SUGGESTION IN MUSIC

In speaking of the power of suggestion in music I wish at

the outset to make certain reservations. In the first place

I speak for myself, and what I have to present is merely an

expression of my personal opinion; if in any way these should

incite to further investigation or discussion, my object will

in part have been attained.

In the second place, in speaking of this art, one is

seriously hampered by a certain difficulty in making oneself

understood. To hear and to enjoy music seems sufficient to

many persons, and an investigation as to the causes of this

enjoyment seems to them superfluous. And yet, unless the

public comes into closer touch with the tone poet than that

objective state Which accepts with the ears what is intended

for the spirit, which hears the sounds and is deaf to their

import, unless the public can separate the physical pleasure

of music from its ideal significance, our art, in my opinion,

cannot stand on a sound basis.

The first step toward an appreciation of music should be

taken in our preparatory schools. Were young people taught

to distinguish between tones as between colours, to recognize

rhythmic values, and were they taught so to use their voices as

to temper the nasal tones of speech, in after life they would

be better able to appreciate and cherish an art of which mere

pleasure-giving sounds are but a very small part.

Much of the lack of independence of opinion about music arises

from want of familiarity with its material. Thus, after dinner,

our forefathers were accustomed to sing catches which were

entirely destitute of anything approaching music.

Music contains certain elements which affect the nerves of

the mind and body, and thus possesses the power of direct

appeal to the public,--a power to a great extent denied to the

other arts. This sensuous influence over the hearer is often

mistaken for the aim and end of all music. With this in mind,

one may forgive the rather puzzling remarks so often met with;

for instance, those of a certain English bishop that "Music

did not affect him either intellectually or emotionally,

only pleasurably," adding, "Every art should keep within

its own realm; and that of music was concerned with pleasing

combinations of sound." In declaring that the sensation of

hearing music was pleasant to him, and that to produce that

sensation was the entire mission of music, the Bishop placed

our art on a level with good things to eat and drink. Many

colleges and universities of this land consider music as a

kind of _boutonniere_.

This estimate of music is, I believe, unfortunately a very

general one, and yet, low as it is, there is a possibility

of building on such a foundation. Could such persons be made

to recognize the existence of decidedly unpleasant music,

it would be the first step toward a proper appreciation of

the art and its various phases.

Mere beauty of sound is, in itself, purely sensuous. It is

the Chinese conception of music that the texture of a sound

is to be valued; the long, trembling tone-tint of a bronze

gong, or the high, thin streams of sound from the pipes are

enjoyed for their ear-filling qualities. In the _Analects_ of

Confucius and the writings of Mencius there is much mention

of music, and "harmony of sound that shall fill the ears"

is insisted upon. The Master said, "When the music maker Che

first entered on his office, the finish with the Kwan Ts'eu

was magnificent. How it filled the ears!" Pere Amiot says,

"Music must fill the ears to penetrate the soul." Referring to

the playing of some pieces by Couperin on a spinet, he says that

Chinese hearers thought these pieces barbarous; the movement

was too rapid, and did not allow sufficient time for them to

enjoy each tone by itself. Now this is colour without form,

or sound without music. For it to become music, it must possess

some quality which will remove it from the purely sensuous. To

my mind, it is in the power of suggestion that the vital spark

of music lies.

Before speaking of this, however, I wish to touch upon two

things: first, on what is called the science of music; and

secondly, on one of the sensuous elements of music which enters

into and encroaches upon all suggestion.

If one were called upon to define what is called the

intellectual side of music, he would probably speak of "form,"

contrapuntal design, and the like. Let us take up the matter

of form. If by the word "form" our theorists meant the most

poignant expression of poetic thought in music, if they meant

by this word the art of arranging musical sounds into the most

telling presentation of a musical idea, I should have nothing

to say: for if this were admitted instead of the recognized

forms of modern theorists for the proper utterance, we should

possess a study of the power of musical sounds which might

truly justify the title of musical intellectuality. As it is,

the word "form" stands for what have been called "stoutly

built periods," "subsidiary themes," and the like, a happy

combination of which in certain prescribed keys was supposed

to constitute good form. Such a device, originally based upon

the necessities and fashions of the dance, and changing from

time to time, is surely not worthy of the strange worship

it has received. A form of so doubtful an identity that the

first movement of a certain Beethoven sonata can be dubbed by

one authority "sonata-form," and by another "free fantasia,"

certainly cannot lay claim to serious intellectual value.

