expressing. 'The maiden,' says Ruskin, 'may sing her lost love, but the
miser may not sing his lost money-bags.' Now it is obvious that worth is
a relative term. We do not want gravity in a ballroom or solemnity in a
comic opera. There is plenty of space in Music for lightness, and
delicacy, and simplicity and humour, provided that they recognise their
proper limits and are devoted to their proper themes. But there is no
room for forms of expression which are silly or superficial or vulgar.
We are not really moved by the sorrows of a little tin soldier, or the
flirtations of a man and a maid under an umbrella. We do not really weep
over the chorister boy who becomes an angel, or the carol singer (with
organ obbligato) who dies in a snow-drift through half-a-dozen stanzas
of imperfect verse. It is with very alien jaws that we laugh at the
tedious horse-play and cheap catch-words of our 'humorous' songs. It is
with very little fascination that we watch the posturing of our
hoydenish polkas or our ill-bred slangy waltzes. And our aversion is not
due to any pedantic insistence on the dignity of the art. Music has a
perfect right, _desipere in loco_, but it ought to choose its place
with opportunity, and regulate its folly by some laws of good behaviour.
The limit for music, in short, is much the same as the limit for poetry.
There is probably no generic type of emotion which the poet would
dismiss as unworthy of treatment, but under each genus there are certain
specific forms which he would naturally leave untouched as perversions,
or degradations. Every normal and healthy instinct may have its artistic
expression, no matter how slight or transitory its nature; it is the
parodies, the simulations, the abnormal counterparts that afford no
material to poet or musician. Schumann's nursery tunes are as delightful
as the 'Child's Garden of Verses'; Mr Austin Dobson has not more skill
in porcelain than Rameau or Scarlatti or Couperin. If we want romance,
there is Chopin; if dance music, there is Strauss; if simple sentiment,
there are the best of Mendelssohn's _Lieder_. Above all, if we must sing
something which our audience can follow without thought and at a single
hearing, let us discard our second-rate librettists and second-hand
composers, and let us turn back to the national songs which have sprung
from the very heart of our people. We shall not thereby aid in
conferring royalties on writers who had far better be following some
other profession: but we shall at least help to purify the atmosphere of
contemporary art. There is no more melancholy spectacle of human
infirmity than a so-called 'Ballad Concert' of the present day: unless
it be the amateur reproductions, where all the faults of a bad system
are faithfully copied, and the unconscious burlesque of feeling is
itself unconsciously burlesqued.
All music, then, which is worthy of serious regard must be the
spontaneous outcome of a natural and healthy emotion. But this is
clearly not the last word in the matter: if it were, we should be
threatened with the _reductio ad absurdum_, that all genuine music is of
equal value. Nor can the distinction be entirely explained by the fact
that some emotional states are deeper and more serious than others: for,
in the first place, such a classification of our feelings is almost
impossible; and, in the second, even if it were effected, it would carry
us but a little way towards a solution. The emotional basis of
Beethoven's Eighth Symphony is lighter than that of Berlioz' _Symphonie
Fantastique_, but Beethoven's is undoubtedly the greater work. We have,
in short, the whole question of formal beauty to discuss, the whole
analysis of those intellectual laws on which it has been already
suggested that artistic perfection ultimately depends. It must be
remembered that music is not only the expression, but the idealisation
of feeling, and that its true worth will be largely conditioned by the
qualities of abstract beauty which such an idealisation implies.
These qualities may roughly be classified under the two heads of style
and structure. By structure in music is meant the general distribution
of ideas in a work or movement: the contrast and recurrence of themes,
the organisation of the key system, the whole architectural plan which
aims at the establishment of coherence and stability. By style is meant
the due arrangement of the phraseology; the right melodic curve, the
proper degree of richness and transparency in the harmonisation, the
feeling for the special capacities of the different voices or
instruments. No doubt the two cannot be sharply separated: they are in
a great measure interdependent, and are more or less determined by the
same ultimate principles. But as complementary aspects they may at any
rate be logically distinguished, and in some cases may even suggest
different lines of criticism. In some early sonata movements, for
instance, the structure is coherent, but the phraseology deficient in
force and contrast. In some works of our romantic period the phraseology
is admirable, but the importance of key-relationship almost entirely
disregarded. It is much the same with a play or a novel; the story
cannot be perfectly told unless the characters are perfectly drawn; we
may even add, unless the author has entire command of the right word and
the telling phrase. But short of this ideal proportion the balance may
swing to the side of plot or to the side of characterisation, to
boldness of invention or delicacy of treatment. It is only in the
greatest work that the form is, on both sides, entirely satisfying.
