Having treated, in the two preceding divisions of this book, of
the physiological and physical laws lying at the basis of singing
tones, and of their practical application to the formation of the
voice, we come now to the better known--the æsthetic--part of our
task.
The reader will bear in mind that as, in the preceding sections,
our attention has been confined to what directly relates to the
culture of the voice in singing, notwithstanding the strong
temptation to transcend the limits which our present design
prescribes, so in this section also the same purpose is kept in
view, and it is not to be regarded as treating of the æsthetics
of music in general.
Hitherto we have had to do with fixed, irreversible laws, which are
to be implicitly followed in order to render singing as perfect as
possible. We have seen how the decline of the art of singing had to
follow as a necessary consequence the non-observance of these laws.
In speaking thus far of the agreeable and the disagreeable, of the
beautiful and its opposite, we have had no reference to artistic
feeling. We have been concerned only with direct sensuous pleasure or
pain, not with æsthetic beauty. We have been occupied thus far with
the _technique_ of our art--the form. But with the animating spirit
of this form, the _æsthetic_, we enter upon a broader field, which,
dependent upon purely psychological reasons (_Motiven_), may undergo
a change, either from the general progress of mankind or from the
culture of the practised artist. Thus, although from Aristotle down
to Lessing and our own times the principles of beauty in all the arts
are the same, yet every period, in which art has nourished, has
produced works, various indeed, and corresponding to the spirit of
the age, works, which, however, notwithstanding all differences, have
still conformed to the demands of the principles of beauty. Thus, in
architecture, sculpture, painting, music, &c., there are different
styles of art, every one of which, however, has its justification and
its peculiar beauty. We are not, therefore, to judge these different
styles of art by the taste and ideas (_Auffassung_) of the present,
but by the character of the times that produced them. Although the
mode of thinking may vary in accordance with the different stages of
culture of individuals and mankind, there are, nevertheless, certain
principles of beauty which all nature announces.
By beauty we understand the highest perfection of the single parts
in a perfectly represented whole, and the most intimate union of
the ideal with the material, i.e., of the spiritual with the formal,
which must have as its basis a certain proportion and order in the
position of the several parts as well as in their relation to the
whole work. In the perception of the beautiful, everything must
tend to awaken the feeling of repose and pleasure; and the more
susceptible we are of the impression of the beautiful, the more
shall we be disturbed by defects, even the least, in any work of
art. The pleasure which we take in any work of art, which, however
faultless in certain respects, shows any glaring defect, is greatly
abridged. The ugly spot will absorb our attention and destroy the
pure enjoyment of its beauty, and still more disagreeable will be
the effect if the different _parts_, otherwise beautifully shaped,
are thrown out of their due symmetry and proportion. In the
successive arts, as music, the dramatic art, &c., proportion
(_Maassvolle_) is an essential condition of beauty, more than in
the simultaneous arts; and an artist whose _technique_ is altogether
perfect, and who can succeed in reproducing every emotion of the
mind in his work, is a true artist only when he never transgresses
by an excess of passion the fine boundary lines of beauty.
It is given to only a very few to recognize at once the high
and beautiful in art. In most the sense of the beautiful awakens
only with a riper spiritual development. It is thus the fruit
of a higher stage of culture. To children and persons wholly
uneducated a brightly painted picture-book is more beautiful
than the Dresden Madonna, that great masterpiece of painting.
And most people take greater pleasure in a waltz by _Strauss_
or _Lanner_ than in a symphony by Beethoven or Mozart. Beauty
depends upon principles, i.e., rules and laws, which are founded
in the nature of the human reason. The appreciation, therefore,
of beauty accompanies the development in man of his reason.
Music, above all the other arts, finds the earliest and most
universal recognition, and almost every one listens to it with
pleasure. Helmholtz says that music is much more intimately
related to our sensations than all the other arts put together.
Tones touch the ear and are instantly felt to be agreeable or
disagreeable, while the impressions of painting, poetry, &c.,
upon our senses must be brought to our consciousness, and be
judged of there by comparison. But it is not only through the
direct effect of tones, as it appears to me, but more through the
life (_Belebung_) which animates it, that music comes so close to
us, and is so natural and near of kin to us. That must needs be
the most interior of the arts whose office it is to express the
various moods of the human soul in their tenderest and most
secret fluctuations. The incorporeal material of tone is far
better fitted to express these different moods (_Stimmungen_)
than it is possible for poetry to do. Peculiar, definite feelings
it cannot, indeed, distinctly denote without the help of poetry.
But it is this very indefiniteness that enables music so to
insinuate itself into the soul of the hearer that the tones heard
seem to be the expression of his own feelings, and not those of
another. Hence it is that music, in its whole nature, acts
beneficently and soothingly, because its ruling principle is
always a striving after repose, after a rest in _consonances_,
just as this is the innermost aim and struggle of our own life.