Form should be a synonym for _coherence_. No idea, whether

great or small, can find utterance without form, but that form

will be inherent to the idea, and there will be as many forms

as there are adequately expressed ideas. In the musical idea,

_per se_, analysis will reveal form.

The term "contrapuntal development" is to most tone poets of the

present day a synonym for the device of giving expression to

a musically poetic idea. _Per se_, counterpoint is a puerile

juggling with themes, which may be likened to high-school

mathematics. Certainly the entire web and woof of this

"science," as it is called, never sprang from the necessities of

poetic musical utterance. The entire pre-Palestrina literature

of music is a conclusive testimony as to the non-poetic and

even uneuphonious character of the invention.

In my opinion, Johann Sebastian Bach, one of the world's

mightiest tone poets, accomplished his mission, not by means

of the contrapuntal fashion of his age, but in spite of it. The

laws of canon and fugue are based upon as prosaic a foundation

as those of the rondo and sonata form; I find it impossible to

imagine their ever having been a spur, or an incentive to poetic

musical speech. Neither, pure tonal beauty, so-called "form,"

nor what is termed the intellectual side of music (the art

of counterpoint, canon, and fugue), constitutes a really vital

factor in music. This narrows our analysis down to two things,

namely, the physical effect of musical sound, and suggestion.

The simplest manifestations of the purely sensuous effect of

sound are to be found in the savage's delight in noise. In

the more civilized state, this becomes the sensation of mere

pleasure in hearing pleasing sounds. It enters into folk song

in the form of the "Scotch snap," which is first cousin to the

Swiss _jodel_, and is undoubtedly the origin of the skips of

the augmented and (to a lesser degree) diminished intervals to

be found in the music of many nations. It consists of the trick

of alternating chest tones with falsetto. It is a kind of quirk

in the voice which pleases children and primitive folk alike,

a simple thing which has puzzled folklorists the world over.

The other sensuous influence of sound is one of the most

powerful elements of music, and all musical utterance

is involved with and inseparable from it. It consists of

repetition, recurrence, periodicity.

Now this repetition may be one of rhythm, tone tint, texture,

or colour, a repetition of figure or of pitch. We know that

savages, in their incantation ceremonies, keep up a continuous

drum beating or chant which, gradually increasing in violence,

drives the hearers into such a state of frenzy that physical

pain seems no longer to exist for them.

The value of the recurring rhythms and phrases of the march is

well recognized in the army. A body of men will instinctively

move in cadence with such music. The ever recurring lilt of a

waltz rhythm will set the feet moving unconsciously, and as the

energy of the repetition increases and decreases, so will the

involuntary accompanying physical sympathy increase or decrease.

Berlioz jokingly tells a story of a ballet dancer who objected

to the high pitch in which the orchestra played, and insisted

that the music be transposed to a lower key. Cradle songs are

fashioned on the same principle.

This sensuous sympathy with recurring sounds, rhythm, and pitch

has something in common with hypnotism, and leads up to what

I have called suggestion in music.

This same element in a modified form is made use of in poetry,

for instance, in Poe's "Raven,"

Quoth the raven, nevermore,

and the repetition of colour in the same author's "Scarlet

Death." It is the mainspring (I will not call it the vital

spark) of many so-called popular songs, the recipe for which

is exceedingly simple. A strongly marked rhythmic figure is

selected, and incessantly repeated until the hearer's body

beats time to it. The well-known tunes "There'll Be a Hot

Time," etc., and "Ta-ra-ra, Boom-de-ay" are good examples of

this kind of music.

There are two kinds of suggestion in music: one has been called

tone-painting, the other almost evades analysis.

The term tone-painting is somewhat unsatisfactory, and reminds

one of the French critic who spoke of a poem as "beautiful

painted music." I believe that music can suggest forcibly

certain things and ideas as well as vague emotions encased in

the so-called "form" and "science" of music.

