,,music ,,and ,,life ,a ,,study ,,of ,,the ,,relations ,,between ,,ourselves ,,and ,,music ,,by ,,thomas ,,whitney ,,surette ,,author ,,of 8,the ,development of ,symphonic ,music0 ,,and 7,,with ,d4 ,g4 ,,mason7 ,,of 8,the ,appreciation of ,music0 ,illustration3 ,decoration ,,boston ,,and ,,new ,,york ,,houghton ,,mifflin ,,company ,the ,riverside ,press ,cambridge #aiag ,,copyright1 #aiaf1 ,,by ,,the ,,atlantic ,,monthly ,,company ,,copyright1 #aiag1 ,,by ,,thomas ,,whitney ,,surette ,,all ,,rights ,,reserved ,published ,march #aiag ,,acknowledgment ,the author desires to express his thanks to the ,editor of the ,atlantic ,monthly for permission to use1 as a part of this book1 material from a series of articles that appeared in his magazine4 ,,contents ,illustration3 ,decoration ,,introduction ,,chapter ,i ,,what ,,is ,,music8 ,i4 ,,distinction ,,between ,,music ,,and ,,the ,,other ,,arts #a ,,ii4 ,,the ,,elements ,,of ,,music #f ,,iii4 ,,the ,,significance ,,of ,,music #ac ,,iv4 8,,beauty ,,is ,,truth1 ,,truth ,,beauty0 #ah ,,chapter ,,ii ,,music ,,for ,,children ,i4 ,,training ,,the ,,sense ,,for ,,beauty #bf ,,ii4 ,,the ,,value ,,of ,,singing #cf ,,iii4 ,,current ,,methods ,,of ,,teaching #da ,,iv4 ,,what ,,should ,,children ,,sing8 #de ,v4 ,,the ,,fallacy ,,of ,,the ,,inevitable ,,pianoforte ,,lesson #ej ,,vi4 ,,the ,,real ,,goal #ef ,,chapter ,,iii ,,public ,,school ,,music ,i4 ,,ideals ,,of ,,public ,,school ,,education #fa ,,ii4 ,,the ,,value ,,of ,,music ,,in ,,public ,,school ,,education #fh ,,iii4 ,,false ,,methods ,,of ,,teaching #gd ,,iv4 ,,good ,,or ,,bad ,,music #hc ,v4 ,,attempts ,,at ,,reform #ia ,,vi4 ,,other ,,activities ,,in ,,school ,,music #ig ,,chapter ,,iv ,,community ,,music ,i4 ,,music ,,by ,,proxy #ajc ,,ii4 ,,our ,,musical ,,activities #ajh ,,iii4 ,,what ,,we ,,might ,,do #aag ,,iv4 ,,an ,,experiment #abi ,v4 ,,music ,,as ,a ,,social ,,force #acd ,,chapter ,v ,,the ,,opera ,i4 ,,what ,,is ,,opera8 #ade ,,ii4 ,,opera ,,in ,,the ,,old ,,style #adi ,,iii4 ,,wagner ,,and ,,after #aeh ,,iv4 ,,when ,,music ,,and ,,drama ,,are ,,fitly ,,joined #aff ,v4 ,,opera ,,as ,a ,,human ,,institution #age ,,chapter ,,vi ,,the ,,symphony ,i4 ,,what ,,is ,a ,,symphony8 #agi ,,ii4 ,,how ,,shall ,,we ,,understand ,,it8 #ahg ,,iii4 ,,the ,,materials ,,of ,,the ,,symphony #aif ,,iv4 ,,tone ,,color ,,and ,,design #baj ,,chapter ,,vii ,,the ,,symphony 7,continued7 ,i4 ,,the ,,unity ,,of ,,the ,,symphony #baf ,,ii4 ,,stages ,,of ,,its ,,development #bbf ,,iii4 ,,chamber ,,music ,,as ,,an ,,introduction ,,to ,,symphonies #bcd ,,iv4 ,,the ,,performer ,,and ,,the ,,public #bcg ,chapter ,,viii ,,conclusion #bda ,,introduction ,during the last twenty or thirty years there has been an enormous increase in the ,united ,states of what may be called 8institutional0 music4 ,we have built opera houses1 we have formed many new orchestras1 and we have established the teaching of music in nearly all our public and private schools and colleges1 so that a casual person observing all this1 hearing from boastful lips how many millions per annum we spend on music1 and adding up the various columns into one grand total1 might arrive at the conclusion that we are really a musical people4 ,but one who looks beneath the surface--who reflects that the thing we believe1 and the thing we love1 that we do--would have to do a sum in subtraction also2 would have to ask what music there is in our own households4 ,he would find that in our cities and towns only an infinitesimal percentage of the inhabitants sing together for the pleasure of doing so1 and that the task of keeping choral societies together is as difficult as ever2 that the music we take no part in1 but merely listen to1 is the music that flourishes2 that our operatic singers1 the most highly paid in the world1 come to us annually from abroad and sing to us in languages that we cannot understand2 that1 in short1 while music flourishes1 much of it is bought and little of it is home-made4 ,the deduction is obvious4 ,this institutional music is a sort of largess of our prosperity4 ,we are rich enough to buy the best the world affords4 ,we institute music in our public schools and display our interest in it once a year--at graduation time4 ,we see that our children take 8music lessons0 and judge the result likewise by their capacity to play us occasionally a very nice little piece4 ,men1 in particular1--all potential singers1 and very much needing to sing1--look upon it as a slightly effeminate or scarcely natural and manly thing to do4 ,music is1 in short1 too much our diversion1 and too little our salvation4 ,and to form a correct estimate of the value of our musical activities we should need also to consider the quality of the music we hear2 and this1 in relation to the sums we have been doing1 might make complete havoc of our figures1 because it would change their basic significance4 ,for if it is bad music1 the more we hear of it the worse off we are4 ,if a city spends thirty thousand dollars a year on bad public-school music1 it is a loser to the extent of some sixty thousand dollars4 ,if your child is painfully acquiring a mechanical dexterity 7or acquiring a painful mechanical dexterity7 in pianoforte playing and is learning almost nothing about music1 you lose twice what you pay and your child pays twice for her suffering4 ,what is called 8being musical0 cannot be passed on to some one else or to something else2 you cannot be musical vicariously--through another person1 through so many thousand dollars1 through civic pride1 through any other of the many means we employ4 ,being musical does not necessarily lie in performing music2 it is rather a state of being which every individual who can hear is entitled by nature to attain to in a greater or less degree4 ,such are the musical conditions confronting us1 and such are the possibilities open to us4 ,my purpose is1 therefore1 to suggest ways of improving this situation1 and of realizing these possibilities2 and1 as a necessary basis for any such suggestions1 to consider first the nature of music itself4 ,is it merely a titillation of the ear8 ,are ,mozart1 ,beethoven1 and ,schubert merely purveyors of sweetmeats8 ,does music consist in an astonishing dexterity in performance8 ,is it1 as ,whitman says1 8what awakes in you when you are reminded by the instruments08 ,or has it a life of its own1 self-contained1 self-expressive1 and complete8 ,these questions need to be asked--and answered--before we can formulate any method of improving our musical situation4 ,they are not asked4 ,we blindly follow conventional practices2 we make little effort to fathom the many delightful problems which every hearing of music presents to us2 we submit to being baffled every time we hear an orchestra play2 we take no forward step on the road to understanding4 ,beethoven was a heart1 a mind1 a will1 and an imagination2 we1 in listening1 absorb his emotion and hardly anything else4 ,his grotesque outbursts make us uncomfortable1 as would a solecism of behavior4 ,his strange1 bizarre1 uncouth1 and extraordinary themes1 every one of which fits perfectly into his plan1 leave us wondering what he intends4 ,his sentiment1 which is always relative to his humor or his roughness1 we understand only by itself4 ,our children1 after years of conventional music study1 are finally taken to hear an orchestral concert4 ,a great man is to speak to them4 ,he does not use words4 ,what he has to say issues forth in a myriad of sounds1 now soft1 now loud1 now fast1 now slow4 ,this that the child hears is what is called music1 seemingly a mere succession of sounds1 really a vision of what a great man has seen of all those inner things of life which only he can truly see4 ,these sounds are formed into a perfect order4 ,their very soul may hide in the peculiar tone of the oboe or horn2 they change their significance a dozen times in as many moments2 slender filaments of them run through and through as in a fairy web4 ,the child gapes4 8,is this music80 it says2 8,i thought music was the black and white keys1 or holding my hand right1 or scales1 or the key of ,f or ,g1 or sonatinas1 or something40 ,no one has ever told her what music really is4 ,she has only her delicate1 tender1 childlike feelings as a guide ,what she has been doing may have been as little like music as grammar is like literature4 ,both the child and the adult must be brought into contact with music2 with rhythmic movement in all its delightful diversity2 with great musical themes and the uses to which they are put by composers2 with musical forms by means of which pieces of music are made coherent2 with harmonies in their primary states1 or blended into a thousand hues4 ,they must learn to listen1 so that1 as the music unfolds1 there takes place within them an unfolding which is the exact answer to the processes going on in the music4 ,all this cannot be brought about save by intention4 ,it is the purpose of this book1 then1 to lead the reader by what capacity he possesses to such an understanding of the art of music as shall make every part of it intelligible to him4 ,and since some readers may have little knowledge of music1 this book also attempts to set forth the common grounds upon which all art rests1 and to tempt those who are interested in the other arts to become inquisitive about music4 ,curiosity is a necessary element in human intelligence4 ,,music ,,and ,,life ,,chapter ,i ,,what ,,is ,,music8 ,i4 ,,distinction ,,between ,,music ,,and ,,the ,,other ,,arts ,any discussion of the art of music1--of its significance in relation to ourselves1 of its sthetic qualities1 or of methods of teaching it1--to be comprehensive1 must be based on a clear recognition of the one important quality which is inherent in it1 which distinguishes it from the other arts and which gives it its peculiar power4 ,painting and sculpture are definitive4 ,it is not possible to create a great work in either of these mediums without a subject taken from life2 for1 however imaginative