The Galaxy, June 1877 Part 23

In "Punch's Almanack" for this year is an ill.u.s.tration, in three compartments, of the subject "Music at Home." The first is called "Drawing-room Music of the Past." A young lady sits at one of those little spindle-legged piano-fortes, hardly larger than a large washstand, and somewhat shaped like one, with which our grandmothers and great grandmothers, and the men who composed music for them, were not only satisfied, but delighted. Her hands are moving, light and level, over the little key-board, and the dainty turn of her head shows that she is captivated by the sounds that she is eliciting. Around her is gathered a family group of some dozen people, old and young, from the grandfather to the little grandchild who sits upon a ha.s.sock at her lovely mother's knee. They are all entranced by the music. Plainly there is not a sound in the room but that which is produced by the fair performer. The souls of all that company are enchained; their hearts if not their eyes are br.i.m.m.i.n.g with emotion. A spell of tenderness and grace has been cast upon them; and they have given themselves up to him who has woven it. The faces of all are lightly tinged with sadness, but it is an elevated and elevating sadness; a sadness that is mingled with a joy silent, deep, and strong, a joy far above hilarity. The most impressive figure of the group is the grandfather, who sits with his arm lying listlessly across the instrument and his head slightly bowed, as, we may be sure, he is carried back by the sweet strains to a time when one who does not appear in the group was by his side in all the charms of early womanhood. The composition is so touching, so filled with purest, sweetest sentiment, that it is impossible to look at it long without being moved almost to tears by the tender and serene pathos with which it is pervaded. The legend tells us that the music which has wrought this spell is "A Melody by Mozart."

In the second compartment of the triptique, which is labelled "Drawing-room Music of the Present," a young lady also sits at a piano-forte. It is a grand, a very grand piano-forte; a tremendous inst.i.tution, the invisible end of which stretches far into infinitude.

Plainly it is one of those awful instruments which have received a gold medal at all the expositions. The lid is propped up so that it looks like a gigantic trap set to catch some gigantic bird or vermin. The performer's shoulders and arms, which emerge in a somewhat alarming manner from their scanty covering, are in violent agitation. Her hands are flung into the air as they poise for an instant over the upper part of the long key-board, ready to pounce down upon the shuddering notes below, and from the great gaping instrument a flock of startled and affrighted quavers, semiquavers, and demisemiquavers is pouring out pell-mell over the a.s.sembled hearers. Hearers! No. The great drawing-room is filled with a crowd of people who have evidently been bidden to listen to the music. But they are undergoing it with stolid indifference as they talk or try to talk, either almost shouting or whispering into each other's deafened ears and bewildered brains. The only person who takes any interest in the performance is the performer herself. The motive power here is "A brilliant fantasia for the piano by Signor Rumblestominski."

The third compartment is ent.i.tled "Drawing-room music of the Future."

Here five performers are laboring at and around the piano-forte, the top of which has been taken off. They are all men; tough-brained-looking fellows: one a violinist, one a violoncellist; two are at the key-board, and one stands music in hand and mouth wide open. They are toiling as if at day's work by the piece; and all are singing. They are engaged upon "Twenty-four consecutive interdependent Logarithmic studies for Violin and Violoncello, with Double Differential and Integral accompaniment for the Piano-forte, supplemented by Unisonal Descriptive and Corroborative vocal exposition in five modern languages." They have evidently got well into harness, and have dragged their hearers some distance over their rugged road, which is a "hard road to travel." The ma.s.s of the a.s.sembled company are rus.h.i.+ng madly for the door. On an ottoman in the foreground sit five victims, four young ladies and a bald-headed old gentleman, who are all fast asleep. At one side a determined fellow sits with his elbows on his knees grasping his head with both hands, resolved to endure unto the end. Not even in the faces of the performers is there the slightest manifestation of the soothing, the elevating, or even the pleasurably exciting influence which belongs peculiarly to music. With dogged determination they are working out a knotty intellectual problem.

They do not exhibit even the tickled vanity of musical virtuosity; they are there--to use a cant phrase of musical criticism--to "interpret"

what the composer has with infinite toil and trouble put upon paper; and very tough work they find it; somewhat like reading mathematics written in the Basque language. And their souls are unmoved. The musical sounds go through their ears straight to their brains, leaving their hearts untouched. They are engaged in an intellectual process.

