,,from ,,grieg ,,to ,,brahms ,illustration ,,the ,,macmillan ,,company ,,new ,,york ,,boston ,,chicago ,,dallas ,,san ,,francisco ,,macmillan ,,co41 ,,limited ,,london ,,bombay ,,calcutta ,,melbourne ,,the ,,macmillan ,,co4 ,,of ,,canada1 ,,ltd4 ,,toronto ,illustration3 ,,brahms ,,at ,,the ,,piano ,,from ,,grieg ,,to ,,brahms ,,studies ,,of ,,some ,,modern ,,composers ,,and ,,their ,,art ,,by ,,daniel ,,gregory ,,mason ,new ,york ,,the ,,macmillan ,,company #aiba ,all rights reserved ,copyright1 #aijb1 by ,,the ,,outlook ,,company ,published ,november1 #aijb4 ,to my uncle ,dr4 ,william ,mason who has won the gratitude of lovers of music in ,america ,i dedicate these studies with affection and respect ,,preface ,music may be hard to understand1 but musicians are men2 so remarked a friend of mine when ,i was first planning these essays4 ,the sentence sums up very happily a truth ,i have constantly had in mind in writing them4 ,as all music1 no matter what its complexity on the technical side1 is in essence an expression of personal feeling1 and as the qualities of a man's personality show themselves not only in his works1 but in his acts1 his words1 his face1 his handwriting and carriage even1 it has seemed natural and fruitful1 in these studies1 to seek acquaintance with the musicians through acquaintance with the men4 ,but personal expression depends not alone on the personality of the artist2 it depends also on the resources of art1 which in turn are the product of a long1 slow growth4 ,accordingly1 if we would understand the individual composers1 we must have a sense of the scheme into which they fall1 the great universal evolution of which they are but incidents4 ,it is for this reason that ,i have tried1 in the introductory essay on ,the ,appreciation of ,music1 to describe some of the fundamental principles of the art1 and to sketch in their light the general movement of musical history1 in order to give the reader a perspective sense1 a bird's-eye view of the great army of artists in which the supreme masters are but leaders of battalions and regiments4 ,without this sense it is impossible truly to place or justly to estimate any individual4 ,at the end of the introduction ,i apply the principles worked out to determining in a general way how the half dozen composers to be studied are related to modern music as a whole4 ,my result is that although they are practically contemporary1 they are by no means peers in the scope and significance of their work4 ,if we arrange them in the order of their influence on art1 which depends upon their power both to assimilate previous resources and to add new ones1 we must pass from ,grieg to ,brahms4 ,the purpose of the last essay in the book1 on ,the ,meaning of ,music1 will be obvious enough4 ,just as the introductory essay tries to sketch the general musical environment1 as determined by basic principles and developed in history1 in relation to which alone the individuals discussed can be understood1 so the epilogue seeks to suggest that still larger environment of human feeling and activity on which music1 like everything else1 depends for its vitality4 ,the first essay considers music as a medium for men1 the last considers life as a medium for music4 ,it would be impossible to acknowledge here all that these studies1 particularly the first1 owe to the writings of others4 ,perhaps the books which have most influenced my treatment of musical sthetics are ,dr4 ,george ,santayana's ,sense of ,beauty and ,dr4 ,c4 ,hubert ,h4 ,parry's ,evolution of the ,art of ,music1 though ,i have got much help also from ,dr4 ,william ,james's ,principles of ,psychology1 from ,dr4 ,josiah ,royce's books1 from ,mr4 ,edward ,carpenter1 and of course from ,helmholtz1 ,gurney1 ,mr4 ,w4 ,h4 ,hadow1 and the other standard writers on musical theory4 ,in gathering the biographical material ,i have had much cordial and skillful help from ,miss ,barton1 of the ,boston ,public ,library1 for which ,i here record my thanks4 ,cambridge1 ,massachusetts1 ,august #bc1 #aijb4 ,,note ,,to ,,the ,,third ,,impression ,sir ,charles ,villiers ,stanford has pointed out an error in the story told of ,brahms on page #agh4 ,it was not the ,cambridge ,university authorities who invited ,brahms to write a new work1 but the managers of the ,leeds ,festivals1 who1 after long neglect of his already printed compositions1 asked him1 in #ahhg1 to write them a new one2 whereupon he returned the answer described4 ,new ,york ,city1 ,may #ajth1 #aijd4 ,,contents ,,page ,i ,,introduction3 ,,the ,,appreciation ,,of ,,music #a ,,ii ,,edvard ,,grieg #dg ,,iii ,,antonin ,,dvo,k #ga ,,iv ,,camille ,,saint-,,sa,,ns #ig ,v ,c,,sar ,,franck #aba ,,vi ,,peter ,,ilyitch ,,tscha,,kowsky #adi ,,vii ,,johannes ,,brahms #agc ,,viii ,,epilogue3 ,,the ,,meaning ,,of ,,music #bjc ,,list ,,of ,,illustrations ,,facing ,,page ,,brahms ,,at ,,the ,,piano ,title ,from a charcoal drawing by ,w4 von ,beckerath ,,grieg #di ,,dvo,k #gc ,,saint-,,sa,,ns #ii ,,franck #abc ,,tscha,,kowsky #aea ,,brahms #age ,i ,,introduction ,,the ,,appreciation ,,of ,,music ,i ,,introduction ,,the ,,appreciation ,,of ,,music ,however interesting may be the study of an art through the personalities of the artists who have produced it1 and such study1 since art is a mode of human expression1 is indeed essential1 it must be supplemented by at least some general knowledge of the long continuous evolution in which the work of the most brilliant individual is but a moment1 a phase4 ,the quality of a man's work in art1 and especially1 as will be seen in a moment1 in music1 depends not alone on the depth of his character and the force of his talent1 but also largely on the technical resources he owes to others1 on the means for expressing himself that he finds ready to his hand4 ,whatever his personal powers or limitations1 the value of his work will be determined not more by these than by the helps and hindrances of his artistic inheritance4 ,the great edifice of art1 in fact1 is like those ,gothic cathedrals on which generations of men successively labored2 thousands of common workmen hewed their foundation stones2 finer minds1 architects1 smiths1 brass founders1 glass makers and sculptors1 wrought and decorated the superstructures2 and the work of each1 whatever his personal skill and devotion1 was valuable only because it built upon and added to that of all the rest4 ,the soaring spires are firmly based on blocks of stone ploddingly adjusted2 the windows1 often of such a perfect beauty that they seem created rather than constructed1 had nevertheless to be built up bit by bit2 and all the marvelous organism of pillars1 arches and buttresses is so delicately solid1 so precariously stable1 that had one stress been miscalculated1 one joint inaccurately made1 the whole would collapse4 ,so it is with the edifice of art1 and particularly with that of music1 which depends for its very material on the labors of musicians4 ,pigments1 clay1 marble1 the materials of the plastic arts1 exist already in the world2 but the whole ladder of fixed tones on which music is built is the product of man's sthetic sense1 and had to be created slowly and laboriously by many generations of men4 ,the successions of chords which every banjo player strums in his accompaniments were the subject of long trial by the medival composers4 ,the hymn tune that any boy can write is modeled on a symmetrical scheme of phrases developed by countless experimenters4 ,it took men centuries to select and arrange the eight tones of the ordinary scale1 and centuries more to learn how to combine them in chords4 ,and the most eloquent modern works depend on this long evolution of resources just as inevitably as the ,gothic spire rests on the hewn stones so carefully laid4 ,in the art1 as in the cathedral1 the seen rests upon the unseen1 the beautiful upon the solid1 the complex upon the simple1 the new upon the old4 ,the product of a thousand artists1 music is as dependent on each as the coral reef on the tiny indispensable body of each insect2 and on the other hand the individual musician1 whatever his ability1 is great only as he uses the equipment his fellows have prepared--the greatest is the most indebted man4 ,if1 then1 we would justly value the half dozen composers who have done most for music in our day1 we must add to our understanding of them as persons a knowledge of the general development in which they play a part2 we must gain some sense of that great process of musical growth from which they inherit their resources1 to which they make their various contributions1 and in relation to which alone they can be fairly compared and appreciated4 ,after examining the general course of musical history1 ascertaining some fundamental principles1 and applying these principles to our special judgments1 we shall be able to perceive the greatest musicians of our day in their relations1 and to get a perspective view of modern music in which they shall take their proper places4 ,i ,if we wish to get an idea of primeval music1 to see from what impulses it took rise1 we have only to study the musical activities of children and savages1 in whom we have primeval man made contemporary1 the remote past brought conveniently into the present to be observed4 ,when we make such a study we find that both children and savages express their feelings by gestures and cries1 that under the sway of emotion they either dance or sing4 ,to them quiet1 silent feeling is impossible4 ,are they joyful1 they leap and laugh2 are they angry1 they strike and shout2 are they sad1 they rock and moan4 ,moreover1 we can discriminate the kinds of feeling that are expressed by these cries and gestures4 ,roughly speaking1 bodily movement is the natural outlet of active vitality1 of the joy of life and the lust of living1 while it is the more contemplative emotions--love1 grief1 reverie1 devotion--that find vocal utterance4 ,the war-dances and revels of savages1 accompanied by drum and tomtom1 are gesticulatory2 their love-songs and ululations over the dead are vocal4 ,in the same way children in their moments of enthusiasm are wont to march about shouting and stamping in time1 all their limbs galvanized with nervous force2 and it is when the wave of energy has passed and they sit on the floor engrossed in blocks or dolls that they sing to themselves their curious undulating chants4 ,even in ourselves we can observe the same tendencies1 checked though they be by counter-impulses in our more complex temperaments3 when we are gay we walk briskly1 clicking our heels in time and perhaps whistling a catch2 in our dreamier hours we are quiet1 or merely hum a tune under our breath4 ,thus through all human nature runs the tendency to vent feeling1 active and contemplative1 in those bodily movements and vocal utterances which underlie the two great generators of music1 dance and song4 ,such activities1 however1 are by no means as yet dance and song4 ,at first they are no more than mere reflex actions1 as spontaneous and unthinking as the ,ow of the man who stubs his toe4 ,the emotion is felt1 and out comes the gesture or cry2 that is all4 ,it is the organism's way of letting off steam4 ,it is not expression1 not being prompted by a desire to communicate the feeling1 but merely by the impulse to be unburdened of it4 ,before there can be true expression or communication1 there must be two more links added to the chain of which these automatic activities are only the first4 ,the second link is imitation4 ,according to a theory widely exploited in recent years1 we tend to imitate whatever we see another do4 ,with children the tendency is so strong that a large part of their time and energy is devoted to elaborate impersonation and make-believe1 and the entire basis of their education is acquired through this directly assimilative faculty4 ,in adults it is less active1 but every sensitive person knows how difficult it is not to imitate foreign accents1 stammering1 and other petty mannerisms1 and few are so callous that they can withstand the infection of strong stimuli like the gestures and cries of emotion4 ,the wailing baby in the street car1 who moves all the other babies within hearing to wail also 7if they be not already at it independently72 the dog baying the moon until all within earshot join in the serenade2 the negro at the camp-meeting clapping his hands until the whole company is in a rhythmic ecstasy--these are examples of the contagion of cries and gestures4 ,bearing them in mind1 it is easy to see that the vocal or bodily acts which in the first place are mere reflexes of feeling1 performed with no thought of expression1 but only for personal easement1 will generally1 nevertheless1 prompt similar acts in others4 ,the performances of the individual will not end with himself2 thanks to the instinct of imitation1 they will be very widely copied4 ,but now--and this is the third link of the chain--bodily acts set up mental states1 and a man cannot gesticulate or vocalize without feeling the emotions of which his actions are1 as we say1 expressive4 ,we feel sorry because we cry1 writes ,professor ,william ,james in his brilliant1 paradoxical way1 angry because we strike1 afraid because we tremble2 and whether or not we agree with his extreme view that the mental state is entirely a reverberation of bodily disturbances1 we cannot but realize that in all these cases executing the expression tends to give us the feeling4 ,he who persistently smiles will end by being cheerful1 and a moderate amount of sighing or groaning will make any one melancholy4 ,above all1 the imitation of vocal movements1 such as we all go through at least incipiently when we hear melody1 and the keeping time that strong dance-music so irresistibly prompts--these actions very noticeably set up in us their appropriate states of feeling4 ,we not only imitate the lip motions and throat contractions of a persuasive speaker or singer1 but doing so fills us with the emotion that prompts his utterance4 ,tired soldiers not only step out to a potently rhythmical tune--that is1 they not only imitate the beat--but they actually feel less weary1 more energetic1 so long as the stimulus lasts4 ,once a bodily activity is set up1 no matter how1 it arouses the mental state proper to it2 in a word1 expression generates emotion4 ,obviously1 then1 if in the first place the natural outlets of emotional excitement are bodily motions and vocal sounds1 if in the second place the observation of such motions and sounds arouses the impulse to imitate them1 and if finally this imitation produces again in the imitator the states of mind which first set the whole process going1 then these motions and sounds1 these inchoate germs of dance and song1 possess an enormous latent power of expression1 and need only to be systematized to become a wonderfully eloquent language4 ,such a language1 in fact1 is music4 ,,ii ,at this point1 however1 it is important not to go too fast4 ,these crude gestures and cries by which primeval man expressed his feelings1 though they were the germs out of which music grew1 were as yet no more music1 which is not only expressive sound1 but formed1 articulate sound1 than an infant's cooings are speech4 ,so far they were mere ebullitions1 purposeless and formless2 before they could become communicative they must become definite1 they must take on some organic structure4 ,now gestures1 bodily movements1 are very easily grouped together by means of accent4 ,every walker knows that it is difficult not to emphasize alternate steps1 grouping the unaccented with the accented into a cluster of two4 ,every waltzer makes a similar grouping of three steps1 one accented1 the other two subordinate4 ,some such system of grouping is instinctively adopted whenever we have a series of impressions regularly recurring in time4 ,let the reader1 listening to the ticking of a watch1 note how impossible it is to attend to each tick by itself4 ,he will inevitably group them in twos2 the accent may come on the first or on the last of the group1 but he cannot hear them as exactly equal1 any more than in walking he can put exactly equal stress on each step4 ,it was this tendency of the mind to group its impressions on a basis of equal time measurements and unequal accents that led at the dawn of musical history to meter or rhythm1 which is as persistent in music as it is in poetry4 ,metrical form was the natural means of giving definition to bodily movements1 and as soon as it was developed enough to produce regular1 easily imitated steps out of the chaotic gestures of nave feeling1 ,dance was born4 ,at first1 of course1 metrical form was stumbled upon blindly4 ,having two arms and two legs1 men naturally moved with a symmetry that gradually impressed their minds2 obliged by the facts of anatomy to group their motions in twos1 they soon took the hint1 and beat their drums or struck their cymbals accordingly4 ,the primeval dance was doubtless the march4 ,but soon they began to carry out the principle they had thus chanced upon1 and despite anatomy devised the group of three4 ,the existence of triple meter is all the proof needed that metrical form is essentially a process of intelligence1 not a physical fatality2 men grouped their steps or leaps or drum-taps in twos or in threes because such groups were easy to make1 to imitate1 and to remember4 ,and once perceived1 no matter how1 such groupings tended to cling1 to perpetuate themselves4 ,for they were definite1 memorable forms1 and they survived all haphazard gestures and vague motions by virtue of the law that what is adapted to its environment will live longer than what is not4 ,in this case the environment was the human mind2 and the definite organisms1 the metrical forms1 survived and developed because the mind could remember them1 while all the vague gestures out of which they grew shared the fate of what is indefinite1 accidental1 inorganic4 ,thus ,dance1 which was gesticulation systematized by metrical form1 emerged and grew in the human mind1 like an animal in a congenial habitat4 ,for a long while the metrical forms that men could perceive and remember were most rudimentary4 ,probably it took them centuries to grasp the simple group of three1 the basis of such accent-schemes as the waltz and the mazurka4 ,even to-day1 psychologists agree1 we are unable to grasp a group of seven1 and we perceive larger groups than three only as compounded of the elementary twos and threes4,a ,but gradually men learned to recombine their groups in still larger forms1 of which the first groups constituted the elements4 ,just as in chemistry the basic elements like oxygen and hydrogen1 nitrogen and carbon1 can combine only in a few simple ways1 but the compound molecules thus produced can recombine into the myriad substances of organic chemistry1 the sugars and starches and all the rest1 so the simple dual and triple measures of music can be built into an infinite variety of figures and phrases4 ,in early dance and folk-song a more and more complex metrical plan thus slowly developed4 ,two or more of the simple groups of beats1 called measures1 were combined into a larger group1 a recognizable figure or motif2 then again motifs were combined into still larger phrases2 and finally1 as the musical medium became more definite1 plastic and various1 phrases were combined in many different types of design1 into complete tunes4 ,in all these regroupings1 the wonderful variety of which is one of the most precious resources of modern music1 the fundamental procedure was the same--elements alike in duration1 but different in accent or significance1 were made to cohere in a group or form4 ,just as in verse the feet1 or elementary metrical forms whose elements are single syllables of equal duration but unequal stress1 are combined into lines1 and later these lines into stanzas1 so in music measures are combined in figures1 and figures built up into phrases1 and phrases into tunes4 ,and as the diversity of the possible forms becomes greater and greater as we advance from foot to stanza1 there being few forms of feet but many of stanza1 so metrical form in music becomes more and more complex as it evolves1 and though all music must be built out of dual or triple measures1 it may be built into tunes of an infinite variety of pattern4 ,each new complexity1 however1 must be intelligible2 it cannot be introduced until men have mastered the simpler groups out of which it is compounded4 ,beethoven's wondrously intricate texture1 ,brahms's soaring phrases1 would be meaningless to us had we not inherited from thousands of ancestors a sense of the system of regular accents and duration on which their complexities are superposed4 ,from the days1 ages ago1 when savages first beat a drum in simple march rhythm1 up to to-day1 when ,brahms builds up his extraordinarily intricate fabrics1 with their elaborate prosody1 their augmentation1 and diminution1 and shifted rhythm1 the evolution of metrical form has been single and continuous2 each advance has been built on previous achievements4 ,there are no dropped stitches in this kind of knitting4 ,metrical form1 however1 is not the only sort of form by which sounds can be combined4 ,it is the natural organizing agent of ,dance1 which1 as we have seen1 develops out of the movements expressive of men's active impulses2 but human nature has also its contemplative side1 and this1 expressing itself in vocal utterance1 undergoes another sort of development and results in ,song4 ,what1 then1 are the means by which ,song is defined1 by which vocal sounds are organized into intelligible and memorable forms8 ,before we answer this question it will be well to consider for a moment a more general one4 ,what1 in general1 is a form8 ,we shall be helped to define a form in general by looking back to the metrical forms we have just been studying4 ,these1 we have seen1 are groups or clusters of impressions1 held together by some similarity1 yet also differentiated by some contrast4 ,the two or three beats of the measure-group are similar in duration1 yet different in accent4 ,and without both the similarity and the difference1 the unity and the variety1 they would not be a group4 ,without similarity they would be a haphazard collection1 a chaos2 without difference they would all fuse together in one indistinguishable mass4 ,in other words1 they exemplify a general fact about forms--namely1 that the elements must be alike enough to be associated1 and yet different enough to be discriminated4 ,if we cannot associate them we cannot feel them as a group2 they will not cohere4 ,if1 on the other hand1 we cannot discriminate them1 then do they equally fail to make up a form2 they simply mingle together into a homogeneous lump4 ,the organs of an organism must be1 then1 related1 yet different2 the elements of a form must be both similar and dissimilar4 ,unless they are both we cannot perceive them as linked1 yet distinct4 ,bearing this general fact about forms in mind1 we may investigate the kinds of form that underlie ,song4 ,probably every one who has listened to the whistling of factories in a large city at noon has had the curious experience of suddenly hearing amid the meaningless din a pair of tones that mysteriously mate and merge4 ,the other tones seem entirely accidental2 they have no relation to each other1 and give one merely a sense of vague annoyance4 ,but these two form an intelligible group2 we are able to grasp them together1 and we take an indescribable pleasure in thus feeling them as parts of one whole4 ,here is an instance of another sort of musical form than the metrical1 a sort that we may call harmonic4 ,here the grouping takes place on a platform not of time1 but of pitch2 the two elements of the group have no metrical relations1 but in pitch they are somehow related4 ,now this sort of pitch relationship has played a vital part in music1 a part hardly secondary to that of time relationship2 so that an understanding of it is important enough to delay us here a moment with some rather dry technical facts on which it depends4 ,ordinary musical tones1 the notes of the voice1 the violin1 and the piano1 for example1 simple as they sound1 are1 like ordinary white light1 rather complex compounds of many simple elements4 ,there are in them seven or eight constituent or partial tones1 quite distinctly audible to the trained ear or to the untrained ear armed with suitable instruments2 and these partial tones1 produced by vibrations in the sound-emitting body whose rates are regularly related1 bear a certain fixed relation to each other1 like the spectrum-colors that compose white light4 ,not only this1 but each partial tone arouses its own proper sensation in the ear by stimulating there one of the minute filaments called the cords of ,corti1 each of which vibrates sympathetically to a tone of given pitch and to no other4 ,now we are to imagine that when an ordinary musical tone is sounded1 seven or eight of these little cords immediately start a-tremble1 and send to the brain their messages1 which combine there into the composite impression we name a tone4 ,if now another tone is sounded1 one which starts into motion another set of filaments1 and if furthermore there is one filament now set in motion that was also excited by the first compound tone--if1 in other words1 the two tones happen to have a partial tone in common1 which in both instances excites the same filament in the ear1 then we shall have a sense of close relationship between them2 they will make together a harmonic group or form4 ,this1 as a matter of fact1 is what happens with any two tones that form what is called a consonant interval with each other1 an octave1 a fifth1 or a fourth4 ,if tones ,x and ,y1 for instance1 are an octave apart1 the second partial tone of ,x will be identical with the first of ,y2 if they are a fifth apart1 the third partial tone of ,x will be identical with the second of ,y2 if they are a fourth apart1 the fourth partial tone of ,x will correspond with the third of ,y4 ,it is obvious1 then1 that all these intervals will give us the sense of harmonic form2 for they provide all the necessary conditions of a form1 having enough in common to be associated by our minds1 and enough not in common 7their dissimilar partial tones7 to be distinguished4 ,when the partial tone in common is so high1 and therefore so weak1 that it impresses us but slightly1 we shall have little or no sense of their being related2 such is the case in the so-called imperfect consonances and the dissonances4 ,when1 on the other hand1 all the most prominent partial tones of one exist in the other1 they will fuse into one impression in our minds1 losing the characteristic of form entirely1 as is the case to some extent with the octave and entirely with the unison4 ,but when1 as in the case of fifths and fourths1 there are both a distinctly audible partial tone in common and others not in common1 then we shall have true harmonic forms4 ,so much technical detail will be forgiven by the reader who can at all realize how profoundly the entire history of music has been affected by these acoustic and physiological facts4 ,we have already seen how folk-music slowly wrought out the complex metrical forms based upon time grouping4 ,in the same way1 ecclesiastical music wrought out1 slowly and laboriously1 the harmonic and melodic forms that were based upon pitch-grouping4 ,for a long time vocal utterance was defined only by certain simple intervals like the fall of the fourth1 which formed the cadences of ,greek dramatic recitation and of medival ,christian intoning4 ,gradually ornamental notes were introduced as approaches to the final note2 these were varied in pitch1 and new ones added1 until finally there resulted the ancient modes1 precursors of our scale4 ,then1 when two melodies began to be sung at once1 the intervals of the octave1 fifth1 and fourth were again called into requisition1 and made the bases of primitive harmony4 ,in the old ,organum of the ,middle ,ages1 two voices1 a fifth apart1 gave the same melody1 just as with the ,greeks1 in the process called magadising1 two voices sang the same tune1 an octave apart4 ,so1 step by step1 pitch relations were perceived and utilized4 ,in all stages of the long progress1 whether the interval chosen was the octave or the fifth or the fourth1 and whether the tones were sounded in succession as a melodic step or simultaneously as a chord1 the guiding principle was the same2 tones were grouped together which had pitch-form1 which had partial tones in common and others not in common4 ,a harmonic form1 like a metrical form1 was always a cluster of tones that could be both associated and distinguished4 ,it was a long time before these two means of organizing sound were used in combination4 ,until the seventeenth century metrical form was chiefly used1 quite naturally1 to define the gesticulatory part of musical material1 the product of active emotion1 while harmonic form gave coherence to the vocal part1 the product of contemplative or religious emotion4 ,primitive dance either neglected pitch relationship entirely1 as in that kind of savage music which uses only drums1 tomtoms1 clappers and such percussive instruments1 or used only the simplest intervals like the fall of the fourth or the rise of the fifth4 ,and in ecclesiastical ,song1 all through the ,middle ,ages1 metrical regularity was not only not sought for--it was avoided4 ,even in the highly artistic song of the great choral epoch which culminated in ,palestrina there was no rhythm4 ,phraseology depended entirely on the words4 ,composers avoided anything like an appearance of even sections1 in sharp demarcation1 balancing each other1 such as we now demand4 ,they liked rather to have their melodies cross and interlace like the strands in a basket1 making a texture solid but inorganic4 ,to them coherence was a matter merely of the individual voices2 music held together like a rope rather than like a crystal4 ,indeed1 any deeper harmonic unity was not feasible until they had gained more experience in tone relationship4 ,but eventually the secular composers of the last half of the seventeenth century1 among whom ,arcangelo ,corelli is a typical figure1 learned to utilize both kinds of form1 making them supplement and reinforce each other in all sorts of interesting and unexpected ways4 ,with ,corelli1 pure music emerges as an independent art1 beautiful as sculpture and promising new powers of expression4 ,by his successors this new promise was realized