the work may be1 it must depict something4 ,in painting1 for example1 the very soul of a religious belief may shine from the canvas1--as in the ,sistine ,madonna1--but that belief cannot be there presented without physical embodiment4 ,and when the physical embodiment is reduced to its simplest terms1 as in some of ,manet's paintings1 there is still the necessity of portrayal2 ,manet's wonderful light and opalescent color must fall on an object4 ,turner paints a mystical landscape1 a mythological vale1 such as haunts the dreams of poets1 but it is impossible for him to produce the illusion by itself2 the vale is a vale1 human beings are there4 ,sculpture1 which makes its effects by the perfection of its rhythms around an axis1 and by its shadows1--effects of the most subtle and1 at the same time1 of the most elemental kind1--it1 too1 must portray2 the emotion must take form and substance1 and that form must be drawn from the outward1 visible world4 ,in poetry the same limitations exist4 ,it1 too1 must deal in human life with a certain definiteness4 ,but the greatest poetry is continually struggling to slough off the garment of reality and free the soul from its trammels4 ,it trembles on the verge of music1 seeking to find words for what cannot be said1 and attaining a great part of its meaning by a sublime euphony4 ,the didactic is its grave4 ,before ,i attempt to describe the peculiar quality which distinguishes music1 it will be well to state quite clearly what it cannot do4 ,this can best be understood by a comparison between it and poetry1 which of all the arts is nearest to music1 because it exists in the element of time1 whereas painting and sculpture exist in space4 ,poetry is made up of words arranged in meaning and euphony4 ,each of these words signifies an object1 idea1 or feeling2 the word 8chair10 for example1 has come to mean an object to sit upon4 ,now1 while notes in music are given certain alphabetical names indicating a pitch determined by sound waves1 the use of these letters is arbitrary and has no connection with their original hieroglyphic and hieratic significance4 ,the musical sound we call a1 for example1 means nothing as a sound1 has no common or agreed-upon or archological significance4 ,combine the note a with c and e in what is known as the common chord and you still have no meaning2 combine a with other notes and form a melody from them1 and you have perhaps beauty and coherence of form1--a pleasing sequence of sounds1--but still no meaning such as you get from the combination of letters in a word like 8chair40 ,combine a with a great many other notes into a symphony1 and this coherence and beauty may become quite wonderful in effect1 but it still remains untranslatable into other terms1 and without such definite significance as is attained by combining words in poems4 ,so we say that notes have no significance in themselves2 that musical phrases have no meaning as have phrases in language2 that melodies are not sentences1 and symphonies not poems4 ,if we compare music with painting or sculpture we find much the same contrast4 ,just as music does not mean anything in the sense that words do1 so it has no 8subject0 in the sense that ,turner's ,the ,fighting ,tmraire has1 or ,donatello's ,david4 ,it does not deal with objects4 ,it cannot portray a ship or a star4 ,it may seem to float1 it may flash for a moment1 but it does not describe or set forth4 ,furthermore1 it cannot1 strictly speaking1 give expression to ideas4 ,it may be so serious1 so ordered1 so equable--as in ,bach--that we say its composer was a philosopher1 but no item of his philosophy appears4 ,above all it is unmoral1#a and without belief or dogma4 ,too much stress can hardly be laid on this negative quality in music1 for it is in this very disability that its greatest virtue lies4 ,i shall refer later to the frequent tendency among listeners to avoid facing this problem by attaching meanings of their own to the music they hear4 ,i need only note in passing that these so-called 8meanings0 seldom agree1 and that the habit is the result either of ignorance of the true office of music1 or of mental lassitude toward it4 8,it is not enough to enjoy yourself over a work of art10 says ,joubert2 8you must enjoy it40 ,now the one distinguishing quality of music is this3 it finds its perfection in itself without relation to other objects4 ,it is what it is in itself alone4 ,it is non-definitive2 it does not use symbols of something else2 it cannot be translated into other terms4 ,the poet seeks always a complete union of the thing said and the method of saying it4 ,flaubert seeks patiently and persistently for the one word which shall not only be the exact symbol of his thought1 but which shall fit his euphony4 ,the painter so draws his objects1 so distributes his colors1 and so arranges his composition as to make of them plastic mediums for the expression of his thought1 and the greatness of his picture depends first of all and inevitably on his power of fusing his subjects with his technique4 ,in sculpture precisely the same process takes place4 ,neither of these arts actually copies nature2 each 8arranges0 it for its own purpose4 ,in music this much-sought union of matter and manner is complete2 the thing said and the method of saying it are one and indivisible4 ,it is1 as ,pater says1 8the ideal of all art whatever1 precisely because in music it is impossible to distinguish the form from the substance or matter1 the subject from the expression40 ,,ii4 ,,the ,,elements ,,of ,,music ,the primal element in music is vibration4 ,sound-waves in some ordered sequence--silent till they strike our ears--are formed by our ingenuity and sense of order into patterns of beauty4 ,they exist in time1 not in space4 ,they are motion4 ,and these vibrations are the very substance of all life2 of stars in their courses1 of the pulse-beats of the heart1 of the mysterious communications from the nerves to the brain1 of light1 of heat1 of color4 ,the plastic arts are static4 ,painting has the power 8to give ,to one blest moment snatched from fleeting time ,the appropriate calm of blest eternity40 ,sculpture is motion caught in a moment of perfection4 ,music is motion always in perfection4 ,this rhythm exists also in literature and the other arts4 ,poe would be nothing without it2 ,whitman uses it in long swelling undulations which are sometimes almost indistinguishable2 the composition in a great painting is a rhythm2 the ,apollo ,belvedere is all rhythm4 ,but in music rhythm is a physical1 moving property2 rhythm in being1 not rhythm caught in a poise4 ,the possibilities of rhythmic play in music far exceed those in poetry1 for in the latter the sense or meaning would be clouded by too much rhythmic complication4 ,it would be impossible to do in poetry1 for example1 what ,beethoven does at the beginning of a movement in one of his string quartettes1#b where the 'cello1 entirely alone1 repeats one note fifteen times in two rhythmic groups2 there is no melody and no harmony--merely one reiterated rhythmic sound4 ,it is also impossible for poetry to present three or four different rhythms simultaneously1 as music often does2 nor can poetic rhythms carry across a complete rhythmic disruption whose whole sthetic sense lies in its relations to a permanent rhythm which it momentarily violates1 as is the case in the first movement of ,beethoven's ,third ,symphony4 ,in short1 rhythm in music has a diversity1 a flexibility1 and a physical vigor quite unparalleled in any other art4 ,melody in music consists in a sequence of single sounds curved to some line of beauty4 ,whereas rhythm is conceivable without any intellectual quality1--as a purely physical manifestation1--melody implies some sense of design1 since it progresses from one point in time to another1 and without design would be merely a series of incoherent sounds4 ,in this design rhythm plays a leading part1 and the themes having the most perfect balance of rhythms are the most interesting4 ,examples of diverse but highly cordinated melodies may be found in the slow movement of ,beethoven's pianoforte sonata1 ,opus #ac1 and in ,brahms's pianoforte quartette1 ,opus #fj1 the synthetic quality of which is like that of a finely constructed sentence4 ,melody1 being design1 gives conscious evidence of the personality of its creator4 ,schubert1 for example1 is like ,keats and represents the type of pure lyric utterance4 ,bach1 on the contrary1 is essentially a thinker1 and his melodies are full of vigorous and diversified rhythms4 ,folk-song was the beginning of what we call 8melody10 and the best specimens of folk-songs are quite as perfect within their small range as are the greatest works of the masters4 ,their contour and rhythm are sometimes as delicately balanced as the mechanism of a fine instrument4 ,and when we remember that these melodies were the spontaneous utterance of simple1 untutored peoples who1 in forming them1 depended almost entirely on instinct1 we realize how intimate a medium music is for the expression of feeling4 ,people who could neither read nor write and who had little knowledge or experience of artistic objects could1 nevertheless1 create perfect works of beauty in the medium of sound4 ,harmony is an adjunct to the other two elements4 ,it is in music something of what color is in painting4 ,as contrasted with the long line of melody and the regular impulses in time of rhythm1 harmony deals in masses4 ,melody carries the mind from one point to another2 harmony strikes simultaneously and produces an immediate sensation4 ,its effect upon us is probably due to a subtle physical correspondence within ourselves to combinations of sounds that spring direct from nature4 ,the whole history of music shows a gradual assimilation by human beings of new combinations of sounds1 and it is probable that only the first chapters of that history have been written4 ,we have spoken of the synthetic quality of melody1 and it is obvious that the