If we wish to begin with the most primitive form of suggestion

in music, we shall find it in the direct imitation of sounds

in nature. We remember that Helmholtz, Hanslick, and their

followers denied to music the power to suggest things in

nature; but it was somewhat grudgingly admitted that music

might express the emotions caused by them. In the face of this,

to quote a well-known instance, we have the "Pastoral" symphony

of Beethoven, with the thrush, cuckoo, and thunderstorm. The

birds and the storm are very plainly indicated; but it is not

possible for the music to be an expression of the emotions

caused by them, for the very simple reason that no emotions

are caused by the cuckoo and thrush, and those caused by

thunderstorms range all the way from depression and fear to

exhilaration, according to the personality of individuals.

That music may imitate any rhythmic sounds or melodic figure

occurring in nature, hardly needs affirmation. Such devices may

be accepted almost as quotations, and not be further considered

here. The songs of birds, the sound made by galloping horses'

feet, the moaning of the wind, etc., are all things which

are part and parcel of the musical vocabulary, intelligible

alike to people of every nationality. I need hardly say that

increasing intensity of sound will suggest vehemence, approach,

and its visual synonym, growth, as well as that decreasing

intensity will suggest withdrawal, dwindling, and placidity.

The suggestion brought about by pattern is very familiar.

It was one of the first signs of the breaking away from

the conventional trammels of the contrapuntal style of the

sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The first madrigal of

Thomas Weelkes (1590) begins with the words, "Sit down," and

the musical pattern falls a fifth. The suggestion was crude,

but it was caused by the same impulse as that which supplied

the material for Wagner's "Waldweben," Mendelssohn's "Lovely

Melusina," and a host of other works.

The fact that the pattern of a musical phrase can suggest kinds

of motion may seem strange; but could we, for example, imagine

a spinning song with broken arpeggios? Should we see a spear

thrown or an arrow shot on the stage and hear the orchestra

playing a phrase of an undulating pattern, we should at once

realize the contradiction. Mendelssohn, Schumann, Wagner,

Liszt, and practically everyone who has written a spinning

song, has used the same pattern to suggest the turning of a

wheel. That such widely different men as Wagner and Mendelssohn

should both have adopted the same pattern to suggest undulating

waves is not a mere chance, but clearly shows the potency of

the suggestion.

The suggestion conveyed by means of pitch is one of the

strongest in music. Vibrations increasing beyond two hundred

and fifty trillions a second become luminous. It is a curious

coincidence that our highest vibrating musical sounds bring

with them a well-defined suggestion of light, and that as

the pitch is lowered we get the impression of ever increasing

obscurity. To illustrate this, I have but to refer you to the

Prelude to "Lohengrin." Had we no inkling as to its meaning,

we should still receive the suggestion of glittering shapes

in the blue ether.

Let us take the opening of the "Im Walde" symphony by Raff as

an example; deep shadow is unmistakably suggested. Herbert

Spencer's theory of the influence of emotion on pitch is well

known and needs no confirmation. This properly comes under

the subject of musical speech, a matter not to be considered

here. Suffice it to say that the upward tendency of a musical

phrase can suggest exaltation, and that a downward trend may

suggest depression, the intensity of which will depend upon

the intervals used. As an instance we may quote the "Faust"

overture of Wagner, in which the pitch is used emotionally

as well as descriptively. If the meaning I have found in this

phrase seems to you far-fetched, we have but to give a higher

pitch to the motive to render the idea absolutely impossible.

The suggestion offered by movement is very obvious, for music

admittedly may be stately, deliberate, hasty, or furious,

it may march or dance, it may be grave or flippant.