with surprising rapidity4 ,constantly growing more independent of extraneous aids1 developing1 thanks to the fruitful interaction of metrical and harmonic grouping1 an unprecedented richness and variety1 music became in the hands of ,bach and ,beethoven a strong1 flexible and efficient fabric1 adapted to all phases of expression and capable of forming the most complex and self-sufficient structures4 ,evolved from the crude gestures and cries of nave feeling by a never-ceasing1 ever-widening exertion of man's intelligence1 absolute music has become in some respects the most eloquent and penetrative of the arts4 ,,iii ,form in music1 however1 notwithstanding its origin as a means of defining those emotional expressions which without it would have remained vague1 unimitable1 and immemorable1 is much more than a means of definition4 ,at first practiced as a means to an end1 it soon became an end in itself4 ,for the perception of relations1 the mental activity which groups impressions1 is not merely useful2 it is profoundly1 indescribably delightful4 ,calling the mind into activity just as sensation calls the senses1 it is a far deeper source of pleasure than sensation can ever be1 because the mind far exceeds the senses in the subtlety1 variety and independence of its action4 ,when1 therefore1 the primitive musicians first made their syntheses of gestures and cries they discovered a novel pleasure1 altogether more delicious than the crude joys of sensation and expression4 ,before they made such syntheses they had merely enjoyed the sweetness of tones1 and taken satisfaction in expressing their feelings2 but when once they learned to group their expressive tones together1 to feel the subtle bonds which bound them into clear and salient unity1 then they felt a joy altogether new and on a higher plane1 they felt true sthetic delight4 ,here was not merely a passive1 or at most an automatic process2 here was a truly creative activity1 a conscious and free manipulation of materials4 ,mere hearing1 however delicious1 mere expression1 however grateful1 could not give this sense of mastery1 of comprehension1 of insight4 ,beauty alone1 beauty depending on consciously made comparisons and contrasts1 can give the highest sthetic delight1 the delight in form4 ,and so1 like painters who1 using form at first to define their material1 come quickly to a realization of its inherent value1 and finally1 if they be true artists1 value its pure beauties of line and balance and composition more highly than any mere richness of color or of expression1 musicians1 in the degree of their true musicianship1 came to prize the intrinsic beauty of music above all its other qualities4 ,sometimes1 doubtless1 they carried their devotion too far4 ,in certain periods and individuals the love of formal beauty has entirely eclipsed pleasure in expression4 ,unable to attend at once to expression and to beauty1 many composers1 and in some periods all1 have devoted their entire energy to the quest for formal perfection4 ,thus in the work of the ,netherland masters of early counterpoint1 in some of ,bach's ingenious weavings1 and in much of the music of ,haydn and his contemporaries1 the search for purely plastic qualities goes on with little thought of the original emotional burden of the material that is being formulated4 ,to such men form was much more than a means of defining expression2 it was an end in itself1 and an end worth a lifetime of painstaking1 devoted effort4 ,and yet1 justifiable as their feeling was1 indispensable as their labors were to that development without which the expressive power of music would itself have remained rudimentary1 it is not to their view1 but to a more universal one1 that we must look to find a rounded theory of expression and form4 ,if it be a mistake to neglect the latter for the former1 as they well saw1 it is equally a mistake to prize form with too exclusive an enthusiasm4 ,for beauty is itself one of the most potent means of expression4 ,our minds are not made up of hermetic compartments1 but are so permeable1 so conductive1 that an eloquent thing is made more eloquent by being also beautiful4 ,the impression of beauty reverberates endlessly1 intensifying all that is associated with it4 ,the general atmosphere transfigures every feature4 ,if the whole is fair1 no detail will be entirely without its appeal to our kindled imaginations1 but if the whole is formless1 no single phrase1 however impassioned1 can affect us very deeply4 ,the truth is1 then1 that form and expression in music are as essential to each other as objects and light in the world of vision4 ,no radiance of illumination will satisfy the eye if there is nothing to see1 and1 on the other hand1 the loveliest things will give little pleasure in the dark4 ,to be beautiful they must be suffused in light4 ,similarly the phrases of music1 to be truly moving1 must be suffused in beauty4 ,the greatest masters clearly realized this4 ,bach in his masterpieces1 ,beethoven nearly always1 and ,brahms in his inspired hours1 acted on the principle that the two elements must exist side by side1 subtly and potently reacting upon each other4 ,their practice1 indeed1 unanimously confirms the theory of musical effect which has now been briefly sketched1 and which may be more briefly summarized before we pass on to deduce from it some general canons of appreciation and criticism4 ,music1 we have seen1 originates in the spontaneous gestures and cries made by primitive man under the sway of emotion1 imitated by observers1 and arousing in them the same feelings4 ,as intelligence dawns1 men see that this triple process of spontaneous action1 imitation and reduplicated feeling affords a basis for a language of emotion1 a language that needs1 however1 to be somehow defined and articulated4 ,articulation gradually follows by means of the grouping in time which develops the gestures of active feeling into ,dance1 and the grouping in pitch which develops the utterances of contemplative feeling into ,song4 ,eventually the two modes of grouping are combined1 and music becomes an independent art4 ,meanwhile1 the forms at first adopted for the sake of mere definition become the basis of a new and deeper delight1 sthetic beauty1 which is sought for both as ancillary to expression and for itself alone4 ,finally1 beauty of form reacts potently on eloquence of expression1 and the most universal composers1 recognizing the interdependence of the two elements1 produce the highest type of pure music1 music in which beauty is based upon expression and expression transfigured by beauty4 ,,iv ,the principles we now have before us1 interesting as they are in themselves1 must finally vindicate their worth by helping us to form sound opinions of musical tendencies and of individual composers2 they must provide a corrective for the whims and freaks of prejudice1 and a basis for that intelligent and systematic criticism which takes account both of a man's qualities and of his defects before assigning him his place in the general artistic movement4 ,with them in mind1 we should be able to avoid the current one-sided and partial views1 and also to attain that positive insight into the nature of music which alone can give our opinions sanity1 liberality and perspective4 ,in the first place1 then1 it will be well to turn their light on certain dangerous half-truths1 which1 constantly cropping up in musical opinions1 are hardly less misleading than complete fallacies4 ,the two most persistent and mischievous of such half-truths are those which neglect one aspect of the dual nature of music1 which ignore expression or repudiate form4 ,of the first1 the half-truth so frequently formulated in the phrase1 ,music is a kind of audible mathematics1 it is not necessary to say much4 ,those dryly ingenious persons who rejoice in a fugue of ,bach much as they enjoy an intricate problem in calculus1 failing to perceive the warm human heart that animates the skeleton1 form a minority which gets little attention from the mass of music-lovers4 ,the half-truth which neglects expression will not1 in the nature of things1 ever gain a large following4 ,far more dangerous is the opposite fallacy1 which1 repudiating form1 asserts that expression is all1 that music is the language of the emotions4 ,this phrase1 without any qualifications1 is the creed of the sentimentalists4 ,their ranks assemble all varieties of rhapsodical1 ill-balanced temperaments1 from the young girl who dotes on ,wagner to the old lady with curls who thinks that music leads us up to the higher life4 ,the sentimentalists sin1 perhaps1 not so much by commission as by omission4 ,so far as they are able they appreciate music1 for they feel it emotionally1 and1 as we have seen1 half its reason for being is its appeal to the emotions4 ,but they fail to realize that it must be beautiful as well as moving1 that all its lineaments of expression must be held in orderly relation with a larger integral beauty of form4 ,they fancy that form1 which in reality enhances expression1 is somehow at odds with it1 that the mind and the feelings are natural enemies4 ,satisfied with thrills and tremors1 they do not ask1 in their music1 for meaning and order4 ,they fancy that to listen heedfully1 attentively1 analytically1 is somehow to pull out the petals of art and strew them in the dust4 ,analysis is a desecrating process4 ,you should not focus your ears1 make the image clear2 you should swoon in a delicious haze of sensation and suggestion4 ,but one can analyze without dissecting2 one can recognize that a flower has petals without pulling them out2 and indeed it is hard to imagine any one appreciating the true loveliness of a flower1 its formed1 articulated beauty1 without such recognition4 ,so in music1 the true lover of melody will be in no danger of confusing ,beethoven's ,hymn of ,joy with ,schumann's ,warum because of the trance of nebulous feeling into which they throw him4 ,he will pay them the tribute of listening to them attentively1 of noting the various charms of their phraseology and expression as he would note the difference of meter and effect between a sonnet of ,shakespeare and a song of ,burns4 ,music is not poorer1 but richer1 for its marvelous intricacies of structure1 and the sentimentality which hates clear definition is not high sentiment1 but misconception or insensibility4 ,it is a suggestive fact1 however1 that the sentimental attitude is found among us1 not only in music1 but everywhere4 ,it is the tendency of the day to confuse acquiring with assimilating1 to fancy that wealth of experience is better than self-mastery and intelligent possession4 ,heedlessness is our besetting sin4 ,we skim books1 do picture galleries1 talk at the opera1 interrupt in conversation1 and gobble our food4 ,metaphorically1 as well as actually1 we swallow more than we can digest1 imagining that if we only subject ourselves to enough impressions we shall become connoisseurs4 ,we value quantity rather than quality1 in everything from bric--brac to education2 and it is quite to be expected that we should reckon the value of music by the number of shivers it can give us4 ,but we are nevertheless capable of a wiser attitude4 ,we have it in us to learn that feelings are of no use until they are related to the central personality1 that impressibility is not yet dignity1 that to be informed is not necessarily to be educated--that1 in a word1 possession of any sort is not an external fact1 but an inward control4 ,we may take a facile interest in the sentimentalists and the enthusiasts--the people with temperament--but at heart we know that those passions are deepest which are most firmly dominated by will1 that he is freest who obeys the highest law1 and that temperament is after all less vital than character4 ,we really prefer organization to coruscation4 ,and so in music we are capable of learning1 and knowledge of the principles of musical effect can help us to learn1 that the balance and proportion and symmetry of the whole is far more essential than any poignancy1 however great1 in the parts4 ,he best appreciates music who brings to it all of his human powers1 who understands it intellectually as well as feels it emotionally4 ,in these and other ways the principles of musical effect afford touchstones for the detection of prevalent but erroneous views--views which contain their element of truth1 but are still fallacious because partial4 ,but the same principles are also capable of yielding more positive and detailed insight into the nature of musical appreciation4 ,they illuminate1 for example1 that perplexing problem of expression--why it is that from the same piece of music one person gets so much more than another4 ,the fact is familiar to every one4 ,every one knows that of two persons equally sensitive to music on the sensuous and formal side1 of good ear1 and familiar with the effects of harmony1 melody and rhythm1 one will get far deeper meanings1 will be far more elated and inspired1 than the other4 ,how can this be8 ,our theory of expression gives the clew4 ,we have seen that bodily states set up by imitation are the basis of musical emotions4 ,hearing is always a sort of ideal performing4 ,in listening to a melody we always feebly contract our throat muscles as if to sing1 and the perception of rhythm is always accompanied by an incipient keeping time4 ,these bodily acts1 however faintly realized1 set up their appropriate feelings1 the feelings we associate with their actual performance4 ,but now it should be noted that the richness1 quality1 and significance of these feelings will depend in the case of each man on his particular associations--that is to say1 on his entire personal character4 ,evoked by similar bodily states1 the mental emotions will be always as dissimilar as the men who feel them4 ,we cannot conceive1 says ,thoreau1 of a greater difference than that between the life of one man and that of another4 ,he might truly have added that we cannot conceive of a greater difference than that between the feelings of one man and those of another in hearing the same piece of music1 which excites in both the same tremors and thrills1 but vistas of thought how utterly unlike6 ,musical appreciation is thus subject to the same variations which make the ordinary experiences of men so diverse4 ,the prophet on fire with righteous indignation and the common scold undergo in anger the same suffusion of blood1 the same boiling up of the organs2 yet how different in dignity and value are their sentiments6 ,and music1 by setting up a certain sympathetic turmoil in the organs1 will plunge one man into a selfish opium-dream and will fill another with the rarest1 most magnanimous aspirations4 ,it follows as a practical corollary that he who would get from music the best it has to offer must cultivate the best in himself4 ,no fine sensibility in him1 no large heroism1 no generosity or dignity or profundity of character will be without its quiet1 far-reaching effect on his appreciation of music4 ,if expression depends thus in part upon the moral and temperamental qualities of the listener1 form in equal measure depends upon his mental alertness4 ,form1 says ,dr4 ,santayana1 does not appeal to the inattentive2 they get from objects only a vague sensation which may in them awaken extrinsic associations2 they do not stop to survey the parts or to appreciate their relation1 and consequently are insensible to the various charms of various unifications2 they can find in objects only the value of material or of function1 not that of form4 ,this is unfortunately the case with many who consider themselves musical2 they enjoy sweetness of sound and the rather vague emotion music arouses in them1 but get no clear sense of its deeper architectural beauty4 ,like ,charles ,lamb1 they are sentimentally disposed to harmony1 but organically incapable of a tune4 ,but a thoroughgoing love of music1 as will be clear enough by now1 must include an appreciation of all its aspects2 and since beauty of form is not only delightful in itself1 but is a potent means of expression as well1 insensibility to it involves the loss of much of what is most precious in music4 ,it is necessary1 then1 to train the attention1 to listen accurately as well as sympathetically1 to grasp the thematic phrases as they occur1 to remember them when they recur1 and to follow them through all their transformations4 ,we should think that man but slightly appreciative of poetry who1 after hearing a play of ,shakespeare1 should say that the words seemed to him mellifluous and that many passages moved him1 but that he had not the slightest idea what it was all about4 ,yet how many of us1 after hearing a ,beethoven symphony1 have the slightest definite idea what it is about8 ,if we would get more than transient1 profitless titillation from music1 we must cultivate our attention1 learning1 to borrow a phrase from optics1 to make the image sharp4 ,as we progress in that faculty we shall constantly see new beauties1 which in turn will constantly react to deepen expression2 and if we are so fortunate as to have also a nature sensitive1 tender1 and earnest1 fitted to feel the best kind of emotion that can be aroused by sound1 we may hope to gain eventually an accurate1 intelligent1 and deep appreciation of music4 ,v ,it remains1 now that we have traced the bearing of our general principles on musical taste1 to point out briefly how they afford also criteria for judging composers themselves1 and how1 thus judged1 the six composers we are to study fall into perspective4 ,our principles1 in a word1 will now enable us to supplement our later studies of these composers in isolation with a somewhat rough but still helpful sense of their interrelationship4 ,we must relate them to the general evolution of which they are phases2 see how they differ in the power to assimilate the work of their predecessors1 to avail themselves of all the resources1 expressive and formal1 of their art1 and to develop new resources for those who succeed them4 ,it is hardly necessary to insist on the value of some such basis of comparison4 ,without it we should be like a certain member of a college geology class who1 more ardent than methodical1 was wont to investigate outcrops and moraines with great enthusiasm1 but in utter ignorance of the points of the compass4 ,to this scatter-brained young man the instructor used always to say1 ,orient yourself first of all1 ,mr4 ,jones1 orient yourself4 ,and so1 before examining the individual outcroppings of modern music1 we shall do well to orient ourselves in the artistic landscape4 ,of all the composers with whom we are to deal1 ,grieg and ,dvok are the least inclusive and catholic4 ,grieg1 as we shall see1 writes always in the personal vein1 is among musicians what ,leigh ,hunt and ,charles ,lamb are among writers4 ,he is intimate1 charming1 graceful1 but never epic or universal4 ,he touches the great stream of musical tradition at a few points only1 and adds little to its volume4 ,he knows how to combine a few elements of effect with finesse1 but there are limitations both in what he has to say and in his means of saying it4 ,he is familiar with only one dialect in the language of tones4 ,and if ,grieg is personal1 ,dvok is at most national4 ,he is too deep-dyed a ,bohemian to be a complete citizen of the world4 ,not only is his style curiously provincial1 with its uneven rhythms of folk-song1 its strong dance-like metrical schemes1 and its florid coloring1 but his substance is too ornate and too sweet to be profoundly significant4 ,he is a natural musician raised to the nth power1 but he is not enough a scholar to relate himself very vitally with the general growth of his art4 ,both of these men have contributed much that is novel and charming to the lighter side of music1 but they are not masters of deep feeling and wide scope4 ,camille ,saint-,sans and ,csar ,franck illustrate strikingly another sort of partiality1 a partiality often met with in a less noticeable degree4 ,each exemplifies only one of those contrasting phases of feeling which we saw to underlie ,dance and ,song1 and which in the greatest composers are combined4 ,saint-,sans' work1 primarily expressive of active feeling1 is strongly metrical1 derives its chief interest and value from rhythmic qualities2 ,franck's1 the product of a singularly contemplative and monastic nature1 is monotonous in rhythm1 but endlessly various in melodic and harmonic treatment4 ,in the biographical essays the antithesis will be brought out more in detail4 ,here it is only necessary to suggest that1 if these two ,french composers are somewhat wider in scope than ,grieg or ,dvok1 their curious limitations in temperament prevent them from doing all-inclusive and universal work4 ,with ,tschakowsky and ,brahms we come to men of a larger caliber4 ,these two1 different as they are--the ,russian finding in music primarily a means of expression1 the ,german valuing more its plastic beauty--are1 nevertheless1 the only two moderns who can be said to carry on worthily the torch of ,bach and ,beethoven4 ,both were men of sufficiently wide sympathy and scholarship to approach music with the utmost liberality1 to get into contact with all its traditions and utilize all its technical resources4 ,they write in that grand style which draws its elements from the widest sources1 the style not of one man nor of one nation1 but of the world4 ,again1 they were men of complex temperament1 capable of a great range of feeling both active and contemplative4 ,consequently the dance impulse and the song impulse are equally operative in their work1 which has a richness and variety to be found in ,bach and ,beethoven1 but not in ,saint-,sans or ,franck4 ,and though they were men of the deepest emotion1 they had also the intellectual control over their work that made it not only expressive but beautiful4 ,in a word1 the range of their learning1 the many-sidedness of their temperaments1 their emotional profundity and their intellectual power1 all conspired to make them the greatest musicians of their time4 ,yet even between these two great men it is possible1 with the aid of our principles1 to make a distinction4 ,we have seen that form is not only a means of defining utterance1 but that it is furthermore the source of sthetic delight1 and1 through the reverberation of that1 of an immense reinforcement to expression2 and we have accordingly concluded that in no case must form be sacrificed to any other factor of effect whatsoever4 ,to sacrifice form1 in music1 whatever may seem at first sight the justification1 is in the long run to sacrifice the greater for the less4 ,now ,tschakowsky1 led away by the impetuosity of his feeling1 is often guilty of such a sacrifice4 ,he gains for the moment2 he gains a compelling eloquence1 the most exciting effects1 the wildest and most thrilling crises4 ,but in the long run he loses4 ,eventually one tires of the crises1 one is left cold1 and then the waywardness1 the incoherence1 the lack of clear order and symmetry1 are felt as weaknesses4 ,too many of ,tschakowsky's pieces are better at a first hearing than at a fifth4 ,with ,brahms it is otherwise4 ,all his emotion1 deep1 tender and noble as it is1 is controlled by the firm will and the shaping hand of the supreme artist4 ,however moving his music may be1 it is even more beautiful4 ,his faculties1 whether by good fortune or merit1 are more perfectly adjusted than those of any other modern composer4 ,he is the most profound1 the most simple1 the most comprehensive of moderns1 as becomes obvious when we test his work by the principles we have laid down4 ,others exemplify them partially1 he most entirely2 others are great in some or several effects1 he is roundedly great4 ,he allies himself with all that was done in music before him1 and contributes indispensable elements to what will be done in it hereafter4 ,and so1 if we arrange our six composers in a series1 determining the importance of each by means of the universal and impersonal principles of art1 we must pass from ,grieg to ,brahms4 ,,ii ,,edvard ,,grieg ,illustration3 ,,edvard ,,grieg ,,ii ,,edvard ,,grieg ,to the musical amateur no contemporary composer is better known than ,grieg4 ,every school-girl plays his piano pieces1 young violinists study his delightfully melodious sonatas1 and few concert pieces are more widely loved than the ,peer ,gynt ,suite4 ,yet from professional musicians ,grieg does not meet with such favor4 ,many speak of him patronizingly1 some scornfully4 ,grieg8 they say4 ,oh1 yes1 very charming1 but-- and the sentence ends with a shrug4 ,the reason for this discrepancy of estimate seems to be that the layman1 fascinated by ,grieg's lovely melodies1 unusual and piquant harmonic treatment1 and contagious rhythm1 looks for no further quality2 but the musician1 unconsciously referring all music to a standard based on works of greater solidity1 greater breadth and force and passion as well as wider learning and superior skill1 is too conscious of the shortcomings of this ,norwegian minstrelsy to do justice to its qualities4 ,it is1 of a truth1 music in which merit and failing are curiously mingled2 its delicate beauty is unique1 its limitation extreme4 ,it is as fair as a flower1 and as fragile4 ,it is1 in short1 the effluence of a personality graceful without strength1 romantic without the sense of tragedy1 highly gifted with all gentle qualities of nature1 but lacking in the more virile powers1 in broad vision1 epic magnanimity1 and massive force4 ,of this personality1 as it appears in the flesh1 we get an interesting glimpse in ,tschakowsky's ,diary4,b ,during the rehearsal of ,brahms's new trio1 writes ,tschakowsky1 as ,i was taking the liberty of making some remarks as to the skill and execution of the relative tempo #b-c--remarks which were very good-naturedly received by the composer--there entered the room a very short1 middle-aged man1 exceedingly fragile in appearance1 with shoulders of unequal height1 fair hair brushed back from his forehead1 and a very slight1 almost boyish beard and mustache4 ,there was nothing very striking about the features of this man1 whose exterior at once attracted my sympathy1 for it would be impossible to call them handsome or regular2 but he had an uncommon charm1 and blue eyes1 not very large1 but irresistibly fascinating1 recalling the glance of a charming and candid child4 ,i rejoiced in the depths of my heart when we were introduced to each other1 and it turned out that this personality which was so inexplicably sympathetic to me belonged to a musician whose warmly emotional music had long ago won my heart4 ,he proved to be the ,norwegian composer1 ,edvard ,grieg4 ,this was in #ahhh1 when ,grieg was forty-five4 ,we may compare with it another description1 made a year later by a ,frenchman1 ,m4 ,ernest ,closson1 when ,grieg was playing and conducting his works in ,paris4 ,grieg is small1 thin1 and narrow-shouldered1 writes ,m4 ,closson4,c ,his body1 which is like a child's1 is always in motion--the movements short1 lively1 singularly jerky and angular1 each step shaking the whole body and hitching the shoulder as if he limped2 a 'bundle of nerves' paquet des nerfs1 to use a doctor's phrase of picturesque energy4 ,the head1 which looks massive on so small a body1 is intelligent and very handsome1 with long grayish hair thrown back1 thin face1 smooth-shaven chin1 short1 thick mustache1 small but full nose1 and eyes6--eyes superb1 green1 gray1 in which one can fancy one catches a glimpse of ,norway1 with its melancholy fjords and its luminous mists4 ,his gaze is serious1 wonderfully soft1 with a peculiar expression1 at once worn1 tentative1 and childishly nave4 ,the entire effect is of kindness1 gentleness1 candor1 a sincere modesty4 ,it is thus obvious that ,grieg is of the nervous1 sensitive temperament1 the temperament of ,keats and ,stevenson1 quick and ardent in feeling1 and in art notable for subjective1 intimate work rather than for the wide objective point of view4 ,grieg's music is of value1 indeed1 just because it is the artistic expression of delicate personal feeling4 ,we shall find that his whole development tended toward a singularly individual1 or at most national1 utterance2 that his efforts toward a complexer or more universal style1 such as in poetry we call epic1 were unsuccessful2 and that his real and inimitable achievement is all in the domain of the pure lyric4 ,edvard ,grieg was born in ,bergen1 ,norway1 in #ahdc4 ,at an early age he showed musical talent1 starting in to learn the piano and theory at six1 under his mother's direction4 ,gesine ,grieg1 born ,hagerup1 descendent from a forceful ,norwegian family which had produced some famous men1 was a woman of musical and poetic instinct and of strong character4 ,she had studied music in ,hamburg and in ,london1 and given some concerts and many soires in ,bergen4 ,in a word1 her son could not have found a better guide in his first studies4 ,at nine ,grieg surprised his school-teacher by submitting in place of a literary composition a set of original variations on a ,german melody1 a substitution which was not kindly received4 ,he was told to stop such nonsense4 ,the artistic temperament revealed itself also in great sensitiveness to the beauty of the somber ,northern landscape1 and at fifteen ,grieg wished to become a painter4 ,fortunately1 however1 his musical ability was recognized by the famous violinist ,ole ,bull1 at whose suggestion his parents decided to send him to the ,leipsic ,conservatory1 whither he traveled in #aheh4 ,here again the romanticism of the boy showed itself in his fretfulness under the strict rgime of his masters1 ,hauptmann1 ,richter1 ,rietz1 ,reinecke1 and ,moscheles1 and in his passionate devotion to the works of ,schumann and ,chopin1 who were then looked upon in academic circles as somewhat dangerous revolutionaries4 ,except for a vacation of some months at home1 necessitated by the pulmonary trouble which has ever since weakened ,grieg's health1 he spent four years in the ,conservatory1 being graduated in #ahfb4 ,in his earliest compositions1 produced at this period1 the traits that afterwards distinguished him are rather hampered by academic influences and uncertainty of intention4 ,the four ,pieces1 opus #a1 by no means devoid of his peculiar flavor1 are yet tentative in style and reminiscent of older masters1 particularly ,chopin and ,mendelssohn4 ,of the ,poetic ,tone-pictures1 opus #c1 the second and fourth are the