gives the names of "_la musique emotive_," "_la musique descriptive_,"
and "_la musique imitative_." His first rubric is somewhat vague,
a sort of rag-bag into which he stuffs "_toute musique qui provoque
l'emotion sans aucun intermediaire conscient_." The other two are not
only more precise, but serve to call attention to devices which have
become very prominent in romantic, and especially in modern realistic,
music. "Imitative" music, by reproducing literally sounds heard in the
extra-musical world of nature, suggests to the listener the objects and
events associated with them. Examples are the bird-notes in Beethoven's
"Pastoral Symphony," the thunder in Berlioz's "Symphonie Fantastique,"
the bleating of sheep in Strauss's "Don Quixote," the striking of
the clock and the wailing of the baby in his "Symphonia Domestica."
"Descriptive" music suggests actions and events by means of analogies,
chiefly of movement and of utterance, between the music and the object,
and is of course far commoner than the more literal and narrowly
circumscribed imitation. Beethoven is descriptive when he represents
the even flowing of the brook, in the "Pastoral Symphony," by rippling
figures in eighth notes, or when in the bass recitatives of the
Ninth Symphony he suggests the impassioned utterance of an imaginary
protagonist; Mendelssohn describes in his "Hebrides Overture" the
heaving of the ocean, and in his "Midsummer Night's Dream" the dancing
of fairies; Saint-Saëns reproduces in "Le Rouet d'Omphale" the very
whirr of the spinning-wheel, and Wagner in his fire-music the ceaseless
lapping of flames.
Such devices as these certainly occupy a prominent place in modern
music. Almost every composer of the later nineteenth century has taken
his fling at this sort of sketching from nature. One cannot resist,
nevertheless, the suspicion that M. Goblot attaches too great an
importance to what is, after all, a casual and desultory element in
most compositions, and that he inclines to lay on the narrow shoulders
of imitation and description a greater burden of explanation than they
can carry. Beethoven's birds and brooks are attractive features in a
great work; Saint-Saëns' spinning-wheel makes a charming arabesque
on a harmony of solid musicianship; but what are we to say to M.
Goblot's assertion that a passage cited from Alexandre George,
modulating upward by whole steps, is emphatically expressive because
it "reminds us of a person reiterating with growing exaltation the
same authoritative or impassioned affirmation, and each time advancing
a step, in an attitude of menace or defiance"? Can we accept as
unquestioningly as he does a series of thirteen consecutive fifths,
descriptive of sunrise, on the ground that it "wounds our ears as
the light of the sun wounds our eyes"? And listen to his comment on
Schubert's "Trout," that long-suffering denizen of Teutonic waters:
"_En courant sur son lit de pierres, elle se creuse de plis profonds,
se hérisse de crêtes saillantes, et ces plis et ces crêtes se croisent
obliquement en miroitant_." Schubert's fat shoulders, we suspect, would
have shaken could he have read this ingenious commentary on his work.
If such finical transcription of natural sights and sounds is the aim
of music, why do we prefer Beethoven's thunder, which clings cravenly
to the diatonic scale, to Berlioz's, so much more realistic in its
daring dissonance? Why do we not forthwith turn about face on the road
our art has so long been travelling, and forsake musical intervals,
those quite artificial figments, for the noises which surround us
everywhere in the actual world? Noise is indeed the hidden goal toward
which all description and imitation aspire, and sound could never have
passed into music under their guidance, but only in quest of a far
deeper, more subtle expressiveness. It is hard to believe that any sane
listener would long continue to patronize music in which there was
not something more truly satisfying than the lapping of brooks, the
crashing of storm or battle, and the whirring of spinning-wheels or the
creaking of wind-mills. If such were the case, we should have to admit
sadly that music had fallen to the level to which dramatic art falls
in the real-tank-and-practicable-saw-mill melodrama, to which painting
falls in those pictures from which we try to pluck the too tangible
grape.