Now, the highest type of formal perfection which our minds are capable
of conceiving, is that of unity in diversity. The discovery of this
principle in Nature, as a whole, was the main problem of Greek
philosophy; its discovery in different departments of Nature is the
entire problem of modern science. Knowledge is the unification of
isolated facts under a single law: truth, which is the correlative
of knowledge, finds its climax in the existence of law and the
inter-relation of facts. More especially is this the case with that
particular form of unification which we call organic; that in which the
details are absolutely diverse in character, but all play interdependent
parts in one single economy. The organism is not only our supreme
example of physical structure, it is the type of all human society and
all natural order.
Again, our great evolutionist philosopher has told us that an organism
must possess three main attributes. First, it must be definite, clear in
outline, complete in substance, and filling with unbroken continuity the
fixed limits by which it is circumscribed. Secondly, it must be
heterogeneous: composed, that is, of a plurality of parts, each of which
has its own special function, and no two of which are interchangeable.
Thirdly, it must be coherent: holding this plurality in exact balance
and equipoise, so that each part, incapable by itself of maintaining the
whole body, is yet essential to the due health and efficiency of the
others. Illustrations of this principle are the primary facts of
biology. They may be traced in steady gradation from the earliest and
most rudimentary forms of animal life until they culminate in the
ordered complexity of the human frame. And a line of similar development
runs through all political history, from the primitive tribe to the
communities of our present civilisation.
_Mutatis mutandis_, this scientific ideal is also the ideal of art. When
we speak of a great picture, a great poem, a great novel, we mean one
that groups its diverse elements round a central principle, one in
which variety is never chaotic and unity never monotonous; one
in which every stroke tells and every touch is essential. No doubt,
in the representative arts, this principle is qualified by other
considerations,--poetry has to criticise life, painting has to represent
nature; but in both the element of formal perfection is of vital
importance, and in both formal perfection means perfection of organism.
A bad composition in pictorial art means one in which some detail can be
obliterated without loss to the whole. A bad composition in literature
means one which contains superfluous digressions and 'passages that lead
to nothing.' Virgil is the great epic artist, Sophocles the great artist
in drama, for precisely the same reasons that teach us to see
extravagance in Wiertz' scenes from the _Iliad_, or make us laugh, not
without pity, at Nat Lee's Bedlam Tragedy 'in Twenty-five Acts and some
Odd Scenes.' Again the flexibility of fine verse simply means the
organic inter-relation of different metrical devices. If we examine a
dozen lines of Shakespear, or Milton, or Keats, or Tennyson, we shall
recognise that their beauty of sound depends partly on the harmonious
juxtaposition of words, each of which finds its natural complement in
the rest, partly on the varieties of stress which balance and compensate
one another throughout the whole. Take away the variety, and we get
verse like that of Hoole's _Tasso_. Take away the compensation, and we
get the misshapen prose of Byron's _Deformed Transformed_.
Lastly, among all arts, it is to Music that the law of organic
proportion most intimately applies. In Painting and Literature, an
emotional state gives rise to a thought which gives rise to an
appropriate form of expression: in Music, the state of emotion gives
rise to a melody which is thought and form in one. While, therefore,
with the representative arts, we can sometimes criticise the idea and
the expression as two separate factors, with Music it is only in the
expression that the idea can be ascertained. Again, the musician has a
far more opulent command of formal resource than his brother artists.
Contrasts of _timbre_ and tone are at least as various as contrasts of
colour: the complexity of musical rhythm is far beyond anything that
language can achieve; while, in the devices of harmony, and still more
of polyphony and counterpoint, the composer occupies a position which is
virtually unique in human experience. Hence we may naturally expect
that, in their highest development, the style and structure of Music
should present the most complete examples of artistic organism: that
they should be, as Mr Pater has described them, the perfect type to
which it is the glory of other arts to conform.
Before we proceed to test this hypothesis by reference to the practice
of the great masters, there is one preliminary consideration on which it
is advisable to lay some emphasis. Music assumes so many forms, and is
devoted to so many purposes, that it would be idle to expect the same
kind of organic perfection in all. The melodies of the dance and the
ballad are, for obvious reasons, compelled to a certain uniformity of
rhythm and stanza; and it is impossible that they should exhibit the
same diversity as a work which is not bound by their restrictions.
Again, a continuously recurrent figure may be used with admirable effect
in a short pianoforte piece, or in the accompaniment of a song, though
it would grow monotonous and wearisome if maintained through the whole
length of a symphonic movement. In Music as in Poetry, the heterogeneity
of a work will be in great measure conditioned by its extent and scale;
only, as no composition is large enough to justify incoherence, so none
is small enough to dispense with diversity altogether. Look at Heine's
_Du bist wie eine Blume_ simply as a matter of phrase and versification.
The unity of the lyric is beyond all question, but we may note how the
extra syllables come pressing into the more impassioned stanza, and how
the style of the whole is perfected by the exquisite inversion in the
last line.