well-established type of graceful salon piece4 ,number four1 indeed1 might almost be a strayed leaf from that gentle but hackneyed work which some modern cynic has called the ,songs without ,music4 ,yet the very next piece is full-fledged ,grieg4 ,here is the short four-measure phrase1 transposed a third and repeated1 here the descending chromatic harmonizations1 here the raucous fifths as of peasant players1 that we shall presently learn to look for among the hall-marks of his writings4 ,but more important than any such technical details is the general animation1 producing trenchant rhythm1 graceful melody1 and warm harmony1 that always sparkles in ,grieg's best work4 ,in the ,poetic ,tone-pictures he is already himself1 though not his mature self4 ,being at graduation somewhat bewildered and uncertain as to his future course1 ,grieg turned his steps in #ahfc to the ,danish capital1 the home of a great man whom he idolized4 ,one day1 he writes in an autobiographical fragment1 ,i had gone out with my friend ,matthison-,hansen to ,klampenborg4 ,suddenly he nudged my arm4 ',what is it8' ,i said4 ',do you see that little man with the large gray hat8' ',i see him4' ',do you know who it is8' said he4 ',i haven't the least idea4' ',that's ,gade1' he said4 ',shall ,i introduce you8' ,and without waiting for my reply he took me up to the ,professor1 with the curt announcement3 ',professor1 a ,norwegian friend of mine--a good musician4' ',is it ,nordraak8' asked ,gade4 ',no1 it is ,grieg1' answered ,matthison-,hansen4 ',oh1 that's who it is1' said ,gade1 scanning my insignificant and humble self from head to foot with a searching glance1 while ,i stood1 not without awe1 face to face with the man whose works ,i treasured so highly4 ',have you something to show me8' ',no1' ,i answered4 ,for the things ,i had finished didn't seem good enough4 ',then go home and write a symphony1' recommended ,gade4 ,it is indicative of the groping stage at which ,grieg's genius still paused that he actually tried to write a symphony1 two movements of which are preserved in the ,symphonic ,pieces1 opus #ad--;,grieg1 whose talent was symphonic in about the degree that ,brahms's was operatic4 ,contact with the friendly little man in the large gray hat1 who has been dubbed the ,danish ,mendelssohn1 was doubtless a stimulus to the young ,grieg2 but other and more radical influences were needed to awaken his personality and bring him to his own4 ,such influences1 however1 he actually found in ,copenhagen4 ,the ,nordraak for whom ,gade had at first taken him1 a fervently patriotic ,norwegian of magnetic personality1 acquainted him with ,norwegian folk-songs and fired him with an ambition to found on them a finished art4 ,meeting in solemn conclave1 with all the self-importance of youth1 these two enthusiasts took the oath of musical allegiance to their fatherland4 ,it was as though scales fell from my eyes1 writes ,grieg2 for the first time ,i learned 444 to understand my own nature4 ,we abjured the ,gade-,mendelssohn insipid and diluted ,scandinavianism1 and bound ourselves with enthusiasm to the new path which the northern school is now following4 ,nor did their zeal confine itself to composition4 ,in #ahfd they founded1 with their ,danish friends ,horneman and ,matthison-,hansen1 the ,euterpe ,musical ,society1 for the performance of ,scandinavian works4 ,this institution1 which must have reacted stimulatingly on their composition1 they supported energetically up to ,grieg's departure in #ahff for ,christiania4 ,finally1 it was in these years of his freshest vigor1 in which he was conscious both of inner power and of outer opportunities1 that ,grieg met the lady1 ,miss ,nina ,hagerup1 his cousin1 who became in time his wife4 ,it is not to be wondered at that no period in his life was so fruitful as this4 ,his most characteristic works1 accordingly1 were composed between his graduation from the conservatory and the early seventies--between his twentieth and his thirtieth years4 ,there are the two inimitable ,sonatas for ,violin and ,piano1 opus #h and #ac2 the ,piano ,sonata1 opus #g2 the incidental music to ,ibsen's ,peer ,gynt2 some of the most charming of the ,lyric ,pieces for piano and of the ,songs1 and the ,piano ,concerto1 opus #af2 the best part1 certainly1 of his entire musical product4 ,it were a hopeless as well as useless task to describe in words the qualities of these compositions4 ,what shall one say in words of the flavor of an orange8 ,it is sweet8 ,yes4 ,and acid8 ,yes1 a little4 ,and it has a delicate aroma1 and is juicy and cool4 ,but how much idea of an orange has one conveyed then8 ,and similarly with this indescribably delicate music of ,grieg2 there is little that can be pertinently or serviceably said of it4 ,one may point out1 however1 its persistently lyrical character4 ,it is like the poetry of ,mr4 ,henley in its exclusive concern with moods1 with personal emotions of the subtlest1 most elusive sort4 ,it is intimate1 suggestive1 intangible4 ,it voices the gentlest feelings of the heart1 or summons up the airiest visions of the imagination4 ,it is whimsical1 too1 changes its hues like the chameleon1 and often surprises us with a sudden flight to some unexpected shade of expression4 ,again1 its finesse is striking4 ,the phrases are polished like gems1 the melodies charm us with their perfect proportions1 the cadences are as consummate as they are novel4 ,then1 again1 the rhythm is most delightfully frank and straightforward2 there is no maundering or uncertainty1 but always a vigorous dancing progress1 as candid as childhood4 ,it is hard to keep one's feet still through some of the ,norwegian ,dances4 ,and though in the ,lyric ,pieces rhythm is idealized1 it is always definite and clear1 so that they are at the opposite pole from all that formless sentimentality which abandons accent in order to wail4 ,again1 we must notice the curious exotic flavor of this music1 a flavor not ,oriental but northern1 a half-wild1 half-tender pathos1 outlandish a little1 but not turgid--on the contrary1 perfectly pellucid4 ,an example is a little waltz that figures as number two of the ,lyric ,pieces1 opus #ab4 ,grieg's music1 then1 is lyrical1 intimate1 shapely1 and exotic1 if such words mean anything--yes1 just as the orange is sweet1 acid1 and aromatic4 ,one who would feel the quality of these works must hear them4 ,on the other hand1 ,grieg is never large or heroic2 he never wears the buskin4 ,he has neither the depth of passion nor the intellectual grasp needed to make music in the grand style4 ,probably of all his peculiarities the most significant is the shortness of his phrases and his manner of repeating them almost literally1 displaced a little in pitch1 but not otherwise altered4 ,almost all his music can be cut up into segments two or four measures long1 each segment complete in itself1 an entire musical thought4 ,if the reader will examine the little ,waltz just mentioned1 for example1 he will see that it is constructed as follows3 after two introductory measures a phrase of melody is announced1 four measures in length2 this is immediately repeated1 at the same pitch but slightly varied in rhythm2 then enters another phrase1 two measures long1 which is repeated literally a third lower2 its latter half is twice echoed1 and there is a two-measure cadence4 ,all is then repeated4 ,the middle part of the piece1 in ,a major1 is built in much the same way2 after it the first part is given once more1 and there is a short coda4 ,the construction of this charming piece1 in a word1 is very like that of the passages from primers that are familiar to us all3 ,is this a boy8 ,this is a boy4 ,has the boy a dog8 ,the boy has a dog4 ,this is the dog of the boy4 ,and ,grieg's coda adds meditatively1 ,of the boy 444 the boy 444 boy4 ,his thoughts complete themselves quickly2 they have little span1 and they are combined1 not by interfusion1 but by juxtaposition4 ,he never weaves a tapestry2 he assembles a mosaic4 ,we have only to compare his music with that of some great master1 of wide scope and large synthetic power1 like ,brahms or ,beethoven1 to feel precisely in what sense he is lyrical rather than heroic1 charming rather than elevated1 suggestive rather than informative4 ,compare1 for instance1 with his waltz1 the waltz of ,brahms1 number eight in opus #ci4 ,here there is a sustained flight of twelve measures1 the tune poising and soaring as it were on a rising or falling breeze1 or like a kite that now dips and now is up again1 but never touches the earth4 ,it is interesting to play the two waltzes one after the other1 noting the difference in effect between the precise1 dainty1 clipped phrases of the one and the broad-spanned arch of melody of the other4 ,such contrasts are at the basis of all significant discriminations of musical form4 ,how much the short breath of ,grieg is due to the nature of his thematic material is a difficult question to answer4 ,folk-tunes1 it is certain1 are simple in structure1 composed of short phrases expressing the nave emotions of childlike minds4 ,on the other hand1 had they not fulfilled ,grieg's personal needs1 supplying the sort of atmosphere he was meant to breathe in1 he could never have assimilated them as he has done4 ,perhaps a true account of the matter is that his nature is of such unusual simplicity and ingenuousness as to find in folk-melodies its natural utterance1 and to feel in their primitive phrase-structure no limitation4 ,intellectually1 the man is not more mature than the people4 ,from whatever sources he might draw his germinal ideas1 he would never combine them in complexer forms or larger patterns than he has found ready-made to his hand in the national song4 ,there are1 however1 in ,norwegian music peculiarities of a different sort that we can hardly conceive as proving other than hindrances in the formation of a wholesomely eclectic style--peculiarities which are all present full-fledged in so early a work of ,grieg as the ,piano ,concerto1 opus #af1 written in #ahfh4 ,at the very outset1 in the descending octave passage1 there are two melodic tricks that recur everywhere in ,grieg--the fall from the seventh of the scale to the fifth1 and from the third to the tonic4 ,both progressions1 anomalous in classic music1 are prominent features of the ,northern folk-tunes4 ,then1 in the first theme1 assigned to the orchestra1 there are to be noticed1 besides these melodic steps1 the bodily displacement of the phrase already described1 carrying it from ,a minor into ,c major4 ,in the second theme1 as well as in the cantabile piano passage that prepares the way for it1 there is a rhythmic device characteristic of ,grieg--the mixing in one measure of three notes to the beat with two notes to the beat1 of which the prototype is to be found in the ,springtanz of ,norwegian peasants4 ,here also is the weak cadence1 that is to say1 the cadence with tonic chord coming on an unaccented beat4 ,so much for melodic and rhythmic peculiarities2 as a harmonist ,grieg has methods equally persistent4 ,his love of bare fifths1 reiterated in the bass with boorish vigor1 and his manner of harmonizing with descending chromatic sixths or thirds1 both of which we remarked in opus #c1 are illustrated in this ,concerto2 the first in the conclusion-theme of the first movement1 and the second in measures fourteen to sixteen of the beautiful ,adagio4 ,finally1 he is devoted to the secondary sevenths1 especially in harsh and daring sequence such as make up most of the ,norwegian ,march1 opus #ed1 ,no4 #b4 ,mannerisms like these ,grieg has1 on the whole1 in far larger measure than most composers4 ,on almost any of his pages the student will have no difficulty in finding for himself instances of one or more of these mannerisms4 ,now1 so many little tricks and idiosyncrasies1 however piquant in the work of a beginner1 could hardly escape becoming1 as time went on1 an incubus to even the most vigorous imagination4 ,nothing menaces thought more than affectations and whimsicalities of style4 ,and even in the meridian of ,grieg's activity1 when he was charming a staid world with the fresh beauties of the ,piano ,sonata and the two early ,violin ,sonatas1 there were not wanting critics who discerned his danger and foresaw that he must either broaden his methods or deteriorate4 ,over twenty years ago the following words were written in an ,english magazine by ,frederick ,niecks3 ,my fear in the case of ,grieg always was that his love of ,norwegian idioms would tend to narrow1 materialize1 and make shallow his conceptions1 and prevent him from forming a style by imposing on him a manner4 ,subsequent events have proved that this fear was but too well founded4 ,although1 during the years at ,copenhagen1 and the eight years1 from #ahff to #ahgd1 that ,grieg lived in ,christiania teaching and conducting1 he continued to do excellent work1 he seems to have even then reached the acme of his powers1 and thenceforward to have imperceptibly declined4 ,it is rather a melancholy fact that when1 in #ahgd1 receiving a pension of sixteen hundred crowns from the ,government1 which enabled him to resign the conductorship of the ,musical ,union of ,christiania1 he began to devote himself almost entirely to composition1 his mental vivacity was waning and his lovely lyrical utterance was beginning to be smothered under mannerisms4 ,from this time on he advanced more by familiarizing the world with his earlier compositions than by adding to them anything particularly novel or precious4 ,he traveled in ,germany1 ,holland and ,denmark1 gave concerts in ,england in #ahhh1 and visited ,france a year later1 playing and conducting his works at ,paris4 ,for the rest1 he retired to his picturesque villa1 ,troldhangen1 ten miles from ,bergen1 where he lives a peaceful and secluded country life4 ,it is not difficult to see why ,grieg's later works should decline rather than advance4 ,in the first place1 his interest had been from the first concentrated on personal expression4 ,his impulse was individual1 not universal4 ,he never sought to widen or deepen the forms of musical beauty1 to extend the range of resources at the command of musicians2 he merely used what he found ready-made to voice his own poetic feeling4 ,in this he succeeded admirably4 ,in the second place1 charmed by the exotic quality of ,norwegian music1 a quality that he found also in his own nature1 he adopted the native idiom with eagerness1 and spent the years most composers devote to learning the musical language in acquiring--a dialect4 ,thirdly1 his mind was of the type which cares much for beauty of ornament--even more1 perhaps1 than for a highly wrought harmony of line and form4 ,it was the inevitable result of these three circumstances that1 first1 he should reach his highest activity in early youth1 when romantic feeling is at its acme and thought habitually subjective1 and thereafter decline2 second1 that the dialect which at first was so charming1 with its unfamiliar words and its bewitching accent1 should eventually reveal its paucity and its provincialism2 and finally1 that a mind naturally fond of rich detail1 neglectful of large shapeliness1 should have recourse1 in the ebb of inner impulse1 to transcription1 paraphrase1 and all the other devices for securing superficial ornament and luxury of effect4 ,with opus #da ,grieg began transcribing his own songs for the piano1 dressing up the simple melodies in all sorts of arpeggios1 curious harmonies1 and other musical decorations2 and between his fiftieth and seventieth opus-numbers there is little but representation of ,norwegian tunes1 now in one guise and now in another1 but seldom indeed with any of the old novel charm4 7,a trace of it there is1 perhaps1 in opus #fb1 ,no4 #b1 and again in opus #hj1 ,no4 #d47 ,the extraordinary pyrotechnical display that the transcription1 opus #da1 ,no4 #e1 makes out of so simple a song as ,the ,princess is branded by ,m4 ,closson as un crime de lse-art4 ,and to one who has felt the magic of the ,kuhreigen1 opus #ag1 ,no4 #bb1 it is saddening to turn to the same melody as it appears in opus #fc1 ,no4 #b1 with all its maiden grace brushed and laced and furbelowed into an la mode elegance and vacuity4 ,thus ,grieg has not1 like the more cosmopolitan1 objective1 and universal composers1 advanced in his work up to the very end4 ,as years have progressed1 the accidental in it1 the inessential1 has become more prominent1 has tended to obscure what is vital and beautiful4 ,as the spirit waned1 the letter has become more rigidly insistent4 ,idiosyncrasy has supplanted originality4 ,to find the true ,grieg1 supple1 spontaneous1 and unaffected1 we must go back to the early works4 ,when all is said1 however1 ,grieg has in these early works made a contribution to music which our sense of his later shortcomings must not make us forget4 ,his ,piano ,sonata and his ,violin ,sonatas supply chamber-music with a note of pure lyric enthusiasm1 of fresh unthinking animation1 not elsewhere to be found4 ,his ,peer ,gynt ,suite fills a similar place among orchestral works4 ,his best piano pieces1 and1 above all1 his lovely and too little known songs1 are unique in their delicate voicing of the tenderest1 most elusive personal feeling1 as well as in their consummate finesse of workmanship4 ,it is a ,lilliputian world1 if you will1 but a fair one4 ,that art of the future which ,grieg predicts in his essay on ,mozart1 which will unite lines and colors in marriage1 and show that it has its roots in all the past1 that it draws sustenance from old as well as from new masters1 will acknowledge in ,grieg himself the source of one indispensable element--the element of nave and spontaneous romance4 ,,bibliographical ,,note4--,grieg has had the good sense to publish almost all of his works in the inexpensive and excellent ,peters ,edition4 ,the amateur will wish to acquaint himself first of all with some such representative pieces as the following3 ,piano-pieces--,poetic tone-pictures1 op4 #c1 ,humoreskes1 op4 #f1 ,sonata1 op4 #g1 ,northern ,dances1 op4 #ag1 ,albumblatter1 op4 #bh1 and the ,lyric ,pieces1 op4 #ab1 #ch1 #dc1 and #dg 7op4 #ed1 #eg1 #fb1 #fe1 and #fh are inferior74 ,four hand arrangements--,elegiac ,melodies1 op4 #cd1 ,norwegian ,dances1 op4 #ce1 and the first ,peer ,gynt ,suite1 op4 #dj4 ,chamber-music--the three ,sonatas for ,violin and ,piano and the ',cello ,sonata1 op4 #cf4 ,of the songs1 sixty are printed in the five ,albums of the ,peters ,edition4 ,the second contains half a dozen of ,grieg's most perfect songs1 among them ,i ,love ,thee1 ,morning ,dew1 ,parting and ,wood ,wanderings4 ,to ,springtime in ,album ,i1 ,a ,swan and ,solvejg's ,song in ,album ,,iii1 and ,by the ,riverside1 ,the ,old ,mother1 and ,on the ,way ,home in ,album ,,iv1 are also characteristic and beautiful4 ,the reader who feels ,grieg's charm at all will end by buying all five ,albums1 though there is little of value in the last4 ,,footnotes3 ,a ,thus #d_/d time is a compound of twos1 #f_/h time is a compound of threes1 and the interesting #e_/d measure1 so effective in the second movement of ,tschakowsky's ,pathetic ,symphony1 is a compound of twos and threes regularly alternating4 ,b ,diary of ,my ,tour in #ahhh1 translated in ,tschakowsky1 ,his ,life and ,works1 by ,rosa ,newmarch4 7,john ,lane1 ,new ,york1 #aijj47 ,c ,edvard ,grieg et la ,musique ,scandinave1 ,ernest ,closson4 ,paris1 ,librairie ,fischbacher1 #ahib4 ,,iii ,,antonin ,,dvo,k ,illustration3 ,,antonin ,,dvo,k ,,iii ,,antonin ,,dvo,k ,on an ,october evening in #ahib there was given in ,new ,york ,city a ,grand ,concert in exploitation of the ,eminent ,composer and ,director of the ,national ,conservatory of ,music of ,america1 ,dr4 ,antonin ,dvok4 ,there was an orchestra of eighty1 a chorus of three hundred1 and an audience of several thousand2 the ceremonies1 partly hospitable and partly patriotic1 included an oration1 the presentation of a silver wreath1 and the singing of ,america by the assembled multitude4 ,outwardly picturesque as the occasion doubtless was1 it must have been even more striking in its suggestion of the extreme contrasts in life which accompany the turning of fortune's wheel4 ,here was a man1 originally a ,bohemian peasant1 a village butcher's son1 who for years had endured the most grinding poverty1 the most monotonous obscurity1 the most interminable labor for power and recognition1 coming at last1 a famous musician1 to hear his works performed and his genius extolled in a great1 enthusiastic country that wanted1 and was willing to pay for1 a school of music4 ,even statistics are eloquent when character is behind them2 at a salary of fifteen thousand dollars a year the ,national ,conservatory of ,america had engaged as principal the composer who1 less than twenty years before1 had been pensioned by the ,austrian ,ministry of ,education just one hundredth of that sum4 ,dvok's reception in ,new ,york was an appropriate outward sign of a victory achieved over peculiarly indifferent destiny by peculiarly indomitable pluck4 ,as one looks back from this imposing event over the course of ,dvok's laborious1 persistent youth1 one's attention1 no matter how much it is at first engaged with the changes of his outer life1 with his progress from obscure poverty to comfort and fame1 soon dwells even more on the underlying identity of the man through all changes1 on his unswerving simplicity of nature and steadfastness of aim4 ,more remarkable than the diversity of his career is the unity of his character4 ,from first to last1 whether in ,mhlhausen1 ,prague1 ,london1 or ,new ,york1 he is essentially a peasant4 ,his deepest moral trait is the dumb persistence1 the unthinking doggedness1 of the peasant4 ,his mental atmosphere is the peasant's innocence of self-consciousness1 his unintrospective candor4 ,not like the sophisticated man1 who weighs motives and foresees obstacles1 does he pursue his troublous way4 ,he is1 on the contrary1 like an engine placed on the track and started2 through darkness and day1 through failure and success1 through weakness and strength1 he steams ahead1 ever propelled by irresistible inner force1 insensible and unamenable to circumstance4 ,and his musical impulse is of the same sort4 ,his aims in music have always been simple1 definite1 unsophisticated by intellectualism4 ,taking keen delight in the sensuous beauty of sound1 gifted with the musical sense in its most fundamental form of physical susceptibility1 from his earliest days he set about learning to produce pleasant effects of rhythm and consonance1 with utter sincerity1 with no reference to derivative and secondary musical values4 ,when1 as a boy1 he heard the villagers playing their native dances1 his blood stirred in sympathy1 and as soon as he was able he took a hand4 ,when he was older he invented similar pieces1 gradually refining them1 but always cherishing the brightness of tone1 the vigor of rhythmic life1 that had first won his devotion4 ,and when1 in ,new ,york1 an experienced and honored musician1 he was expected to advise our composers1 it was highly characteristic of him that he recommended them to pour their ideas into the negro molds4 ,here was a music simple1 sensuous1 highly rhythmic2 he looked no further1 he was disconcerted by no ethnological problems1 nor even by the incongruity that any man of the world would have seen between negro song and our subtly mingled1 highly complex ,american character4 ,bohemian folk-melodies had expressed him2 why should not plantation tunes express us8 ,but perhaps his curious simplicity reveals itself most of all in his perfectly uncritical fecundity as a composer4 ,he writes with extreme rapidity1 and indefatigably4 ,the great ,stabat ,mater is said to have been completed in six weeks1 and his opus numbers extend beyond a hundred4 ,he writes as if nothing existed in the world but himself and an orchestra waiting to play his scores4 ,he is never embarrassed by a sense of limitation1 by the perception in others of powers he lacks4 ,though he has studied the masters1 he is not abashed by them4 ,the standards of scholarship1 those academic bugbears1 have for him no terrors4 ,indeed1 of all great composers he is perhaps least the scholar1 most the sublimated troubadour1 enriching the world with an apotheosized tavern-music4 ,in reading his life we must never forget these things3 his simple nature1 his sensuous rather than emotional or intellectual devotion to music1 and his immunity from the checks and palsies of wide learning and fastidious taste4 ,there is in a rural district of ,bohemia1 on the ,moldau ,river1 a quiet little village called ,nelahozeves1 or1 in ,german1 ,mhlhausen1,d where1 in #ahda1 was born ,antonin1 eldest son of ,frantisek ,dvok1 the village innkeeper and butcher4 ,the ,dvoks were people not without consideration among their fellow-townsmen2 not only was mine host of the tavern a widely acquainted man1 but his wife's father was bailiff to a prince4 ,one may imagine the potency1 in a small hamlet1 of such a conjunction of prominence and prestige4 ,nevertheless1 as social distinction has no direct effect on a man's income1 and as the butcher's family grew in the course of years inconveniently numerous1 it happened that ,antonin1 the eldest of eight children1 was looked to in early youth to learn his father's trade and contribute toward the family support4 ,unfortunately1 he wished to be a musician4 ,such a desire1 indeed1 chimerical as it may have appeared at the time1 was natural enough in a boy of musical sensibility who had been surrounded from his earliest years by a people passionately devoted to music4 ,not only is music a part of the instruction in the ,bohemian public schools1 but it is the adjunct of all the occasions of life4 ,as many as forty dances are said to be practiced by the peasants1 and we have it on ,dvok's own authority that laborers in ,bohemia sing at their work1 and after church on ,sunday begin dancing1 which they often keep up without cessation till early on the following morning4 ,taking advantage of his opportunities1 the boy had learned at fourteen to play the violin1 the organ1 and the piano1 and to sing4 ,it was a year later that1 summoned by his father to surrender his dreams of musicianship1 he performed an exploit well worth mentioning1 as an early example of his indefatigable persistence and his blundering methods4 ,hoping to enlist his father's sympathy1 he wrote1 scored1 and had played by the village band1 an original polka4 ,mr4 ,hadow tells the story at length2 its point is that ,dvok1 whose ambition was more robust than his learning1 failed to write the trumpets as transposing instruments1 and1 of course1 made a distressing fiasco4 ,there is some little irony in the disaster1 comments ,mr4 ,hadow1 if it be remembered that among all ,dvok's gifts the instinct of orchestration is perhaps the most conspicuous4 ,he is the greatest living exponent of the art2 and he was once in danger of forfeiting his career through ignorance of its most elementary principle4 ,he did1 indeed1 give up music for a year1 but in ,october1 #aheg1 was allowed by his father to enter the ,organ ,school at ,prague4 ,had ,dvok been of an introspective turn of mind1 he might now have wondered rather dismally1 as the months went by in ,prague1 the paternal allowance ceased1 and the tuition at the ,organ ,school proved narrow and technical1 whether he had really benefited himself4 ,fortunately1 he was not given to metaphysical speculation2 he got what training he could from the school and joined a band4 ,in ,mhlhausen he had often taken a viola part in the village band that played for weddings and on holidays2 now he turned his skill to account in the restaurants of ,prague4 ,in this way1 and by playing also in a church orchestra on ,sundays1 he managed to amass about nine dollars a month1 and to acquire an instinct for the way instrumental parts should be written4 ,the only obvious advantage of this trying period was the intimate knowledge of instruments it gave him4 ,he lived1 so to speak1 cheek by jowl with them1 watching them1 handling them1 seeing what was written for them1 and hearing how it sounded4 ,his is no book-knowledge of orchestration4 ,on the other hand1 his extreme poverty1 the limitations of the school1 and his lack of friends to lend him scores or the use of a piano1 cut him off cruelly from that equally essential part of education1 familiarity with classic masterpieces and the traditions of academic learning4 ,his band played only popular overtures and the usual pot-pourris4 ,sometimes he coaxed a kettle-drummer to let him crouch behind the drums and hear a concert4 ,he once had an opportunity to hear ,der ,freischtz for the modest sum of four cents1 but the four cents was not forthcoming1 and ,der ,freischtz went unheard4 ,he could afford to buy no scores1 and there was no library where he could read them4 ,such were the meager advantages of which he made good use2 such the heavy obstacles he gradually surmounted4 ,after his graduation from the ,organ ,school in #ahfj his situation1 both practical and musical1 slowly ameliorated4 ,from ,smetana1 who gave him a position in the orchestra of the ,interimstheater1 a home for ,bohemian opera founded in #ahfb1 he received what was of even more importance to him1 the loan of scores and encouragement in composition4 ,already twenty-one1 he acquainted himself for the first time with ,beethoven's and ,mendelssohn's symphonies and chamber-works1 of which he became a passionate student1 and with ,schumann's songs4 ,for almost ten years he labored steadily and silently4 ,it was the period of apprenticeship1 the period of arduous1 slow mastery of technique and thought through which every creative artist must pass4 ,the mere mass of his exercises is bewildering2 he composed and destroyed an opera and two symphonies1 to say nothing of many other sacrifices on the altar of skill of which not even the names survive4 ,peculiar to himself1 to be sure1 and scarcely a model for other students1 was his method in this long self-evocation4 ,not like ,beethoven did he meditate and revise his themes1 spending infinite labor on sixteen bars of melody1 and not quailing before a dozen revisions so they were needed to pare away the marble and reveal the perfect form4 ,not like ,brahms did he install a systematic training1 day by day winning strength and plasticity of thought on the chest-weights and dumb-bells of contrapuntal exercise4 ,on the contrary1 he forged ahead1 and somehow1 