M. Goblot evidently realizes himself that there is a subtler appeal
than that of description and imitation; for it is in order to
account for it that he makes his separate heading of "_la musique
emotive_," by which he indicates all music which acts directly upon
the emotions, without the aid of any recognition of external objects,
any intellectual concepts, or, as he says, "_aucun intermediaire
conscient_." The appeal he here has in mind is that of thousands of
melodies, which, without describing or imitating any concrete object,
suggest vividly special states of feeling, by recalling to us, in
veiled, modified, and idealized form, those gestures or cries we
habitually make under the spur of such feelings. Since the spontaneous
vocal expressions of strong emotion--wailing, crying, pleading,
moaning, and the like--have all their characteristic cadences, which
can be more or less accurately reproduced in a bit of melody, and since
the natural bodily gesticulations can be similarly suggested by divers
rhythmical movements, music has the power to induce a great variety
of emotional states by what we may call direct contagion, without
the intermediation of any mental images. It can act upon us like the
infection of tears or laughter, to which we involuntarily succumb,
without asking for any reasons. And it certainly exercises this power
much more constantly and steadily than it imitates or describes.
Almost all lyrical melodies, such as Schumann's "Ich Grolle Nicht,"
with its persistently rising inflection of earnest protestation, or
Chopin's "Funeral March," with its monotone of heavy grief, will be
found on analysis to reëcho, in an idealized and transfigured form,
the natural utterance of passion. This kind of expression, which has
been frequently described, appeals to our subconscious associations
rather than to those conscious processes of thought by which we follow
realistic delineation. Operating at a deeper level in our natures, it
is proportionately more potent and irresistible.
But is even this type of expression, more general and pervasive though
it be than the types so interestingly studied by M. Goblot--is even
this style of expression universal, omnipresent, fundamental? Does it
suffice to explain the overwhelming emotional appeal of an organ-fugue
of Bach, for example, of which the impression seems to be vague,
general, indefinable in specific terms, in the exact measure of its
profundity? If "_la musique emotive_" works at a deeper level and upon
a more subconscious element in our nature than "_la musique imitative_"
and "_la musique descriptive_," is there not still another kind of
music, which we may perhaps best call simply "_la musique belle_,"
which, addressing still deeper instincts, exercises an even more
magical persuasiveness?
The case of the Bach fugue forces us to the conclusion that there
is indeed a kind of expression depending neither on the portrayal
of natural objects nor on the suggestion of such special feelings
as joy and grief, but penetrating by a still deeper avenue to the
primal springs of our emotion. The more compelling the experience,
it seems, the more is it idealized away from concrete references and
provocations in the direction of abstract musical beauty. By presenting
to us a perfect piece of form, a highly complex yet ultimately single
organism of tones, it calls into full play our most fundamental
perceptions; and this satisfying exercise of our faculties gives
us a pervasive happiness, a diffused sense of efficient vitality,
ineffably more delightful than any particularized emotion or isolated
intellectual process. Perfection of form thus turns out to be the most
indispensable of all the means of expression at the command of the
composer.
Psychological analysis, carried to its legitimate end, verifies, we
see, the conclusions of the naïve musical observer. All expression, for
psychology, is the product of an association between two "terms" in
the mind--the first that which is given by experience, the expressive
object, the second that system of thoughts and feelings at which the
mind arrives through the associative act, that which, as we say, is
expressed. This being the case, it is evident that, other things being
equal, that expression will be most potent the first term of which
most deeply stirs our instinctive, subconscious life. When the first
term is a basic activity of our minds, such as the perception of a
beautiful form, the feelings to which it leads us will have a peculiar
depth and amplitude. Our whole organism, like the sounding-board
of the well-attuned instrument, will be set in vibration. This is
what happens when we listen sympathetically to music that is really
beautiful. When, on the other hand, the mental trigger pulled is
only some special emotion, so that the stimulation is superficial or
local, the impression will reverberate less far-reachingly. We shall
be less profoundly moved. And when it is not even an emotion, however
special, that starts off the train of thought, but the intellectual
concept of some object or event, we shall likely be not so much moved
as interested; our curiosity rather than our passions will respond;
and we shall call the music bizarre, original, or striking, but hardly
beautiful. Something like the same gradation in the power of various
appeals, according to their generality, is observable in ordinary
life. To read a love-story, labyrinthine in minute detail, is a less
seizing experience than to overhear the impassioned speech of some
actual lover, even if we catch none of the words; and this in turn
commoves us less than to feel in our own frames that boiling of the
blood, that surging of the vitals, which is the raw material of love.
