It is often said that a nation’s life is mirrored in its literature. This
is necessarily true because it is the mission of literature to express
life. Even if such were not its purpose, the spirit of an age would
naturally find its way into the writings of the period. Literature cannot
but be a true reflection of the age which produces it.
The same is true of music in an approximate, if not an equal, degree. It
also mirrors the life of the age from which it springs. Literature is a
word picture of the life of its time. Music is a tone picture of the
same thing.
A musical composition images the state of someone’s soul at a given
moment. That condition of soul is a part of the great composite which
we call the spirit of the times. It might about as well be called the
personality of the age. It largely determines the thought, motive, and
action of the period. It is the chief factor in the making of history.
When one sees it spread out before him, he can almost write from it the
story of the period represented. The issues of life have always proceeded
from the heart, and the heart of any age expresses itself in its
musical productions.
The great general types of music are all representative of either phases
of human life or periods in its history. The age of great passions and
majestic emotions produced the symphony. The day of calm devotion and
religious faith gave us the oratorio and the hymn. The time of quiet
ways and simple joys contributed the pastorale. The age of love brought
us the lyric and the ballad.
These types of music we still have with us, for music is a permanent
record. As we have them today, they tell us what the people of other
ages have thought, felt, hoped, joyed, and suffered. We are now as
busily engaged in building up a musical record of our times as they
were in the making of a volume of work by which others might know their
story when they were gone.
The Elizabethan period is outstanding in the history of English
literature for the quantity and quality of the lyric verse which
it produced. It has been said with entire truthfulness that during
that period England was a veritable nest of singing birds. Among those
who helped to produce that volume of song are William Shakespeare,
Ben Johnson, and Christopher Marlowe. Thus far, the work done by the
poets and singers of that period has successfully met all the tests of
immortality. It is both read and sung throughout the
English-speaking world.
The reason for the outstanding quality of the songs of that period is
simply the fact that it was an amorous age in England. Love is the great
inspirer of this type of poetry and song. Love is an elemental instinct,
and rhyme and rhythm are the elemental ways of expressing things.
Therefore, love finds its most suitable expression in lyric verse.
Lovers must sing. If their suit is successful, their song is gay. If it
meets with temporary or permanent disappointment, their song is grave.
In either case, they must sing. Whenever the day of the lover comes in
any day or time, and it always does come, the period during which he
reigns will be an age of song.
After reading or hearing the songs of the Elizabethan period in England,
there is little in the history of the times that needs to occasion
surprise to one. The writers of that period were simply representative
of their time. Therefore, they expressed its spirit in their singing.
The soul of the England of their time breathes in their verse.
We have developed our distinct types of music in America. Each of these
is also representative either of a period in our history or an element
in our national spirit.
It was in the stirring days of the revolutionary period that the
American spirit was fully awakened. That consciousness naturally found
expression in a type of song. It was such songs as “Yankee Doodle”
that gave it voice. In the heat and fervor of our next great war was
born the majestic national anthem to which the recent trials have given
a new meaning.
The fraternal strife of the Civil War naturally required two sets of
songs to express its spirit. The North sang its courage up with “Tramp,
Tramp, Tramp the Boys are Marching,” “The Battle Cry of Freedom,” and
“Marching Through Georgia.” At the same time, the soul of the South was
speaking in the words and music of such songs as “Dixie,” “The Bonnie
Blue Flag,” and “Maryland, My Maryland.”
The Spanish-American War and the World War just ended each brought its
contribution of song to the lore of our times. Those who come after us
will long be able to recall the spirit of these two periods by singing
their songs again.
We have also had our lyric age in America. The quality of its output does
not even suggest comparison with that of the Elizabethan work, but we have
had it. The crude backwoodsmen who occupied the stage during the earlier
days of our wilderness life were normal people. They not only had their
loves, hopes, joys, and sorrows, but they also sang about them. The result
was often pitifully sentimental, but it was sincere.
Down to a recent time, there was more militarism in the American spirit
than most people realized. We had a goodly supply of the courage of battle
left over from our several wars and their corresponding victories. America
found expression for that spirit in the work of such men as John Philip
Sousa, and others of similar, though less widely recognized talent. For a
long while, the sound of the stately march has served as an outlet for our
patriotic feelings. We now share the general decline in militaristic
feeling, but the march will remain. If war dies from the earth, as so many
fondly hope it will, our stirring marches will still be treasured as tone
pictures of the days that were.
Particularly is the folk song a page from the history of a people. One
might gather more of the spirit of the old South from hearing a collection
of its songs than from the reading of many pages of its story. The same
would be true of any section of any land.
Ragtime and Jazz represent two successive steps in the development of the
recent world spirit. It was a spirit of nervousness and restlessness, a
spirit willing to go to any length for the sake of novelty and action.
It helped to make the world war possible and is still keeping the planet
in a turmoil of restlessness and dissatisfaction. Jazz has been defined
as animalism expressed in tone. It might also be called the anarchy
of music.
There are those who hope for a calmer day in the world’s temper and
feeling. When that time comes, its spirit will express itself in a
renewal of dignified and stately music. We may assume this to be true
because the thought and action of any age, whatever its spirit, is
traced upon the long scroll of time in the form of a golden thread
of song.
We have noted only the products of the lesser musical ability of America.
To fail to call attention to the fortunate exceptions would be to fail to
do justice to the better culture and taste of our country. The fact that
we have had some real masters is one not to be overlooked. Our Cadmans
and MacDowells bear testimony to the fact that our faces are forward.
There is a spirit of culture in America, and it has found expression in
some of the finer and more enduring forms of musical composition. It has
obstacles to surmount, but it makes progress. America has a national
future. It follows that she has a musical future. The one vouchsafes
the other. The other expresses the one.