larger the scope of music the more important this quality becomes4 ,when a composer creates a sonata or symphony he must so dispose all his material--rhythms1 melodies1 and harmonies--as to give to the work perfect coherence4 ,a work of art expressed in the element of time needs this synthesis more than one expressed in space4 ,for although there is in music no 8subject10 yet beauty is being unfolded and the need of a cumulative and cordinated expression of it is quite as great as it would be were the music 8about0 something4 ,there are various ways of arranging musical material so as to attain this end4 ,the chief principle of its synthesis is derived from the volatile nature of sound itself4 ,it is this3 that no one series of sounds formed into a melody can long survive the substitution of other series1 unless there be given some restatement1 or at least some reminder1 of the first4 ,the result of this is that in the early music there was an alternation of one phrase or one tune with another2 and this in turn was followed by all sorts of experiments tending to bring about variety in unity4 7,these simple forms somewhat resemble what is known in poetry as the triolet47 ,the most common form in music is threefold4 ,it is found in folk-songs1 marches1 minuets1 nocturnes1 and so forth1 and--expanded to huge proportions--in symphonic movements4 ,in folk-songs this form consists in repeating a first phrase after a second contrasting one4 ,in minuets1 nocturnes1 romances1 and the like1 each part is a complete melody in itself4 ,in a symphonic movement the first part--save in such notable exceptions as the first movement of the 8,eroica0 of ,beethoven--contains all the thematic material1 the second contains what is called the 8development0 of the material stated in the first1 and the third part restates the first with such changes as shall give it new significance4 ,it is in this synthetic quality that much of the greatness of symphonic music lies4 ,no other quality1 however fine in itself1 can take its place4 ,schumann1 for example1 created interesting and beautiful themes in profusion1 but his compositions in the larger forms lack a complete synthesis4 ,bach was the greatest master in this respect4 ,so perfect is the ordering of his material that it gives that impression of inevitability which distinguishes all great art everywhere4 ,it is obvious enough that parallels to this form will be found in literature1 for it is a part of life and nature4 ,it is youth1 manhood1 and old age2 it is sunrise1 noon1 and sunset2 it is spring1 summer1 and winter4 ,so it must be2 for art is only life in terms of beauty1 and human life is only nature expressing itself in terms of man and woman4 ,this then is the thing we call music3 rhythm1 melody1 and harmony arranged into forms of beauty1 existing in time4 ,it is without meaning1 it is without 8subject10 it is without idea4 ,it creates a world of its own1 fictitious1 fabulous1 and irrelevant--a world of sound1 evanescent yet indestructible4 ,,iii4 ,,the ,,significance ,,of ,,music ,music deals first of all with feeling or emotion4 ,but since emotion may be guided by the mind and transfused by the imagination1--since emotion is not a separate and isolated part of our being1--so music may be so ordered by the mind and so transfused by the imagination as to become intellectual and imaginative4 ,it is true that the greater part of the music produced and performed deals only with emotion1 but this is equally true of literature4 ,the popular novel is nine tenths emotion1 one tenth mind1 and the rest imagination4 ,so it is with music1 though such illogical invention as one constantly finds in many popular novels would be intolerable in any music4 ,since there seems to be an incongruity between the statement that music has no definite meaning and the statement that it is intellectual1 let us take a specific illustration and see if we cannot reconcile the apparent confliction4 ,we must first of all distinguish between the quality itself and the expression of the quality4 ,a person may have a mind stored with wisdom and be completely what we call 8intellectual10 without ever expressing himself by a spoken or written word4 ,his wisdom exists by itself and for itself1 entirely separated from its expression4 ,if he expresses himself1 and with skill1 we call that expression literature1 but1 in any case1 it remains wisdom4 ,and what is wisdom8 ,it is what ,mr4 ,eliot describes a liberal education to be--8a state of mind02 it is the fusion of knowledge with experience1 with feeling1 and with imagination4 ,now words are symbols which diminish in their efficacy as they try to compass feeling and imagination4 ,if the wise man is cold1 he can say1 8,i am cold02 but if he wishes to tell you of his idea of ,god1 he has no words adequate for the purpose1 because he is dealing with something which is not in the domain of knowledge alone--which he can feel1 or perhaps imagine1 but cannot define4 ,the reason alone never even touches the far-away circle of that perfection which we believe to exist1 and the subtle inner relations between man and the visible and invisible world refuse to be harnessed to language4 ,for these he finds expression in some form of beauty4 8,the beautiful10 says ,goethe1 8is a manifestation of the secret laws of nature which1 but for this appearance1 had been forever concealed from us40 ,so we say that in wisdom the qualities we call insight1 feeling1 and imagination must find for themselves some more plastic medium of expression than language4 ,and when that plastic medium1 though non-definitive1 has those qualities of coherence1 continuity1 and form which are essential to all intellectual expression1 we are justified in calling it 8intellectual40 ,let us take for our specific illustration the first movement of the ,ninth ,symphony of ,beethoven4 ,it is impossible to imagine this as an expression of feeling only1 untouched by thought or by imagination4 ,the inevitable conclusion arrived at by any person who understands it is that the feeling is absolutely controlled by the mind1 and that it is imagination that gives it its extraordinary effect4 ,compare it with the first movement of ,tschaikovsky's 8,pathtique ,symphony0 where emotion runs riot2 the difference is as great as that between 8,victory0 and 8,the ,deemster40 ,compare it with a symphony by ,mendelssohn1 and the contrast is as vivid as that between a novel by ,meredith and one by ,miss ,braddon4 ,beethoven's music contains1 in the first place1 themes whose import all completely receptive persons feel to be profound4 7,that these themes do not so impress others is due either to atrophy of the musical faculty1 to mental lassitude1 or to lack of experience of great music47 ,these themes are presented in such design as not only to make the whole movement entirely coherent1 but to give it a sense of rushing onward to an inevitable conclusion4 ,so intensive is their treatment that almost the whole five hundred or more measures grow out of the original theme or thesis1 some fifteen measures long4 ,so imaginative is it that it seems to gather to itself all related things in heaven and earth and fuse them into one4 ,in short1 we must say that this music emanates from the mind of a great man1 who has subjected emotion to the control of the will and who has exercised that highest function of the mind that we call imagination4 ,may we not say1 then1 that this is wisdom8 ,shall we deny it because it cannot be spelled out word by word8 ,shall we not rather say that music is a means of expressing the deepest wisdom1 that which defies categorical expression8 ,may we not accept ,schopenhauer's saying3 8,music is an image of the will08 ,are we not justified in stating that music is even an expression of the deepest relation with the visible and invisible world which the soul of man is capable of experiencing1 and that these relations1 inexpressible in more concrete manifestations1 are expressible in music8 ,the pathos and resignation and courage in the first movement of the ,ninth ,symphony of ,beethoven are not his or yours or mine2 they are the qualities themselves in their infinite being1 more true1 more noble1 more pure than his or yours or mine4 ,may we not1 then1 even go so far as to say that music tells us the deepest truths of human life2 that 8it comes10 as ,symonds says1 8speaking the highest wisdom in a language our reason does not understand because it is older and deeper and closer than reason80 ,,iv4 8,,beauty ,,is ,,truth1 ,,truth ,,beauty0 ,i have already stated that the other arts have for their ideal that fusing of subject and expression which in music is complete1 and ,i have further stated that the purpose or object of music is to present emotion ordered and guided by the mind and illumined by the imagination4 ,in this latter respect all the arts are alike4 ,it is in the very nature of their being that they seek to find the heart of the great secret4 ,the purpose of painting and sculpture is not to present objects as objects1 but to set them forth in such harmonious perfection of line and color and rhythm as will reveal their deepest significance4 ,the greatest examples of the plastic arts cannot be understood through sense-perception of objects4 ,rembrandt is a greater painter than ,bougereau1 not only because he has superior technique1 but because he has deeper insight4 ,this is why the 8subject0 in painting is comparatively unimportant4 ,it is the same with literature4 ,in 8,jane ,eyre0 the 8subject0 is more tangible and vivid than in 8,villette10 but the latter is the finer book1 because the technical skill is greater1 the insight deeper4 8,there are no good subjects or bad subjects10 says ,hugo2 8there are only good poets and bad poets40 ,any subject is interesting when a master-mind presents it in full significance4 ,a custom-house is a prosaic thing1 and a custom-house that has neither exports nor imports1 but only a few sleepy old pensioners dozing in the sun1 might be