Of these designs, the last two, although they are laughable caricatures, express with very little exaggeration (allowing for the notes made visible in the second) the character, the quality, and the effect of certain schools of musical composition. The first is not a caricature, as any one will see; but although it is quite the contrary, it is not on the other hand idealized. It merely represents with skilful touch and felicitous arrangement what might have actually occurred and what doubtless did many times occur in drawing-rooms at the end of the last century and the first years of this; indeed, what might happen and even does happen now. There has been a change in costume and in manners; but there is none in the effect upon musical souls of a melody by Mozart.

And these designs ill.u.s.trate three periods in modern music: two through which it has pa.s.sed and one upon which it seems now to be entering. By modern music I mean music since the days of Palestrina. What was written before that time, nearly or remotely, although it may have historical importance and interest, is of little or no value as music.

Indeed, it hardly is music as we know and feel it. Not that I would imply that Palestrina invented modern music, or even that he alone of contemporary composers was a gifted and accomplished master of his art.

Roland de Lattre, called Orlandus La.s.sus, chief of the Gallo-Belgic school, might dispute the palm with him.[4] But this conceded, it remains that in Orlandus La.s.sus we have the best product of the ancient school, adhering to the ancient style and bringing it to its highest perfection; while in Palestrina we have the beginning of the modern school and style, the distinctive trait of which may broadly be said to be the use of melody and harmony of independent value under constant governance of the principle of tonality. Before the time of Palestrina--say A.D. 1550, he having been born about 1524 and having died about 1594, which year closed the life of Orlandus La.s.sus, who was born in 1520--before that time music was polyphonic. But it was not merely, as that term implies, many-voiced, or in several parts; for that it is now; but the parts moved without any aesthetic relation to each other, and with the same independence of the aesthetic effect of the whole. Their progression was according to certain rules; but these conformed to, the object of the composer seemed to be to make his work as intricate as possible. Certain figures--for they could hardly be called melodies--one or two or three or more--were repeated again and again and again by the various voices, each one going or seeming to go its own way, entirely regardless of the others--regardless of anything except the rules of the counterpoint of the day. The combining result was a tangled skein of sound which could be unravelled only as it had been put together, by rule. Instead of an emotional expression it was an intellectual puzzle in sound. Moreover the whole composition was without any bond of unity; it was, so to speak, and in its effect it was really, in no particular key.

[4] For an able setting forth of the claims of Orlandus La.s.sus, see Frederic Louis Ritter's excellent "History of Music," First Series, published by Oliver Ditson & Co.

Upon music in this condition there came about three hundred years ago a great change. Polyphonetic writing gave way, gradually but with some rapidity, to the movement of parts in a harmony of independent absolute beauty--that is, beauty, in the simple succession of its chords--and to the union with this harmony of a leading melody, also valuable for its independent, absolute beauty. Thus came into being what I have heretofore called "absolute music," which has been known to the world only about three hundred years, and in its full and complete development only about one hundred and fifty. At the same time, with this use of harmony and melody of absolute beauty and value, came in a great controlling principle or law, upon the operation and influence of which, in fact, the aesthetic effect of the new music chiefly if not entirely depended. This law or principle was tonality. I have been told that in a publication which I have never seen--although most probably it has been sent to me, to go, with the greater part of the printed matter and not a few of the letters that I receive, unread into my waste-basket--I have been held up as a dreadful example of musical incompetence on the ground that I cannot "appreciate Wagner's magnificent [or splendid, or something of that sort] tonality." Of course it cuts me to the heart to show that my criticaster was thoroughly ignorant of the very meaning of the word that he used--a word which is the name of a principle of paramount importance and significance in the art of music, which, I believe, he in some sort professes. But the demands of truth are inexorable.

Tonality is something which cannot be magnificent or splendid; nor can it be attributed to a composer as being in the slightest degree a claim to admiration. Indeed, one composer can hardly possess it in a greater degree than another; and the writer of an ephemeral ballad, or of "Thou, thou reignest in this bosom," has it, although not more largely, with stronger manifestation than Mozart or Beethoven. And yet it so happens that Wagner is in his later works _less_ governed by the law of tonality than any other known composer of the day.