Brisk exercise on a fine autumn day of sun and wind gives a richer
happiness than is dreamed of in our philosophies. It communicates no
particular ideas, but attunes our whole being so exquisitely that
the fancies spring up spontaneously, like wild-flowers in a fertile
meadow. So lovely music simply establishes in us a mood, leaving all
the furniture of that mood to our imaginations. And this is why it is
that artistic expression, as it becomes more minute and meticulously
precise, is apt to lose in persuasive power, and that the composer, if
he understands his medium, must needs hesitate long before sacrificing
the least degree of beauty, however interstitial and inconspicuous, to
any isolated feature of interest, no matter how salient or seductive.
VI
Perhaps it is not too much to hope that the foregoing analysis,
incomplete and tentative as it is, affords us something like a rational
basis for our instinctive attitudes toward the various types of music.
Though its intention is to suggest rather than to dogmatize, it may
by this time have fixed clearly in our minds certain fundamental
principles of artistic effect; and by constant reference to these it
may have established in us a measure of judicial impartiality and
poise. Especially, it may have clarified our notions, likely to remain
confused so long as they are unconscious, of the essential achievements
of the romantic school, both in its lyrical and in its realistic
phases, as well as of the peculiar drawbacks and limitations to which
it is subject.
The abiding charm of the lyrical work of the romantic composers,
typical of which are Schubert's songs, Schumann's novelettes and
_phantasiestücke_, and Chopin's nocturnes and preludes, lies in its
intimateness, its strong personal flavor. It fascinates us by its
impulsive self-revelation, its frankness, spontaneity, and enthusiasm.
Its subjectivity and introspection, even when they are troubled or
touched with sadness, stir a sympathetic chord in the self-conscious
modern breast. To those moods which the classic reticence chills and
repels, romantic music speaks with tender, caressing humanity. Even its
limitations are then an added appeal; for when we are too weary or dull
to brace ourselves to the perception of impersonal beauty, the accent
of private grief, aspiration, struggle, and disappointment seems
better pitched to our capacity, and has a pathos we can understand.
Schumann and Chopin are the best companions for hours of reverie and
self-communion. On the other hand, when those hours overtake us in
which we realize the pathetic incompleteness of all merely personal
life, in which we discern what fragmentary creatures we are, and how
little of truth we can ever see, then all living to ourselves alone
is touched with the sense of vanity. Then every utterance of our
petty private griefs, and even of our nobler but still private joys,
seems like a breath dissipated in a universe; we find true existence,
solid reality, only in an identification of our interests with those
of all mankind. As morals finds its escape from this sense of the
vanity of individual living in social devotion, æsthetics finds it in
the impersonality of classic art. Romanticism is sometimes silent,
or speaks to unattending ears. We turn from all special expressions,
touched as they are with human mortality and evanescence, to the
eternal abstract beauty.
If lyrical music is unsatisfactory to these moods of highest vitality
and severest demand, realistic music is exasperating, intolerable.
When we have nothing better to do it is amusing enough to note the
ingenuity with which a composer can introduce the bray of an ass into
his delicate tissue of tones, as Mendelssohn does in the "Midsummer
Night's Dream Overture," or make three bird-notes sound a harmonic
triad as Beethoven does in his "Pastoral Symphony." There is a
fascinating technical problem involved in the suggestion of natural
noises by musical tones, and when we are indifferent to such technical
interests, we may still find diversion in following a series of
tonal cues to the events of a familiar story. But when we crave the
sublimity of music, when we long to feel once more the thrill of its
transcendent beauty, how can we endure to be put off with the barking
of a dog, the mewing of a cat, the galloping of a horse, or the crying
of a baby? Most program music is incredibly trivial in intention, and
gives an impression of maladaptation of means to ends, the former are
so elaborate, the latter so paltry and mean. To elicit from a modern
orchestra of a hundred instruments a feeble imitation of a battle
seems, as some one has piquantly phrased it, "like using a steam-hammer
to kill a fly."