thought a dull subject for a writer2 but ,hawthorne's imagination and subtlety of literary expression clothe it with both beauty and significance4 ,even the noblest and most tragic deeds find their best justification in a sublime harmony of beauty4 ,the ,greeks knew this well4 ,euripides1 in 8,the ,trojan ,women10 puts on the lips of ,hecuba these words3-- 8,had ,he not turned us in his hand1 and thrust ,our high things low and shook our hills as dust1 ,we had not been this splendor1 and our wrong ,an everlasting music for the song ,of earth and heaven60#c ,deeds1 monuments1 cities1 and civilizations fade into nothingness1 but a few words1 or a strain of music turned by an artist1 will live on forever4 ,the battle of ,gettysburg will become merely a paragraph of history1 the causes for which it was fought will be as nothing1 but the words spoken by ,lincoln will be preserved for all time1 not because they were wise1 but because they were wise and beautiful4 ,there is no escape from this condition4 ,an occasional great writer has railed at beauty1 only to prove finally that his own permanence depended on it4 ,carlyle1 for example1 was more caustic than usual when he discussed poetry4 ,his comment on ,browning's 8,the ,ring and the ,book0 ran thus3 8,a wonderful book1 one of the most wonderful ever written4 ,i re-read it all through--all made out of an #8,old ,bailey' story that might have been told in ten lines1 and only wants forgetting40 ,yet the best part of 8,sartor ,resartus0 is its beauty1 and there are in 8,the ,french ,revolution0 many passages of quite perfect poetic imagery and characterization without which it would lose much of its value4 ,what we call 8,carlyle0 is no longer a man2 nor is it a philosophy1 or a history2 it is nothing but a style1 a manner of saying things--an individual1 characteristic1 and strange blend of hard and soft1 of high and low1 of rugged and tender1 all struggling with a ,puritanical conscience4 ,so we say that beauty is the lodestone by which all life is tested4 ,no game can be perfectly played unless the physical motions are timed in beauty2 no machine will act save in perfect synthesis2 no character is strong until it attains a harmony within itself4 ,beauty is the matrix in which life shall be finally moulded4 ,all forms of artistic expression1 then1 require that we shall see the object not as fact but as art4 ,if it is fact--that is1 merely an isolated object or event--it remains insignificant until some artist catches it up into the wider realm in which it belongs and sets it forth in some form of beauty4 ,if we accept this conception of all the arts as seeking the inner sense of things1 as portraying life in its essence rather than in its outward manifestations1 we shall be able to understand the peculiar power of music4 ,it becomes then1 not merely a series of sounds arranged so as to be euphonious and pleasing to the ear1 but a book of life which contains the ultimate expression of our instinct and of our wisdom4 ,the ,third ,symphony of ,beethoven1 for example1 gives us a more convincing presentment of heroic struggle than is to be found in the other arts or in literature1 first1 because it has the power to present it in the element of time1 which is an essential part of any heroic deed2 second1 because it presents it as a quality disassociated from a particular heroism and therefore elevated into a type and made eternal2 and third1 because it presents it in conjunction with those other qualities without which there can be no heroism at all4 7,for no quality in life or element in nature exists for us save as the opposite or reverse of something else4 ,what we call light is comprehensible only as the opposite of darkness2 love is the opposite of hate1 cold of heat1 and so forth47 ,each of the other arts has one or two of these qualities2 none has all of them4 ,the novelist1 for example1 can use the first and last but not the second4 ,meredith's 8,vittoria0 is an ideal presentment of the struggle for ,italian unity1 but the heroism which constitutes the essence of the book has to find expression through actual persons4 ,so the greatest virtue of music lies not alone in its peculiar unification of matter and manner1 its artistic perfection1 but in the power which that gives it to create a world not based on the outward and the visible1 but on that invisible realm of thought1 feeling1 and aspiration which is our real world4 ,for if there is any one certain historical fact1 it is that from the earliest times until now man has continually sought some escape from reality1 some building up of a perfect world of ideal beauty which should still his eternal dissatisfaction with the imperfections and inconsistencies of his own life4 ,it is in the very nature of his situation that he should seek some perfection somewhere4 ,so he has tried to paint this perfection on canvas1 idealizing life and nature into a satisfying form of beauty2 or he has carved a physical perfection in marble to deify himself and give himself a place in nature2 or he has built up for himself a world of magical words in which all his noblest dreams strive for expression4 ,everywhere and always he has had this dream1 which has saved him when all else failed4 ,and the noblest of his dreamers have been those whose imaginations have transcended the limitations of the actual and brought it into relation with the unknown4 ,music1 obeying the great laws that underlie all life and to which all the arts are subject1 having for its means of expression the most plastic of all media1 depending on intuitive perception of truth1 not compelled to perpetuate objects1 dealing with that larger part of man's being which lies hidden beneath both his acts and his thoughts1--that which ,carlyle calls 8the deep fathomless domain of the ,unconscious10--music is the one perfect medium for this dream of humanity4 ,in its expression of human emotions it enjoys the inestimable advantage of entire irrelevance4 ,it does not have to develop a character or person1 but only an attribute or quality4 ,the 8,eroica0 symphony1 for example1 has all the force of a mythological epic in which the heroes are pure spirit-types of humanity1 of no age or time--gods1 if you will1 and above human limitations4 ,this is the quality of music that makes it precious to us4 ,it builds for us an immaterial world--not made of objects1 or theories1 or dogmas1 or philosophies1 but of pure spirit--a means of escape from the thralldom of every day4 ,,footnotes3 #a ,it may1 of course1 be used with molds of definite meaning2 but we are speaking of pure music4 #b ,the ,scherzo of ,opus #ei1 no4 #a4 #c ,gilbert ,murray translation4 ,,chapter ,,ii ,,music ,,for ,,children ,i4 ,,training ,,the ,,sense ,,for ,,beauty ,in what ,i have to say about music for children ,i am not unmindful of the diversity of ,american life1 and of the prevalent idea that ,americans do not pay much attention to music 7or to any other form of beauty7 because they live in a new country in which the greater part of their energy is devoted to subduing nature and carving their fortunes4 ,as a nation we are said to be too diverse to have evolved any definite sthetic practice1 and we suppose ourselves too busy with the practical things in life to pay much attention to it4 ,while it is doubtless true that there are numberless prosperous ,american families in which the words 8art0 and 8literature0 mean nothing whatever1 this condition is due1 in most cases1 not to lack of time1 but to lack of inclination4 ,we1 like other people1 do what we like to do4 ,no real attention is paid in childhood to the cultivation of a love of the beautiful2 very little attention is paid to it in the educational institutions where we are trained2 so we grow up and enter upon life with a desultory liking for music1 with a distinct lack of appreciation for poetry1 and with almost no interest in painting or sculpture4 ,and this condition is likely to increase rather than diminish as time goes on1 until1 having finally arrived at moments of leisure and finding that neither our money nor any other material possession gives us any deep or permanent satisfaction1 we turn to beauty only to be confronted with the old warning3 8,too late1 ye cannot enter now40 ,for we have arrived at the time when1 in ,meredith's phrase1 8,nature stops1 and says to us1 #8,thou art now what thou wilt be4'0 ,for this capacity for understanding and loving great books and paintings and music has to grow with our own growth and cannot be postponed to another season4 ,the average ,american man is supposed to have no time for these things4 ,he has time1 but he refuses to turn it into leisure1--leisure which means contemplation and thoughtfulness1--though he very likely knows that this has been accomplished over and over again by men who have saved out of a busy life for that purpose a little time every day4 ,one recalls ,darwin's pathetic statement wherein he describes his early love for poetry and music1 and the final complete loss of those 8capabilities0 through neglect4 8,the loss of these tastes10 he says1 8is a loss of happiness1 and may possibly be injurious to the intellect1 and more probably to the moral character by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature40 ,the intellect of man1 in itself1 is never supreme or sufficient4 ,feeling or instinct is half of knowledge4 8,whoever walks a furlong without sympathy10 says ,whitman1 8walks to his own funeral drest in his shroud40 ,of any man1 ,american or otherwise1 who lives his life unmindful of all beauty we may justly say1 as ,carlyle said of ,diderot1 8,he dwelt all his days in a thin rind of the ,conscious2 the deep fathomless domain of the ,unconscious whereon the other rests and has its meaning was not under any shape surmised by him40 ,must not the education of children in beauty begin1 then1 with their parents8 ,must they not be aroused1 at least1 to an intellectual conviction of its value1 even though they have missed its joy8 ,can the