Some of the composers of the present day appear to be pursuing
adventure in a definitely intellectual spirit comparable almost to
that of the mediaeval Netherlanders. Their admirers often seem to be
somewhat at a loss to expound their music to the uninitiated. They
draw our attention to various technical ingenuities and they insist,
no doubt justly, on the entire sincerity of the composers. As regards
sincerity, it is a virtue with which art has no concern. As regards
technical ingenuities, we have learned too many lessons from the
past. There are many devices which look quite amusing on paper, but
which in practical performance pass unnoticed. To this the composer
may reasonably reply that the perception and enjoyment of technical
ingenuities in performance is a matter of practice and experience;
there is no reason why he should compose music for fools. Ingenuity is
by no means a quality to be despised; there are innumerable moments
in the works of Purcell, Bach and Mozart at which technical ingenuity
has brought about some peculiarly poignant expression of beauty.
Constructive skill――and this is what is really meant by the musician’s
technical word _form_――is what makes music an art; and constructive
skill has to be attained by study and experiment. It is desirable too
that listeners should be trained in its appreciation, not so much by
books and lectures as by the actual experience of hearing.
The composers to whom I have alluded assume in their hearers a long
experience of music in general and also something of that habit of mind
previously mentioned which tends to regard music less as a series of
actual sounds than as a series of relations between sounds. It may be
called a mathematical conception of music, and, like mathematics, it
soon comes to deal with irrational quantities. It is an interesting
question how far the human mind can advance in this direction. To
certain temperaments music of this type is definitely repulsive; but
they often feel no less repulsion towards mathematics and philosophy,
studies which have been closely associated with music from very early
times. We must however beware of being misled by superficial criticism
into supposing that the understanding of such musical complexities
requires a practical knowledge of mathematical or philosophical
technicalities. In the scientific study of musical æsthetics there
ultimately arise problems which bring all three branches of learning
into contact; but in common practice they do not affect either the
composer or the listener. There are writers on music who make use of a
philosophical jargon to conceal their incapacity for clear thinking;
but the truly philosophical habit of mind aims, if but with rare
success, at lucidity.
The practical value of this “mathematical” system of composition lies
not so much in its employment of technical devices which were practised
some five hundred years ago, as in its new method of handling them.
It was a great moment in the history of music when someone first
discovered that two different tunes could be sung simultaneously
and thereby produce harmony. The artistic result of this proceeding
depended on two factors which had to be brought into relation――the
interest of each tune considered by itself, that is, the driving force
which made it perceptible as a continuous tune, and, secondly, the
satisfaction derived from the consonance of the two voices where it
happened to occur. At one period the interest of the tune predominated,
at another it was sacrificed to the interest of consonance. Both
interests are however subject to changes of value in the course of
time. It is clear enough that such composers as Purcell, Bach and
Mozart were deeply interested in the problem of exploiting these two
interests, and of finding out how far the driving force of a tune could
induce the listener to put up with dissonant harmony. We can see now,
at this distance of time, that they positively increased the value of
the harmonic interest by the way in which they deliberately tortured
the ear of the sensitive listener of their own time. Our ears have
become not less but more sensitive to dissonance, more able at any
rate to discriminate between varieties of it. But, as I have already
indicated, this preoccupation with harmony and with relations between
sounds has led to an indifference towards the actual sounds themselves,
and the loss of interest in the actual sounds has certainly brought
with it a diminished appreciation of melody. This is clear, not from
the complaints directed against the unmelodiousness of modern music,
but from the common inability to appreciate the emotional force of
melody as it was conceived by composers of two hundred years ago and
more, composers who undoubtedly were intensely preoccupied with pure
melodic expression.
Certain modern composers are devoting themselves to the same fundamental
problem that interested Purcell, Bach and Mozart――how far the inherent
force of melody can carry the listener over the obstacles of dissonance.
It is not for me to attempt to measure the force of the actual melodies
which they write. This force, too, is curiously complicated by problems
involving various qualities of sound. The harshness of a dissonance may
be mitigated or aggravated according to the instruments which produce
it, and modern musicians are devoting much care to the minuter shades of
what are sometimes called “colour-values.” The name is misleading, like
all expressions which tempt the reader to apply to music the critical
methods appropriate to painting. It has been suggested that music is now
moving towards a phase in which “colour-values” will be the principal
means of expression. The experiment may be tried, and it may well
contribute something useful towards the stock of artistic material. What
this movement really signifies is nothing more than a subtilization of
already recognized harmonic values, for from the point of view of
acoustics it is impossible to draw any clear distinction between what
is perceived as a “tone-colour” and what is perceived as a “chord.”