[Illustration: EXAMPLES]
It is precisely the same with a lyric tune like 'Barbara Allen.'[5] Here
the stanza is prescribed by the exigencies of the ballad-form, in which
the alternate strains answer each other perforce. But it is worth
remarking, that although there is little variety in the rhythmic figure,
there is almost perfect organisation in the notes that constitute the
melodic curve. It is not too much to say that after the first phrase
every detail in the tune is inevitable, made requisite either by some
preceding gap which the ear desires to fill, or by some swing of metre
which the mind desires to balance. Another and more highly organised
instance may be found in the great tune from the finale of the Ninth
Symphony.[6] Here the curve is as broad and simple as that of a
Volkslied, filling its limit with entire and satisfying completeness,
while the rhythm is perhaps the most marvellous example in Music of
organic effect produced from the plainest and most elementary materials.
In the first part only two rhythmic figures are employed, one of which
is a bare statement of the tempo, while the other differs from it only
by a dotted note, yet they are so presented that there is no sense of
monotony in the stanza. The first two strains of the second part present
a new set of figures, of which each is developed out of its predecessor,
while the last two complete the unity of the tune as a whole, by
recalling the first stanza and recapitulating its close. Still more, in
cases where there is no external requisition of metre, shall we find the
unity of the melodic organism qualified by the diversity of its parts.
In the first movement of Mozart's G Minor Quintett, there is an
admirable instance;[7] the first two bars balance in rhythm, but differ
in curve and harmony; the third intervenes with a new figure in strong
contrast; and the fourth closes the half-stanza by recalling the second.
Then comes the most beautiful point of style in the whole tune. The
figure of the third bar, which, hitherto, has only been used for
contrast (like the third line of the Omar Khayyam stanza in verse), is
answered and compensated by the fifth bar, which itself leads directly
into the cadence-phrase. And thus every part is made vital, and
differences themselves co-ordinated into uniformity of result. Finally,
as a climax, we may take two more examples from Beethoven: the melody on
which is founded the slow movement of the Pathétique,[8] and the opening
theme of the Violoncello Sonata in A.[9] The former contains six
different rhythmic figures in eight bars, the latter is composed of
disparate elements, no two of which bear any resemblance to each other;
and yet both alike are complete melodic stanzas, as definite and
coherent in their total effect as any dance-tune of Strauss, or any
ballad-tune of Schumann. It is impossible for the organisation of melody
to be carried to a higher pitch. Unity may be easily enough attained by
an exact balance of similar phrases, but only a master can produce it
from the interplay of factors so diverse and so incongruous.
The earliest known method of harmonising a melody was a continuous
series of consecutive intervals, produced when the same passage is sung
simultaneously by two voices of different pitch. Here we have the first
protoplasmic germ of this particular musical device, absolutely
homogeneous in style, and therefore inartistic. Art in harmony began
with organisation; that is, with the discovery that unity of effect
might be combined with individuality in the part writing: that each
voice might have a separate character, each chord be determined by some
intelligible law of sequence, and yet the whole be developed into a
coherent system. So rose the old counterpoint of Lassus and Palestrina,
bound by certain conventional restrictions, but, within their limits, as
highly organised as genius could make it: so in course of time grew the
freer polyphony of Bach and Brahms and Wagner, which stands to the
earlier method as the Romance languages to Latin. Thus there are two
main tests of good harmony,--first, whether each part taken by itself is
interesting; second, whether each chord can be explained and justified
by its context. For instance, the setting of the words 'Und seinem
Heil'gen Geist' from the chorale in the _Lobgesang_ is badly harmonised;
the last chord is simply out of balance, and it is only necessary to
open any page of Bach to see the contrast. Of course, in song and drama,
and, to a certain extent, even in sonata and symphony, it may be
necessary to break the law of organism in some particular detail in
order to obtain a special poetic effect. But in that case the passage in
question must be regarded as a factor in the total result: the principle
of criticism is not altered, but only applied to a wider area. And, at
any rate, on all occasions where drama is out of place, and purity of
tone the first requisite, the rule of organisation in harmony may be
taken as paramount. There is no need to multiply instances; two lie
ready to hand in our collection of _Hymns Ancient and Modern_. The
second tune assigned in that volume to the 'Litany of the Incarnate
Word' is a compendium of almost every fault of style which harmony can
commit: the setting of 'Nun danket alle Gott' is as near perfection as
it is possible for our system to attain.
So far we have considered musical style in relation to isolated strains
or melodies: and thus have led up to the more important question of its
nature in the range of a continuous composition. It is obviously easier
to write a good sentence than a good paragraph or chapter, even though
all three are amenable to the same laws: and we can find many an artist
who, like Horace's coppersmith, has skill enough in details, but remains
Infelix operis summâ, quia ponere totum
Nescit.