matter be safely left to the jurisdiction of the schools themselves whose curricula are already overcrowded with methods of escape from this very thing8 ,does not the school answer the general conception of education obtaining among the fathers and mothers of the school-children8 ,can it be expected--is it possible for it--to rise far above that conception8 ,my object is therefore to suggest1 first1 that the perception of beauty is1 in the highest sense1 education2 second1 that music is especially so1 because it is the purest form of beauty2 and1 third1 that music is the only form of beauty by means of which very young children can be educated1 because it is the only form accessible to them4 ,need ,i point out that there has never been a time in the history of mankind when human beings have not paid tribute to beauty8 ,in their attempt to escape what may be called the traffic of life and to rise above its sordid limitations1 have they not always and everywhere created for themselves some sort of detached ideal by means of which they justified themselves in an otherwise unintelligible world8 ,this ideal may have been a god of stone1 but it figured for them a perfect absolution4 ,surrounded by brutal forces about which they knew nothing1 subject to pestilence1 to war1 to starvation1 to the fury of the elements1 unable safely to shelter their bodies1 they built for their souls a safe elysium4 ,this ideal was always one of order and beauty2 every civilization has possessed it1 and it was to each civilization not only religion1 but also what we call 8art40 ,i referred in the first chapter to that quality in art which consists in its 8holding a mirror up to nature10 and thus focusing our attention4 ,browning expresses this in 8,fra ,lippo ,lippi10 where he says1-- 8,for1 don't you mark1 we're made so that we love ,first when we see them painted1 things we have passed ,perhaps a hundred times nor cared to see40 ,but the highest office of art is not so much to attract our attention to beautiful objects as to make us realize through the artist's skill what the objects signify4 ,it is the artist who so depicts life as to make it intelligible to us2 it is he who sees all those deeper relations which underlie all things2 he1 and he only1 can so present human aspirations and human actions as to lift them out of the maze and give them order and sequence4 ,through all the welter of political theories1 of philosophies1 of dogmas insisted on at the point of excommunication2 amid the discoveries of science and the tendency to make life into a mechanically operated thing1 the still small voice of the poet rises always supreme--supreme in wisdom1 supreme in insight1 the seer1 the prophet1 the philosopher2 when all else has passed he remains1 for beauty is the only permanence4 ,to eliminate beauty from education is to destroy its very soul4 ,from the law of gravity to ,shelley's 8,to a ,skylark10 beauty is the central element4 ,in physics1 in mathematics1 in astronomy1 in chemistry1 there is the same perfection of order and sequence1 the same correlation of forces1 the same attraction of matter which1 operating in the fine arts1 brings about what we call 8painting10 8sculpture10 8poetry10 and 8music40 ,the whole of nature is a postulate of this doctrine1 and there is no subject taught from kindergarten to college which may not be taught as in accord with it4 ,there is a rhythm of beauty in all things animate and inanimate--an endless variety around a central unity4 ,the individuality in nature and in human life is as a rhythmic diversity to a divine and central unity4 ,the leaves of a maple tree are all alike and all different2 the difference between the mechanical arts and the fine arts is a difference of rhythmic flexibility3 one is fixed in rhythm in accordance with physical laws1 and acts in perfect sequence and regularity2 the other is a free individualized rhythmic play around a fixed center4 ,the painter may not dispose the objects on his canvas as he pleases--nature allows him only a certain freedom2 the sculptor may distribute his weights and his rhythms around the axis with only so much freedom from the demands of nature as his particular purpose justifies2 even the strain of music1 which seems to wander so much at will that it is often called a 8rhapsody10--it1 too1 is merely a play of rhythms and contours around a fixed center1 and conforms to a common purpose just as a maple leaf does4 ,a machine acts in mechanical synthesis1 a melody acts in sthetic synthesis2 neither is free4 ,so we say there is no such thing as an isolated fact1 or subject1 or idea4 ,thus everything taught to children can be taught as beauty1 and if it is not so taught1 its very essence must dissolve and disappear4 8,the mean distance from the earth to the moon is about two hundred and forty thousand miles02 8two and two make four02 8an island is a body of land entirely surrounded by water02--so a child learns his lesson in what are called facts 7the most deceptive and soulless things in the world74 ,to him 8the moon0 and 8a mile0 are little more than words2 #b #b are troublesome hieroglyphics2 8an island0 is1 perhaps1 merely a word in a physical geography book2 but to you all these objects and quantities are1 perhaps1 beautiful2 for you 8,the moon doth with delight ,look around her when the heavens are bare02 for you numbers have come to have that significance which makes them beautiful2 an island may have touched your imagination as it has ,conrad's1 who calls it 8a great ship anchored in the open sea02 you have seen that beauty which lies behind facts when they fall1 as with a click1 into the mechanism of things4 ,so must children be taught to realize at the very beginning something of that great unity which pervades the world of thought and of matter4 ,some comprehension must be given to them of that marvelous sense of fitting together1 of perfect correspondence1 which all nature reveals and which is ultimately beauty4 ,it is this quality1 residing in every subject1 which constitutes the justification for our insistence on beauty as a part of education4 ,with our present systems of education all ideality is crushed1 for this ideality is a personal quality1 whereas all we are1 we are in mass4 8,you are trying to make that boy into another you10 said ,emerson1 some fifty years ago2 8one's enough40 ,modern education1 subject to constant whims1 has become a capacious maw into which our children are thrown4 ,everything for use1 nothing for beauty2 for use means money1 while beauty--what is beauty good for8--7a question which ,lowell1 in one of his essays1 says 8would be death to the rose and be answered triumphantly by the cabbage074 ,this is indeed an old thesis1 but never has it more needed stating than now4 ,it applies everywhere4 ,literature taught as beauty is uplifting and joyful2 taught as syntax it is dead and cheerless4 ,all other forms of instruction lose their force if they are detached from that poetic harmony of which they are a part4 ,numbers1 cities1 machines1 symphonies1 the objects on your table1 you yourself1--all these are to be seen as belonging to this harmony1 without which the world is ,bedlam4 ,american children are musical1 ,american adults are not1 and the chief reason lies in the wasted opportunities of childhood4 ,if the natural taste of our children for music were properly developed1 they would continue to practice it and to find pleasure in doing so1 and thus would avoid the fatal error of postponing their heaven to another time--the great mistake of life and of theology4 ,i desire therefore to deal here with the possibilities which music offers to children1 not to a few children in playing the pianoforte1 but to all children in love and understanding4 ,it is obviously desirable to make them all love music1 and1 since few of them ever attain satisfactory proficiency in playing instruments1 our chief problem lies in trying to develop their taste and thereby keeping their allegiance4 ,,ii4 ,,the ,,value ,,of ,,singing ,in the first chapter ,i discussed the qualities and properties of music as such--music1 that is1 in its pure estate1 unconnected with words as in songs1 or with words1 action1 costume1 and scenery1 as in opera4 ,and now1 in writing about children's music1 it is still necessary to keep in mind that1 even when music is allied to words1 it has the necessities of its own nature to fulfill1 and that the use of suitable or even fine words in a child's song does not change this condition4 ,in beginning this discussion ,i propose to ignore for the moment the effect in after life of what we advocate for children1 and ,i also discard 7with a certain contempt7 the common notion--true enough in its way--that music is for them a rest and a change after burdensome tasks4 ,for we must see music1 in relation to children1 as it really is4 ,i go behind the psychologist#d who says1 8 444 the prime end of musical education 444 is to train the sentiments1 to make children feel nature1 religion1 country1 home1 duty1 444 to guarantee sanity of the heart out of which are the issues of life02 for ,i say that music1 by itself1 cannot make children feel nature1 religion1 country1 home1 or duty1 and that these sentiments are aroused by the heightened effect of words set to music1 and not by the music itself4 ,the prime end of music--and of the other arts--is beauty4 ,song is not story1 melodies have nothing to do with morals1 and all the theories about music--such as those of ,darwin and ,spencer--are wrong when they attribute to it any ulterior purpose or origin whatever4 ,music is an end1 not a means4 ,now this beauty which the soul of man craves1 and always has craved1 cannot be brought to little children in literary form1 because they cannot read or because their knowledge of words is too limited2 nor can it be brought to them in the form of painting1 because they are not sufficiently sensitive to color-vibrations2 nor of sculpture1 for their sense of form is not sufficiently developed4 ,in fact1 their power of response is exceedingly limited in most directions4 ,they can neither draw nor paint nor write nor read1 so that this beauty which we value so highly seems shut out from them4 ,this were so but for music4 ,by singing1 and by singing only1 a little child of five may come in contact with a pure and perfect form of beauty4 ,not only that1 but the child can reproduce this beauty entirely unaided1 and in the process of doing so its whole being--body1 mind1 heart1 and soul--is engaged4 ,the song1 for the moment1 is the child4 ,there is no possible realization of the little personality comparable to this4 ,here1 in sounds1 is that correlation of impulses in which the stars move2 here is the world of order and beauty in miniature2 here is a microcosm of life2 here is a talisman against the cold1 unmeaning facts which are driven into children's brains to jostle one another in unfriendly companionship4 ,through this they can feel a beauty and order which their minds are incapable of grasping4 ,the joy which a child gets in reproducing beautiful melodies is like no other experience in life4 ,it is absolutely a personal act1 for the music lends itself to the child's individuality as nothing else does4 ,music1 in this sense1 preserves in children that ideality which is one of the most precious possessions of childhood1 and which we would fain keep in after life2 which loves flowers and animals1 which sees the truth in fairy stories1 which believes everything to be good and is alien to everything sinister1 which sees the moon and stars1 not as objects so many millions of miles from the earth1 and parts of a great solar system1 but as lanterns hung in the heavens4 ,the prime object1 then1 of musical education for children is so to develop their musical sensibilities as to make them love and understand the best music4 ,does this bring up the question1 8,what is the best music80 ,by the 8best0 music ,i mean exactly what ,i should mean if ,i were to substitute the word 8literature0 for 8music0--,i mean the compositions of the great masters4 ,and if you say that the great masters did not write music suitable for little children1 ,i reply that such music has nevertheless been produced by all races in their childhood1 that it exists in profusion1 that it is commonly known as 8folk-song10 that it is the basis upon which much of the greatest music in the world rests1 and1 finally1 that it is the natural and1 indeed1 the inevitable means of approach to such great music4 ,this basis1 to which ,i refer1 is both actual and ideal4 ,many great composers have used actual folk-melodies4 ,the chorales in ,bach's 8,st4 ,matthew ,passion10 for example1 are based on traditional melodies4 ,in ,haydn's instrumental compositions folk-songs are often used verbatim1 and the total number of them to be found in his works is very great4 ,notable examples may be found in ,beethoven--as in the 8,rasoumoffsky0 quartettes1 and the ,seventh ,symphony--while ,schubert1 ,brahms1 and ,tschaikovsky used folk-melodies freely4 ,dvok and ,grieg are essentially national in their idiom and style1 and folk-music may be said to be the basis of the music of each4 ,ideally the debt of music to folk-song is greater still4 ,any typical1 ,adagio of ,beethoven 7such as that in the so-called 8,pathtique ,sonata07 springs from folk-song1 and1 in spite of the long process of development through which music had passed1 reflects--in a more mature form--the same sentiment one finds in the original4 ,how could it be otherwise8 ,is there any art1 or any other intellectual activity of man1 of which the same thing cannot be said8 ,were not ,keats and ,shelley waiting to be born of ,coleridge and ,wordsworth8 ,is there such a thing as a fruit without a vine2 a blossom without a stem2 an end without a beginning8 ,there have been composers1 poets1 and painters who have lived detached from the common consciousness--like those strange organisms in nature that float in sea or air and draw nothing from the earth's native soil2 but all the greatest minds have been rooted in the past and have drawn their inspiration from common human experience4 ,keeping in mind1 then1 that our object is to train the taste of children so that they will love the best music1 let us examine what is actually taking place in the teaching of music to children4 ,,iii4 ,,current ,,methods ,,of ,,teaching ,the most common fallacy in our teaching consists in putting knowledge before experience1 or theory before practice4 ,children are taught about music before they have had sufficient experience of it4 ,they are taught1 for example1 to pin pasteboard notes on a make-belief staff2 they are told that one note is the father-note and another the mother-note 7one supposes the chromatics to be irascible old-maid aunts72 all sorts of subterfuges are resorted to in an attempt to teach them what they are too young to learn and what1 in any case1 can have no significance whatever except when based on a long process of actual experience4 ,one might as well try to satisfy a hungry child with a picture of an apple as to show a child notes before it has dealt with sounds4 ,this1 then1 is our great fallacy4 ,it is impossible to expect children to be musical if they begin with symbols of any kind4 ,furthermore1 in the teaching of songs without notation1 the whole stress can be laid on fundamental things4 ,what are these8 ,first1 a sense of rhythm4 ,in the development of music rhythm came before melody1 as melody came before harmony4 ,rhythmic freedom and accuracy are essential1 not only to a child's musical education1 but to his physical well-being4 ,now there is one thing certain1--namely1 that freedom and accuracy in rhythm can be brought about only by actual bodily movement4 7,it is unnecessary to dwell on the fundamental difference between actual rhythmic movement and any symbol of it1 such as a half or quarter note47 ,and the beginning of the musical training of children should consist in marching1 or clapping hands to music played by the teacher4 ,following this the actual notes of simple folk-song may be expressed in bodily motion--as in running or dancing--the chief point being to engage the whole body4 ,the beginnings of ,eurhythmics as evolved by ,dalcroze serve this purpose excellently1 the meter of the song 7#d_/d or #c_/d7 being expressed with the arms1 while1 at the same time1 the rhythms 7or actual notes7 are expressed by the movement of the feet with the body in motion4 ,it must always be kept in mind1 however1 that this training is for the mind and the sthetic sense1 and that the bodily motions are for the purpose of giving children an exact sense of rhythm4 ,too great stress cannot be laid on the necessity of always using good music4 ,furthermore1 ,i wish to avoid the pitfalls that are spread at every hand in the form of schools for self-expression in which children and adults are taught so-called 8sthetic0 movements to music4 sthetic dancing is one thing2 a musical education is another4 ,the cry for self-expression is characteristic of out attitude toward education4 ,a child or an adult is asked to listen to a piece of music and then to express in motion or pose what it feels4 ,undisciplined by experience1 incapable--as we all are--of fathoming the mystery of great music1 uneducated in those immutable laws that underlie all sthetics1 what can such a person express--save that idiosyncrasy which he at that moment is8 ,so1 ultimately1 one expresses a ,beethoven sonata or symphony by poses and movements--in a ,greek dress1 against a curtained background and under a calcium light6 ,this delicate1 transitory1 elusive1 and impenetrable thing we call music is something more than motion2 yes1 more even than motion1 melody1 and harmony together1 for they are but its body2 its spirit can neither be fathomed nor expressed save in terms of itself4 ,on every side this sort of instruction goes on4 ,one hears glib statements on the lips of uninstructed persons about child psychology1 8second0 brain1 and so forth4 ,a pupil is asked to listen to a phrase of music and then tell the teacher what 8comes through40 ,we must remember that art is discipline and that there is no real liberty except under law4 ,we want children to use their minds accurately and to have control of their bodies1 but this use and this control can only come through definite and regulated effort4 ,gropings in the dark1 detached and illusive pursuits of the will-o'-the-wisps of education will never accomplish our purpose4 ,,iv4 ,,what ,,should ,,children ,,sing8 ,but even these artificial and false methods are less harmful to children than are the poor1 vapid1 and false songs by means of which their taste is slowly and surely disintegrated4 ,now the nature of music is such that many people are unable to see why one child's song is better than another4 ,there is a considerable number of people having to do with children's music who seem quite incapable of distinguishing between a really beautiful folk-song and a trivial copy of one4 ,long association with the latter has produced the inevitable result4 ,only one argument can be brought to bear on such persons1 an argument having nothing to do with sthetics--namely1 that the current music for children of one generation is inevitably displaced by that of the next1 whereas the same folk-songs are continually reproduced1 and are sung by increasing generations of children the world over4 ,any musician can string together in logical sequence a series of notes to fit a verse of simple poetry--almost every musician has2 any poet can put together simple and easily understood verses2 but the hand of time sweeps them away to oblivion4 ,out of the depths of simple hearts1 in joy or sorrow or privation1 as a balm to toil and labor1 as a cry from a mother's heart1 in battle1 in moments of religious exaltation--wherever and whenever the depths are stirred1 song springs forth4 ,a composer can express only what is in him2 his limitations are as confining as are those