without knowing where he was going or what he was doing1 made himself a master4 ,he took ,parnassus by storm1 as it were1 overran rather than scaled it1 and was victor more by quantity than by quality of performance4 ,yet in all this blundering progress he was protected by a genuine elevation of aim4 ,lacking the sense of tradition and the safeguards of scrupulous taste1 he was not without his own rugged idealism4 ,and so1 although he doubtless had every external inducement to join the ranks of the national movement in music1 then just acquiring momentum1 he maintained his conscientious silence for nearly a decade4 ,his compositions saw the light neither of the concert hall nor of the printing-press2 written with ardor1 they were burned without regret4 ,dvok showed in his lehrjhre the self-respect of all really great artists4 ,it was early in the seventies that he finally emerged from his studious reserve and appeared before the world with an opera1 ,the ,king and the ,collier1 which he was commissioned to write for the ,national ,theater4 ,so clear was the patriotic intent of this commission1 so entirely was the popular interest enlisted in ,smetana's effort to build up a ,bohemian school of music1 that it is hard to conceive how ,dvok could have fallen into the error he now made4 ,he prepared for his fellow-countrymen a ,wagnerian music-drama4 ,the situation is comic4 ,the good ,bohemians1 come to hear folk-tunes1 were given leit-motifs and infinite melody4 ,if they failed to sympathize with his adoration for the ,bayreuth master 7and it seems indeed to have been but a calf-sickness1 afterwards bravely outlived71 if ,the ,king and the ,collier was a flat failure1 ,dvok had no one but himself to blame4 ,at this point1 however1 as at so many others in his career1 his unfailing energy saved the day so nearly lost by what one critic has called his brainlessness4 ,he set to and rewrote his work entire1 leaving not a single number of the unhappy music-drama4 ,but now the libretto1 which had at first been spared a disapproval all concentrated upon the music1 proved worthless and flat1 and the opera was damned afresh4 ,still ,dvok persisted4 ,getting a poet to set an entirely new book to his entirely new music1 he made at last a success with an opera of which ,mr4 ,hadow well says that the ,irishman's knife1 which had a new blade and a new handle1 does not offer a more bewildering problem of identity4 ,no one but ,dvok would have so bungled his undertaking2 no one but he would so have forced it to a successful issue4 ,by #ahgc ,dvok was well started on the career of increasing power and fame that he had worked so hard to establish on firm foundations4 ,that year was marked not only by his installment as organist at ,st4 ,adalbert's ,church1 with a comfortable salary1 and by his marriage1 but also by the appearance of a composition which made his name at once widely known in ,bohemia--the patriotic hymn entitled ,the ,heirs of the ,white ,mountain4 ,four years later his reputation began to spread beyond the border4 ,it was in #ahgg that the approbation of ,brahms1 then a commissioner of the ,austrian ,ministry of ,education1 to which ,dvok had submitted some duets1 induced ,joachim to introduce the young ,bohemian's works into ,england and ,germany1 and the house of ,simrock to publish them4 ,in #ahgh the ,slavonic ,dances made their composer's name immediately known throughout the musical world4 ,his great ,stabat ,mater1 produced in ,england with acclaim in #ahhc1 was the first of several choral works given there in the next few years1 all very successfully4 ,in #ahhi he was decorated by the ,austrian court4 ,in #ahij he received an ,honorary ,doctorate from the ,university of ,cambridge1 was made ,doctor of ,philosophy at ,prague1 and was appointed ,professor of ,composition at the ,conservatory there4 ,the welcome accorded to him in ,america has already been briefly chronicled4 ,his sixtieth birthday was celebrated by a musical festival in #aija1 at ,prague1 where he now makes his home4 ,in ,dvok's varied life a youth of unusual hardship1 of an almost unparalleled severity of struggle both for livelihood and for education1 has been crowned with years full of a prosperity and honor rarely allotted to composers4 ,that time-honored tool of artistic criticism1 the distinction between thought and expression--or1 as the critics say1 between ethos and technique--is one that constantly tempts the critic of music1 and always betrays him4 ,very seductive it is1 because analogy with other arts is so plausible a device for exploiting music2 but push it to its logical outcome and it inevitably vanishes--the form proves to be not the investiture1 nor even the incarnation1 of the thought1 but the thought itself4 ,change the expression and you annihilate the thought2 develop a technique and you create a system of ideas2 mind and body are ultimately one4 ,now the case of ,dvok is strongly corroborative of such a theory of the identity in music of ethos and technique4 ,what is seen from one angle of vision as his love of exotic color1 his devotion to curious intervals of melody1 sudden excursions in tonality1 and odd molds of rhythm1 appears from the other1 the technical side1 as mastery of orchestral sonority and inheritance of a peculiar musical dialect4 ,it is therefore difficult to account exactly for the genesis of any given quality in his work4 ,is it the result of an outer influence acting upon a peculiarly plastic nature1 or does it spring rather from deeply-rooted individual traits that have dominated the course of his development and shaped his style8 ,did his early experiences in a village band1 for example1 awaken and evolve his sense of tone color1 or would his music have been primarily sensuous even if he had had the training of ,brahms1 ,tschakowsky1 or ,csar ,franck8 ,it seems probable that here1 as elsewhere1 inner endowment and outer influence have reacted with a subtlety and complexity that defy analysis1 and thought and style are but aspects of one essence4 ,consequently1 the difference between ethos and technique1 however serviceable as a means of getting over the ground1 as a tool of investigation1 will mislead us unless we constantly remember how partial is its validity4 ,we may indeed1 for the sake of clearness and thoroughness1 speak first of one aspect1 then of another1 but the man we are studying1 like the shield in the allegory1 remains all the time one4 ,to approach the technical side first1 there can be no doubt that the rich quality of ,dvok's tone1 a quality so striking that ,mr4 ,hadow places him with ,beethoven1 ,berlioz1 and ,wagner in the class of supreme masters of orchestration1 would never have been attainable to one who had not had his peculiar experience4 ,he has the practical player's exhaustive knowledge of instruments1 which enables him1 by disposing the parts always in effective registers1 to get a rich and mellow sonority in his ensemble writing4 ,examine any chord in his scores1 and you see that each player gives a tone that he can sound fully and advantageously1 and that each choir of instruments--the strings1 the wood1 the brass--gives in isolation an effective chord4 ,the resultant harmony is a well-balanced1 thoroughly fused mass of tone4 ,but far more important than the power to write effectively disposed single chords is the power to weave a fabric of close texture and firm consistency1 to make the orchestra sustain1 ramify1 and reinforce itself1 so to speak4 ,by far the best way to secure this solidity of texture is to write coherent and well-individualized melodies in the different parts1 which serve as strands to bind the whole4 ,such is the method of ,beethoven among classic and of ,tschakowsky among romantic composers1 and so efficient is good polyphonic or many-voiced writing as a means of sonority that it has been truly said1 ,pure voice-leading is half an orchestra4 ,yet great skill is required for such polyphonic writing1 since all the independent melodies must cooperate harmoniously2 and ,dvok1 who got little academic training as a boy1 is not a great contrapuntist4 ,just here1 however1 his band experience coming to his aid1 he was saved from writing lumpish1 doughy stuff--in which one poor tune in the soprano vainly attempts to hold up a heavy weight of amorphous accompaniment--by his extraordinary knack of vitalizing his entire mass of tone through rhythmic individualization of the parts4 ,taking a skeleton of simple harmony1 he manages to write for the different voices such salient and individual rhythms that they stand out with almost the grace of melodious contrapuntal parts4 ,it is a sort of metrical yeast to keep his bread from being soggy4 ,numerous examples will at once occur to students of his scores1 particularly from the ,slavonic ,dances and ,rhapsodies4 ,a third form of his orchestral mastery might be pointed out in the well-calculated special effects for single instruments1 such as the oboe duet that concludes the first movement of the ,suite1 opus #ci1 which occur everywhere in his scores4 ,but that is1 after all1 a commoner form of skill1 whereas rich sonority and life in the fabric as the result of rhythmic individualization of the parts1 can be found in few scores so highly developed as in those of ,dvok4 ,as regards structure1 ,dvok is felicitous but eccentric4 ,he does not lay out his plans with the careful prevision of one to whom balance and symmetry are vital4 ,his scheme is not foreordered1 it is sketched currently4 ,thus1 for example1 his modulation is singularly radical1 impulsive and haphazard4 ,he loves to descend unexpectedly upon the most remote keys1 never knows where he will turn next1 and when he gets too far from home returns over fences and through no-thoroughfares4 ,often1 with him1 a change of key seems dictated merely by a desire for a particular patch of color2 he wishes to brighten the tonal background with sharps or mollify it with flats1 and plump he comes to his key1 little caring how he gets there or where he is going next4 ,his use of contrasts of tonality is thus characteristic of his love of color-effects for themselves and his willingness to subordinate to them purity of line4 ,again1 it is probably not forcing the point to see in his use of uneven rhythms1 such as five and seven bar periods1 another instance of the same tendency to license4 ,undoubtedly in part a legacy from ,bohemian folk-song1 which is particularly rich in them1 his uneven rhythms seem to be also in part due to a certain fortuitousness of mind4 ,it is as if he closed his phrase1 without regard to strict symmetry1 wherever a good chance offered4 ,the theme of the ,symphonic ,variations1 opus #gh1 is an example4 ,it is interesting to contrast this rhythmic trait of ,dvok's with ,grieg's accurate and sometimes almost wearisome precision of outline4 ,both men derive from folk-music a love of incisive meter--their music has a strong pulse2 but ,grieg1 who is precise1 lyrical1 sensitive to perfection of detail1 is really finical in his unfaltering devotion to square-cut sections1 while ,dvok1 more wayward1 less perfect and exquisite1 strays into all sorts of odd periods4 ,his somewhat arbitrary treatment of tonality relations and of rhythm is thus illustrative of a general laxity of method highly characteristic of the man4 ,in contrast with a jealously accurate artist like ,grieg1 he is felicitous more by force of genius than by wisdom of intent4 ,dvok's childlike spontaneity is in no way better exemplified than by his attitude toward folk-music1 and here again he may profitably be contrasted with ,grieg4 ,both devotees of local color have enriched art with unfamiliar lineaments and unused resources1 yet their modes of procedure have been quite different4 ,grieg1 traversing the usual mill of ,german musical education1 turned consciously to ,norwegian folk-song to find a note of individuality4 ,struck with the freshness of the native dances1 he transplanted them bodily into his academic flower-pots4 ,his courtship of the national ,muse was conscious1 sophisticated1 and his style is in a sense the result of excogitation4 ,dvok1 on the contrary1 growing up in his small ,bohemian village1 unable to get classic scores1 assiduously fiddling throughout his youth at village ftes where the peasants must have a scrap of tune to dance by1 became thoroughly saturated with the rude music4 ,it moved in his veins like blood2 it was his other language4 ,thus the two men were at quite polar standpoints in relation to nationalism4 ,with ,dvok it was a point of departure1 with ,grieg it was a goal of pilgrimage4 ,and so1 while the ,norwegian has tended to immure himself in idiosyncrasy1 the ,bohemian has rubbed off provincialisms without losing his inheritance4 ,his music1 while retaining the sensuous plenitude1 the individual flavor1 the florid coloring1 with which his youth endowed it1 has acquired1 with years and experience1 a scope of expression1 a maturity of style1 and a universality of appeal that make it as justly admired as it is instinctively enjoyed4 ,imperceptibly we have passed from technical analysis into personal inventory4 ,and indeed1 all ,dvok's peculiarities of style may be viewed as the inevitable manifestations of a nature at once rich and nave4 ,his music makes a delightfully frank appeal4 ,it is never somber1 never crabbed1 never even profound4 ,it breathes not passion1 but sentiment4 ,it is too happily sensuous to be tragic1 too busy with an immediate charm to trouble about a remote meaning4 ,even when he is moving1 as in the ,largo of the ,new ,world ,symphony1 is it not with a gentle1 half-sensuous pathos1 a wistfulness more than half assuaged by the wooing sweetness of the sounds that fill our ears8 ,to him music is primarily sweet sound1 and we shall misconceive his aim and service if in looking for something deep in him we miss what is1 after all1 very accessible and delightful for itself--the simple charm of his combinations of tone4 ,,bibliographical ,,note4--,dvok's fecundity is surprising4 ,he has written cantatas1 oratorios1 a mass1 a requiem1 and hymns for chorus and orchestra2 five symphonies1 five overtures1 four symphonic poems1 the well-known ,slavonic ,dances and ,rhapsodies1 concertos for piano1 violin1 and violoncello1 the inimitable ,suite1 op4 #ci1 the ,symphonic ,variations1 op4 #gh1 and other orchestral works of smaller proportions2 seven string quartets1 a sextet1 three trios1 a terzetto for two violins and a viola1 two string quintets1 a piano quintet1 a piano quartet1 a sonata for violin and piano1 and a serenade for wind instruments2 and1 finally1 many piano works and songs4 ,he is at his best in his orchestral and chamber works1 of which the following are typical3 the ,slavonic ,dances1 op4 #df and #gb1 the ,slavonic ,rhapsodies1 op4 #de1 the ,suite1 op4 #ei1 the ,symphony1 ,from the ,new ,world1 op4 #ie1 and the ,scherzo ,capriccioso1 op4 #ff2 the ,sextet1 op4 #dh1 the ,quartet and ,quintet on negro themes1 op4 #if and #ig1 the ,piano ,quintet1 op4 #ha1 and the ,piano ,quintet1 op4 #hg4 ,though these compositions lose much in transcription1 they are all obtainable in four-hand piano arrangements4 ,the piano music is somewhat unidiomatic except the later things1 but the ,mazurkas1 op4 #ef1 the ,poetische ,stimmungsbilder1 op4 #he1 and the ,humoreskes1 op4 #aja1 are worth knowing4 ,of the songs1 nine of the best are published separately by the house of ,simrock1 and the two most popular ones1 ,gute ,nacht and ,als die ,alte ,mutter1 are to be had in ,schirmer's series entitled ,gems of ,german ,songs4 ,a study of these will probably arouse a desire for more1 and the student may buy the ,gipsy ,songs1 op4 #ee1 and the ,love ,songs1 op4 #hc4 ,the duets1 ,klnge aus ,mhren1 not very well known1 are characteristic4 ,,footnotes3 ,d ,a graphic picture of the sleepy little place is given in the essay on ,dvok in ,studies in ,modern ,music1 ,w4 ,h4 ,hadow1 ,second ,series4 ,macmillan1 ,new ,york1 #ahid4 ,,iv ,,camille ,,saint-,,sa,,ns ,illustration3 ,,camille ,,saint-,,sa,,ns ,,iv ,,camille ,,saint-,,sa,,ns ,it is a principle of musical expression that of the two great types of temperament1 the active and the contemplative1 the first tends to express itself in strongly rhythmic figures1 the second in phrases of vaguer outline1 full of sentiment not easily to be confined in molds4 ,the man of action is incisive1 vigorous1 compact in utterance2 the mystic is by contrast indefinite and discursive4 ,it has been well established1 indeed1 that primeval music was the product of two modes of instinctive emotional expression1 the gesticulatory and the vocal1 dance and song2 and throughout its growth these two strands1 however closely they may intertwine1 can still be traced4 ,thus it happens that even to-day we find the complex work of modern musicians getting a special impress of personality and style according as the rhythmic or the melodic-harmonic faculty predominates in the individual4 ,one man's music will be notable for its strong impulse1 its variety and vivacity of rhythm2 another's will appeal to the more dreamy and sentimental part of our natures1 will speak to our hearts so movingly that we shall recognize its descent from the song rather than from the dance4 ,and in all such cases the first man will be of the active temperament1 a man of the world1 of many interests and great nervous force2 the second will be contemplative1 inclined to the monastic life1 and of great heart rather than keen intelligence4 ,such an antithesis of artistic product and of personal character exists in a peculiar degree between ,camille ,saint-,sans and ,csar ,franck1 the two greatest composers ,france has produced since ,bizet4 ,each of these men is great by virtue of qualities somewhat wanting in the other4 ,the one is clever1 worldly1 learned--and a little superficial2 the other1 profound1 religious1 of singularly pure and exalted spirit1 is yet emotional to the verge of abnormality4 ,and so with their music2 that of ,saint-,sans is energetic1 lucid1 consummately wrought1 while ,franck's1 more moving and more subtle1 is so surcharged with feeling as to become vague and inarticulate4 ,a review of their lives and a brief analysis of their work will bring out more clearly this divergence of nature1 which1 in spite of the many traits they have in common1 has determined them to very different careers and exacted of them very dissimilar artistic services4 ,at a concert given in ,paris in #ahdf appeared a new prodigy1 a boy pianist1 le petit ,saint-,sans1 as the ,gazette ,musicale announced him1 who1 only ten and a half years old1 played ,hndel1 ,bach1 ,beethoven1 and ,mozart1 without notes1 with no effort1 giving his phrases with clearness1 elegance1 and even expression in the midst of the powerful effects of a numerous orchestra using all its resources4 ,this1 the first public appearance of ,saint-,sans1 was by no means his first musical exploit4 ,we read that he began the study of the piano with his great-aunt at the age of three1 when already his sense of tone was so keen that he would press down with his left hand the slender fingers of the right until they became strong enough to satisfy his exacting requirements2 that at five he composed little waltzes2 that at ten he played fugues by ,bach1 a concerto of ,hummel1 and ,beethoven's ,c-minor ,concerto2 and that he could tell the notes of all the clock-chimes in the house1 and once remarked that a person in the next room was walking in trochees4 ,by the time he was seventeen he had earned wide reputation as a pianist1 had taken prizes for organ-playing at the conservatory1 and had written an ode for chorus1 solo1 and orchestra1 and a symphony4 ,thus early did he lay the foundations of that skill which in the early seventies1 when at ,wagner's house he played on the piano the ,siegfried score1 won from von ,blow the remark that1 with the exception of ,wagner and ,liszt1 he was the greatest musician living4 ,the surprising energy and versatility shown at the opening of ,saint-,sans's career have proved1 in the course of time1 to be the salient traits of his typically ,gallic nature4 ,he is1 to a remarkable degree1 the complete ,frenchman4 ,he has all the intellectual vivacity1 all the nervous force1 the quick wit and worldly polish1 even the physical swarthiness and the dry keenness of visage1 that we associate with his countrymen4 ,m4 ,georges ,servires1 in his ,la ,musique ,franaise ,moderne1 gives the following excellent description3 ,saint-,sans is of short stature4 ,his head is extremely original1 the features characteristic2 a great brow1 wide and open1 where1 between the eyebrows1 the energy and the tenacity of the man reveal themselves2 hair habitually cut short1 and brownish beard turning gray2 a nose like an eagle's beak1 underlined by two deeply marked wrinkles starting from the nostrils1 eyes a little prominent1 very mobile1 very expressive4 ,the familiars of his ,mondays1 those who knew the artist before injured health and family sorrows had darkened his character1 remember that there was about him then a keen animation1 a diabolic mischievousness1 a railing irony1 and an agility in leaping in talk from one subject to another with a sprightliness of fancy that equaled the mobility of his features1 which were animated at one and the same moment by the most contrary expressions2 and ,i could cite as instances of his gay humor many funny anecdotes that he loved to tell1 adjusting on his nose the while1 with both hands1 in a way peculiar to him1 his eye-glasses1 behind which his eyes sparkled with malice4 ,some examples of this railing irony of ,saint-,sans are preserved4 ,there is1 for instance1 a story of an ambitious woman at one of his ,mondays1 who fairly browbeat him into accompanying her two daughters in a duet4 ,after enduring as long as he could the torture of their timeless and tuneless performance1 he turned to the mother with1 ,which of your daughters1 madam1 do you wish me to accompany8 ,a man of his wit naturally found himself at home in ,paris society1 and counted among his friends for years such people as the ,princess ,pauline ,metternich1 ,mme4 ,viardot-,garcia1 and ,meissonier1 ,tourgenieff1 and ,dumas4 ,a story told in the ,figaro1 of how at ,madame ,garcia's1 where he often played both the organ and the piano1 he would pass from improvising masterly pages in the contrapuntal style to waltzes for the young people to dance by1 illustrates in little that peculiar combination of distinction and gayety1 characteristic of ,paris1 which is the native air of ,saint-,sans4 ,but this adept metropolitan is also an inveterate nomad4 ,not content with traveling all over ,europe in his virtuoso tours1 he has long had the habit of wintering in outlandish places like the ,canary ,islands4 ,often he leaves home without announcing to any one his departure1 or even giving friends his addresses2 sometimes without knowing himself where he will go4 ,the spectacle of distant lands and alien races has for him an inexhaustible fascination4 ,in writing of his experiences in ,england1 where he went in #ahic to receive the doctor's degree from ,cambridge1 he dwells with gusto on the procession of dignitaries1 at the head of which1 he says1 marched the ,king of ,bahonagar1 in a gold turban sparkling with fabulous gems1 a necklace of diamonds at his throat4 ,dare ,i avow1 he adds1 that1 as an enemy of the banalities and the dull tones of our modern garments1 ,i was enchanted with the adventure8 ,and in his charming little essay1 ,une ,traverse de ,bretagne1 the same enthusiasm throws about his oboe-playing ship-captain the glamour of romance4 ,on his first trip to the ,canaries1 made incognito1 he is said to have offered himself as a substitute to sing a tenor part in ,le ,trouvre1 and to have come near appearing in this incongruous rle4 ,when his grand opera1 ,ascanio1 was produced at ,paris1 he scandalized his friends and the public by being absent from the first performance4 ,diligent inquiry1 and even the efforts of the diplomatic agents of the ,government1 failed to discover his whereabouts1 and it was actually rumored that he had died in ,ceylon1 on his way to ,japan4 ,but all the while he was happily basking in the sun at ,palma1 scribbling verses4 ,finally his fondness for astronomy is well known1 and he is said to have a private observatory in some ultimate island4 ,there is much about this picturesque ,frenchman that reminds one of the heroes of ,jules ,verne's romances4 ,when he is at home1 ,saint-,sans carries on a many-sided activity of which composition is hardly more than half4 ,for one thing1 he is indefatigable in his efforts to improve public taste4 ,in #ahfd he gave in a series of concerts all the concertos of ,mozart2 in #ahgh1 such is the catholicity of his taste1 he organized concerts to produce ,liszt's ,symphonic ,poems4 ,he has done much for musical bibliography by his careful editions of ,gluck1 ,rameau1 and others4 ,in #ahga he took active measures to better the opportunities of young native composers4 ,at that time1 as he puts it1 the name of a composer at once ,french and living1 upon a programme1 had the property to put everybody to flight4 ,the great improvement that has taken place since then is due largely to him and his brother-workers of the ,national ,society of ,music4 ,his two volumes of critical essays1 ,harmonie et ,mlodie and ,portraits et ,souvenirs1 are marked by soundness of principle1 broad eclecticism of taste1 and a pungent1 epigrammatic style4 ,in general temper he is classical without being pedantic2 that is to say1 he has no superstitious awe for rules1 but a profound reverence for law4 ,the licenses of modern technique and the mental vagueness of which they are the reflection find in him a formidable foe4 ,the thrust he gives1 in the preface of ,portraits et ,souvenirs1 to those amateurs who are annoyed or disdainful if the instruments of the orchestra do not run in all directions1 like poisoned rats1 is typical of his attitude and method4 ,he is a master of innuendo and delicate sarcasm1 which he always employs1 however1 to protect art against affectation and ignorance4 ,in dealing with the theory that music depends for its effect on physical pleasure1 he speaks derisively of the solo voice which one can savor at one's leisure1 like a sherbet4 ,he says of those orchestral conductors and choirmasters who always complain of difficulties that they love above all their little habits and the calm of their existence4 ,among these sparkling sentences one comes frequently also upon pieces of wisdom1 sometimes expressed with rare dignity1 as when he writes1 ,there is in music something which traverses the ear as a door1 the reason as a vestibule1 and which goes yet further4 ,a writer so highly gifted with both raillery and eloquence might do mischief were he narrow or intolerant4 ,that ,saint-,sans is neither can be seen from a mere enumeration of some of his subjects1 chosen almost at random3 there are essays on ,the ,oratorios of ,bach and ,hndel1 ,jacques ,offenbach1 ,liszt1 ,poetry and ,music1 ,the ,nibelungen ,ring and the ,performances at ,bayreuth1 ,don ,giovanni1 ,a ,defense of ,opra-,comique1 ,the ,multiple ,resonance of ,bells1 and ,the ,wagnerian ,illusion4 ,these titles indicate a wide enough range of interest1 but ,saint-,sans is furthermore a writer on subjects entirely unconnected with music4 ,his devotion to philosophy has prompted him to publish a volume called ,problmes et ,mystres2 an antiquarian interest has found expression in his ,note sur les dcors de ,thtre dans l'antiquit romaine2 and he has printed a volume of poems under the title ,rimes familires4 ,finally1 a comedy in one act called ,la ,crampe des crivains 7a disease from which he appears never to have suffered7 has been successfully produced at ,paris4 ,as a composer1 ,saint-,sans impresses the student first of all by his excessive1 his almost inordinate1 cleverness4 ,it is not seemly for a human being to be so clever2 there is something necromantic about it4 ,look at the opening of the ,g-minor ,piano ,concerto and see a modern ,frenchman writing like the great ,bach4 ,see1 in the ,danse ,macabre1 ,berlioz and ,johann ,strauss amalgamated4 ,listen to the rich effects of tone in the ',cello ,sonata in ,c minor4 ,study the thematic transformations and the contrapuntal style of the ,symphony in the same key4 ,admire the lightness1 the cobweb iridescence1 of the ,rouet d',omphale4 ,the author of these works is obviously a man of great intellectual skill and versatility4 ,looking more closely1 one observes a duality of style1 for the moment puzzling1 which properly understood only emphasizes the peculiarity of his artistic impulse4 ,his compositions are of two well-marked varieties which at first seem to have little in common4 ,to begin with1 all those cast in the conventional symphonic mold--the three symphonies1 the eight concertos1 three for violin and five for piano1 and most of the chamber-music--are severely1 at times almost aridly1 classical in conception and execution4 ,they are absolute music of the most unequivocal sort4 ,they depend for their effect on clear form1 well-calculated symmetry1 traditional though interesting melodic and harmonic treatment2 their themes are of the family of ,haydn and ,mozart2 their structure is that perfected by ,beethoven2 their orchestration is skillful but unobtrusive1 a transparent medium rather than a rich material garment4 ,in a word1 they are very pure examples in music of a type of art--the ,french classic or pseudo-classic type--which gains little from richness of material or variety of suggestion1 which depends for its appeal on clarity and symmetry of form and on clean workmanship in style4 ,but1 in addition to these conventional works1 ,saint-,sans has produced a whole museum of exotics1 in which his aim is to delineate passions1 peoples1 and places4 ,there are the four ,symphonic ,poems1 for example1 the ,rouet d',omphale1 ,phaton1 the ,danse ,macabre1 and ,la ,jeunesse d',hercule1 in which he assumes the rle of story-teller4 ,in the ,nuit ,lisbonne1 the ,jota ,aragonese1 and the ,rapsodie d',auvergne1 he makes a tour in southern ,europe2 in the ,suite ,algerienne he portrays the deserts about ,algiers1 and in his opus #hi he gives us a fantasy of odd rhythms and outlandish tonalities supposed to introduce us to ,africa4 ,nothing could seem1 at the first blush1 more diametrically opposite to the pseudo-classic works than these exotics1 which among their academic