Tonality is simply the relation of a musical phrase, or air, or longer composition, to a keynote or tonic chord. To this tonic chord the harmonies of the composition must bear a close and constantly felt relations.h.i.+p. The harmony almost always opens with this chord, and continually recurs to it; and either in its simple form or in some of its inversions, it, its dominant and subdominant, are the perceptibly ruling harmonies of the composition; and upon this tonic chord the composition always ends. That is tonality; nothing more nor less; and to the influence of this principle of tonality is due the distinctive character of modern music. Strange as it will probably seem to most amateurs, news as we have already seen it is to one professor, it was not until after Palestrina's time that the law of tonality a.s.serted itself in music, and that compositions were clearly written with any tonic, that is, manifestly and strikingly in any particular key.[5] But it so happens that Wagner's method of composition has actually led him somewhat away from this principle of tonality. Any musical person will see that in recitative there is much less relation of harmony to the tonic than in airs or in choruses; and Wagner's prolonged, almost endless recitatives are wearisome partly from the very fact that we are so long at sea drifting hither and thither without the rudder of tonality. But what did this matter to the criticaster? He had heard the word tonality, and it was a round, mouth-filling word, somewhat new withal, and therefore good for use against an ignoramus. Perhaps he thought it meant sonority or something of the kind; or he connected it with that lovely phrase "tone-poem." Well, in any case, it has served his purpose astonis.h.i.+ngly.

[5] It is not necessary that I should give authority for this to any competent person who is acquainted with the music of the ancient composers; but whoever chooses to do so may find the subject fully discussed in Helmholtz's great work, _pa.s.sim_.

After the introduction of the principle of tonality music developed with remarkable rapidity. In one hundred and fifty years it made more progress toward an ideal beauty and as a means of emotional expression than it had made in the thousands of years that had pa.s.sed since the first note was sung. For by this principle of tonality, melody and harmony as we know them became possible. All that went before was either the vague, formless, unsymmetrical production of popular mood and fancy, or the dry formula-work of musical pedants. And yet within a century we have such a result as Stradella's divine _Aria di chiesa Se i miei sospiri_, which, whether for its melody, its harmony, or its emotional expression, intense yet kept within the bounds of a lofty and almost serene dignity, is unsurpa.s.sed by any vocal work which has been since produced. It has been said by some that this air was not written by Stradella. M. Fetis, however, does not doubt it; and the result of the discussion is that it is a.s.signed to the great Italian singer. The story of his having saved his life by singing it--two a.s.sa.s.sins who followed him into a cathedral to put him to death for having robbed a n.o.bleman of his beautiful mistress having been disarmed and sent off repentant by the charm of his voice and of the music--is probably known to many of my readers. Did any of them ever hear in a composition by Wagner or Liszt, or any of that crew, a melody of which it could be believed or for a moment supposed that it would produce such an effect, even if it were sung by a seraph?

It was not, however, until the first quarter of the last century that what is in a large sense the modern school of music came to full growth. Then appeared Bach and Handel. They came suddenly; as suddenly as Marlow and Shakespeare into the field of dramatic poetry, as suddenly as Raphael and t.i.tian into that of painting. Not indeed without roots in the past and a growth from them, but with a marvellously quick and strong development, and an unfolding of flower and fruit that seemed as if it were--as indeed it was--the blooming of a century plant. And as is ever the case in art, the utmost limit of attainment seems to have been reached at the first bound. What was dramatic poetry before the half century which began with Marlow and Shakespeare? What was painting before the like period of its glory? And what have either been since? This position may be claimed for Handel, with the fullest recognition of the genius of Mozart (Haydn, great, enchanting, truly inspired as he was, is yet out of the question), and even of the almost awful genius of Beethoven. But when we remember that the Hallelujah Chorus, _Lascia chio pianza_, the renowned _Largo_ in G so grandly performed by Mr. Thomas's orchestra at his last subscription concert, are from the same hand, and that these are only examples (which I cite because they are so well known) of a creative power which seems to have been equally great and various in its manifestations--when we take into consideration the healthiness, the virility of Handel's tone of thought, there being, I believe, in all his known works, not a single pa.s.sage marked by morbid feeling or even exaggerated sentiment, although of intensest feeling there is overpowering expression, as for example in the _Largo_ just referred to, and when we give due weight to the copiousness of his production, he being the most voluminous of all the great composers, if we measure his works by their quant.i.ty and not by their numbers, in which an oratorio or an opera would count only one, we can hardly hesitate, except in favor of Beethoven, in reckoning him as the greatest creative mind in music. And as to Beethoven, deeply as he sunk his shaft into the profound of human emotion, mightily as he moves us, deftly as he expresses even the lighter moods of feeling (rarely, however, without some pa.s.sing touch which, if pushed a little further, might become almost fierceness), is there not sometimes, and perhaps more than sometimes, a morbidness, n.o.ble, magnificent, but still morbidness, in his moods? We are overwhelmed by the grandeur, and are swallowed up in the gloom of his graver compositions; but when we emerge are we in as healthy a state of mind as that in which we find ourselves after listening to Handel or reading Shakespeare--even if we read such tragedies as "Hamlet," "Oth.e.l.lo," and "King Lear"? Then, too, it must be remembered how carefully Beethoven nursed his genius; how regardless he was of every consideration except the expression of his own thought; and how comparatively limited was his productiveness, or certainly his production.