We read with impatience the annals of this school. John Mundy, an
English composer of the seventeenth century, writes a "Fantasia on
the Weather," in four parts: "Faire Weather; Lightning; Thunder; a
Faire Day." Adam Krieger, in 1667, composes a four-part vocal fugue
"entirely imitative of cats," on a chromatic subject set to the
words "Miau, miau." Dussek produces a series of pieces entitled "The
Sufferings of the Queen of France," some of which are: "The Queen's
Imprisonment" (_largo_); "She reflects on her Former Greatness"
(_maestoso_); "Her Invocation to the Almighty just before her Death"
(_devotamente_); "The Guillotine drops" (a _glissando_ descending
scale); "Apotheosis." We smile patronizingly over these first childish
attempts of an art essentially childish. No longer satisfied with
such innocent delineations of natural and political history, we must
have autobiography, domesticity, and even metaphysics, translated
into tones. But will posterity take a truly keener delight in our
triumphs of realism than we do in the works of Mundy and Krieger?
Already Mr. Arthur Symons, in his essay on Richard Strauss, cries in
pardonable irritation: "If I cared more for literature than for music,
I imagine that I might care greatly for Strauss. He offers me sound as
literature. But I prefer to read my literature, and to hear nothing but
music."
Were triviality the only sin of program music we might leave it,
without further ado, to the gradual oblivion which overtakes the
jejune in art. But, unfortunately, program music not merely bores the
music-lover; it does him a positive injury, which criticism ought,
so far as it can, to mitigate. By its false emphasis it distracts
attention from what music can do supremely to what it can only botch
and bungle, brings true masterpieces into discredit with hearers not
sensitive or disciplined enough to appreciate them, and plunges the
simple into a hopeless æsthetic quagmire. Pitiable is the frequency of
such questions, on the lips of aspiring students, as, "Ought I, when I
listen to music, to have in mind a series of pictures, or a story?" To
judge by the minuteness of its detail the art which beyond all others
is great by virtue of indefinite suggestion, and inspires by appealing
to faculties far below the level of intellectual consciousness, is to
be sadly duped. "We forget," writes Vernon Lee, "that music is neither
a symbol which can convey an abstract thought, nor a brute cry which
can express an instinctive feeling; we wish to barter the power of
leaving in the mind an indelible image of beauty for the miserable
privilege of awakening the momentary recollection of one of nature's
sounds, or the yet more miserable one of sending a momentary tremor
through the body; we would rather compare than enjoy, and rather weep
than admire."
The upshot of all this is, that not even in enjoying the novel
delights, the picturesque glimpses, and the fancy-provoking
allusiveness which romanticism has introduced into music should we
give ourselves too unreservedly to what may be, after all, but a
partial and limited pleasure. If these things make us indifferent to
deeper beauties they do us a disservice. If, however, we can keep,
in spite of their seductions, our sense of proportion, our perception
of relative values, we shall enjoy them in security. The romantic
movement has undoubtedly led to a widening of our artistic sympathies,
has enriched our music with new expressive possibilities and
technical resources. It has been one of those periods of ebullience,
corresponding perhaps in the consciousness of the race to the storm and
stress of adolescence in the individual, which are bound to come so
long as we are growing. We cannot fully maintain our poise at the very
moment in which we are extending our field of experience; periods of
conquest must alternate with periods of assimilation; and as in walking
we constantly lose our balance in order to progress, so in mental
life we willingly forego control until it can supervene on a broader
consciousness.