brothers recall the ,king of ,bahonagar at ,cambridge4 ,yet both kinds1 after all1 when one looks more closely1 are products of the widely questing intelligence1 whose interests are dramatic rather than personal4 ,they have this in common1 that neither is of primarily emotional origin1 that both are expressions of a mind objective and alertly observant4 ,the difference between them is that in the one case this observation takes for object the purely musical world of tones1 and in the other nature's world of persons1 nations1 races1 and climates4 ,but whether he is seeking a piquant rhythm or a curious turn of harmony1 or sketching his impression of ,spain or ,egypt1 ,saint-,sans is always the onlooker1 the man of the world1 never the mystic who contemplates in his own heart the forces that underlie the universe4 ,strong testimony from the man himself to the truth of this view is indirectly afforded by his essay on ,liszt1 an essay which is furthermore noteworthy as containing in half a dozen sentences the essential truths of that vexed question of programme-music4 ,he is1 to begin with1 as assertive as we should expect of the necessity1 in all music1 of absolute beauty4 ,is the music itself1 he says1 good or bad8 ,all is there4 ,whether or no it has a programme1 it will not be1 for that1 better or worse4 ,thus far speaks the author of the symphonies1 the concertos1 and the chamber-works4 ,the composer of the symphonic poems and the geographical pieces continues3 ,but how much greater is the charm when to the purely musical pleasure is added that of the imagination coursing without hesitation over a determined path4444 ,all the faculties of the soul are put in play at once1 and toward the same end4 ,i can see well what art gains from this1 ,i cannot see what it loses4 ,here speaks1 recognizably enough1 the ,frenchman4 ,in that phrase about the imagination coursing without hesitation over a determined path stands clearly revealed the dramatic point of view characteristic of ,french art1 which is always devoted to the spectacle of life rather than to the elemental passions which underlie it4 ,the satisfactions ,saint-,sans finds in music are those of the formal musical sense and of the imagination coursing a determined path2 of the emotional satisfaction which music gives so generously he has nothing to say4 ,to take another instance1 how admirably logical and how adequate to the composition1 which for all its picturesque grace leaves one cold1 is the programme he appends to the ,rouet d',omphale4 ,the subject of this symphonic poem1 he writes1 is feminine seduction1 the triumph of weakness over strength4 ,the spinning-wheel is but a pretext1 chosen solely with a view to the rhythm and the general effect of the piece4 ,those interested in the study of details will see at page #ai1 ,hercules groaning under the bonds he cannot break1 and at page #cb ,omphale laughing at the vain efforts of the hero4 ,both programme and piece are the creations of a keen intelligence which records its observations with accuracy and skill1 but makes no personal revelation1 cares not to contemplate itself1 and is moved by no deep and perhaps vague1 but nevertheless creative1 emotion4 ,lack of emotion1 then1 is the serious defect of this master4 ,and in a musician it is in truth serious4 ,emotion is the life blood of the musical organism2 without it all the members may be shapely1 well ordered1 highly finished1 but all will be cold and lifeless4 ,so it is with much of this clever craftsman's work4 ,too often there is graceful melody1 arresting harmony1 ingenious rhythm1 but none of the passion needed to fuse and transfigure them4 ,impassioned vocal utterance1 the song element in music1 is seldom heard from ,saint-,sans4 ,in the classic works he manipulates1 in the exotic pieces he depicts2 nowhere does he speak4 ,but to speak1 to voice deep feeling directly1 though with the restraint necessary to plastic beauty1 is the aim and the justification of music4 ,complex as the art has become in our day1 the essence of it is still1 as it ever must be1 emotional expression2 and though modern composers sing broader songs than the first musicians1 and sing them on instruments rather than with the voice1 they must equally sing1 and their song must proceed from their hearts if it is to touch the hearts of others4 ,hence ,saint-,sans1 when compared with a man of passionate earnestness like ,csar ,franck1 or ,schumann1 or ,wagner1 inevitably seems superficial4 ,pieces like his ,b-minor ,violin ,concerto1 with its elaborate classical machinery1 its well-planned contrasts and brilliant effects1 and the vast ,symphony in ,c-minor1 in which the theme undergoes such wonderfully skillful manipulation1 seem so little the expression of a personal impulse that we catch ourselves wondering why he wrote them4 ,elsewhere1 to be sure1 as in the ,andante of the ',cello ,sonata1 his very virtuosity achieves such noble effects that we forget the hand-made quality of the work4 ,but it is seldom indeed that1 subordinating workmanship entirely1 he gives us a genuine song of feeling1 such as the second theme of the ,finale in this ,sonata4 ,the lift and impetus of this beautiful theme emphasizes by contrast the emotional emptiness of the ingenious web that surrounds it4 ,while1 however1 we may with propriety recognize the lack of personal ardor in ,saint-,sans that reduces the song element in his music to a minimum1 it would be a sad mistake to exaggerate the limitation or to forget that from another and perhaps an equally valid point of view he is a great musician4 ,however he may fall short as a melodist1 he is a past-master of rhythm and harmony1 spheres in which feeling counts for less1 logic for more4 ,his harmonic style is eminently lucid4 ,to him a chord is part of an organism1 not a bit of color or a phase of feeling4 ,a series of chords has for him all the tendency1 the direction1 and the self-fulfillment of a sentence of words2 to omit or to change one would be like striking out a predicate or an object--the sentence would not parse4 ,he uses most those chords which point in a definite direction1 which carry in themselves1 so to speak1 the indication for their fulfillment--the dominant and secondary sevenths1 and suspensions of triads4 ,he avoids the vague and the ambiguous4 ,and although he is a lover of novel harmonic effects1 and an ingenious inventor of them1 the novelty is always a new form1 not a new formlessness4 ,his modulation1 too1 is of an extreme clarity3 he never falls into a new key1 so to speak1 as ,dvok does2 he proceeds thither4 ,but even more striking than the clearness of his harmony is the trenchant perspicuity of his rhythm4 ,the sense of rhythm is perhaps the prime criterion of intellectuality in a composer4 ,for just as determinations of accent and measure1 such as occur in the dances of the most primeval savages1 were undoubtedly the earliest means of formulating the cries and wails of emotion which underlie all musical expression1 so throughout musical history rhythm has been the chief formative or rationalizing agent1 and a vivid sense of it has always characterized the more intellectual musicians4 ,the dreamers and the sentimentalists are never fastidious of accent2 it is the clear1 active minds who delight in precise meter4 ,quite inevitable to a man of ,saint-,sans's temperament1 then1 is the instinct for strong1 various and subtle rhythms that his compositions reveal at every page4 ,one discerns it in his fondness for pizzicato effects and for the percussion instruments1 both of which emphasize the accent4 ,and his devotion to the piano1 which he uses more in combination with other instruments than almost any other composer1 is doubtless due to the fact that it compensates for its lack of sustained tone by a special incisiveness of attack4 ,another significant peculiarity is the short groups of repeated notes that occur so often in his writings as to be a mannerism4 ,they are found1 for example1 in the fourth of his ,variations on a ,theme of ,beethoven1 opus #ce1 in the scherzando section of ,africa1 at the opening of the ,trio1 opus #ib1 in the accompaniment of the well-known air from ,samson et ,dalila1 ,mon cur s'ouvre ta voix1 and in the third of the ,six tudes1 opus #eb4 ,the effect of this device1 which throws a strong emphasis on the first of the reiterated notes1 is a peculiar rhythmic salience4 ,again1 on the principle that minor irregularities in a regular plan bring out all the more clearly the larger orderliness1 ,saint-,sans loves to alternate groups of four notes with groups of three1 or three with two1 and to displace his accent entirely by syncopation1 which1 when properly handled1 deepens the ideal stress by setting the actual in competition with it4 ,in all these and countless other ways are revealed the accuracy and virtuosity of intellect that distinguish this brilliant ,frenchman4 ,clearness of form is1 on the whole1 so much rarer in modern music than wealth of meaning1 that the art in our day has peculiar need of such workers4 ,their office is to make us remember1 in our welter of emotion1 the perennial delightfulness of order and control4 ,they are the apologists of reason1 without which feeling1 however noble1 must become futile1 inarticulate4 ,in their precise1 well-constructed works we find a relief from the dissipating effects of mere passion4 ,we breathe there a serene1 if a somewhat rarefied1 atmosphere4 ,of this classic lucidity ,saint-,sans is a great master4 ,however dry he may sometimes be1 he is never turgid2 however superficial his thought1 it is never vague2 he offers us his artistic sweets never in the form of syrup--he refines and crystallizes them4 ,if1 then1 we of a race emotionally profounder and mentally more diffuse find his music sometimes empty for all its skill1 we must not for that reason underrate the service he does for music by insisting on articulateness in feeling1 logic in development1 and punctilious finesse in workmanship4 ,,bibliographical ,,note4--,saint-,sans's best orchestral works are arranged not only for four hands1 but for two players at two pianos1 a combination of which he is extremely fond4 ,it is interesting to play in this way the four symphonic poems1 ,la ,rouet d',omphale1 ,phaton1 the ,danse ,macabre1 and ,la ,jeunesse d',hercule4 ,the five ,piano ,concertos are also excellent4 ,the symphonies are rather dry4 ,of the chamber-music1 the ',cello ,sonata1 op4 #cb1 and the ,violin ,sonatas1 op4 #ge and #ajb1 are particularly good4 ,the piano music is less original1 being for the most part pseudo-classic in conception and style4 ,thus the ,suite1 op4 #ij1 is like a suite of ,bach's with the sincerity taken out4 ,on the whole the ,six tudes1 op4 #eb1 and the ,album of six pieces1 op4 #gb1 are better worth study4 ,the former contains two able fugues1 the latter an odd ,carillon in #g-d time and an attractive ,valse4 ,there is charm in ,les ,cloches du ,soir1 op4 #he1 and also in a well-known melody1 without opus-number1 called ,le ,cygne4 ,saint-,sans has little power as a song-writer2 those who wish to realize this for themselves1 may purchase the ,schirmer ,album of fifteen of his songs4 ,to his numerous operas no reference is made in the present essay1 the subject of which is his contribution to pure music4 ,v ,c,,sar ,,franck ,illustration3 ,c,,sar ,,franck ,v ,c,,sar ,,franck ,when we turn from the brilliant ,parisian we have been studying to that obscure and saintly man1 ,csar ,franck1 the only ,french contemporary of ,saint-,sans who is worthy to be ranked with him as a great composer1 we can hardly believe ourselves in the same country or epoch4 ,it is as if we were suddenly transported from modern ,paris into some medival monastery1 to which the noise of the world never penetrates1 where nothing breaks the silence save the songs of worship and the deep note of the organ4 ,in the presence of this devout mystic the sounds of cities and peoples fade away1 and we are alone with the soul and ,god4 ,we have passed from the noonday glare of the intellect1 in which objects stand forth sharp and hard1 into the soft cathedral twilight of religious emotion2 and putting aside our ordinary thoughts we commune for a time with deeper intuitions4 ,or1 again1 it is like closing a volume of ,taine and taking up ,maeterlinck4 ,from the streets and the drawing-room we pass into the cloister1 where dwell no longer men and things1 but all the intangible presences of thought and feeling4 ,we close our eyes on the pageant of experience1 to reopen them in the dim inner light of introspection1 where1 if we may believe the mystics1 they will behold a truer reality4 ,the temperament of ,franck is thus at the opposite pole from that prehensile ,gallic temperament so well exemplified in ,saint-,sans1 and we should find the juxtaposition of the two men as the greatest ,french composers of their time highly perplexing did we not remember that1 in spite of his almost lifelong residence in ,paris1 ,csar ,franck was by birth and blood1 like ,maeterlinck1 with whom he has so much in common1 a ,belgian4 ,exactly how much the peculiar characters of these men were inherited from their race it is of course impossible to say2 but any one who has seen the placid faces of the ,belgian peasants1 with their calm1 almost bovine look of contentment1 must recognize there a trait that needs only the power of articulation to produce a natural religion of feeling1 or mysticism1 like that of ,csar ,franck and ,maeterlinck4 ,it was the same sort of self-sufficient serenity1 the antithesis of ,saint-,sans's busy worldliness1 that determined the course of ,franck's life1 so obscure1 so uneventful1 so dominated by high spiritual purpose4 ,csar-,auguste ,franck 7it was an inapt name for so pacific a being7 was born in #ahbb1 at ,lige1 ,belgium4 ,there he made his first musical studies1 but went to ,paris at fifteen to study in the ,conservatory4 ,though without the precocity of le petit ,saint-,sans1 he must have been a solid musician at sixteen1 for in a test that took place in ,july1 #ahch1 he transposed a piece at sight down a third1 playing it avec un brio remarquable1 and was awarded the first grand prize of honor at his graduation in #ahdb4 ,foregoing the career of a concert pianist1 which his father wished him to pursue1 repudiating with horror and disgust1 as one of his biographers has it1 the brilliant noise-making that people long mistook for music1 he turned for a livelihood to that laborious work of teaching which he pursued all the rest of his life with patient fidelity4 ,he seems to have been an almost ideal teacher1 long-suffering with the dull pupils1 painstaking and generous with the able ones1 provoking enthusiasm in all by his contagious love for art and his receptivity to ideas4 ,in a degree that is rare even among the best teachers1 he combined endurance and vivacity4 ,giving1 all his life1 from eight to ten lessons a day1 many of them1 even after he had made his reputation1 in girls' boarding-schools and pensions of the usual wearisome sort1 he yet retained vitality to impart to the best minds of the present generation of ,french composers4 ,though after teaching all day1 often not returning home until supper-time1 he would in the evening give correspondence lessons to pupils in the provinces1 and though even the ,sundays were filled with his duties as organist and choirmaster1 still he often found time to assemble his favorite pupils1 and to discuss with them1 as if with perfect equals1 their exercises and his own works4 ,one of these pupils1 ,m4 ,vincent d',indy1 has described how pre ,franck1 as they called him1 would play them his choral compositions1 singing all the vocal parts in a terrible voice2 and how he would sit at the piano1 fixing with troubled gaze some offending passage in an exercise1 murmuring anxiously1 ,je n'aime pas 444 ,je n'aime pas1 until perhaps it grew to seem permissible1 and with his bright smile he could cry a ,j'aime6 ,thanks to his earnest desire to appreciate whatever was good1 controlled as it was by a severely classical taste1 he could make his students good workmen and stern critics without paralyzing their individual genius4 ,he was thorough without being rigid1 and respected learners as much as he revered the masters4 ,naturally1 the learners1 in their turn1 felt for their ,pater seraphicus1 as they named him1 an almost filial affection4 ,emmanuel ,chabrier1 speaking over ,franck's grave1 in ,montrouge ,cemetery1 voiced the feelings of them all when he said that this was not merely an admirable artist1 but the dear regretted master1 the most gentle1 modest1 and wise4 ,he was the model1 he was the example4 ,for thirty-two years1 that is to say1 from #aheh until his death1 ,franck was organist of the glise ,ste4 ,clotilde1 where his playing must have been an endless inspiration to all who heard him1 though his modesty kept him personally inconspicuous4 ,one likes to think of this quiet1 devout musician1 animated by the purest religious enthusiasm1 advancing year by year in mastery of his art1 producing without ostentation works of a novel and radical beauty4 ,few of his listeners could have conceived that one so benignant and courteous1 but so easily forgotten1 was making himself a force that modern music could not forget4 ,they1 who saw only the husk of the man1 could not guess what treasures of humanity and genius it concealed4 ,m4 d',indy well describes the two aspects4 ,any one1 he says1 who had encountered this being in the street1 with his coat too large1 his trousers too short1 his grimacing and preoccupied face framed in his somewhat gray whiskers1 would not have believed in the transformation that took place when1 at the piano1 he explained and commented on some beautiful work of art1 or when1 at the organ1 he put forth his inspired improvisations4 ,then the music enveloped him like an aureole2 then one could not fail to be struck by the conscious will expressed in the mouth and chin1 by the almost superhuman knowledge in his glance2 then only would one observe the nearly perfect likeness of his large forehead to that of ,beethoven4 ,and ,m4 ,derepas has the following paragraph in the same tenor3 ,it was there1 before the keyboards1 his agile and powerful feet upon the pedals1 that it was necessary to see ,csar ,franck4 ,his beautiful head with its finely developed brow crowned with naturally curling hair1 his profound and contemplative expression1 his features marked without exaggeration1 his full1 well-cut mouth breathing health1 444 all wearing the aureole of genius and of faith--it was like a vision of another age in strong contrast with the turbulences of the day4 ,if one is sometimes sorry that ,franck had to spend so much time teaching1 one cannot1 in the face of such descriptions as these1 regret the hours he passed in the glise ,ste4 ,clotilde4 ,its atmosphere was native to his genius1 which was not only religious1 but even ecclesiastical4 ,in hearing his musique cathdralesque1 as ,saint-,sans well called it1 one can almost see the pillars and arches1 the pure candle-flames and the bowed peasants at prayer4 ,it was in the spare moments of this full life that ,franck found time to write his extraordinary music4 ,every morning1 winter and summer1 rising at six1 he set aside two hours for what he expressively called his own work4 ,then1 after breakfast1 came the day's teaching1 in the course of which he would jot down ideas that occurred to him1 recording perhaps eight measures1 and turning again to the pupil4 ,in the evenings1 when there were not correspondence-lessons to write1 or rehearsals1 he often got out his manuscripts once more2 and his short summer vacations were given entirely to composition4 ,all the more remarkable is this indomitability when we remember that he lacked not only the stimulus of public success1 but for a long while even the impetus of having definitely succeeded in his own eyes1 so new were his ideas and so difficult the technique they required4 ,very few composers have matured so late4 ,though he wrote in his youth some trios1 and later a ,mass1 his first really individual work1 ,ruth1 was written when he was nearly fifty2 ,les olides1 his earliest orchestral composition1 was produced in #ahgg1 when he was fifty-five2 ,les ,beatitudes1 in some respects his masterpiece1 was not finished until #ahhj1 though begun more than ten years before2 and all his most characteristic work in pure music1 as1 for example1 the ,prelude1 ,choral1 and ,fugue and the ,prelude1 ,aria1 and ,finale for piano1 the three wonderful ,chorals for organ1 the ,violin ,sonata1 the ,quartet1 the ,quintet1 and the ,symphony1 date from the last decade of his life4 ,in a day when every harmony-student itches to give the world a symphony1 it is hard to admire too much the artistic self-respect that kept ,franck a nonentity for years1 to make him at last a master4 ,meanwhile1 of course1 he had to endure neglect4 ,probably most of his acquaintances shared the impression put into words by a ,paris publisher to whom ,m4 ,servires offered an essay about him4 ,oh1 monsieur1 cried this gentleman1 ,i remember ,csar ,franck perfectly4 ,a man who was always in a hurry1 always soberly dressed in black1 and who wore his trousers too short6444 ,organist at ,sainte ,clotilde4 ,it seems that he was a great musician1 little known to the public4 ,rather harder to explain is the lack of appreciation which in #ahhj led those in power at the ,conservatory1 where ,franck was already organ professor1 to give the chair of composition then left vacant1 not to him1 but to ,lo ,delibes1 the writer of ballet-music4 ,but perhaps the most pathetic result of the general indifference to ,franck was that his masterpiece could never be given a complete performance during his lifetime4 ,les ,beatitudes was first given entire in #ahic1 three years after his death4 ,when he received the ,legion of ,honor in #ahhf1 he said sorrowfully to a friend1 ,yes1 my friend1 they honor me--as a ,professor4 ,that is the one repining word of his that is recorded4 ,it would1 however1 be a mistake to suppose that ,franck's fellow-men noticed nothing but his short trousers1 or that in his high artistic effort he was entirely without sympathy4 ,few men have been more fortunate in their friends4 ,the love and veneration of his many pupils1 and of such men as ,chabrier1 ,piern1 and ,faur1 made an atmosphere in which his heart expanded and his ambition grew4 ,one of this group of admirers tells how they would surround him on his return to ,paris in the autumn1 to ask what he had done1 what he had to show4 ,vous verrez1 repondait-il--the ,french alone can render the endearing vanity and navet of his reply--vous verrez1 repondait-il en prenant un air mysterieux1 vous verrez2 je crois que vous serez content4444 ,j'ai beaucoup travaill et bien travaill4 ,it was a similarly frank and guileless self-satisfaction that made him apparently unaware of the coldness of his audiences1 who were generally puzzled or bored4 ,happy1 as ,m4 d',indy records1 in having given his friends the pleasure of hearing him play his own compositions1 in spite of the scanty applause he never failed to bow profoundly4 ,thus untroubled by the indifference of the crowd1 surrounded by a few men who gave him their warm and discriminating admiration1 and inspired by a genius peculiarly exalted and disinterested1 bent on beauty alone1 and superior to petty jealousies1 ,csar ,franck lived his quiet1 fruitful1 and happy life4 ,he died at ,paris in #ahij4 ,the last anecdote we have of him tells of his finding strength1 four days before his death1 to praise the ,samson et ,dalila of ,saint-,sans1 then running at the ,thtre ,lyrique4 ,i see him yet1 says ,m4 ,arthur ,coquard1 turning towards me his poor suffering face to say vivaciously and even joyfully1 in the vibrant tones that his friends know1 'trs beau1 trs beau4' ,the words1 expressing that pure love of art which animated his whole career1 lodge in the mind of one who studies it1 together with those other words of his1 which none ever had a better right to use1 ,j'ai beaucoup travaill et bien travaill4 ,it has been necessary to dwell at some length on ,franck's life and character because they throw so much light on his music4 ,to an unusual degree it is the expression of himself1 full of his peculiar contemplative emotion4 ,the harmonic background is rich1 somber1 and vague1 like the prevailing mood of a religious devotee2 from it constantly emerge phrases of song1 phrases of the most poignant aspiration1 like passions in a dream1 voicing those intense yet elusive feelings which irradiate none but introspective minds4 ,they are like the cries of human lovers in a world of silence and mystery1 or1 better1 they are the cries of a finite soul that yearns for ,god and finds him not4 ,one feels always in ,franck's music the tragedy of the finite and the infinite4 ,those groping1 shifting harmonies1 above which the pathetic fragments of melody constantly sound for a moment1 somehow irresistibly suggest the great unknown universe in which men's little lives are acted4 ,all is vague save the momentary feature1 and that presses on towards a fulfillment that perpetually eludes it4 ,all shifts and passes1 save only that never-ceasing mood of aspiration1 that restless striving of the fragment for completion4 ,spiritual unrest is the characteristic quality of this music--the unrest of a spirit pure and ardent but forever unsatisfied4 ,now1 it is perhaps not too fantastic to find in the mingled vagueness and poignancy of this music the proper artistic expression of mysticism4 ,so must a mystic express himself4 ,for it is characteristic of the mystical temperament to yearn for ideal satisfactions1 but to find none in finite forms4 ,mysticism1 in fact1 is one of the ways of solving1 or perhaps we should say of ignoring1 that primal and protean mystery of human life1 the conflict between ideal needs and actual facts4 ,realism meets it by denying the needs and exalting the facts2 idealism attempts to mold the real into conformity with the ideal1 of course with very partial success4 ,the mystic1 too earnest to follow the realistic method1 too impatient to endure the plodding progress of idealism1 cuts the ,gordian knot by discarding the actual altogether4 ,he pronounces it too inelastic1 too constricting1 and dispenses with it4 ,he hugs the ideal to his heart1 but can see no virtue in the real4 ,actualities1 objects1 events1 and forms which to the idealist are precious if only partial expressions of spiritual values1 are to him wholly recalcitrant1 wholly external and illusory4 ,the really precious thing1 he says1 is something transcendent1 something remote1 something that cannot transpire in events or body itself in forms1 because it is infinite and complete1 while these are finite1 broken1 and limited4 ,henri-,frdric ,amiel1 a man peculiarly dominated by this way of viewing things1 wrote in his ,journal1 ,nothing finite is true1 is interesting1 is worthy to fix my attention4 ,all that is particular is exclusive1 and all that is exclusive repels me4 ,there is nothing non-exclusive but the ,all2 my end is communion with ,being through the whole of ,being4 ,now1 whatever may be the merits of this point of view1 it obviously involves a certain degree of artistic failure4 ,the mystic cannot be entirely successful in art4 ,for art depends on organization in definite forms1 and the mystic rejects all particular forms as finite4 ,reality1 the present1 the irreparable1 the necessary1 writes ,amiel1 repel and even terrify me4444 ,the life of thought alone seems to me to have enough elasticity and immensity1 to be free enough from the irreparable2 practical life makes me afraid4 ,accordingly1 men of this temperament are defeated in their search for beauty by an unconquerable shyness of all its incarnations4 ,they fear that in defining their fancy they will vulgarize it4 ,it is their fate to long for an all-inclusive form in a world where forms are mutually exclusive1 to strive to utter truth in one great word1 when even the shortest sentence must occupy time4 ,amiel himself is a pathetic example of the mystic's destiny in art4 ,haunted all his life by the vision of infinite beauty1 the conception of absolute truth1 he could never bring himself to accept the limitations of all human performance1 and his talent was almost as unproductive as it was exalted4 ,he never could embody his aspirations4 ,tantalizing him with the suggestion of supernal beauties1 they resisted all his efforts to come up with and embrace them1 because he denied himself the use of those definite forms in which alone1 however inadequately1 ideals can be realized4 ,in many respects ,csar ,franck is the analogue in music of ,amiel in literature4 ,that vague richness of his emotional tone1 which like a dark background of night is constantly lighted up by meteoric outbursts of passion1 is strangely like the somber moralizings and speculations1 in the ,journal ,intime1 among which ,amiel's cries of spiritual pain1 doubt1 and longing stand out with such sudden1 poignant pathos4 ,franck has in common with ,amiel the mystic's longing for ideal satisfactions1 and the mystic's distrust of all finite means of attaining them4 ,he1 too1 is afraid of the forms of practical life1 of the conventional devices of musical structure and the types evolved by tradition4 ,he avoids always the obvious1 the natural even1 and gropes toward some unattainable ideal of expression4 ,so great is his distrust of the understood1 the accepted1 the usual and intelligible1 that he is always leaving the beaten track and roaming afield after some novel and untamed beauty4 ,it will be worth while to get to closer quarters with this tendency1 and to see exactly how it operates4 ,it is hard to make those unacquainted with musical technique understand how much of fixity there is in the musical idiom1 how definite are the types of musical form1 how potent the requisitions of musical syntax4 ,yet1 without a sense of this fixity in the material1 it is impossible to estimate justly those impulses and motives which may lead a composer to violate usages and to disappoint expectations4 ,in the matter of harmony1 for instance1 there are certain types of procedure1 certain progressions and sequences of chords1 that are as stable and uniform as the types of animal or vegetable form4 ,a horse1 a dog1 or a man is not a more definite organism than the two chords in the ,amen of a hymn tune4 ,this group or cluster of two chords1 