As to his moodiness, it must, on the other hand, be considered that it is the peculiar function of music to express moods. Man's soul is stirred by emotions which cannot be given utterance in words, and which would remain unexpressed but for music, which to the musically organized is a means of communication and of sympathy. There is a question at least whether an art whose function it is to give expression to inward feeling too subtle for words, an expression which is above all words, which gives form to the formless and utterance to the unspeakable, is not rightfully and of necessity at times morbid and moody; whether if it were not so it would not fail in doing that which is the very reason of its being. The supremacy lies between Handel and Beethoven; and we shall find ourselves inclined to a.s.sign it now to one and now to the other, according to the mood in which we are, which will depend greatly on which of the two we have just heard.

And yet, as to pure music, irrespective of psychological significance--that is, the expression of an ideal of beauty in musical form--Mozart stands first among all composers. Another mind so fertile in thoughts of the finest and highest kind of beauty is unknown in the history of any art, Shakespeare being of course always excepted.

Writing, like Shakespeare, always for money, and not hesitating to put his hand to any task that would bring him a return, driven by sharp necessity almost to the prost.i.tution of his genius, driven in his boyhood, by an exacting father, to write as an infant prodigy for the support of the family, dying at the early, and, as far as the mind is concerned, the immature, age of thirty-seven, he left behind him, in the ma.s.s of his compositions, much that was hastily produced merely to meet the needs of the moment. And yet in it all what transcendent beauty of form! He had rarely even a fitting occasion for the exercise of his faculties. Rarely is he not superior to the subject which he undertakes to ill.u.s.trate. Like Shakespeare, he throws away beautiful thoughts upon mean and trivial subjects. Contrary to the supposition of the Roman Pope, with Mozart it was the jug that was begun to be made and the vase that issued from his hand.[6] "Don Giovanni" his greatest or at least his richest work, is full of examples of this incongruity between the occasion and the production. In a previous paper I pointed out an example in the _andante_ of Leporello's catalogue song. Another is the trio in masks. Only elsewhere in his own works can be found examples of an equally enchanting beauty of musical form. In its thought, and in the elevation and finish of that thought, it reaches the highest attainable pitch of perfection. This single trio is of more worth than all that many composers of repute have written in all their lives. For example: If it were a question between the destruction of this brief pa.s.sage and all of Mendelsohn's compositions, the trio should be preserved without a moment's hesitation. Just as the Madonna Sixtina is worth ten times over all the canvases of Giulio Romano; and as a single mutilated figure of the frieze of the Parthenon, or the Venus of Milo, outweighs all the perfect marbles of Canova and of Thorwaldsen. Such is the transcendent value of the supreme in art.

[6] Amphora cepit Inst.i.tui, currente rota cur urceus exit?--_Hor.

Ad Pisones._

In all the works of the great composers of the modern school--the only real school--of music, from Bach to Beethoven, including Haydn, there is a supreme dominant feeling for beauty of form, shown chiefly in melody, but hardly less apparent in harmony. Indeed, without this feeling they would not have been great. The rule is absolute: no form, no art; for art is proportion, symmetry. Melody is a series of musical proportions; like a series of arches the lines of which are harmonious.

These melodic ideas they elaborated with the utmost care. It is generally supposed that ideas in art come spontaneously; and of all this might seem truest of musical ideas, which are not, like those expressed in language, in painting, in sculpture, or in architecture, required to conform themselves to a type or a purpose. They do come indeed to the musical artist, but not spontaneously in the form in which he presents them. They would not come up if they were not in the soil; but the soil must be cultivated and the growth must be pruned and trained into seeming naturalness and spontaneousness of beauty.

