Not long since, when urging upon a pupil the necessity of bringing out
the deeper mood and meaning of a certain composition, the present writer
received this response: “I am afraid to make it say all that, to put so
much of myself into it; people will call me sentimental!”
The reply voiced a prevailing and thoroughly American weakness. It is
far too common here to find, especially among our girls, a bright, warm,
impulsive nature, full of genuine sentiment and poetic fancy, choked and
perverted, turned shallow and bitter, by this same paralyzing fear of
ridicule; to meet persons who take a morbid pride in concealing and
repressing their better selves so effectually, that even their most
intimate friends shall never suspect them of being one degree less
frivolous and heartless than their companions, who in their turn are
doubtless vying with them in this deplorable, misguided effort to
belittle themselves, their lives and influence.
It is one of the most significant and lamentable signs of the time, that
any allusion to or expression of a warm, true, earnest sentiment is met
in society with more or less open and bitter derision, even by those who
are secretly in sympathy with it, admire the courage and sincerity of
its champion, and would gladly take the same bold stand in its defense,
but dare not, and so add their coward voices to swell the majority. This
is the more deplorable, since this tendency is at once cause and effect.
The continual and systematic denial and suppression of emotion and
ideality result finally in their complete extinction in most cases, or
leave them deformed and feeble, to struggle for a precarious existence
in some dark, hidden recess of the soul, whose highest throne is their
rightful heritage.
George Sand says, somewhere, speaking of the French, “We once had
sentiment, but the sirocco of sarcasm has scorched it from our hearts,
and where it grew is a desert place!” Alas for the people of whom this
is true! Alas for the young man or maiden who can say, “I have no
sentiment,” and speak truth. And let me here caution any young person
against a light and frequent, even though purposely insincere, denial of
any characteristic of value; for there is a strange and subtle sympathy
between the heart and the lips, which works steadily, if stealthily, to
bring them more and more into accord. A lie is in every sense a
violation of the laws of nature; and what is first uttered as a
conscious, flagrant falsehood, becomes less so with each repetition,
till unawares a day will come which shall see it transformed into a
glaring truth. Such a person, no matter how highly organized, or
perfectly trained otherwise, is no better than a machine. He does not
live, he simply runs.
One may not be to blame for a natural deficiency in those higher
qualities which make a life warm and rich and attractive, which mark a
personality as something more than an animated clod, or even a
well-adjusted mental mechanism; he must be pitied even though
instinctively shunned; but he who wantonly draws the fatal knife of
sarcasm across the throat of a true sentiment or a lofty ideal, however
feebly or imperfectly embodied, commits a crime against humanity at
large, more injurious and far-reaching in its effects than slaughter of
the body only. Above all, let us beware how we tamper with the natural,
essential relations between art and the emotions. Good-by to the artist
who has no place or use for sentiment in his work; he should turn his
attention at once to some more practical and creditable branch of
mechanics.
One grievous mistake in our American system of training is that we
ignore almost altogether this phase of culture. We develop the
conscience, the reason, the memory, but do nothing for the taste, the
imagination, the esthetic sense, the whole ideal and spiritual side of
the character. The faithful, protracted study of music, or other branch
of art, even though it never result in any financial profit or the
smallest degree of professional success, will develop faculties and
tendencies of more advantage to the student and to all who may come in
contact with him in private life, than any amount of algebra, or any
number of Greek roots. The German methods of study, especially for young
ladies, might teach us a valuable lesson in this connection.
He who would attain the best results in art should remember that we do
not gather dates of thorns, nor figs of thistles; that “only life begets
life,” and that after its own kind; that an art product, to be really
good and great, must be the concentrated, crystallized essence of the
best that is in him, the epitome of his highest moods and aspirations,
of those rare, intuitive glimpses of a loftier existence, to which in
favorable moments he can lift himself, the distilled perfume of weeks,
it may be years, of living. He should subject himself to every possible
cultivating, elevating influence, should train, not only hand and head,
but heart as well; for these three are the inseparable trinity of art.
He should increase his resources, widen his experiences, expand his
horizon; not by cramming a quantity of facts, or by the conquest of mere
technical means—what use in commanding words, or tones, if one has
nothing to express withal?—but by increased familiarity with and
capacity to appreciate and exercise the qualities so constantly
requisite in his work.
Let us remember, too, what the scientists tell us, that light and heat
radiated from a given center are dissipated in force and intensity in
proportion to the square of the distance to be traversed. The same is
emphatically true of emotion. If one would stir his audience to a
pleasurable excitement, he must himself be shaken as in a tempest; to
warm them, he must be at white heat.
Should the question arise, How shall one learn to feel music more deeply
and make it more expressive? my answer would be, Read, think, feel,
dream, love, live! Read—not musical history and biography—these give
information, not culture; they are valuable, but not in this connection;
read poetry, especially the lyric and dramatic, and good prose
literature. A person entirely unaccustomed to understand or to utter
anything in tones, will often find the key to this unfamiliar medium of
expression by the following indirect method: Find some work, a poem is
best, because briefer and more concrete, which expresses, approximately
at least, the sentiment of the composition to be studied. Most persons
are more familiar with the language of words than with that of tones,
and will reach a given mood more directly and easily through that
channel. Let the poem be well studied, not only with the mind, but with
the imagination, dwelling upon it, trying to feel its meaning and beauty
as deeply as possible; then throw the same emotional content into the
music, making the tones tell what the words have said. The present
writer has found this course in teaching very effective with all
sensitive natures, even with those who have but the rudiments of an
artistic temperament.
Above all, artist or amateur, teacher or pupil, fear not to use in your
work to the full all the emotional power you have or can acquire. It may
be the injudicious application of force that sometimes impairs artistic
results; it is never the excess. Vital energy should be controlled,
regulated, but never stinted. Ill-timed frenzy is not art, of course;
but where intensity is demanded and proper gradations and proportions
are observed, no dirge is ever too deeply gloomy, no dramatic climax too
strong. The danger is always of tameness, rather than of excessive
fervor.
Let us, then, be genuine, earnest, whole-hearted, open, in our
allegiance to the ideal; and as for those who sneer at sentiment in art
or in life, why, let them rave. We adhere to the creed which T. T.
Munger has beautifully formulated for our profession in his “Music as
Revelation”: “Emotion is the summit of existence, and music is the
summit of emotion, the art pathway to God.”
CHOPIN
1810 1849