of every other artist4 ,dickens could no more create a ,clara ,middleton than could ,tschaikovsky a theme like that at the opening of the ,ninth ,symphony2 and to suppose that the creation of a child's song is a simple matter of putting notes together in a correct and agreeable sequence1 is to misconceive the whole creative process4 ,it is our cardinal error that we think any tune good enough which is attractive at first hearing4 ,in the music-books provided for kindergarten and for home singing there is an endless series of poor1 vapid1 over-sweet melodies which children1 hungry for any music1 will sing readily enough for lack of better4 ,some of these tunes smack unmistakably of a ,broadway musical comedy2 many of them are full of mawkish sentiment and affected simplicity4 ,no real progress can be made until we reach definite conclusions on this point and act on them4 ,our taste and that of our children is never stationary1--we continually advance or go backwards1--and the subtle disintegration of the taste of children by bad songs results inevitably in indifference to good music in later life4 ,the road branches here2 one leads the way we know too well1 the other leads to a real love of fine music1 to a real happiness in it1 and to a real respect for it4 ,let me say1 also1 that children love good songs1 and that1 as a part of their natural or normal endowment1 they possess in this respect1 and to a remarkable degree1 that quality which we ignobly call 8taste40 7,i recall an old ,egyptian manuscript in the ,bodleian ,library containing a letter which ran thus3 8,theon to his father1 ,theon--,greeting4 ,it was a fine thing that you did not take me to ,alexandria with you4 ,send me a lyre1 ,i implore you6 ,if you don't1 ,i won't eat anything4 ,i won't drink anything4 ,there607 ,the number of musical nostrums for children is legion1 and ,i have no desire to enumerate them4 ,their effects are in inverse relation to their extensive and--sometimes--expensive paraphernalia4 ,but ,i will quote a single sentence from a popular song-book for children as an illustration of the tendency which they represent3 8,understanding as we do the innate fondness of children for rich harmonies1 we have given special attention to the harmonization of the melodies2 and although it is occasionally necessary for children to sing without accompaniment1 yet such a lack is to be deplored1 as the accompaniment often serves as the rhythmic expression of the thought40 ,the foregoing specimen is almost a compendium of what children's songs and the teaching of them should not be4 ,if children are fond of 8rich0 harmonies1 the fact is to be regretted4 7,i do not believe that the average child is47 ,the best possible thing for them1 in that case1 would be to hear no harmonies at all for some time1 but to sing entirely unaccompanied 7just as you would deprive them of sweetmeats if they had been made ill by them72 special attention given to the harmonization of children's songs is given in an entire misconception of their character and their uses2 for the essence of a child's song lies in its own rhythmic and melodic independence1 and if it depends on an accompaniment for its rhythm1 it is by just so much a poor song4 ,there is no harm in a simple accompaniment to a folk-song1 but in teaching them to children an accompaniment does for them precisely what we want them to do for themselves1 namely1 reproduce correctly the metre and the rhythm1 the pitch and the contour of the melody4 ,such training as ,i have advocated1 if carried on through early childhood1 brings with it a natural desire to continue singing and makes learning to sing from notes much easier than it would otherwise be4 ,the capacity to sing music at sight is a valuable acquisition for children1 for it enables them to take part in choral singing and provides them in after years with a delightful means of access to some of the finest music4 ,the advantage to the individual of this acquired technique is that it is of the mind and not of the muscles2 it does not desert its possessor as finger technique deserts the player who ceases to practice4 ,to sing part songs with friends1 or to be one of a larger number singing a composition by ,bach or some other great composer1 in which each singer is contributing to reproduce a noble work of art--this1 in itself1 is a highly desirable experience4 ,but the process of learning to sing at sight has sometimes led far away from true sthetics and has resulted in a certain debasing of the taste through singing inferior music4 ,vocal exercises for sight singing are necessary1 and we can accept them as such1 for they do not evoke the sthetic sense2 but bad songs taught to illustrate some point of technique are unnecessary and inexcusable4 ,v4 ,,the ,,fallacy ,,of ,,the ,,inevitable ,,pianoforte ,,lesson ,but the majority of the children who have private instruction in music take lessons in pianoforte-playing4 ,it has become a custom2 the pianoforte is an article of domestic furniture 7and a very ugly one72 pianoforte-playing is a sort of polish to a cursory education4 ,but the reason is chiefly found in the fact that this is the line of least resistance3 there are plenty of teachers of pianoforte-playing but few teachers of music1 so parents accept that which is available4 ,there is here a confusion between performing music and understanding it4 ,learning to perform seems 7and is7 a tangible asset--something definitely accomplished2 while merely learning to understand music seems to parents a vague process likely to have somewhat indefinite results4 ,they want their children to produce tangible results in the form of 8pieces0 well played4 ,here again we find the same misconception4 ,music in this sense is half titillation of the ear1 and half finger-gymnastics4 ,such music instruction consists in finding the right key1 black or white1 holding the hand in a correct position1--patented and exploited as the only correct method1--putting the thumb under1 and finally1 after going through an almost endless series of evolutions covering many years and carried on at fearful cost of patience to every one within hearing1 in dashing about over the glittering keys with an abandonment of dexterity positively bewildering4 ,nine tenths of the aspirants1 however1 fall by the wayside and some time later look back grimly on a long procession of endless hours almost wasted4 ,one pictures to one's self a little girl of seven or eight seated before that ponderous and portentous mass of iron1 steel1 wood1 wires1 and hammers which we call a 8pianoforte0 7sixty pounds of tender1 delicate humanity trying to express itself through a solid ton71 her legs dangling uncomfortably in space1 her little fingers trying painfully to find the right key1 and at the same time to keep in a correct position1 struggling hard the while to relate together two strange things1 a curious black dot on a page and an ivory key two feet below it1 for neither of which she feels much affection4 ,and then one pictures to one's self the same child at its mother's knee1 or with other children1 singing with joy and delight a beautiful song4 ,i do not advocate the abolishment of pianoforte-teaching to children1 but ,i do advocate the exercise of some discrimination in regard to it1 and particularly ,i insist that it should not be begun until the child has sung beautiful songs for several years and has developed thereby its musical instincts1--and even then only when a child possesses a certain amount of that physical cordination which is absolutely essential to playing the pianoforte4 ,for pianoforte-playing is by no means a sure method of developing the musical instinct in children4 ,in the first place it lacks the intimacy of singing1 and in the second place the playing itself demands the greater part of a child's attention1 so that often it hardly hears the music at all4 ,any method of teaching music is1 of course1 wrong which attempts to substitute technical dexterity for music itself4 ,the foregoing is not typical of the most intelligent instruction in pianoforte-playing1 for there are many teachers who reason these matters out1 and there are some parents who see them clearly enough to allow such teachers a reasonable latitude4 ,but it is true of pianoforte-teaching in general1 as doubtless almost every one of our readers has had some evidence4 ,it is obvious that even a slight capacity to play the pianoforte is useful and delightful provided one plays with taste and understanding1 for one gets from it a certain satisfaction which mere listening does not give4 ,i deplore only an insistence upon playing as the only means of approach to music2 ,i question the wisdom of forcing children to play who are not qualified to do so2 and ,i think playing should1 in any case1 be postponed until the musical faculties are awakened by singing4 ,it is doubtless the conventional and domestic character of the pianoforte that leads us to train our children to play upon it rather than upon the violin4 ,the pianoforte is available for casual music1 for accompaniments to songs1 for dance music1 and so forth4 ,the violin is1 perhaps1 only useful to one person4 ,but how much more intimate it is6 ,tucked under the chin it becomes almost a part of the player--as the sculls used to be to the ,autocrat when he went rowing4 ,the tones of the violin are yours and have to be evoked through your own patient effort2 the pianoforte stands glistening and repellent1 almost impervious to your personality4 ,i would have children taught to play the violin1 or violoncello in preference to the pianoforte1 and ,i look forward to the time when we shall train our young people to play other orchestral instruments as well4 ,this is being successfully done even now in the public schools4 ,my own observation leads me to believe that talent for pianoforte-playing is quite rare1 and that the average child is more likely to be able to play the violin4 ,what more delightful than a quiet evening of chamber music