Last of all I wish to speak of the suggestion conveyed by

means of tone-tint, the blending of timbre and pitch. It is

essentially a modern element in music, and in our delight in

this marvellous and potent aid to expression we have carried

it to a point of development at which it threatens to dethrone

what has hitherto been our musical speech, melody, in favour

of what corresponds to the shadow languages of speech, namely,

gesture and facial expression. Just as these shadow languages

of speech may distort or even absolutely reverse the meaning

of the spoken word, so can tone colour and harmony change the

meaning of a musical phrase. This is at once the glory and

the danger of our modern music. Overwhelmed by the new-found

powers of suggestion in tonal tint and the riot of hitherto

undreamed of orchestral combinations, we are forgetting that

permanence in music depends upon melodic speech.

In my opinion, it is the line, not the colour, that will last.

That harmony is a potent factor in suggestion may be seen

from the fact that Cornelius was able to write an entire song

pitched upon one tone, the accompaniment being so varied in

its harmonies that the listener is deceived into attributing

to that one tone many shades of emotion.

In all modern music this element is one of the most important.

If we refer again to the "Faust" overture of Wagner, we will

perceive that although the melodic trend and the pitch of

the phrase carry their suggestion, the roll of the drum which

accompanies it throws a sinister veil over the phrase, making

it impressive in the extreme.

The seed from which our modern wealth of harmony and tone

colour sprang was the perfect major triad. The _raison d'etre_

and development of this combination of tones belong to the

history of music. Suffice it to say, that for some psychological

reason this chord (with also its minor form) has still the same

significance that it had for the monks of the Middle Ages. It is

perfect. Every complete phrase, must end with it. The attempts

made to emancipate music from the tyranny of this combination

of sounds have been in vain, showing that the suggestion of

finality and repose contained in it is irrefutable.

Now if we depart from this chord a sensation of unrest is

occasioned which can only subside by a progression to another

triad or a return to the first. With the development of our

modern system of tonality we have come to think tonally; and a

chord lying outside of the key in which a musical thought is

conceived will carry with it a sense of confusion or mystery

that our modern art of harmony and tone colour has made its

own. Thus, while any simple low chords accompanying the first

notes of Raff's "Im Walde" symphony, given by the horns and

violins, would suggest gloom pierced by the gleams of light,

the remoteness of the chords to the tonality of C major gives

a suggestion of mystery; but as the harmony approaches the

triad the mystery dissolves, letting in the gleam of sunlight

suggested by the horn.

Goldmark's overture to "Sakuntala" owes its subtle suggestion to

much the same cause. Weber made use of it in his "Freischuetz,"

Wagner in his "Tarnhelm" motive, Mendelssohn in his "Midsummer

Night's Dream," Tchaikovsky in the opening of one of his

symphonies.

In becoming common property, so to speak, this important

element of musical utterance has been dragged through the mud;

and modern composers, in their efforts to raise it above the

commonplace, have gone to the very edge of what is physically

bearable in the use of tone colour and combination. While this

is but natural, owing to the appropriation of some of the most

poetic and suggestive tone colours for ignoble dance tunes and

doggerel, it is to my mind a pity, for it is elevating what

should be a means of adding power and intensity to musical

speech to the importance of musical speech itself. Possibly

Strauss's "Thus Spake Zarathustra" may be considered the

apotheosis of this power of suggestion in tonal colour, and

in it I believe we can see the tendency I allude to. This

work stuns by its glorious magnificence of tonal texture; the

suggestion, in the opening measures, of the rising sun is a

mighty example of the overwhelming power of tone colour. The

upward sweep of the music to the highest regions of light has

much of splendour about it; and yet I remember once hearing

in London, sung in the street at night, a song that seemed to

me to contain a truer germ of music.

For want of a better word I will call it ideal suggestion.

It has to do with actual musical speech, and is difficult to

define. The possession of it makes a man a poet. If we look

for analogy, I may quote from Browning and Shakespeare.

Dearest, three months ago

When the mesmerizer, Snow,

With his hand's first sweep

Put the earth to sleep.

BROWNING, _A Lovers' Quarrel_.

Daffodils,

That come before the swallow dares, and takes

The winds of March with beauty; Violets dim,

But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes.

SHAKESPEARE, _Winter's Tale_.

For me this defies analysis, and so it is with some things

in music, the charm of which cannot be ascribed to physical

or mental suggestion, and certainly not to any device of

counterpoint or form, in the musical acceptance of the word.