It has been, and still is, the general custom among most musicians, when
called upon to analyze a composition for the enlightenment of students
or the public, or in the effort to broaden the interest in their art, to
think and speak solely of the _form_, the _structure_ of the work, to
treat it scientifically, anatomically—to dwell with sonorous unction
upon the technical names for its various divisions, to lay bare and
delightedly call attention to its neatly fashioned joints, to dilate
upon the beauty of its symmetrical proportions, and show how one part
fits into or is developed out of another—in brief, to explain more or
less intelligently the details of its mechanical construction, without a
hint or a thought as to why it was made at all, or why it should be
allowed to exist. With the specialist’s engrossing absorption in the
technicalities of his vocation, they expect others to share their
interest, and are surprised and indignant to find that they do not. They
forget that to the average hearer this learned dissertation upon primary
and secondary subjects, episodical passages, modulation to related and
unrelated keys, cadences, return of the first theme, etc., has about as
much meaning and importance as so much Sanskrit. It is well enough, so
far as it goes, in the classroom, where students are being trained for
specialists, and need that kind of information; but it is only one
side,—the mechanical side,—and the general public needs something
else; and even the student, however gifted, if he is to become more than
a mere technician, must have something else; for composition and
interpretation both have their mere technic, as much as keyboard
manipulation, which is, however, only the means, not the end.
Knowledge of and insight into musical form are necessary to the player,
but not to the listener, even for the highest artistic appreciation and
enjoyment, just as the knowledge of colors and their combination is
essential to the painter, but not to the beholder. The poet must
understand syntax and prosody, the technic of rhyme-making and
verse-formation; but how many of his readers could analyze correctly
from that standpoint the poem they so much enjoy, or give the scientific
names for the literary devices employed? Or how many of them would care
to hear it done, or be the better for it if they did? The public expects
results, not rules or formulas; effects, not explanations of stage
machinery; food and stimulus for the intellect, the emotions, the
imagination, not recipes of how they are prepared.
The value of esthetic analysis is undeniably great in rendering this
food and stimulus, contained in every good composition, more easily
accessible and more readily assimilated, by a judicious selection and
partial predigestion, so to speak, of the different artistic elements in
a given work, and a certain preparation of the listener to receive them.
This is, of course, especially true in the case of the young, and those
of more advanced years, to whom, owing to lack of training and
opportunity, musical forms of expression are somewhat unfamiliar; or, in
other words, those to whom the musical idiom is still more or less
strange. But there are also very many musicians of established position
who are sorely in need of something of the kind to awaken them to a
perception of other factors in musical art besides sensuous beauty and
the display of skill; to develop their imaginative and poetic faculties,
in which both their playing and theories prove them to be deficient; and
the more loudly they cry against it as useless and illegitimate, the
more palpably self-evident becomes their own crying need of it.
Esthetic analysis consists in grasping clearly the essential artistic
significance of a composition, its emotional or descriptive content,
either with or without the aid of definite knowledge concerning the
circumstances of its origin, and expressing it plainly in a few simple,
well-chosen words, comprehensible by the veriest child in music, whether
young or old in years, conveying in a direct, unmistakable, and concrete
form the same general impressions which the composition, through all its
elaborations and embellishments, all its manifold collateral
suggestions, is intended to convey, giving a skeleton, not of its form,
but of its subject-matter, so distinctly articulated that the most
untrained perceptions shall be able to recognize to what genus it
belongs.
Of course, when it is possible, as it is in many cases, to obtain and
give reliable data concerning the conception and birth of a musical
work, the actual historical or traditional material, or the personal
experience, which furnished its inspiration, the impulse which led to
its creation, it is of great assistance and value; and this is
especially so when the work is distinctly descriptive of external scenes
or human actions. For example, take the Schubert-Liszt “Erlkönig.” Here
the elements embodied are those of tempest and gloom, of shuddering
terror, of eager pursuit and panic-stricken flight, ending in sudden,
surprised despair. These may be vaguely felt by the listener when the
piece is played, with varying intensity according to his musical
susceptibility; but if the legend of the “Erlkönig,” or “Elf-king,” is
narrated and attention directly called to the various descriptive
features of the work,—the gallop of the horse, the rush and roar of the
tempest through the depths of the Black Forest, the seductive insistence
and relentless pursuit of the elf-king, the father’s mad flight, the
shriek of the child, and the final tragic ending, all so distinctly
suggested in the music,—the impression is intensified tenfold, rendered
more precise and definite; and the undefined sensations produced by the
music are focused at once into a positive, complete, artistic effect.
Who can doubt that this is an infinite gain to the listener and to art?
Again, take an instance selected from a large number of compositions
which are purely emotional, with no kind of realistic reference to
nature or action, the Revolutionary Etude, by Chopin, Opus 10, No. 12.