linked together by a common tone held over from one to the other1 yet made distinct by progression of the other voices1 is typical of a kind of harmonic form that long usage has established as part of our mental furniture4 ,we are used to thinking of chords thus welded by a common tone1 and we demand this sort of coherence in our harmonic progressions1 just as we demand that a horse's body shall be furnished with a horse's legs1 or that a transitive verb shall have an object4 ,to be sure1 this particular sort of cluster1 in which both chords are1 as we say1 consonant1 is somewhat less determinate than another sort which we shall describe presently1 because1 since all the tones of the first chord are equally important1 any one may be selected as the link1 and there will be consequently some latitude in the choice of the second chord1 which completes the group4 ,but within these limits this sort of harmonic type is definite and fixed1 and that it is deeply ingrained in our mode of thought is proved by our horror of consecutive octaves and fifths1 those bugbears of harmony students1 which are bad chiefly because they are not compatible with the retention of a common linking tone between the two members of the group4 ,here we have1 then1 one of those fundamental harmonic forms which are in music what idioms or phrases are in language4 ,it is striking how sedulously ,csar ,franck1 distrustful of the definite1 the conventional1 avoids them4 ,compared with the work of a keen rationalist like ,saint-,sans1 his music is curiously incoherent1 curiously loose-knit1 groping1 and indeterminate4 ,his pages are studded with departures and evasions2 he delights in going some other way than we expect1 or in writing chords that do not give us even any basis of expectation4 ,consecutive octaves and fifths1 so terrible to lovers of cogency and sequence1 are an especial feature of his harmony1 giving it that curious lapsing effect so characteristic and indescribable4 ,his entire tone-mass has a trick of sliding bodily up or down1 which disconcerts1 even while it fascinates1 one who is accustomed to harmonic stability4 ,the student need only play over the opening of the ,symphony or the first page of the ,string ,quartet to feel that here is a man who treats traditions debonairly1 and who thus suggests novel beauties without defining them4 ,equally irresponsible is he in his treatment of another sort of harmonic form which is intrinsically even more definite than the clusters of consonant chords like the ,amen4 ,when there is a dissonant tone in the first chord1 a tone which1 having slight justification for being1 presses urgently toward a neighboring tone in the next chord1 into which it is said to resolve1 then the cluster1 as a whole1 is even more determinate4 ,the dissonance introduces a tension that must be relieved in one definite way4 ,it involves its own resolution just as unstable equilibrium in a body involves its falling in the direction of the greatest pull4 ,the alien tone in the chord is got rid of by the path of least resistance2 it is a foreign element that must be discharged4 ,so potent is this tendency of dissonant tones to resolve that it is one of the chief means of vitalizing the entire musical fabric4 ,unless music constantly got out of harmony with itself it would no more progress than a man would walk unless before each step he lost his balance4 ,it would stagnate4 ,consider1 for example1 the last phrase of that highly vitalized tune1 ,the ,man that ,broke the ,bank at ,monte ,carlo4 ,no one could attribute stagnation to this phrase1 whatever other faults he might find in it2 and its impetus is largely due to the vigor with which it lands on the dissonant chord next before the last1 and the consequent pull of this chord into the last4 ,try to conceive of ending without that last chord1 that resolution in which the foreign element is discharged and all comes to rest4 ,it is told of ,mendelssohn that he rushed down-stairs in his night clothes early one morning to resolve a dominant seventh chord 7such as we have on the syllable ,car7 which some waggish friend struck and left uncompleted4 ,mendelssohn was of course unusually sensitive to harmonic law1 but it is not too much to draw from this incident the conclusion that a chord which can get a man out of bed in the morning to resolve it must pretty potently suggest resolution4 ,dissonant chords1 in fact1 are anything but inert elements in the chemistry of harmonic composition4 ,they have strong affinities and combine powerfully4 ,yet ,csar ,franck is inclined either to ignore these tendencies or to shift them into unexpected and circuitous channels4 ,the dissonant chords1 though they occur often in his work1 seldom take their normal course4 ,they are led into new dissonances1 diverted to alien keys1 subjected to ingenious modifications1 and in all ways wrested from the realm of the obvious4 ,towards the end of the ,introduction to the first movement of the ,string ,quartet1 for instance1 the student will find dominant sevenths most interestingly unfaithful to their family tradition1 and effecting modulation through distant keys4 ,similar treatment will be found on almost any page in this ,quartet1 in the ,quintet1 the ,symphony1 and the piano works4 ,thus1 ,franck not only goes counter to the less determinate harmonic types in which both chords are consonant1 but he loves to disappoint our expectations when they are strongly established by dissonances4 ,nothing is more characteristic of him than the formal indefiniteness of his harmony4 ,full as it is of delicious and unwonted beauties1 it lacks accurate organization1 clarity and solidity of chord sequence4 ,it is a web of shifting tones1 without obvious interrelationship and inevitable progression4 ,when we turn to ,franck's treatment of meter and rhythm1 we get some new side-lights on the way his mysticism affects his music4 ,he is1 in the first place1 noticeably lacking in that vigor of pulse1 that strong accentuation1 which is the delight of active temperaments4 ,he sings constantly1 almost never dances4 ,after a while the intensity of the song-like phrases1 so packed with emotion1 becomes cloying1 and we long for a little of the headlong1 thoughtless progress of ,grieg and ,dvok4 ,we need the relaxation of muscular activity4 ,it would be a relief to stop feeling for a moment and be borne along on a wave of perfectly unemotional passage-work4 ,but ,franck never relieves himself and his hearer by passages of brisk motion in which the interest is entirely active2 he is1 so to speak1 a very sedentary composer4 ,and so the rare beauties that stud the page lose something by being set so thickly4 ,the richness of ,franck's emotional impulse is a disadvantage to his metrical structure4 ,the same thing1 again1 is true of his rhythm or phraseology4 ,we saw in the ,introduction how elementary metrical groups--measures--were built up into phrases and tunes1 and how the strongest synthetic minds got the greatest variety and breadth of phrase4 ,now ,franck's phrasing1 like ,grieg's1 is of the primitive kind that reveals lack of mental concentration1 inability to build up wide and complex forms4 ,draw a line across his staff at every breathing-point1 and your lines will fall pretty regularly after the measures whose numbers are multiples of four4 ,try the same thing with ,beethoven1 and there will be no telling where the lines will come1 so varied is the phraseology4 ,in comparison1 ,franck's themes seem hardly more than bundles of motifs1 loosely tied together4 ,and of course this effect is unfortunately reinforced by the peculiarities of his harmony4 ,how could a theme hold itself together in such a kaleidoscope8 ,how could it sustain itself on such a tonal quicksand8 ,thus his tunes1 rich as they are in single phrases of poignant beauty1 seldom develop much breadth4 ,they start out well1 but soon lose themselves in the web or fall into poorly welded segments4 ,in the larger structural arrangement of his material as well as in his primary metrical order he falls short of the perfect organization of more powerful minds4 ,franck illustrates1 then1 in many ways1 in his erratic treatment of harmony1 in his metrical monotony1 and in his shortness of breath1 the mystic's failure to master form4 ,and yet1 so beautiful are his effects1 so arresting is his personality1 one feels instinctively that there is in him something which destructive criticism cannot assail4 ,the very inarticulateness of the mystic is1 in fact1 a sort of eloquence1 perhaps all the more persuasive because it hints at beauties rather than defines them4 ,however beyond his reach his aspirations may be1 so long as they are genuine and ardent he will have his unique artistic message4 ,his work will gain a pathetic appeal from the very fact that it suggests feelings it cannot embody1 and his inarticulateness may even open up ways to new modes of utterance by reminding men that there are truths other than those their formulas so smugly stereotype4 ,thus a writer like ,amiel1 ineffective as he seems from one point of view1 is not without his liberalizing influence in literature4 ,in the same way1 ,csar ,franck1 the mystic among musicians1 thanks to his profound insight and emotion1 combined though they be with the characteristic shortcomings of the seer1 will widen the scope of future musical technique and expression4 ,,bibliographical ,,note4--,the ,prelude1 ,choral1 and ,fugue for ,piano are to be had in the ,collection ,litolff4 ,the ,prelude1 ,aria1 and ,finale are published by ,j4 ,hamelle1 ,paris4 ,these are the only piano pieces of ,franck that are easily obtainable4 ,the house of ,hamelle also issues a four-hand arrangement of the ,symphony1 and ,durand1 of ,paris1 publishes a four-hand arrangement of the three masterly ,chorals for organ1 as well as the original edition of these1 and of two sets of organ pieces1 one of six and the other of three4 ,the ,beatitudes has been reprinted1 with ,english words1 by ,g4 ,schirmer4 ,a few of ,franck's songs1 particularly ,la ,procession1 ,panis ,angelicus1 and ,le ,mariage des ,roses1 will be found in the portfolios of most large music dealers4 ,,vi ,,peter ,,ilyitch ,,tscha,,kowsky ,illustration3 ,,peter ,,ilyitch ,,tscha,,kowsky ,,vi ,,peter ,,ilyitch ,,tscha,,kowsky ,one of the constant temptations of the biographer is that of seizing on some salient trait in his subject1 magnifying it beyond all relation to others which supplement or modify it1 and portraying an eccentric rather than a rounded personality1 a monster rather than a man4 ,human nature is complex1 many-sided1 even self-contradictory to any but the most penetrative view2 and so slender are the resources of literature for dealing with such a paradox as a man1 that writers1 resorting to simplification1 sacrifice fullness to intelligibility4 ,in books ,napoleon is apt to be denied all scruples1 ,keats all virility1 ,marcus ,aurelius all engaging folly2 the real men were probably not so simple4 ,it is certain1 at any rate1 that ,tschakowsky1 the greatest of ,russian musicians1 one of the two greatest of all composers since ,wagner1 cannot have been the mere incarnation of concentrated gloom that his critics have drawn4 ,some worthier powers than that of eloquent lamenting must have contributed to mold him4 ,he was not simply a sort of neurasthenic ,jeremiah with a faculty for orchestration4 ,it is only too easy and plausible1 to be sure1 to label him with one of those insidiously blighting epithets1 neurasthenic1 decadent1 or morbid4 ,he was1 in fact1 of an unfortunate heredity2 his grandfather was epileptic1 and his own symptoms pointed to an inherited nervous irritability4 ,he was troubled more or less1 all his life1 by sleeplessness1 fatigue1 depression2 and in his thirty-seventh year had a complete nervous collapse4 ,but to discredit a man's insight by pointing out his physical misfortunes is as misleading as it is unkind4 ,the fact that ,schopenhauer1 with whose temperament ,tschakowsky's had much in common1 had some insane and idiotic ancestors1 and suffered much from his own unusual sensitiveness1 does not in the least abate the truth of his philosophic teaching1 though it may call attention to its one-sidedness4 ,and so with the musician2 knowledge of his personal twist ought not to make us deaf to whatever is universal in his utterance4 ,we may remember that he reports but one aspect of the truth2 but if he reports that truly1 we may supply the other1 and need not carp at the way he got his information4 ,and indeed is it not1 after all1 an artificial circumscription of life to ignore its sadder verities1 however moral ,pharisees may stigmatize the perception of them as morbid8 ,has not disease1 as well as health1 its relation to our fortunes8 ,is not man's weakness an organic part of his strength1 his fear of his courage1 his doubt of his faith8 ,that mere facile optimism which smiles blandly at all experience1 with unseeing eyes1 is as partial and false as the unrelieved pessimism into which the contemplation of it sometimes drives the sensitive4 ,the world is no more all light than it is all shadow4 ,all human life1 with its suffering as well as its happiness1 is one1 and every sincere human experience has its own weight4 ,and so ,tschakowsky1 in spite of grandfathers and symptoms1 has a right to be respectfully heard4 ,the tendency to depreciate men like ,tschakowsky and ,schopenhauer generally rests on a confusion between what may be called sentimental and rational pessimism4 ,the sentimental pessimist1 the weak malcontent1 who sees everything through the blue spectacles of egotism1 or1 like the cuttlefish1 muddies his world with a black humor of his own1 deserves indeed nothing better than a shrug4 ,like all other forms of sentimentality1 his pessimism is based on selfishness4 ,it is an emanation1 not an insight4 ,it is that form of colic1 to use the figure of ,thoreau1 which makes him discover that the world has been eating green apples4 ,quite different from such a sentimentalist1 however1 is the sensitive man who feels impersonally the real evils of life4 ,such a man's experience is viewed by him1 not as the end1 but as the means1 of insight4 ,his own pains1 however keen1 appear to him but as symbols of the universal suffering of humanity1 and however much his view may be subjectively jaundiced1 it does not terminate in1 but only begins with1 the petty self4 ,he is not a devotee of the luxury of woe4 ,a very noble character1 says ,schopenhauer1 we always conceive with a certain tinge of melancholy in it--a melancholy that is anything but a continual peevishness in view of the daily vexations of life 7for such peevishness is an ignoble trait1 and arouses suspicions of maliciousness71 but rather a melancholy that comes from an insight into the vanity of all joys1 and the sorrowfulness of all living1 not alone of one's own fortune4 ,and ,tschakowsky1 in describing ,beethoven's ,choral ,symphony1 writes1 one can see1 from precisely the same standpoint3 ,such joy is not of this earth4 ,it is something ideal and unrealizable2 it has nothing in common with this life1 but is only a momentary aspiration of humanity towards the holiness which exists only in the world of art and beauty2 afterwards1 this vale of earth1 with its endless sorrow1 its agony of doubt and unsatisfied hopes1 seems still more gloomy and without issue4 ,in the ,ninth ,symphony we hear the despairing cry of a great genius who1 having irrevocably lost faith in happiness1 escapes for a time into the world of unrealizable hopes1 into the realm of broken-winged ideals4 ,now undoubtedly these passages1 especially the latter1 are guilty of false emphasis2 undoubtedly one can truly reply to ,tschakowsky that the ideal is necessarily fairer than reality1 as the flower is fairer than the soil from which it springs1 that this vale of earth is not without issue1 however gloomy1 since it does in fact produce the ideal world of art and beauty1 and that it is precisely the glory of hopes that they are unrealizable1 and of happiness that it exists only on a level higher than that of finite life4 ,but1 however one-sided may be the opinions expressed1 the attitude of mind is free from the taint of petty selfishness2 it is frank1 open-eyed1 and manly4 ,such utterances proceed only from natures nobly human1 however burdened with a greater sensibility than is common among men4 ,of the extraordinary sensibility of ,tschakowsky1 his emotional intensity and impetuosity1 which1 discerning truly1 critics have so often falsely interpreted1 there can be no doubt4 ,he was the subject and in some ways the victim1 of hereditary instability1 a tendency1 so to speak1 to go off at half-cock4 ,in his life no trait comes out more conspicuously1 and its association with his powerful intellect1 with which it was always at odds1 goes far to explain the anomalies and paradoxes of his music4 ,we see it constantly in his acts1 where1 if we always remember that we are studying a great nature1 which must be analyzed respectfully and without vulgar curiosity1 we may learn much from observing it4 ,peter ,ilyitch ,tschakowsky was born in a small ,russian town in #ahdj4 ,as a very small boy he showed his ardent patriotism by kissing the map of ,russia1 in his ,atlas1 and spitting at the rest of ,europe4 ,when his ,french nurse remonstrated1 he explained that he had been careful to cover ,france with his hand4 ,there already is his temperament--passionate and tender4 ,the ,tschakowsky family early moved to ,st4 ,petersburg1 where ,peter at first entered the ,school of ,jurisprudence1 and later obtained a post in the ,ministry of ,justice4 ,all through his youth he was indolent1 popular1 fond of society1 a graceful amateur who played salon pieces at evening parties4 ,that his serious interest in music was first aroused by his cousin's showing him how to modulate is rather amusing when we remember the virtuosity and daring of his mature harmonic style4 ,my cousin said it was possible to modulate from one key to another1 he says1 without using more than three chords4 ,this excited my curiosity1 and to my astonishment ,i found that he improvised whatever modulations ,i suggested1 even from quite extraneous keys4 ,in #ahfa he wrote to his sister that he was meditating a musical career1 but was still in doubt whether he could pursue it successfully4 ,perhaps idleness may take possession of me1 and ,i may not persevere4 ,but a little later all doubts had vanished1 he had given up his official work1 withdrawn from society1 and thrown himself with characteristic ardor into his studies4 ,he now sometimes sat up all night working1 and ,rubinstein1 his composition teacher at the ,conservatory1 tells how on one occasion he submitted no less than two hundred variations on a single theme4 ,he made such good progress that in #ahff1 a few years after his graduation1 he was appointed professor of harmony in the ,moscow ,conservatory4 ,from about this time date his first important compositions4 ,when first he came to live in ,moscow1 writes his friend ,m4 ,kashkin1 although he was then six-and-twenty1 he was still inexperienced and young in many things1 especially in the material questions of life2 but in all that concerned his work he was already mature1 with a particularly elaborate method of work1 in which all was foreseen with admirable judgment1 and manipulated with the exactitude of the surgeon in operating4 ,m4 ,kashkin's testimony is a valuable corrective to the widespread impression that ,tschakowsky composed in a mad frenzy of passion4 ,no good work1 in art any more than in science1 is done without that calm deliberation which his strong mental grasp made possible to him4 ,his early compositions were for the most part operas1 and1 it must be added1 unsuccessful operas4 ,the ,voievoda1 written in #ahff1 did not satisfy him1 and he burned the score4 ,undine1 composed in #ahgj1 was not accepted by the theatrical authorities1 who moreover mislaid the manuscript2 ,tschakowsky1 years later1 recovered and destroyed it4 ,in #ahgc ,snegourotchka1 a ballet1 in spite of some musical beauty1 failed for lack of dramatic interest4 ,the success of ,kouznetz ,vakoula1 produced a year later1 was ephemeral4 ,thus it was not until ,the ,oprichnik1 which still holds the stage in ,russia1 was brought out1 when ,tschakowsky was thirty-four1 that he made a pronounced success4 ,the persistence with which he continued to labor during these years seems to be overlooked by those who consider him a mere prophet of lassitude and discouragement4 ,nor would such a man have undertaken and discharged the drudgery of journalistic criticism as did ,tschakowsky in the four years from #ahgb to #ahgf1 when he was writing critiques for the ,moscow papers4 ,whatever fluctuations of mood he may have undergone in these early years1 and we may be sure they were many1 his outward life was an example of equability1 diligence and patience4 ,in #ahgg1 however1 there was some sort of tragic happening4 ,that it was somehow connected with an unhappy marriage1 that it resulted in a complete nervous breakdown1 these things we know4,e ,it is unnecessary to probe for more specific details2 it is enough to note that for a long time he was broken and despairing1 that through all the rest of his life his mental temper1 never bright1 was shadowed with a pathological gloom4 ,he left the ,conservatory suddenly1 and was abroad a year4 ,he wrote one of his friends1 ,on the whole1 ,i am robust2 but as regards my soul1 there is a wound there that will never heal4 ,i think ,i am homme fini4444 ,something is broken in me2 my wings are cut and ,i shall never fly very high again4 ,he says that had he remained a day longer in ,moscow he should have drowned himself1 and it is said that he did go so far1 in his terrible depression1 as to stand up to his chest in the river one frosty ,september night1 in the hope of literally catching his death of cold1 and getting rid of his troubles without scandal4 ,but he took the better way2 indeed1 the best years1 the quietest and most fruitful years1 of his life were yet before him4 ,as robust in character as he was sensitive and impetuous in temperament1 he pulled himself together1 and wrote in the next year his masterly ,fourth ,symphony1 his best opera1 ,eugene ,oniegin1 said to be the second most popular opera in ,russia1 and many other strong works4 ,he returned also1 in the fall of #ahgh1 to his post at the ,conservatory1 but1 by the generosity of an anonymous lady1,f was soon enabled to give up teaching and devote himself entirely to composition4 ,from this time on1 except for a conducting tour through western ,europe in #ahhh1 and one to ,america a few years later1 he stayed chiefly in the country1 in studious solitude4 ,his mode of life at ,maidanova1 a little village where in #ahhe he took a house1 has been described by ,m4 ,kashkin1 who often visited him4 ,after working all the morning1 and taking a simple but well-cooked dinner1 ,tschakowsky always went for a long walk1 no matter what the weather4 ,many of his works were planned and his themes invented1 we are told1 in these long rambles across country4 ,after tea he worked again until supper-time1 and after supper the two friends1 ordering a bottle of wine and dismissing the servant1 would devote themselves to playing four-hand music4 ,m4 ,kashkin tells one or two interesting stories of ,tschakowsky at this period4 ,his impulsiveness1 it seems1 took the form in money matters of a fairly reckless generosity4 ,so lavishly did he shower coppers on all the peasant children in the neighborhood1 that he could not go for his walk without being surrounded by them4 ,in one afternoon he is said to have dispensed fourteen shillings of his own and all of ,m4 ,kashkin's small change4 ,a friend once asked him where he invested his capital4 ,convulsed with laughter1 he answered that his last investment of capital had been in a ,moscow hotel1 and that where his next would be he did not know4 ,the events of his tour in #ahhh he has himself narrated with characteristic modesty and charm1 in a fragment of diary4 ,one can read between the lines that he was everywhere the center of admiring interest1 but with fine literary instinct he constantly subordinates himself to the people and events through which he moved4 ,how lovable are his vainly continued efforts to enjoy the music of ,brahms1 his eagerness to record the little kindnesses of his friends1 his dignified reticence about his enemies1 his hearty appreciation of work far inferior to his own6 ,i trust1 he says1 that it will not appear like self-glorification that my dithyramb in praise of ,grieg precedes the statement that our natures are closely allied4 ,speaking of ,grieg's high qualities1 ,i do not at all wish to impress my readers with the notion that ,i am endowed with an equal share of them4 ,i leave it to others to decide how far ,i am lacking in all that ,grieg possesses in such abundance4 ,this warm appreciation of others1 combined with so pathetic a lack of self-confidence that on more than one occasion he burned the score of a work which was coldly received1 was so extreme in ,tschakowsky that one of his friends pronounced him the least conceited of composers4 ,like all sensitive people1 indeed1 he was painfully conscious of social bonds2 what was due him from others1 and what in turn was due them from him--these intangibles1 so easily forgotten by most men1 were to him heavy realities4 ,it is touching to see how dependent he was on the friendliness of the orchestra he was leading1 and he was so impressible by criticism that long after his fame was established he could repeat word for word ,hanslick's and ,cui's early attacks upon him4 ,on the other hand1 ,m4 ,kashkin says that when he was conducting the works of others he was so sensible of his responsibility that his face wore a look of physical pain4 ,when he was dying of cholera1 in terrible agony1 he thanked all about his bedside for the consideration they showed him1 and his last remark reminds one of ,charles the ,second's ,i am afraid1 gentlemen1 ,i am an unconscionable time a-dying4 ,he turned to his nephews after an unusually severe attack of nausea with the exclamation1 ,what a state ,i am in6 ,you will have but little respect for your uncle when you think of him in such a state as this6 ,he died at ,st4 ,petersburg1 in ,october1 #ahic4 ,by this time it will be clear enough that this was no puling complainer1 but a delicate1 high nature of great emotional intensity1 subjected to a cruel interaction of temperament and circumstances1 and yet capable of nobly constructive artistic work4 ,his life1 candidly examined1 reveals modesty1 dignity1 elevation of ideal and of character4 ,yet it does illustrate1 too1 in many ways1 that lack of emotional balance which underlies the peculiar quality of his music4 ,his mere method of approaching his art1 in the first place1 is significant4 ,all his early efforts1 as we have seen1 were operas2 he wrote altogether ten operas1 and the ,pathetic ,symphony is the last fruit of a genius dramatic rather than symphonic4 ,at thirty ,tschakowsky was unable to read orchestral scores with ease1 and preferred to study the classics through four-hand arrangements1 while his distaste for the purest form of music was so great that he protested he could hardly keep awake through the performance of the masterly ,a-minor ,quartet of ,beethoven4 ,this attitude toward the string quartet1 which is in music what engraving or etching is in representative art1 is very anomalous in a young composer1 and shows so disproportionate an interest in the merely expressive side of music that it is hard to understand how ,tschakowsky ever became so great a plastic master as his last two symphonies1 for all their freight of passion1 show him to be4 ,he never1 in fact1 wholly outgrew certain peculiarities which are direct results of his emotional instability1 his slavery to mood4 ,his persistent use of minor keys1 for example1 is1 as the doctors say1 symptomatic4 ,the minor is naturally the medium of vague1 subjective moods and fantasies1 of aspiration1 longing1 and doubt2 it is the vehicle of morbidly self-bounded thoughts1 whose depressing gloom is equalled only by their seductive and malign beauty4 ,such thoughts we find too often in ,chopin1 ,grieg1 and1 it must be added1 in ,tschakowsky4 ,of the first thirty songs he wrote1 seventeen are in the minor mode4 ,of course too much should not be argued from a detail of this sort1 but the major system is so naturally the medium of vigorously objective thought that we instinctively suspect the health of a mind which harps continually upon the minor4 ,by a somewhat similar tendency towards self-involution1 the natural result of intense emotionality1 ,tschakowsky inclines to monotony of rhythm2 he gets hypnotized1 as it were1 by the regular pulsation of some recurring meter1 and he continues it to the verge of trance4 ,an example is the long pedal-point on ,d1 in the curious #e-d measure of the second movement of the ,pathetic ,symphony4 ,this is like the wailing and rocking of the women of a savage tribe over the death of a warrior2 it is at once wild and sinister4 ,but perhaps the most striking evidence of this servitude to passion we are trying to trace in ,tschakowsky is his constant use of climax4 ,it seems to be quite impossible for him to preserve a mean-tone2 he is always lashing himself into a fury1 boiling up into a frenetic fortissimo1 after which he lapses into coma until some phrase of melody or impulse of rhythm jostles his imagination again1 and he presses on toward a new crisis4 ,the effect of these cumulative whirlwinds of passion is often tremendous1 is unique1 indeed1 in music2 yet one longs sometimes in the midst of them for a less turbulent attitude1 for the equable beauty of ,bach or ,mozart4 ,the atmosphere is surcharged4 ,one feels that this noble but willful spirit has sat too long in the close chamber of personal feeling1 that one must throw wide the windows and let in the fresh winds of general human existence4 ,yet1 after all1 the imperfections of ,tschakowsky's music are due rather to the overwhelming richness of his emotions than to any shortcomings of mind2 his case is an artistic embarrassment of riches1 and his critic must avoid the fallacy of supposing1 because his constructive power is sometimes inadequate1 that it is ever meager4 ,on the contrary1 he is a man of great intellectual force4 ,it is too bad to be so busy with ,tschakowsky the