Milton's lines--

Where the bright seraphim in burning row Their loud, uplifted angel trumpets blow--

seem like a splendid spontaneous outburst of poetical expression. But we know that their splendor and their spontaneous seeming is the result of elaboration, of erasure, of interlineation, of recasting. The thought we may believe came in a moment, but it was worked with consummate care and art into the form in which the poet gave it to the world. So it is even with melody, the most spontaneous-seeming part of music. We may be sure that even Mozart, most fertile of all composers in melody, the greatest master of instrumentation, elaborated his themes and his treatment of them, if not on paper, at least in his mind before he put his conceptions into score. And the reason, the occasion for this elaboration was the desired attainment of the highest possible perfection of form. I need hardly say to any musician that I am not speaking of technical form, either of harmonic progression or of the cast of a composition, as for example the sonata form, the symphonic form, the dramatic form, but of the form of intrinsic absolute value which appeals to the general craving for and appreciation of beauty.

This beauty of form cannot be disregarded in any art without failure to attain the highest place in the world's estimation, no matter how marvellous and admirable the powers displayed in another direction. For lack of this excellence Rembrandt can never take the highest place, but must be content with the admiration of those who can appreciate his mastery of manipulation, a technical excellence. Of all great painters, Turner is most imperfect in this respect. But Turner can hardly be said to have dealt with form at all. Hence a certain weakness amid all his glory. He painted distance, light. Among painters he is the king of s.p.a.ce, the prince of the powers of the air.

Absolutely essential as beauty of form is in music, the reason of it, unlike that of the same quality in other arts, is beyond our apprehension. I at least find it so. I have heard it, and seen it upon paper, and considered it all my life. I have taken it in at eye and ear together. I have read and have pondered; but I never have been able to detect musical genius in its working, as I have, or have fancied that I have, done in other arts. I can find no reason for the existence of this beauty except that it is beautiful. I can see clearly, and I have sometimes thought that I could with some satisfactory approach to clearness tell in words, what the composer has done; but the how, and above all the why, is as much hidden from me as it was from him. For that it was unknown to him I am sure, not because I could not discover it, but from the very nature of the case.

Beauty of form in music is absolute, independent, self-existent. This is true of all natural beauty. There is no obligation upon beauty as there is, for instance, upon mathematical truth or moral goodness. But in all imitative art there is an obligation of conformity at least to an ideal type of what is represented. But music the moment it becomes imitative becomes ridiculous; it steps out of the proper limits of the art. For example, Haydn's "cheerful roaring lion" and "flexible tiger"

in the "Creation." But it should be remembered that what is imitative and false in that aspect may have an essential beauty given by the genius of the composer. For example, the second and the fourth movements of the "Pastoral Symphony," and Haydn's own ill.u.s.tration of the pa.s.sage, "softly purling glides through silent glades the limpid brook," in Raphael's song, "Rolling in foaming billows."

Music in its higher forms--I will not say its highest, but those which bring it within the pale of consideration in aesthetics--is without relations of any kind, except those which it bears to the soul of the composer and to that of the hearer. Even words are only the occasion of it, the suggestion. An embroidery of music with words is like the semi-pictorial explanatory addition to the Egyptian temples. The hieroglyphics tell us the story indeed, but if we are near enough to distinguish them, they only mar the effect of the architecture. So if in song the words are for any reason sufficiently salient to attract attention to themselves, they mar the music. In sacred music innumerable foolish and canting verses have become a.s.sociated with fervor of feeling and sublimity of aspiration because of the music of which they have been made the vehicle. We do not really think of the words. And so in "Don Giovanni," in "Fidelio," we overlook the childishness of the poetry, if it must be called poetry, and regard it only as affording suggestions and occasions for the music.

