[Figure 42]
In speaking of the straight lines of the melodies of
the minnesingers and in comparing them with the tinge of
orientalism to be found in those of the troubadours, it was
said that music owes more to the latter than to the former,
and this is true. If we admit that the straight line of Grecian
architecture is perfect, so must we also admit that mankind is
imperfect. We are living beings, and as such are swayed to a
great extent by our emotions. To the straight line of purity
in art the tinge of orientalism, the curved line of emotion,
brings the flush of life, and the result is something which we
can _feel_ as well as worship from afar. Music is a language,
and to mankind it serves as a medium for saying something which
cannot be put into mere words. Therefore, it must contain the
human element of mere sensuousness in order to be intelligible.
This is why the music of the troubadours, although not so pure
in style as that of the minnesingers, has been of the greatest
value in the development of our art. This orientalism, however,
must not mask the straight line; it must be the means of lending
more force, tenderness, or what not, to the figure. It must
be what the poem is to the picture, the perfume to the flower;
it must help to illustrate the thing itself. The moment we find
this orientalism (and I am using the word in its broadest sense)
covering, and thus distorting the straight line of pure music,
then we have national music so-called, a music which derives
its name and fame from the clothes it wears and not from that
strange language of the soul, the "why" of which no man has
ever discovered.