In the other arts this is much less the case. Aristotle, in his
twenty-seventh and twenty-ninth problems, distinguishes the
influences of music as the expression of tones of feeling
(_Stimmungen_), and not of definite feelings. And _Brendel_,
who, in his history of music, holds to the order among the arts
received by the Greeks, by which architecture takes the lowest
place, then sculpture, painting, music, and, lastly, as the
highest of the arts, poetry, remarks, that “Music, by virtue of
its power to express the most delicate shades of sentiment, would
certainly take the highest rank were it more definite.” It has
always been attempted to extend the boundaries of music by
calling in the assistance of painting and poetry. Haydn, Mozart,
Schubert, etc., have imitated in their compositions the singing
of birds, the rippling of water, storms, &c. And now our modern
musicians of the future endeavor to express in tones definite
thoughts and feelings, imagining that here a new epoch in art
is to open. But these new compositions always require elaborate
explanations. Music until now, at least, has not yet given up
its ethereal, indefinite character.[18]
It is essential to the full effect of a work of art that the
artist should create it, and the hearer or beholder should enjoy
it, without thinking of the rules and laws of beauty. A work of
art must act immediately upon the feelings; it must appear to be
spontaneous, and must be felt without reference to any aim or
plan. What is æsthetically beautiful pleases a cultivated taste
at once without any reflex consideration. But when, by the help
of the understanding, we seek to account for the harmony and
perfection of the several parts, and find by more searching
study that the work is in conformity to the laws of reason,
our enjoyment will naturally be enhanced. But this study must
always come as a consequence of the first effect upon the soul,
otherwise all effect is wanting. The _unconscious_ enjoyment of
the legitimate in art is the first condition of the influence of
the beautiful upon the soul. The happy, elevated feeling which
all works of art immediately awaken in us is thus only an
unconscious recognition of the reasonable, the harmonious,
the symmetrical. But this unconscious impression is instantly
disturbed by any, the least imperfection, before we perceive
where and in what it consists, for the human mind is not able
fully and at once to examine a production of art in its entirety
to its minutest parts.
An artist must, therefore, be esteemed according as his works
excite and ravish the hearers or beholders without their knowing
why, and he stands all the higher the simpler and the more
naturally--i.e., the more _unconsciously_--this takes place.
In order to reach such a height, and to be able to act upon the
souls of men with an elevating and informing power, it is first
of all necessary that an artist should cultivate the form, or the
_technique_, of his art to its greatest possible perfection, and
have such perfect command of it, that the practical application
of it is as natural to him as to breathe. _For empty and dead as
all technical knowledge is unless it is animated with a soul, yet
no product of art æsthetically beautiful is possible without
a perfect technique._
* * * * *
But the culture of the _technique_ in the art of singing requires
a special faculty in the teacher, and, together with the finest
power of observation, an ear, which not only perceives the purity
of the tone, whether high or low, but feels also the direction of
the aerial column, the too much or too little of the breath, the
coloring of the timbre, &c. An æsthetically artistic education
demands likewise that the singer should have the highest general
culture. As soon as the technical education has advanced so far
that it no longer makes any demand upon the attention of the
learner, the infusion of life and soul into the singing must be
begun. The teacher must then be so filled with the spirit of his
art that he shall be able so to inspire his pupils that, forgetting
themselves, they may be absorbed in the high ideal work of their
art, and regard their well-trained voices simply as expressing the
noblest and most varied sentiments (_Stimmungen_). And on this
account a teacher should seek to act upon the souls of his pupils,
and awaken in them above all things a feeling for the high and the
noble, that they may be able to find the correct mode of expressing
it in singing. It is a very hard but not impossible work to educate
true artists, who, penetrated with faith in the high worth of their
art, shall fulfil its aim by exercising a refreshing and elevating
influence upon their fellow-men. But, in order to be able to form
true artists, a teacher must be devoted without intermission to his
own culture, scientific and general; must strive with pleasure, and
love, and inspiration to accomplish the high work of his calling,
and make the severest demands upon himself, before he can expect
anything great of his pupils.
Having spoken of those parts of the _technique_ of the art of
singing which rest upon impregnable natural laws, such as the
registers of the voice, the formation of tones in regard to
strength, pitch, and timbre, &c., let us consider more closely
those other parts of the _technique_ which rest upon psychological,
i.e., æsthetic principles (_Motiven_). To these belong _Rhythm_,
_Correct understanding of the Tempo_, _Composition_, _Execution,
that is, the delivery of the sentiment of the composition, and
the aids thereto_.