Indeed, the preservation of balance and unity in a large work is an
achievement that requires high gifts cultivated by long and patient
training: every cadence gives a hostage to fortune, every phrase offers
a pledge that must ultimately be redeemed. It is not surprising that
composers have often been too fully preoccupied with the elaboration of
single points to notice the due inter-relation of parts by which style
in the whole is constituted.
For instance, there can be no question of Grieg's genius. His lyric
pieces for the pianoforte are almost uniformly charming: his songs are
among the greatest possessions of the art. But as soon as Grieg
attempts to fill a larger canvas, his imperfections of style begin to
appear, and the work becomes either incoherent, as in the String
Quartett, or monotonous, as in the first two numbers of the incidental
music to _Peer Gynt_. Gounod, again, has some admirable qualities, but
among them is not included any great gift for uniformity, beyond the
limits of a Berceuse or a Serenade. The 'Calf of Gold' song in _Faust_
opens with a magnificent phrase, and then degenerates into an
anti-climax of pure irrelevance. The choruses in the _Redemption_ and
the _Mors et Vita_ set out, for the most part, with a pompous fugue
exposition, and discard counterpoint at the moment when its difficulties
begin. Grant that the change of manner is due to deliberate choice and
not to deficiency in technical skill; no plea of purpose can palliate
the error. It would be just as reasonable for a dramatist to write the
first act of his tragedy in Elizabethan English and drop to the
nineteenth century for the other four.
We shall find a more interesting example if we compare the two versions
of Brahms' B major Trio. In the first, possibly misled by an apparent
analogy from Beethoven,[10] Brahms allowed himself to spoil the opening
movement with an incident of sheer incongruity: in the second he has
completely rewritten the passage and reduced it to entire harmony with
its surroundings. Not that the latter version is deficient in contrast,
but it makes contrast subservient to coherence. And it is certainly a
striking fact that the great master should have recalled his early work
in order to correct the one offence against organism of style, which it
may be held to contain.
But we need look no further than Beethoven if we wish to see this
principle in its most perfect embodiment. The opening movements of the
two Sonatas, which he has numbered as Op. 27, stand on the outside verge
of organic style: the former contains the maximum of diversity without
being indefinite; the latter the maximum of unity without being
monotonous: and between their bounds lie all those marvellous examples
of contrast and antithesis, of variation and development, of firm
outline and steadfast plan, which have placed his work as far beyond
rivalry as that of Angelo or Shakespear. See how the stormy opening of
the _Waldstein_ is soothed and quieted by the melody of the second
subject: how the bleak majesty of the first theme in the _Appassionata_
finds its complement in the warm, rich tune that enters upon the change
of key. Look at the balance of phrase in the first Rasoumoffsky
Quartett, in the fifth Symphony, in the _Emperor_ Concerto. But indeed
the fact is too patent to need illustration, even if the selection of
instances were possible. One might as well try to pick out examples of
Milton's dignity and Goethe's wisdom, or direct attention to evidences
of skill in Titian and Velasquez. Even the few imperfections may readily
be condoned. The finale of the first Sonata is a legacy from an alien
system: that of the _Eroica_ an obvious experiment, that of the Sonata
in A major an instance of the curious devotion to counterpoint which
Beethoven specially manifested at the end of his career. And it should
be noted that his comparative failures are always steps in a new
direction, and are almost always followed by some conspicuous victory on
the same lines. In any case, they may be counted on the fingers of a
single hand. There is certainly no musician, there is probably no
artist, whose work as a whole is so varied and yet so masterly.
* * * * *
A complete discussion of musical structure would involve a history of
the art from the year 1600. It must therefore suffice for the present
purpose to note the main stages of development, and to analyse the chief
types, first as they appear in single movements, then as they are
combined into the complex organisms of sonata and symphony. Before the
Florentine revolution there was virtually no such thing as a system of
key-relationship, no recognition of the important effects of contrast
which may be produced in a work by the alternation of different tonics.
Music during the Ecclesiastical period was entirely homogeneous
in structure, bound within the limits of the mode, or, at most,
transcending them for a moment of tentative audacity wholly different
from the firm definite scheme of modern modulation. When the change
came, it was only natural that the first consequence should be a period
of chaos. The lay-brothers who had broken loose from the monastery went
roaming about the world with no settled plan or direction, turning along
any path which promised adventure, and ending their journey wherever
they happened to stop at nightfall. The Moresca in Monteverde's
_Orfeo_[11] is a good example of the reaction against uniformity. It can
hardly be described without anachronism in our modern terminology, but,
if the attempt must be made, we may analyse it as a single melodic
phrase, beginning on dominant harmony and ending on tonic, repeated four
times in four different keys. In other words, it is as deficient in
structural coherence as the preceding method in structural diversity.