symbols (words).
[23] I am not, of course, putting this forward as the way in which
music actually and historically developed. I am simply disengaging from
the historical facts, in order to throw it into stronger relief, the
psychological element underlying them; just as in economics we try to
understand what has actually been the course of events by isolating
from the other factors of human nature the factors that concern the
desire of gain, and arguing deductively from these.
[24] There is emotion, of course, at the back of the notes; the reader
will not take me to mean that the pleasure is merely physical, like
a taste or an odour. But the emotive wave is relatively small and
very vague; it neither comes directly from nor suggests any external
existence.
[25] I take some of these historical facts from the article of Max
Vancsa, already cited.
[26] See Strabo's _Geography_, Bohn edition, vol. ii. p. 120.
[27] The Bible Sonatas, together with Kuhnau's other piano works and
his prose writings, may be had in vol. iv. of the _Denkmäler Deutscher
Tonkunst_, carefully edited by Karl Päsler. Mr. Shedlock, in his book
on _The Pianoforte Sonata_, gives a pretty full account of Kuhnau; but
it is a pity he could not have found space for a complete translation
of the preface to the Bible Sonatas.
[28] "He was and remained," says Wagner, "a prince's musical officer,
with the duty of catering for the entertainment of his pomp-struck
master.... Docile and devout, the peace of his kind and cheerful temper
stayed unruffled till advanced old age; only the eye, that looks upon
us from his portrait, is suffused with a gentle melancholy."
[29] See Ambros: _Die Grenzen der Musik und Poesie_ (1885), iv. v.
[30] It is significant that even the sturdy, independent Gluck too
fell a victim to princely patronage in the very middle of his career.
After striking out for himself in _Telemacco_ (1749) and _La Clemenza
di Tito_ (1750), and apparently being well on the way to the reform of
the opera, he became, in 1754, Kapellmeister at Vienna. From that date
to 1762, when _Orfeo_ was produced, he wrote, not like Gluck, but like
a court servant. See a pithy paragraph on the subject in Mr. Hadow's
book, _The Viennese Period_ (vol. v. of the Oxford History of Music),
p. 90.
[31] The development of the opera, too, was an important factor. It was
not till men had mastered dramatic musical expression in association
with words that they could properly aim at the same kind of expression
without words.
[32] Even Berlioz, in a weak moment, said he hoped that the music of
the _Symphonie fantastique_ would itself "have a musical interest,
independent of the dramatic intention," though he insisted on the
title, at any rate, of each movement being given to the audience. See
his Preface to the Symphony.
[33] Here, and elsewhere in this article, I venture to make my
quotations from Mr. W. Ashton Ellis's translation of Wagner's prose
works.
[34] I am not, of course, agreeing with Wagner's criticism of Berlioz;
it seems to me quite superficial and unilluminative, but to discuss it
would be foreign to our present purpose.
[35] The reader will understand that I am not founding my case on the
actual musical value of _Ein Heldenleben_; I am only using that work
as an illustration of an æsthetic theory. In the actual _Heldenleben_
there is rather more grit than I like; but there is no real need for it
to have been put there. In the article on Strauss in the present volume
I have tried to show how he has needlessly weakened his scheme by not
keeping to the one piece of portraiture throughout.
[36] _i.e._ the troublous question as to what the music "means"
poetically.
[37] _Du Vrai, du Beau, et du Bien._ I make the quotation from Mr.
Basil Worsfold's little book on _Judgment in Literature_.
[38] _L'Œuvre dramatique de Berlioz_, pp. 30-34, etc.
_To ALFRED WILLIAMS_