pessimist that one forgets ,tschakowsky the artist4 ,his melodic fertility alone is enough to rank him with the great constructive musicians4 ,his devotion to ,mozart1 and to the ,italian opera-writers1 was no accident2 by the spontaneity and beauty of his melodies he has approved himself their worthy brother4 ,few more inspiring tunes can be found anywhere than the opening theme of his ,b-flat minor ,piano ,concerto1 with its splendid and tireless vigor1 or the broad1 constantly unfolding cantilena of the second theme in the ,fifth ,symphony4 ,his pages are plentifully scattered with phrases of rare grace1 of a fresh and original charm4 ,his harmony1 too1 for all its radicalism1 is generally firm and well controlled1 and his rhythm1 however monotonous at times1 is never vague4 ,in polyphony 7the simultaneous progress of different melodies7 he is a powerful master1 as any one may see by examining1 for example1 the masterly variations in his ,orchestral ,suite1 opus #ee4 ,he is probably1 on the whole1 a greater master of general construction than any of his contemporaries except ,brahms4 ,it is evident1 then1 that this curiously paradoxical personality was gifted with an intellectual strength that went far toward dominating the turbulent passions which1 on the whole1 it could not quite dominate4 ,but one needs1 after all1 no careful statistical proof of the rationality of ,tschakowsky's music4 ,the fact that it survives1 that it is widely listened to and loved1 proves a priori that1 however tinged it may be with personal melancholy1 it is not ultimately pessimistical or destructive in effect4 ,for it is the happy fortune of art that it cannot fully voice the destructive forces of anarchy and despair4 ,its nature precludes the possibility1 for anarchy is chaos1 despair is confusion1 and neither can be the subject of that clearly organic order which is art4 ,the artist may1 of course1 express sadness2 his work1 if it is to be comprehensively human1 must be reflective of the ebb as well as the flow of vital power4 ,but it cannot mirror complete dejection1 the absolute lapse of power2 for without power there is no organization1 and without organization there is no art4 ,the melodic invention1 the harmonic grasp1 the rhythmic vigor1 in a word the powerful musical articulation1 everywhere present in ,tschakowsky's best work1 remove it far from the inarticulate moanings of despair4 ,such faculties as his are anything but disintegrating or decadent2 however much individual sadness may attend their exercise1 they are upbuilding and creative4 ,tschakowsky commands our admiration more than our pity because1 in spite of the burdens of his temperament and the misfortunes of his experience1 he contributed to beauty1 and beauty is the standing confutation of evil4 ,,bibliographical ,,note4--,much of ,tschakowsky's early work was for piano1 but most of his piano pieces are light if not trivial in character4 ,they are amusing to play over1 but do not fairly represent his genius4 ,seventeen of them are to be had in an album in the ,collection ,litolff4 ,the ,sonata1 op4 #cg1 on the other hand1 in spite of its marked resemblance to ,schumann's ,f-sharp minor ,sonata1 is one of the finest of modern sonatas for piano4 ,the ,concertos are masterly1 but very difficult4 ,most of the important orchestral works are arranged for four hands4 ,the most interesting are the ,pathetic ,symphony1 the ,fifth ,symphony1 which should be equally well known1 the ,orchestral ,suites1 particularly the third1 op4 #ee1 with its charming ,tema con ,variazioni1 and the ,overture1 ,romeo and ,juliet4 ,of the chamber-works1 the third ,string ,quartet1 op4 #cj1 and the ,trio1 are especially good4 ,twenty-four of ,tschakowsky's songs are published in an album by ,novello1 ,ewer ,co41 and many separately by ,g4 ,schirmer and others4 ,,footnotes3 ,e ,since the present paper was written1 the biography of ,tschakowsky by his brother has shown that in this unhappy marriage the only fault we can attribute to the composer was a quixotic chivalry in marrying a young woman who had declared her love for him4 ,he married her from sympathy without loving her4 ,of course such a step could lead to nothing but misery2 but however unwise1 it was at least generous and honorable4 ,f ,this lady1 according to the new biography1 was ,frau von ,meck1 the widow of a wealthy railway engineer4 ,her interest in ,tschakowsky's work1 and her generous gifts of money1 were of great value to him all his life4 ,,vii ,,johannes ,,brahms ,illustration3 ,,johannes ,,brahms ,,vii ,,johannes ,,brahms ,of all the figures of modern music1 brilliant and varied as they are1 impressing one with the many-sidedness and wide scope of the art1 there is perhaps only one1 that of ,johannes ,brahms1 which conveys the sense of satisfying poise1 self-control and sanity4 ,others excel him in particular qualities4 ,grieg is more delicate and intimate1 ,dvok warmer and clearer in color2 ,saint-,sans is more meteoric1 ,franck more recondite and subtle1 and ,tschakowsky more impassioned2 but ,brahms alone has ,homeric simplicity1 the primeval health of the well-balanced man4 ,he excels all his contemporaries in soundness and universality4 ,in an age when many people are uncertain of themselves and the world1 victims of a pervasive unrest and disappointment1 it is solacing to find so heroic and simple a soul1 who finds life acceptable1 meets it genially1 and utters his joy and his sorrow with the old classic sincerity4 ,he is not blighted by any of the myriad forms of egotism1--by sentimentality1 by the itch to be effective at all costs1 or to be original1 or to be ,byronic or romantic or unfathomable4 ,he has no message for an errant world2 no anathema1 either profoundly gloomy or insolently clever1 to hurl at ,god4 ,he has rather a deep and broad impersonal love of life2 universal joy is the sum and substance of his expression4 ,it is hard to say whether the unique greatness of ,brahms depends more on this emotional wholesomeness and simplicity or on the intellectual breadth and synthetic power with which it is combined4 ,probably the truth is that true greatness requires the interaction of the two4 ,at any rate1 ,brahms is equally remarkable1 whether considered as a man or as a musician1 for both4 ,in his personal character frankness1 modesty1 simple and homely virtue were combined with the widest sympathy1 the most far-ranging intelligence1 extreme catholicity and tolerance4 ,in music he prized equally the simplest elements1 like the old ,german folk-songs and the ,hungarian dances1 and the most complex artistic forms that are evolved from them by creative genius4 ,like ,bach and ,beethoven1 he spanned the whole range of human interests2 deep feeling fills his music with primitive expressiveness1 and at the same time great intellectual power gives it the utmost scope and complexity4 ,lacking either trait he would not have been himself1 he could not have performed his service to music4 ,there are many anecdotes illustrating the simple1 large traits of the man4 ,his pleasures were homely1 his ambitions inward and vital4 ,he cared little for fame1 and was annoyed by the foolish adulation of the crowd4 ,to a long and flowery speech addressed to him on the presentation of some sort of tribute he answered1 with admirable brevity and utter prose1 ,thank you very much4 ,once when a party of his friends were gathered together to sample a rare old wine1 somebody pompously announced1 ,what ,brahms is among the composers1 this ,rauenthaler is among the wines4 ,ah1 snapped out ,brahms1 then let's have a bottle of ,bach now4 ,he often remarked that one could never hope to get upon the level of such giants as ,bach and ,beethoven2 one could only work conscientiously in one's own field4 ,he had the disgust of shams that one expects in so sincere a lover of the genuine1 and the armor of roughness and sarcasm with which he protected himself against the pretentious was formidable4 ,when the ,university of ,cambridge offered him a degree1 suggesting that he write a new work for the occasion1 he replied that if any of his old works seemed good enough to them he should be happy to receive the honor1 but that he was too busy to write a new one4 ,there was about him something shaggy1 bear-like1 and one can imagine the foxes and weasels scattering at his growl4 ,but for everything fresh and genuine ,brahms had the heartiest love4 ,he is one of the innumerable army of great men of whom biography loves to relate that they always carried candy in their pockets for the children1 and a lady described in a letter how she had seen him on the hotel piazza1 on all-fours1 clambered over by young playmates4 ,he was on cordial terms with waiters and servants1 and told ,mr4 ,henschel with emotion the story of a serving-maid who lost her position in order to shield a careless postman1 who1 being married1 could not afford to lose his4 ,another pretty story1 showing at once his modesty and his catholicity of taste1 recounts how all the musical friends of the wife of ,johann ,strauss1 the great waltz composer1 were writing their names1 with phrases from their works1 on her fan4 ,when it was his turn1 the composer of the ,german ,requiem wrote the opening phrase of the ,blue ,danube waltz1 and underneath it the words1 ,not1 ,i regret to say1 by your devoted friend1 ,johannes ,brahms4 ,thus wholesome and unaffected was the character of this great man4 ,outwardly1 ,brahms's life was uneventful4 ,his father was a contrabass-player in the theatre orchestra of ,hamburg4 ,in him his son's positiveness of character seems to have been foreshadowed1 for we learn that when the conductor once directed him not to play so loud1 he replied with dignity3 ,herr ,capellmeister1 this is my contrabass1 ,i want you to understand1 and ,i shall play on it as loud as ,i please4 ,brahms was born at ,hamburg in #ahcc1 and from his earliest years was trained for music as a matter of course4 ,his early acquaintance with the best works was of incalculable value to him4 ,mr4 ,hadow points out that the eclecticism and solidity of his style was doubtless largely due to the study of ,bach and ,beethoven that he made in youth under ,marxsen4 ,he had the advantage1 too1 of early practical experience4 ,when he was only twenty he made a concert tour with ,remnyi1 the ,hungarian violinist1 during which he gained much training and confidence4 ,a feat he performed during this trip showed even more virtuosity than that of le petit ,saint-,sans already recorded4 ,having to play the ,kreutzer ,sonata on a piano too low in pitch to suit ,remnyi1 who disliked to tune down his violin1 he transposed it up a semi-tone1 and though playing without notes1 performed it accurately and with spirit4 ,to this feat1 which aroused the admiration of ,joachim1 ,brahms owed his acquaintance with the great violinist1 and through him with ,liszt and ,schumann4 ,his experience with the former1 then in the height of his fame1 was unfortunate1 but characteristic4 ,brahms1 who was worn out with travel1 fell asleep during one of the most moving parts of ,liszt's ,sonata1 which the great virtuoso was so condescending as to play4 ,though ,brahms was only a boy at the time1 he was evidently1 even then1 undazzled by worldly glory4 ,his meeting with ,schumann was much more happy2 indeed1 it was one of the important events of his life4 ,probably no young composer ever received such a hearty welcome into the musical world as ,schumann extended to ,brahms in his famous article1 ,new ,paths4 ,in sure and unfaltering accents1 writes ,mr4 ,hadow1 he proclaimed the advent of a genius in whom the spirit of the age should find its consummation and its fulfilment2 a master by whose teaching the broken phrases should grow articulate1 and the vague aspirations gather into form and substance4 ,the five-and-twenty years of wandering were over2 at last a leader had arisen who should direct the art into 'new paths1' and carry it a stage nearer to its appointed place4 ,it is not surprising that ,schumann1 whose generous enthusiasm often led him to praise worthless work1 should have received the early compositions of ,brahms so cordially4 ,their qualities were such as to affect profoundly the great romanticist4 ,although the essential character of his mature works is their classical balance and restraint1 these first compositions show an exuberance1 a wayward fertility of invention1 thoroughly romantic4 ,his first ten opuses1 or at any rate the three sonatas and the four ballades for piano1 are frequently turgid in emotion1 and ill-considered in form4 ,the massive vigor of his later work here appears in the guise of a cyclopean violence4 ,it is small wonder that ,schumann1 dazzled1 delighted1 overwhelmed1 gave his ardent support to the young man4 ,brahms now found himself suddenly famous4 ,he was discussed everywhere1 his pieces were readily accepted by publishers1 and his new compositions were awaited with interest4 ,but fortunate as all this was for ,brahms1 it might easily1 but for his own good sense and self-control1 have turned out the most unfortunate thing that could happen to him4 ,for consider his position4 ,he was a brilliant young composer who had been publicly proclaimed by one of the highest musical authorities4 ,he was expected to go on producing works2 he was almost under obligation to justify his impressive introduction4 ,not to do so would be much worse than to remain a nonentity2 it would be to become one4 ,and he had meanwhile every internal reason for meeting people's demands4 ,he was full of ideas1 conscious of power1 under inward as well as outward compulsion to express himself4 ,yet for all that1 he was in reality immature1 unformed1 and callow4 ,his work1 for all its brilliancy1 was whimsical and subjective4 ,if he had followed out the path he was on1 as any contemporary observer would have expected1 he would have become one of the most radical of romanticists4 ,at thirty he would have been a bright star in the musical firmament1 at forty he would have been one of several bright stars1 at fifty he would have been clever and disappointed4 ,it required rare insight in so young a man1 suddenly successful1 to realize the danger1 rare courage to avert it4 ,when we consider the temptation it must have been to him to continue these easy triumphs1 when we imagine the inward enthusiasm of creation with which he must have been on fire1 we are ready to appreciate the next event of the drama4 ,that event was withdrawal from the musical world and the initiation of a long course of the severest study4 ,when he was a little over twenty-one1 ,brahms imposed upon himself this arduous training1 and commanded himself to forego for a while the eloquent but ill-controlled expression hitherto his1 in order to acquire a broader1 firmer1 purer1 and stronger style4 ,for four or five years1 to borrow ,stevenson's expression1 he played the sedulous ape to ,bach and ,beethoven1 and in a minor degree to ,haydn and ,mozart4 ,the complex harmonies of his first period gave place to simple1 strong successions of triads2 for an emotional and often vague type of melody he substituted clearly crystallized1 fluent1 and gracious phrases1 frequently devoid of any particular expression2 the whimsical rhythms of the piano sonatas were followed by the square-cut sections of the ,serenade1 opus #aa4 ,of course the immediate effect of all this was a great sacrifice of what is called originality2 had ,brahms not had complete faith in the vitality of his genius he could not have surrendered so much of immediate attainment for the sake of an ultimately greater mastery4 ,it is a profound lesson in the ethics of art that a man who could write the fourth of the ,ballades1 opus #aj1 should have been willing to follow it up with this ,serenade1 opus #aa4 ,yet ,brahms knew what he was about1 and his first large work1 the ,piano ,concerto1 opus #ae1 shows his individuality of expression entirely regained1 and now with immensely increased power and resource4 ,nothing could exhibit better than this dissatisfaction with his early work and withdrawal from the world for study1 that intellectual breadth which we have noted as characteristic of ,brahms4 ,he was not a man who could be content with a narrow personal expression4 ,no subjective heaven could satisfy him4 ,his wide human sympathy and his passion for artistic perfection alike1 compelled him to study unremittingly1 to widen his ideals as his powers increased4 ,no fate could seem to him so horrible as that setting of the mind which is the sthetic analogue of selfishness4 ,originality1 which so often degenerates into idiosyncrasy1 was much less an object to him than universality1 which is after all the best means of being serviceably original4 ,dr4 ,deiters1 in his reminiscences1 after describing this period of study1 continues3 ,henceforth we find him striving after moderation1 endeavoring to place himself more in touch with the public1 and to conquer all subjectiveness4 ,to arrive at perspicuity and precision of invention1 clear design and form1 careful elaboration and accurate balancing of effect1 now became with him essential and established principles4 ,from this time until the end of his life1 in fact1 a period of only a little less than forty years--he died in #ahig--;,brahms never departed from the modes of work and the ideals of attainment he had now set himself4 ,he labored indefatigably1 but with no haste or impatience4 ,he was too painstaking and conscientious a workman to botch his products by hurrying them4 ,he thus described to his friend1 ,mr4 ,henschel1 his method of composing3 ,there is no real creating without hard work4 ,that which you would call invention1 that is to say1 a thought1 is simply an inspiration from above1 for which ,i am not responsible1 which is no merit of mine4 ,yes1 it is a present1 a gift1 which ,i ought even to despise until ,i have made it my own by right of hard work4 ,and there need be no hurry about that either4 ,it is as with the seed corn3 it germinates unconsciously and in spite of ourselves4 ,when ,i1 for instance1 have found the first phrase of a song1 ,i might shut the book there and then1 go for a walk1 do some other work1 and perhaps not think of it again for months4 ,nothing1 however1 is lost4 ,if afterward ,i approach the subject again1 it is sure to have taken shape2 ,i can now really begin to work at it4 ,another inkling of the severity of his standard we have in a remark he made after pointing out certain imperfections in a song of ,mr4 ,henschel's4 ,whether it is beautiful also1 he said1 is an entirely different matter2 but perfect it must be4 ,with such a standard1 we need not be surprised that he imposed so severe a training upon himself at twenty-one1 or that he continued all his life the practice of writing each day a contrapuntal exercise1 or that he wrought for ten years over his first symphony1 that ,titanic work4 ,thus laboring always with the same calm persistence1 returning upon his ideas until he could present them with perfect clarity1 caring little for the indifference or the applause of the public1 but much for the approval of his own fastidious taste1 he produced year by year an astonishing series of masterpieces4 ,no one has better described the kind of work that made ,brahms great than ,matthew ,arnold in those lines about labor which in lasting fruit outgrows ,far noisier schemes2 accomplished in repose2 ,too great for haste1 too high for rivalry4 ,a just conception of this broad scheme of ,brahms's ideal and of his thoroughness in working it out is necessary1 we must insist1 not only to appreciation of the man himself1 but to any true understanding of his relation and service to music4 ,brahms was enabled1 by the tireless training to which he subjected his fertile and many-sided genius1 to couch romantic feeling in classic form4 ,in order to grasp the full significance of such a work1 it is necessary to bear in mind those fundamental principles of musical effect and facts of musical history which have been presented in the ,introduction4 ,music has resulted from the gradual formal definition1 by time and pitch relations1 of those vague gestures and utterances by which men expressed their primitive feelings4 ,it has been1 in a word1 the product of two human instincts1 neither of which alone would have sufficed to produce it--the instinct for expression and the instinct for beauty4 ,but these instincts have not worked with precisely equal efficacy at all times4 ,in fact1 so limited is human attention1 so few things can men attend to at once1 every great development of expression has generally disturbed the equilibrium requisite to beauty1 and every great advance in beauty has generally1 for the time being1 restrained the eloquence of expression4 ,musical history is a series of reactions between man's primal emotional impulse and his desire for intelligibility4 ,first1 urgency of feeling drives him to a formless cry2 then the wish to be understood and the love of beauty induce him to formulate this cry2 finally1 as soon as the formula is felt to be inadequate to further expression1 it is discarded in favor of one more elastic and complex4 ,the conventions that are helpful at one stage prove hindrances in the next4 ,the same forms that subserve growth up to a certain point1 beyond that point hamper it4 ,accordingly1 in the history of music1 formulation has always been followed by relaxation of the formul to admit of new expression2 and when new expression has been thus evolved1 a new and more complex form has had to be worked out to regulate and fix it4 ,such a period of relaxation was that which intervened between ,beethoven and ,brahms4 ,the romanticists1 headed by ,schumann1 seized upon the possibilities of poignant expression that they were quick to recognize in their heritage from ,beethoven1 and developed an extraordinarily mobile and eloquent instrument for voicing personal emotion4 ,at the same time they inevitably lost the perfect control of form1 the transparent lucidity of structure1 that had characterized ,beethoven4 ,in some respects more moving1 they were on the whole less intelligible4 ,they were enriching their art1 and must leave the perfect subordination of the new material to their successors4 ,it is most interesting to trace the analogy between this development of musical expression and the growth of emotional life in the individual1 and to observe how in both the period of experience1 in which emotion is felt in all its immediate stress1 inhibiting all else and being therefore conceived in no relations1 but merely as a single and ultimate fact1 is followed by the period of meditation and self-inspection1 when the whole emotional life is grouped into order1 and the man learns to see the significance and the spiritual value of his feelings4 ,with the romanticists music necessarily became more and more the medium of personal passion1 less and less the revealer of universal order4 ,browning1 himself a romanticist through and through1 has summed up the spirit of romanticism in a single stanza of his ,old ,pictures in ,florence3 ,on which ,i conclude1 that the early painters1 ,to cries of ',greek art and what more wish you8' ,replied1 ',to become now self-acquainters1 ,and paint man1 man1 whatever the issue6 ,make new hopes shine through the flesh they fray1 ,new fears aggrandize the rags and tatters3 ,to bring the invisible full into play6 ,let the visible go to the dogs--what matters8' ,the individualism1 the subjectivity1 the mystical distrust of definite forms1 so stirringly championed in these lines1 are vital principles in the work of all the composers of the generation after ,beethoven4 ,thus in ,schumann's music1 for example1 the generality of the emotional burden of classical music is changed to something far more individual and introspective4 ,expression is more tinged by temperament2 the work of art exhales a personal fragrance4 ,schumann tells us not merely of love1 longing1 and passion1 but of ,robert ,schumann's love1 longing1 and passion4 ,his work1 for all its beauty1 is much less inclusive and complete than the classical masterpieces4 ,in the same way ,chopin filled his nocturnes and preludes with the lovely but often unhealthy poetry of the isolated dreamer1 and ,wagner1 separating the passion of love from the other interests of the heart1 and thus throwing out of balance the spiritual economy1 sacrificed as much in health as he gained in potency4 ,and of the men we have been studying1 ,grieg1 ,franck1 and ,tschakowsky also illustrate in various ways the tendency to paint man1 man1 whatever the issue1 to let the flesh be frayed and the visible go to the dogs4 ,it is hardly necessary to say that all these men have their legitimate place4 ,their message of passion and unrest1 already audible in ,beethoven1 was the inevitable and indispensable expression of one of those self-conscious phases in man's growth when he freshly realizes his finitude4 ,their utterances make a deeply pathetic appeal to us1 because they reveal all the terrible sadness of personal life which as yet finds no resting-place in the universal4 ,aspiration and disappointment1 bitter grief and blind pain1 speak in their fragmentary loveliness4 ,the romanticists will never want for our love1 since they interpret to us a part of our own experience4 ,but1 as we have said1 after man suffers emotion he reflects upon it2 after he feels the parts he learns the whole2 after musicians have developed new capabilities of expression they proceed to subordinate them to plastic beauty4 ,adjustment follows discovery1 and the romantic takes on classical perfection4 ,the chaos of one age is thus the order of the next2 and after ,schumann and his fellows had enriched the world with their beautiful but fragmentary and wayward feelings1 it remained for ,brahms to essay a further conquest2 to commence at least 7and perhaps he has not done more7 the task of making these new feelings more intelligible1 of clarifying their turgidity1 of subordinating their conflicts in a more complex harmony4 ,or1 to state his function in more specifically musical terms1 he had to discover how rugged melodic outlines1 bold harmonic progressions1 and the large-spanned phrases of modern musical thought could be organized and brought into that unity in variety which is beauty4 ,we are now in a position to grasp the full significance of that severe training to which ,brahms subjected himself in his youth4 ,without it he would have gone on doing brilliant work of the romantic order1 like his first compositions1 but he would never have attained the grasp and self-control that raised him above all his contemporaries and that made possible his peculiar service to music4 ,that period of training was the artistic counterpart of what many men undergo when they discover how many sacrifices and how long a labor are necessary to him who would find a spiritual dwelling-place on earth4 ,many pleasures must be renounced before happiness will abide2 evil and suffering are opaque save to the steadfast eye4 ,so1 in music1 effects and eloquences and crises must be the handmaids of orderly beauty1 and tones are stubborn material until one has learned by hard work to make them transmit thoughts4 ,technic is in the musician what character is in the man4 ,it is the power to stamp matter with spirit4 ,brahms's long apprenticeship was therefore needed in the first place to make him master of his materials2 in the second place to teach him the deeper lesson that the part must be subordinated to the whole1 or1 in musical language1 expression to beauty4 ,he achieved this subordination1 however1 not by the negative process of suppression1 but by conquest and co-ordination4 ,in his music emotion is not excluded1 it is regulated2 his work is not a reversion to an earlier and simpler type1 it is the gathering and fusing together of fragmentary new elements1 resulting in a more complex organism4 ,thus it is a very superficial view to say that he went back to ,beethoven4 ,he drew guidance from the same natural laws that had guided ,beethoven1 but he applied these laws to a material of novel thought and emotion that had come into being after ,beethoven4 ,had he repudiated the new material1 even for the reason that he considered it incapable of organization1 he would have been a pedant1 which is to say a musical ,pharisee4 ,one masters by recognizing and using1 not by repudiating4 ,and just as a wise man will not become ascetical merely because his passions give him trouble1 but will study to find out their true relation to him and then keep them in it1 so ,brahms recognized the wayward beauties of romanticism1 and studied how to make them ancillary to that order and fair proportion which is the soul of music4 ,to this great artistic service he was fitted by both the qualities which have been pointed out above as co-operating to form his unique nature4 ,his deep and simple human feeling1 which put him in sympathy with the aims of the romanticists and enabled him to grasp their meaning1 would not have sufficed alone2 but fortunately it was associated with an almost unprecedented scope of intellect and power of synthesis4 ,brahms's assimilative faculty was enormous4 ,like a fine tree that draws the materials of its beauty through a thousand roots that reach into distant pockets of earth1 he gathered the materials of his perfectly unified and transparent style from all sorts of forgotten nooks and crannies of medival music4 ,spitta remarks his use of the old ,dorian and ,phrygian modes2 of complex rhythms that had long fallen into disuse2 of those means of thematic development1 such as augmentation and diminution1 which flourished in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries2 of the basso ostinato with the styles pertaining to it--the ,passacaglia and the ,ciaconna2 and of the old style of variations1 in which the bass rather than the melody is the feature retained4 ,no musician1 ,spitta concludes1 was more well read in his art or more constantly disposed to appropriate all that was new1 especially all newly discovered treasures of the past4 ,his passion for learning wandered1 indeed1 into every field1 and resulted in a rich and most original culture of mind1 for his knowledge was not mere acquirement1 but became a living and fruitful thing4 ,the vitality of his relation with the past is nowhere more strikingly shown than in his indebtedness to the two greatest masters of pure music1 ,bach and ,beethoven4 ,he has gathered up the threads of their