The romantic composers, eagerly developing the expressive possibilities
of music, may have forgotten sometimes in their enthusiasm the
organic beauty without which music can never wholly satisfy, but
nevertheless they have enriched their art. The available resources
of music are to-day more various than ever before. Not only have its
mechanical facilities been wonderfully perfected by the ingenuity of
the nineteenth century, but its potentialities for vivid and detailed
expression have been permanently raised by the subjective intentness of
the modern temperament. It remains for future composers to make a new
synthesis of all these novel elements, and without sacrificing their
vividness to impose upon them the ultimate integrity of impression
which at present they too often lack. A classical unity and beauty must
supervene upon our romantic multiplicity and interesting confusion.
Expression, without losing the minuteness that modern speculation has
gained for it, must regain something of the classical serenity. We have
had already one musician who, profiting by his heritage, has vied with
Schumann in versatility and with Bach in intimacy, who has combined in
his single mind something of the sensitive sympathy of the romanticists
and the rugged power of the classicists. It may be that Brahms but
points the way to a music of the future which will be as grand as
it is vivid, as universal in scope as it is personal in accent and
inspiration, and in which beauty of form and richness of expression
will be reunited in perfect coöperation to one great artistic end.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Properly speaking, "form" refers to the molecular constitution
of music, to the ways in which relations of pitch and rhythm
are manipulated in melody and harmony; "structure" to the molar
constitution of music, the subsequent grouping of the melodies into
complete pieces. The difference between a sonata, a fugue, and a
nocturne is a difference of structure; the difference between a good
melody and a bad one is a difference of form.
[2] _La Revue Philosophique_, Vol. LII.
II
FRANZ SCHUBERT
[Illustration: FRANZ SCHUBERT From an original water color
by W. A. Rieder]
II
FRANZ SCHUBERT
As the earliest full-fledged representative of the romantic school
of composers which succeeded Beethoven, Schubert occupies a peculiar
position in the history of music. His work forms the link between
the classical music of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven and the romantic
music of Schumann, Mendelssohn, and Chopin, having certain qualities
in common with each. Traditions, training, and environment allied him
with the older order; but instinct led him into new paths. Scattered
plentifully through the thousands of pages covered by his racing pen,
many of which might be the work of some humdrum eighteenth-century
kapellmeister, are features of surprising novelty, pointing
unmistakably to the future rather than to the past--gleams of the true
gold in a vast heap of sand. Nine-tenths of the time he is content
to imitate, with amiable, unthinking garrulity, the quartets and
sonatas he grew up with; the other tenth he breaks forth incontinently,
an inspired pioneer. This mingling of the matter-of-course and the
unexpected, of the sand and the gold, makes his music a curious study.
Born in Vienna, January 31, 1797, Schubert began the study of music
when still a child, under the direction of his father, a school-teacher
by profession, and his two brothers. While in his teens the boy began
playing the viola pans in the family string quartet. His brothers
took the violin parts, and his father played the 'cello: not always
impeccably, it is to be feared, for we read how little Franz, looking
doubtless very solemn and gnomelike in the spectacles he already wore,
would from time to time, without stopping to look at the score, comment
on the wrong notes the paternal fingers were sounding. This informal
quartet was the nucleus of an orchestra, known as the Orchestral
Society of Amateurs, which flourished at a somewhat later period,
and served to make Schubert acquainted with the works of Krommer,
Romberg, Cherubini, Spontini, Câtel, Mehul, Boïeldieu, Weigl, Winter,
and others of that category, as well as with some Haydn and Mozart, and
the first two symphonies of Beethoven. There was also an orchestra in
the government school for the Emperor's choir, known as the "Convict"
(from _convivo_, not _convinco_), which the boy, thanks to his clear
soprano voice, attended from his eleventh to his sixteenth year; and of
this he was not only a member, but for some time a conductor. One can
readily imagine that with all this music-making there was little time
for general schooling. Indeed, from the moment he left the Convict,
in 1813, he seems to have given little thought to any but a technical
education; and though he attended a normal school for a while, and
later even tried teaching under his father for three years, his main
interests were his lessons with the famous opera composer, Salieri, and
his first essays in composition.