Modern music was presented under these conditions until about half a century ago, when beauty of form and emotional expression began to be disregarded in favor of finish and brilliancy of execution. This was brought about in a great measure by the mechanical improvement of the pianoforte and the extension of its scale. This improvement and extension were made, it is true, in part to meet the demands of performers; but on the other hand, they made performance possible. I believe that there has been no more pernicious influence upon music than the transformation which the piano-forte has undergone since Beethoven's time, and its diffusion over all the world. I do not refer to the cruelties which it is daily the means of inflicting upon inoffensive families and true lovers of music, but to the effect that it has had upon composition and upon performance. The former it has helped to be at once flashy, dull, intricate, and shallow; the latter it has led to be astonis.h.i.+ng. Brilliancy, a crowd of notes, sonority, all without beauty of form or emotional suggestiveness--this is the music which the modern grand piano-forte has brought upon us. Not only piano-forte music, but in a measure all music, has become a brilliant fantasia by Signor Rumblestominski. We do not sit in pa.s.sive silence to listen to it; we talk, or are tempted to talk, against it; and the praise we give it is not a look of serene joy, with that tinge of sadness which Shakespeare had in mind when he made Jessica say, "I'm never merry when I hear sweet music," but a clapping of the hands and congratulation upon a brilliant triumph. And then we turn aside and go on again with our society gabble. Orchestral leaders and performers are not content unless they have a very full score to "interpret." They must have a big brilliant noise. The pitch has been raised until singers shriek, in order that the tone of the instruments may be brilliant. Our ears must be shot through and through with piercing shafts of sound. The time is quickened until _allegro_ has become _presto_, and _presto_ a maddened, indistinguishable rush. Even Theodore Thomas loses some of the majesty of the final movement of the "Fifth Symphony" by too quick a movement; and in the Trio of the Scherzo he drives the ba.s.ses into a headlong scramble up and down the scale. When the clear succession of notes becomes indistinguishable, musical form, and with it musical beauty, is lost; and the performance becomes a mere victory over musical difficulties. And this quickening of the time is exactly what should not have taken place. Our orchestras have increased in size and in volume of sound since the days of Mozart and Beethoven. As larger bodies, therefore, their movement should be a little slower to produce the effect which the great composers had in mind. But in our rage for brilliancy we have hastened the movement; as if we should make an elephant gallop like a horse. Moreover we have fallen into the fatal error of making the finish, if not the difficulty of execution, superior to the presentation of beauty in form and in expression.

This condition of musical taste has been accompanied or followed--we cannot surely say as effect from cause--by a withering of the creative musical faculty in all its fairest, highest branches. After Weber's death, which deprived the world of the only musician who promised to be worthy to follow Beethoven, came Schubert and Mendelssohn, neither of them very strong men; the latter decidedly weak, and deficient in creative faculty; the former far more fertile and original. Since their time there has been a blank in the annals of music of the higher kind.

The creative faculty seems to be dead. It is not so; for nature is exhaustless, and in his due time the new composer will come. But new conceptions of beautiful musical forms are unknown to the present generation--indeed, were so to the foregoing. There is Schumann; but Schumann is only the strongest and best of the non-creative composers.

He writes very elegantly, with harmonies unexceptionable and pleasing; his taste is generally exquisite; his handling of his themes masterly.

But to what great end? None. He could not create a melody; and his harmony is plainly contrived, not conceived. All of Schumann's music that I ever heard, from symphony down to piano-forte music, is not worth Beethoven's Sonata in C sharp minor, or Mozart's quartet in C.[7]

They have a certain sort of beauty and charm while you are hearing them, but you don't hanker after them; pa.s.sages from them don't come to you when you are alone with troubled thoughts, and comfort you, hearten you, and build you up, as the remembered strains of Handel, Mozart, and Beethoven do. Simply, they are without real melody: they have only a well manufactured imitation of melody. Such enjoyment as they give is in a great measure intellectual. We admire the composer's skilful musical processes. Hence he is admired by professional musicians. And I remark, in pa.s.sing, that professional criticism in any art, although it has a certain value, has not valid, determining power, and is not very trustworthy as a guide. It too generally runs on methods, processes, technicalities. If you would learn to paint, listen to the criticisms of a well instructed, capable painter; but if you would know and feel the highest things in art, remain an amateur and study nature and Raphael and t.i.tian and Tintoretto.

[7] No. 6, Breitkopf and Hartel.

As to the other composers who were Schumann's contemporaries, they wrote in a condition of hopeless incapacity, except as to their acquired mastery of their craft. They are ever uncertain themselves what they would be at. Compare them with the real composers. Those men knew they had something to do, and they did it. They felt that they had something to say, and they said it. These are always about doing something; they are ever entangled in some complicated toil of sound, out of which they cannot find their way; they are hanging by the very eyelids upon some discord that they are afraid to resolve; they are always sounding a note of preparation, announcing that they are about to do something, which they never do. Their music is written in the paulo-post-future tense.