The emotional elements here expressed are fierce indignation, vain but
desperate struggle, wrathful despair. These are easily recognized by the
trained esthetic sense. Indeed, the work cannot be properly rendered by
one who does not feel them in playing it; and they can be eloquently
described in a general way by one possessing a little gift of language
and some imagination; but many persons find it hard to grasp abstract
emotions without a definite assignable cause for them, and are
incalculably aided if told that the study was written as the expression
of Chopin’s feelings, and those of every Polish patriot, on receipt of
the news that Warsaw had been taken and sacked by the Russians.
Where such data cannot be found concerning a composition, one can make
the content of a work fairly clear by means of description, of analogy
and comparison, by the use of poetic metaphor and simile, by little
imaginative word-pictures, embodying the same general impression; by any
means, in short,—any and all are legitimate,—which will produce the
desired result, namely: to concentrate the attention of the student or
the listener on the most important elements in a composition, to show
him what to listen for and what to expect; to prepare him fully to
receive and respond to the proper impression, to tune up his esthetic
nature to the required key, so it may re-echo the harmonious
soul-utterances of the Master, as the horn-player breathes through his
instrument before using it, to warm it, to bring it up to pitch, to put
it in the right vibratory condition.
The plan of esthetic analysis, in more or less complete form, was used
by nearly all of the great teachers, such as Liszt, Kullak, Frau
Schumann, and others, and was a very important factor in their
instruction. It was used by all the great writers on music who were at
the same time eminent musicians, like Liszt, Schumann, Mendelssohn,
Mozart, Wagner, Berlioz, Ehrlich, and many more. Surely, with such
examples as precedents, not to mention other good and sufficient
grounds, we may feel safe in pursuing it to the best of our ability, in
print, in the teaching-room, in the concert-hall, whenever and wherever
it will contribute to the increase of general musical interest and
intelligence, in spite of the outcries of the so-called “purists,” who
see and would have us see in musical art only sensuous beauty and the
perfection of form, with possibly the addition of, as they might put it,
a certain ethereal, spiritual, indefinable something, too sacred to be
talked about, too transcendental to be expressed in language, too lofty
and pure to be degraded to the level of human speech.
Who, I ask, are the sentimentalists—they, or we who believe that music,
like every other art, is _expression_, the embodying of human
experiences, than which there is no grander or loftier theme on this
earth? Trust me, it is not music nor its subject-matter that is
nebulous, indistinct, hazy; but the mental conceptions of too many who
deal with it.
If art is _expression_, as estheticians agree, and music is an art, as
we claim, then it must express something; and, given sufficient
intelligence, training, and insight, that something—the vital essence
of every good composition—can be stated in words. Not always
adequately, I grant, but at least intelligibly, as a key to the fuller,
more complex expression of the music; serving precisely like the
synopsis to an opera, or the descriptive catalogue in a picture gallery.
This is the aim and substance of esthetic analysis.
Musicians are many who see in their mistress
But physical beauty of “color” and “form,”
Who hear in her voice but a sensuous sweetness,
No thrill of the heart that is living and warm.
They judge of her worth by “perfection of outline,”
“Proportion of parts” as they blend in the whole,
“Symmetrical structure,” and “finish of detail”;
They see but the body—ignoring the soul.
She speaks, but they seem not to master her meaning,
They catch but the “rhythmical ring of the phrase.”
She sings, but they dream not a message is borne on
The breath of the sigh, while its “cadence” they praise.
Her saddest laments are “melodious minors”
To them, and her jests are but “notes marked staccato”;
Her tenderest pleadings but “themes well developed,”
Her rage—but “a climax of chords animato.”
In vain she endeavors to rouse their perceptions
By touching their brows with her soul-stirring hand
They measure her fingers, their fairness admire,
Declare her “divine,” but will not understand.
Away with such worthless and sense-prompted service;
Forgetting the goddess, to worship the shrine;
Forgetting the bride, to admire her costume,
Her garments that glitter, and jewels that shine:
And give us the artists of true inspiration,
Whose insight is clear, and whose brains comprehend,
To interpret the silver-tongued message of music
That speaks to the heart, like the voice of a friend;
That wakens the soul to the joys that are higher
And purer than all that the senses can give,
That teaches the language of lofty endeavor,
And hints of a life that ’twere worthy to live!
For music is Art, and all Art is expression,
The “beauty of form” but embodies the thought,
Imprisons one ray of that wisdom supernal
Which Genius to sense-blinded mortals has brought.
Then give us the artist whose selfless devotion
To Art and her service is earnest and true,
To read us the mystical meaning of music;
Musicians are many, but artists are few.