dissimilar styles1 and knitted them into one solid fabric4 ,the great glory of ,bach1 as is well-known1 was his wonderful polyphony4 ,in his work every voice is a melody1 everything sings1 there is no dead wood1 no flaccid filling4 ,beethoven1 on the other hand1 turning to new problems1 to problems of structure which demanded a new sort of control of key-relationship and the thematic development of single subjects or tunes1 necessarily paid less attention to the subordinate voices4 ,his style is homophonic or one-voiced rather than polyphonic4 ,the interest centres in one melody and its evolutions1 while the others fall into the subordinate position of accompaniment4 ,but ,brahms1 retaining and extending the complexity of structure1 the architectural variety and solidity1 that was ,beethoven's great achievement1 has succeeded in giving new melodic life also to the inner parts1 so that the significance and interest of the whole web remind one of ,bach4 ,his skill as a contrapuntist is as notable as his command of structure4 ,thanks to his wonderful power of assimilating methods1 of adapting them to the needs of his own expression1 so that he remains personal and genuine while becoming universal in scope1 he is the true heir and comrade of ,bach and ,beethoven4 ,it was1 perhaps1 inevitable that in his great work of synthesis and formulation he should sometimes be led into dry formalism4 ,one who concerns himself so indefatigably with the technic of construction naturally comes to take a keen joy in the exercise of his skill2 and this may easily result1 when thought halts1 in the fabrication of ingenuities and ,chinese puzzles4 ,some pages of ,brahms consist of infinitely dexterous manipulations of meaningless phrases4 ,and though one must guard against assuming that he is dry whenever one does not readily follow him1 it certainly must be confessed that sometimes he seems to write merely for the sake of writing4 ,this occasional over-intellectualism1 moreover1 is unfortunately aggravated by a lack of feeling for the purely sensuous side of music1 for clear1 rich tone-combination1 to which ,brahms must plead guilty4 ,his orchestra is often muddy and hoarse1 his piano style often shows neglect of the necessities of sonority and clearness4 ,dr4 ,william ,mason testifies that his touch was hard and unsympathetic1 and it is rather significant of insensibility or indifference to tone color that his ,piano ,quintet was at first written for strings alone1 and that the ,variations on a ,theme of ,haydn exist in two forms1 one for orchestra and the other for two pianos1 neither of which is announced as the original version4 ,there is danger of exaggerating the importance of such facts1 however4 ,austere and somber as ,brahms's scoring generally is1 it may be held that so it should be to be in keeping with the musical conception4 ,and if his piano style is novel it is not really unidiomatic or without its own peculiar effects4 ,however extreme we may consider the weakness of sensuous perception1 which on the whole cannot be denied in ,brahms1 it is the only serious flaw in a man equally great on the emotional and the intellectual sides4 ,very remarkable is the richness and at the same time the balance of ,brahms's nature4 ,he recognized early in life that feelings were valuable1 not for their mere poignancy1 but by their effect on the central spirit2 and he labored incessantly to express them with eloquence and yet with control4 ,it is only little men who estimate an emotion by its intensity1 and who try to express everything1 the hysterical as well as the deliberate1 the trivial and mischievous as well as the weighty and the inspiring4 ,they imagine that success in art depends on the number of things they say1 that to voice a temperament is to build a character4 ,but great men1 though they reject no sincere human feeling1 care more to give the right impression than to be exhaustive2 and the greatest feel instinctively that the last word of their art must be constructive1 positive1 upbuilding4 ,thoreau remarks that the singer can easily move us to tears or laughter1 but asks1 ,where is he who can communicate a pure morning joy8 ,it is ,brahms's unique greatness among modern composers that he was able to infuse his music1 in which all personal passion is made accessory to beauty1 with this pure morning joy4 ,his aim in writing is something more than to chronicle subjective feelings1 however various or intense4 ,and that is why we have to consider him the greatest composer of his time1 even though in particular departments he must take a place second to others4 ,steadily avoiding all fragmentary1 wayward1 and distortive expression1 using always his consummate mastery of his medium and his synthetic power of thought to subserve a large and universal utterance1 he points the way for a healthy and fruitful development of music in the future4 ,,bibliographical ,,note4--,of particular works of ,brahms that the reader might wish to study1 here are some of the most characteristic and well known4 ,piano pieces3 ,the ,waltzes1 op4 #ci2 the ,clavierstcke1 op4 #gf1 particularly ,no4 #b2 the two ,rhapsodies1 op4 #gi2 and1 in his later1 more complex style1 the piano pieces1 op4 #aaf1 #aag1 #aah and #aai4 ,songs3 ,liebestreu1 op4 #c1 ,no4 #a2 ,wiegenlied1 op4 #di1 ,no4 #d2 the ,sapphic ,ode1 op4 #id1 ,no4 #d2 ,stndchen1 op4 #ajf1 ,no4 #a2 ,meine ,liebe ist grn1 op4 #fc1 ,no4 #e2 ,o ,khler ,wald1 op4 #gb1 ,no4 #c4 ,chamber works3 the two ,violin ,sonatas1 op4 #gh and #ajj1 are among his most genial works2 the ,quartets1 op4 #be and #bf2 the ,trio1 op4 #h2 the ,sextet1 op4 #ah4 ,of his orchestral works none are finer than the ,second and ,third ,symphonies1 the ,violin ,concerto1 op4 #gg1 and the ,variations on a ,theme of ,haydn1 op4 #ef;a4 ,the choral works1 of which the ,song of ,destiny is the greatest1 are unhappily seldom given4 ,,viii ,,epilogue3 ,,the ,,meaning ,,of ,,music ,,viii ,,epilogue3 ,,the ,,meaning ,,of ,,music ,in the foregoing studies we have been considering1 first1 certain fundamental principles of musical effect in the light of which alone all special contributions to music1 however various1 can be understood1 and second1 the particular contributions of half a dozen of our contemporary composers1 in which we have seen those principles exemplified4 ,we have assumed1 all along1 that music is of undeniable interest to us1 that it has something to say1 that it is of sufficient human value to be worth studying4 ,but now1 before closing1 it will be well to examine for a moment the grounds of that tacit assumption1 to ask ourselves what1 after all1 is the reason of our interest in music4 ,why do we care for it8 ,what does it mean8 ,to such questions there are doubtless many answers4 ,doubtless different hearers take different kinds of delight in it1 and its modes of appeal are as various as their temperaments4 ,yet music has one sort of appeal which is deeper than all others1 which indeed acts universally1 and which depends on its extraordinary power to tranquilize the heart1 to instil a peace quite magical and beyond explanation4 ,it soothes while it excites2 and more wonderful than its ability to stimulate our emotions is its power to reconcile and harmonize them4 ,and this it does without the aid of any intellectual process2 it offers us no argument1 it formulates no solacing philosophy2 rather it abolishes thought1 to set up in its stead a novel activity that is felt as immediately1 inexplicably grateful4 ,to suggest how the combination of sounds can have upon us so profound an effect will be the object of this final paper4 ,mortal life1 as we become acquainted with it in experience1 unshaped by any philosophic or artistic activity1 is complex1 confused1 and irrational4 ,from our babyhood1 when we put our fingers in the pretty fire and draw them forth cruelly burned1 until the moment when a draught of air or the bursting of a blood-vessel suddenly arrests our important enterprises in mid-course1 we constantly find our faculties1 both animal and divine1 encountering a world not kindly adjusted4 ,on the material plane we find drought1 frost1 and famine1 storm1 accident1 disease4 ,on the plane of feeling and sentiment there are the separation of friends1 the death of dear ones1 loneliness1 doubt1 and disappointment2 in the world of the spirit are sin and sorrow1 the weakness and folly of ourselves and of others1 meaningless mischance1 and the caprice of destiny4 ,in such a world1 good fortune must often seem as insulting as bad1 and happiness no better than misery4 ,where all is accidental1 how can aught be significant8 ,when our highest interests are defenceless against the onslaught1 not of grave evil but of mere absurdity1 how is it possible to live with dignity or hope8 ,nevertheless1 men have1 by various means1 fought sturdily against the capriciousness of life and the despair it engenders4 ,all practical morality1 to begin with1 is one form of defence--comparatively a low form1 but still of use4 ,the moral man1 facing the universe undaunted1 asserts his own power to develop in it at least his personal particle of righteousness4 ,as much strength as he has shall be spent on the side of order4 ,if the world be unjust1 he at least will love justice4 ,if every one else be ruled by chance1 he at least will be ruled by reason4 ,if wicked men pursue evil1 he will pursue good4 ,from the earliest to the latest times literature has recorded such resolve4 ,the letters of ,stevenson no less than the journal of ,marcus ,aurelius relate the purpose of the brave individual to graft1 to impress--yes1 to inflict--human meaning upon an untamed universe4 ,the stoic faith has always built on the practical power of the single man2 a phrase of ,thoreau's might serve for its motto3 ,in the midst of this labyrinth let us live a thread of life4 ,the intellect is more ambitious than the moral sense4 ,not content with the degree of unity a man can develop in the seething world by his single action1 philosophy seeks to prove that the world itself1 as a whole1 deriving its nature as it must from mind1 is orderly4 ,constructive idealism1 beginning with the argument that a subject cannot truly know an object unless both are included in a higher mental organism1 deduces from the common facts of consciousness the real existence of an all-inclusive ,spirit4 ,furthermore1 one of its ablest modern exponents1 ,professor ,josiah ,royce1 has worked out the ethical implications of the doctrine in a way that concerns us here4 ,he shows that the apparent irrationality of our world proceeds from the fragmentariness of our finite view1 and that ,god1 who sees his universe as a whole1 must find it rational2 so that our chaos is his order1 our farce his tragedy1 our horror his spirituality4 ,were our span of consciousness widened until we could perceive the whole of existence in one thought1 we should find the deep organic beauty that now we yearn for in vain4 ,philosophy1 then1 assures us both of the fundamental perfection of the world as a whole and of the inaccessibility of this perfection to us4 ,deeply satisfying because so sure and so ultimate1 it tells us nothing of details1 it has no direct word for the sorrows and the perplexities of our daily lives4 ,it leaves us often longing for a warmer1 nearer assurance of the rightness of things4 ,and so1 to many1 human love first reveals the divine unity all are seeking4 ,the lover reasons little about consciousness2 he knows1 directly and overpoweringly1 that his one need is to serve the beloved4 ,this commanding aim employs all his impulses and appetites1 and he finds in pure disinterested service a peace that his own warring desires cannot invade4 ,he comprehends for the first time his own true identity1 he becomes integral and serene4 ,furthermore1 as his love grows deeper1 as it spends its inexhaustible wealth more widely1 learning to take for object not only the human beloved1 but all virtue and beauty1 his spiritual life becomes daily larger and surer1 it unifies an ever complexer body of thought and deed in its perfect organism4 ,it acquires an alchemy with which it can dissolve even the stubborn externalities of fate2 for fate itself cannot take away the power to serve1 and in service love finds its joy4 ,renunciation1 even1 it never enters upon except to gain a higher good1 and that essence in the soul which makes a sacrifice is one with that which in happier circumstances would enjoy4 ,love thus shares already the nature of religion1 and confers the same benefits4 ,in exacting entire self-surrender it bequeaths superiority to accident1 an unassailable serenity4 ,indeed1 religion is but love expanded and made universal4 ,religion1 then1 man's final means of reading rationality in the countenance of an irrational world1 is the culmination toward which the other three naturally tend4 ,it is the natural goal of love1 because he who loves the divine in one person must soon love it in all4 ,it is the goal of science and philosophy1 because these place the heart open-eyed upon the threshold of the radiant reality1 where it cannot but worship4 ,it is the natural outcome of morality1 too2 for the moral man1 seeing others eager for goodness1 learns that the divine virtue is everywhere4 ,and religion retains in itself the character of all these tributary insights4 ,like morality it prompts devotion of personal strength to the good cause2 like philosophy1 it affords clarity and breadth of vision2 it is animated by the same pure1 deep passion that is at the soul of love4 ,it offers man a code of conduct1 a cosmology1 and an object of devotion4 ,surely1 one would think he could ask for nothing more4 ,but1 alas6 we are not perfect creatures1 capable of living always on these heights4 ,hours of weariness and confusion overtake us1 our glimpses of the shining cosmos fade away1 and we are left groping in a formless world4 ,the universe does not change1 but our faculties become jaded1 we cannot keep them at the necessary pitch4 ,the moralist knows moods of discouragement1 when his power is at ebb1 and the forces of evil press him sorely1 entering even his own heart in the forms of temptation1 sloth1 and despair4 ,the scientist encounters facts which his schemes cannot embrace1 and for the moment interprets his own limitation as a disorder in nature4 ,the philosopher often finds the universe more than a match for his synthetic powers of thought4 ,love has its tragedies1 and faith its hours of eclipse4 ,even ,christ must cry out1 ,my ,god6 my ,god6 why hast thou forsaken me8 ,the world1 in a word1 is too big for us4 ,facing its vast whirl and glitter with our modest kit of senses1 intellect1 and spirit1 we are blinded1 deafened1 dizzied1 completely bewildered4 ,and then1 recalling with wistful regret our partial insights1 we fancy them gone forever and ourselves wholly lost4 ,it is just at these moments1 when the mind momentarily fails in its unequal struggle with reality1 that we discover the deep meaning and the supreme service of ,art4 ,for ,art is the tender human servant that man has made himself for his solace4 ,he has adjusted it to his faculties and restrained it within his scope2 fashioning it from the infinite substance1 he has impressed upon it finite form4 ,it is a voice less thunderous than nature's1 a lamp that does not dazzle like the great sun4 ,it simplifies the wealth that is too luxuriant1 and makes tangible a fragment of the great ethereal beauty no mortal can grasp4 ,thus art is visible and audible rightness2 it is the love of ,god made manifest to the senses1 a particular symbol of a universal harmony4 ,when we are too weary to be comforted by the remote1 abstract good that religion promises1 art comes with its immediate1 substantial1 caressing beauty4 ,seeking to prove nothing1 making no appeal to our logical intellects1 requiring of us no activity1 saying nothing of aught beyond itself1 it is supremely restful4 ,finding us defeated in our search for rationality1 it says1 ,search no longer1 puzzle no more2 merely listen and look2 see1 here it is6 ,its beauty answers our problems never directly1 but by gently making them irrelevant4 ,art1 then1 differs from morality1 philosophy1 love and religion1 in that it presents directly to sense the variety in unity which they manifest only to the mind and spirit4 ,like them1 it deals with life1 but the unity that it attains by selection and exclusion is unlike their unity in being tangible4 ,made by man1 it has this one supreme advantage1 that it is adapted from the outset to his needs4 ,what it cannot unify it can exclude4 ,though nature care nothing for the peculiarities of the eye1 a landscape painter can omit a tree that upsets the balance of his composition4 ,actual men and women present all sorts of incongruities of figure1 but the sculptor can suppress the stooping shoulders1 the knobby hips1 and the bandy legs4 ,language bristles with trivial and vulgar words1 but no poet except ,walt ,whitman thinks it necessary to write about hatters1 who cannot1 according to ,stevenson1 be tolerated in emotional verse4 ,out of the infinite number of sounds that besiege our natural ears1 musicians have selected about ninety definite tones1 preordained to congruity1 with which to weave their marvelous fabric4 ,that is ever the method of art2 it excludes the irrelevant or the discordant1 in order to secure a salient and pure integrity4 ,by sacrificing something of the richness of experience1 it gains a rationality unknown in experience4 ,browning's ,pippa is a gentle1 noble soul1 bringing goodness everywhere2 in real life she would be a poor mill-girl insulted by a thousand sordid and accidental details4 ,shelley portrays ,beatrice ,cenci in the transfiguring light of poetic truth2 actual experience would show her tortured by a sinister and ignoble fate4 ,no ,greek youth could have matched the perfect plastic beauty of the ,disk-thrower1 and no ,italian woman ever symbolized cruel1 sphinx-like loveliness as does the ,mona ,lisa4 ,corot's nature is grayer and softer and more harmonious than ever existed on earth4 ,and such songs as ,schumann's ,ich ,grolle ,nicht and ,tschakowsky's ,nur ,wer die ,sehnsucht ,kennt pulsate with a passion as intense but far less torn and fragmentary than that by which they were inspired4 ,this serene perfection1 which wraps like a mantle all works of genuine art1 results from harmonious organization1 and is attained only by excluding the irrelevancies always present in nature4 ,whistler is wise as well as witty when he exclaims that to ask the painter to copy nature as he sees it is to invite the pianist to sit on the keyboard4 ,were there1 to be sure1 a perfect adjustment between nature and our faculties1 were we able to discern the unity that must exist even in the infinitely complex ,whole of the world1 then such a dictum would be outgrown1 and selection would cease to be the procedure of art4 ,but until we have grown to possess universal synthetic power art will have its solacing mission and its selective method as now4 ,meanwhile it will have also1 of course1 its inevitable limitations4 ,if it be more orderly than nature1 it will be far less rich and various2 effects that nature presents in a bewildering drench of experience1 a work of art will have to isolate and develop alone4 ,a pictured landscape1 however perfect1 is but one phase of the reality2 in nature there is ceaseless play and change1 mood succeeds mood1 and the charm is more than half in the wayward flux and transformation4 ,a portrait shows but one character2 a human face is a whole gallery of personalities4 ,the wealth of experience excites even while it bewilders us1 and when we turn to the work of art we unconsciously adopt a narrower standard4 ,primitive art especially impresses us as bare and denuded1 because the primitive artist has neither technical skill nor synthetic power of thought to combine more than a few elements4 ,thus early painting and sculpture1 in dealing with the human figure1 carry delineation little further than to show man with head and body1 two legs and two arms4 ,refinements of contour and proportion are left to be observed by later artists4 ,similarly the folk ballads in which poetry takes its origin confine themselves to elementary incidents and emotions4 ,in general1 rudimentary art is always so far behind nature as to seem to have hardly any connection with it at all4 ,as time goes on1 however1 art passes through an evolution1 becoming gradually more potent in its treatment of reality4 ,its progress takes the form of a curious zigzag1 the resultant of two alternating tendencies2 what happens is something like this4 ,for a while it develops its power of synthesis 7a power dependent both upon technical skill in handling material and on organizing force of thought7 until it is able to present a few simple factors of effect in clear1 salient unity4 ,this is what is called a period of classicism4 ,then1 dissatisfied with its attainment1 desiring a richer reflection of the great whirl of experience1 it reaches out after novel effects2 its vision is for a while more extended than clear1 and1 presenting many effects which it cannot yet unify1 it becomes brilliant1 suggestive1 fragmentary1 turgid1 inchoate4 ,there has been a sacrifice of the old simple clarity for a richer chaos1 or1 in the trite terminology1 a romantic movement4 ,now1 however1 technical skill and synthetic power of thought again advance1 and a new and complexer order supervenes on the temporary confusion4 ,unity of effect is regained1 art is classic once more 7but with increased wealth of meaning71 and the time is ripe for another burst of romanticism4 ,by this alternation of impulses art grows1 and when either tendency is defective we have a diseased art4 ,if there be no romantic movement1 if art remains contented with its acquired scope1 there is stagnation1 pedantry1 academicism2 if there be no classical period of assimilation1 we have vagueness and turgidity1 qualities even more fatal1 since1 as we have seen1 the justification of art is its power to clarify4 ,the general formula for wholesome artistic advance might1 then1 run thus3 ,increase in the variety of the selected elements1 without loss of the ideal unity imposed upon them4 ,and the ideal goal of art is a representation of the whole of life1 stamped with complete unity4 ,turning now to music1 we must point out that1 although it has in a general way undergone a development like that of the other arts1 made up of alternating classic and romantic movements1 it has had from the first certain advantages over them in the struggle for richness and clarity1 advantages proceeding from its fundamental nature4 ,for tones are unique in our mental experience as being at once more directly expressive of the emotional essence of life than any other art-material1 and more susceptible of orderly structure4 ,that music is beyond all the other arts directly expressive of man's deeper passional life scarcely needs theoretic proof2 the fact is in the experience of every one who has listened to a military band1 to a homely song lovingly rendered1 or to a ragged ,hungarian with a violin4 ,these things take a physical grip upon our emotions1 they stir our diaphragms1 galvanize our spines1 and compel us to shiver1 laugh or weep4 ,combined with such physical affections1 moreover1 are ideas of indescribable vividness and poignancy4 ,joy and grief1 hope and despair1 serenity1 aspiration1 and horror1 fill our hearts as we listen to music4 ,they come in their pure essence--not as qualities of something else4 ,and this is what is meant by the familiar statement that the other arts are representative while music is presentative4 ,poetry1 painting1 and sculpture show us things outside ourselves1 joyful or grievous things perhaps1 hopeful or desperate or beautiful or ugly things1 but still things4 ,but music shows us nothing but the qualities1 the disembodied feelings1 the passional essences4 ,let the reader recall for a moment the effects of painting or of poetry1 the way in which they present emotion4 ,is it not always by symbolism1 by indirection8 ,does not the feeling merely exhale from the object instead of constituting the object as it does in music8 ,in looking at a pastoral landscape1 for instance1 do we not first think of the peaceful scene represented1 and only secondarily feel serenity itself8 ,in reading ,la ,belle ,dame sans ,merci is it not only by a process of associative thought that we come to shudder with a sense of unearthly and destructive passion8 ,yes1 in the representative arts emotion is merely adjective2 in music alone is it substantive4 ,we see in a portrait a lovely woman2 we behold in marble a noble youth2 we read in poetry a desperate story2 in music1 on the contrary1 we hear love1 nobility1 despair4 ,and since this emotional life is the deepest reality we know1 since our intuitions constitute in fact the very essence of that world-spirit which is but projected and symbolized in sky1 sun1 ocean1 stars1 and earth1 music cannot but be a richer record of our ultimate life than those arts which deal with objects and symbols alone4 ,it is the penetration1 the ultimacy1 of music that gives it such extraordinary power4 ,the other arts excel it in definiteness1 in concreteness1 in the ability to delineate a scene or tell a story2 but music surpasses them all in power to present the naked and basic facts of existence1 the essential1 informing passions4 ,a secondary and subordinate advantage of music proceeds from the nature of its material4 ,tones1 produced and controlled by man1 are far more easily stamped with the unity he desires than the objects of external nature4 ,these are stubborn outer facts1 created without regard to the sthetic sense1 and in a thousand ways unamenable to it4 ,the great dazzle of sunlight is too keen for human eyes1 which perceive better on dim1 gray days2 many of nature's contours are larger than we can grasp4 ,every painter will tell you that there are inharmonious colors in the sunset1 and one daring critic has gone so far as to impugn the vulgarity of outline of the ,american hills4 ,it matters not whether the maladjustment indicate a fault in nature or a limitation in man2 the point to note is that the representative arts deal with a material less pliable than tones4 ,words1 the material of poetry1 occupy in this respect a curious intermediate position4 ,like tones1 they are man-made1 but1 like outer objects1 they are given1 fixed and indocile to man's sthetic needs4 7,we remember the example of the hatter47 ,though made by man1 in fact1 they are made not by his sthetic but by his practical energy4 ,they were devised1 not for beautiful adjustment1 but to convey thoughts1 and when the poet comes and uses them to make an art he finds them almost as perverse as the painter's trees and hills4 ,tones1 however1 have no practical utility whatever2 not only do they not exist outside of music1 but they would be of no use if they did4 ,hence they may be chosen and grouped by the free sthetic sense alone1 acting without let or hindrance1 except what is imposed by the thing to be expressed4 ,for hundreds of years man has been testing and comparing1 accepting and rejecting1 the elements of the tonal series1 with the result that we have to-day the ladder or scale of ninety-odd definitely fixed tones1 out of which all music is composed4 ,and though the series has been developed wholly by instinct1 and it is only within the last half-century that the natural laws underlying it have been discovered1 yet it has been built up so slowly and tentatively1 and with so sure and delicate a sense of its internal structure1 that it is an unsurpassable basis for complex and yet perfectly harmonious tone-combinations4 ,in a word1 the material of music is by origin self-congruous1 fitted to clear structure1 preordained to an order at once rich and transparent4 ,preordained to beauty1 then1 is the musician's material3 and yet the musician is not exempted from the difficulties of his brother artists4 ,if they work in a less plastic material1 he has to govern subtler and more wayward forces4 ,he can attain a wonderful perfection1 but only through unremitting labor4 ,his task is to embody the turbulent1 irrational human feelings in serene and beautiful forms4 ,he is to master the dominating1 to reconcile the warring1 to impose unity on the diverse and the repellant4 ,mozart and ,haydn might handle their art with ready ease1 because their emotions were nave2 but ,beethoven1 who essayed to look into the stormy and tortured heart of man1 found himself involved in a travail ,titanic and interminable4 ,nevertheless he did succeed in harnessing the vast forces with which he deals1 and his success is as conclusive a vindication as we could desire of music's power to deal with its profound verities4 ,when we think of ,beethoven's immortal works1 immortal both by their strength and by their beauty1 can we doubt that music expresses our deepest emotional nature with unrivalled fullness1 and yet so reconciles it with itself as to symbolize our highest spiritual peace8 ,from the swelter and jungle of experience in which it is our lot to pass our mortal days1 days which philosophy cannot make wholly rational1 nor love wholly capable of service1 nor religion wholly serene1 we are thus privileged to emerge1 from time to time1 into fairer realms4 ,tantalized with an unattainable vision of order1 we turn to art1 and especially to music1 for assurance that our hope is not wholly chimerical4 ,then ,music pours on mortals ,its beautiful disdain4 ,disdainful it is1 truly1 because it reminds us of the discord and the rhythmless onmarch of our days4 ,it voices the passions that have torn and mutilated and stung and blinded us2 we meditate the foolishness1 the fatality1 of our chaotic lives4 ,but beautiful it is also2 and it has been wisely said that beauty offers us a pledge of the possible conformity of the soul with nature4 ,music1 at once disdainful and beautiful1 shows us our deepest feelings1 so wayward and tragic in experience1 merged into ineffable perfection4 ,printed in the ,united ,states of ,america4 99 99 99 99 99 ,,transcriber',s ,,notes3 ,italic text is denoted by underscores4 ,the expression nth represents nth1 i4 e41 n followed by the superscript th4 ,a number of words in this book have both hyphenated and non-hyphenated variants4 ,for the words with both variants present the one more used has been kept4 ,obvious punctuation and other printing errors have been corrected4