Under such circ.u.mstances it is not surprising that music, ceasing to be merely beautiful and emotional, has, in its decay, sprouted a fungus and monstrous intellectuality. Wagner's musical figures have become as intricate, and often as ugly, as those of a Chinese puzzle; and the entertainment is to see how they fit each other and the words to which they are adapted. In his orchestral work we have the most masterly instrumental coloring; a knowledge and an elaboration which is unsurpa.s.sed, and also uninspired. It is great technical work, and no wonder that professional musicians admire it. But what is its real value? Take, for example, the finale to the overture to the "Meistersinger." It is very impressive materially, and as a work of instrumental art. It becomes tremendous from mere muscular activity and acc.u.mulation of physical force. The violins rush frantically up and down the finger-board; the violoncellos are ready to jump over their bridges; the trumpets blow blood out of their eyes; and there is general frenzy. But what is all this hurly-burly about? What are the ideas? Look at them. There are, after all, but three, or it may be four, notes in a chord, and a melody is--well, a melody; an unmistakable sort of thing, one would think, although so hard to define. What is there here of harmony or of melody that would be valuable for its own sake? Strip this music of all its instrumental elaboration, tone down its noisy self-a.s.sertion, and look at the bare ideas as they can be played with two hands upon a piano-forte, or with four strings in a quartet, and what are they worth? Would a circle of cultivated musical people sit entranced by them if they were played upon an old harpsichord! No, I take it. And if not, their worth is little.

Instrumentation, and all manner of elaboration--orchestral and choral--is of value only when it enhances and sets forth ideas, melodies, harmonies--in a word, musical forms which in themselves have the value which belongs to beauty and expression. Else, like the gift of tongues without the spirit of love, it is literally sounding bra.s.s and tinkling cymbals. There is in some of this work--notably in Wagner's--an evidence of sustaining power which deserves and commands a certain respect. But such sustaining power, so applied, is like figures of caryatides supporting some poor decadent frieze. They bend and strain and keep it up. But why, we are tempted to say to them, do you strain to keep up that poor, commonplace stuff, which would not be looked at if it stood not upon your heads? Let it fall! You are all that keep it from tumbling into a dust-heap and seeming the rubbish that it is. It seems to be a consciousness of their deficiency in melody and in emotional expression which drives such composers of the present day as aim to write in the higher style to make their music "interdependent, logarithmic, differential, integral, and corroborative," and to strive to make up in intellectual elaboration what they lack in inspiration.

This condition of things in music is not to be bettered by endeavor.

Genius alone can do that, when brought into contact with the power of appreciating genius. And genius, although conscious of its power, is ever ignorant of its tendency, and never works but for its own ends; while those who hear and understand its utterances do so with no higher purpose than the delight they bring them. When I hear a man talk of doing something to elevate his art, however much I may respect his taste, his acquirements, or his aims, I then begin to doubt, if I have not before doubted, his ability to write a sentence worth reading, to make a picture worth looking at, or a song worth hearing.

RICHARD GRANT WHITE.

SPRING.

Spring gives the order, "Forward, march!"

'Tis borne along the eager line; Breathes through the boughs of rustling larch, And murmurs in the pine.

"March!" At the sound, impatient, springs The mountain rill, with rippling glee, And rolling through the valley, brings Its tribute to the sea.

"March!" and upon each sunny hill Old winter's allies, ice and snow, Start at the music of the rill, And join its onward flow.

"March!" Down among the fibrous roots Of oaks we hear the summons ring.

The long-chilled life-blood upward shoots To hail the coming spring.

"March!" and along each narrow neck, Across the plain, and up the steep, The spring tide clears the winter's wreck With its resistless sweep.

Advancing in unbroken lines, New allies rush to join its bands, Till winter, in despair, resigns The sceptre to its hands.

On southern slopes, in quiet glades, And where the brooklets murmuring run, The gra.s.s unsheathes its tiny blades To temper in the sun.

Flora unfurls her banner bright Above the field of flas.h.i.+ng green, And crocus blooms in lines of light Throw back the sunlight's sheen.