in a small room1 young and old playing together8 ,each person has his own interesting part to play4 ,each expresses himself and at the same time conforms to the ensemble4 ,this would be true self-expression under the best kind of discipline4 ,it is perhaps too much to expect to stem the tide of bad pianoforte music4 ,here1 as elsewhere1 the home influence counts for much4 ,is it not the duty of parents to satisfy themselves that the teacher of music is giving their children the best and nothing else8 ,the teaching of music in this country has suffered enormously through being detached from the highest professional standards1 and1 on the other hand1 the professional standard suffers in being disconnected from the common life and thought4 ,in other words1 anybody who plays the pianoforte a little can set up in business as a teacher1 while1 at the same time1 the highly qualified professional teacher often forgets that he is dealing with a human being who wants to understand music and whose happiness in dealing with it must ultimately depend on that understanding4 ,when children show an aptitude for playing the pianoforte there exists still the important question of developing their taste4 ,playing loses much of its value if there is any lack of musical taste and judgment on the part of the teacher4 ,an examination of the programmes of what are called 8pupils' recitals0 will reveal how lax some teachers are in this respect4 ,there is no excuse whatever for giving children poor music to play1 for there is plenty of good music to be had and they can be taught to like it--but the teacher must like it also4 ,children are quick to discover a pretense of liking1 and it is difficult to stimulate in them a love for something which you do not love yourself4 ,,vi4 ,,the ,,real ,,goal ,these questions now inevitably arise3 8,how can children be taught music itself80 8,by what process is it possible for them to become musical80 ,obviously through personal experience and contact with good music1 and with good music only1 first by singing beautiful songs to train the ear and awaken the taste1 second by learning how to listen intelligently1 and third 7if qualified to do so7 by learning to play good music on some instrument4 ,intelligent listening to music is obviously such listening as comprises a complete absorption of all the elements in the music itself4 ,it is not enough to enjoy the 8tune0 alone1 for melody is only one means of expression4 ,the listener must be alive to metric and rhythmic forms1 to melodies combined in what is called 8counterpoint10 to that disposition of the various themes1 harmonies1 and so forth1 which constitutes form in music4 ,the groups of fives1 for example1 which persist throughout the second movement of ,tschaikovsky's 8,pathtique ,symphony0 constitute its salient quality2 the steady1 solemn tread in the rhythm of the slow movement of ,beethoven's ,seventh ,symphony defines the character of that piece2 the weaving of the separate1 individual parts in a composition by ,bach is his chief means of expression1 and his music is unintelligible to many people because they are incapable of answering to so complex an idiom2 the latitude in melody itself is1 also1 very great1 and one needs constant experience of the melodic line before one can see the beauty in the more profound melodies of ,bach1 ,beethoven1 and ,brahms4 ,what we are seeking to do is to make ourselves complementary to the music4 ,we need to see that sthetic pleasure is not by any means entirely of the senses1 but rather of the imagination through training of the feelings and the mind4 ,we want our listeners to assimilate all the elements in a piece of music and then to re-create it in the imagination4 ,it is the office of art to create beauty in such perfect form as shall make us reflect upon it4 ,this principle applies1 of course1 to the appreciation of any artistic object whatsoever4 ,one cannot appreciate ,whistler's portrait of his mother by merely realizing that the subject looks like a typical ,victorian dame1 any more than one can appreciate ,whitman's 8,to the ,man-of-,war-,bird0 by locating ,senegal4 ,whistler's idea is expressed through composition1 drawing1 and color1 and each of these qualities has a subtlety of its own2 the pose of the figure is a thing of beauty in itself2 the edge of the picture-frame just showing on the wall1 the arrangement of curves and spots on the curtain1 the tone of the whole canvas--all these make the picture what it is1 and all these we must comprehend and take delight in4 ,whitman's poem is a thing of space and freedom2 the sky is the wild bird's cradle1 man is 8a speck1 a point on the world's floating vast02 the poet's imagination ranges through the whole created universe and flashes back over vast reaches of time as if to incarnate again man in the bird4 ,so this music1 which reaches our consciousness through rhythms1 melodies1 and harmonies1 through form and style1 through the delicate filigree of violins1 or the triumphant blare of horns2 which says unutterable things by means of silence2 which means nothing and yet means everything1--this ,ariel of the arts1--this1 in all its quality1must find echo within us4 ,observation1 discrimination1 reflection2 cultivating the memory for musical phrases and melodies1 disciplining the senses1 enlarging the scope of the imagination1 nurturing the sense of beauty--these are the means and the objects of musical education for children4 ,by such a process we attain in some measure to that joy which is one of the chief objects of art1 and of which our present situation almost completely deprives us4 ,so let me say finally that ,i wage war here against patent nostrums1 against enforced and joyless music-teaching1 against the development of technical proficiency without taste or understanding2 and that ,i uphold here a process of musical education which has for its object 8being musical10 and which takes into its fold every child1 boy or girl1 and keeps them there as man and woman4 ,,footnote3 #d ,g4 ,stanley ,hall4 ,,chapter ,,iii ,,public ,,school ,,music ,i4 ,,ideals ,,of ,,public ,,school ,,education ,it is characteristic of our compliance in matters educational that of late years we have seen subject after subject added to the curricula of our public schools1 and have cheerfully voted money for them1 without having much conception of their value or of the results attained by introducing them4 ,education is our shibboleth1 our formula4 ,the school diploma and the college degree constitute our new baptism of conformity4 ,we do not question their authority or their efficacy4 ,they absolve us4 ,our public schools have become experimental stations for the testing of theories1 until the demand for more and more specialization has resulted in an overcrowding of the curricula and a consequent superficiality in the teaching4 8,that any man should die ignorant who is capable of knowledge1 that ,i call a tragedy10 says ,carlyle4 ,but there is a greater tragedy still1 which is that our capability for knowledge may be so overburdened by irrelevant information that it becomes worthless to us4 ,we study everything and we know nothing4 ,our schools become detached from the realities of life because we pursue so diligently the semblance of those realities4 ,our objective is definitely practical4 ,we expect education to fit boys and girls to cope successfully with the everyday affairs of life1 we frown on anything that savors of the unpractical1 and we instinctively distrust the word 8beauty40 ,we are like ,mime who thought that courage lay in the sword itself4 ,we1 too1 have the pieces of the broken blade1 and they are as useless to us as they were to him4 ,of what avail all this information which we so slowly and painfully acquire8 ,can it be put together ,mime-fashion8 ,or is there something that can fuse it8 ,has it not all a common source1 and is not that source in nature8 8,every object has its roots in central nature and may be exhibited to us so as to represent the world40 ,this unity in things1 to which ,emerson refers1 gives order and sequence to all objects1 persons1 and ideas2 they become significant and potent1 for we see them as they really are4 ,no one can be said to be educated who fails to apprehend that unification of all matter1 of all thought1 of all sensation--that harmony in things which brings into relation a speck of dust and a star1 the individual and the cosmos4 ,the very thing we fear most in education is the one thing that tempers all the others--namely1 beauty4 ,for in education1 as in everything else1 beauty means sequence1 order1 and harmony2 beauty relates things to each other1 multiplies arithmetic by geography1 objects by sounds1 acts by feelings4 ,if there were a world with one human being in it1 and only one1 his sweetest1 gentlest1 and most inevitably perfect act would be to leap-into the mother sea and rejoin nature4 ,an isolated fact or an unrelated piece of information only differs in this respect from the human being in that it never was alive4 ,we pay lip service to beauty4 ,we study poetry1 but we deal chiefly with poets--with their being born and their dying1 with the shell of them1 whereas the poet is only valuable for what beauty he brings us4 ,we even try to extract morals from him1 or to find in him codes of conduct1 philosophies1 and the like1 forgetting ,swinburne's fine saying that 8,there are pulpits enough for all preachers in prose2 the business of verse writing is hardly to express convictions2 and if some poetry1 not without merit of its kind1 has at times dealt with dogmatic morality1 it is all the worse and all the weaker for that40 ,one of the prime objects of the study of ,english should be to instill in the student a love of ,english poetry4 ,but we are afraid of it2 we distrust it1 or we think it effeminate4 7,it means nothing that we are now praising 8free verse10 for we are only interested in the first half of the term1 and that is not applicable to poetry1 since no verse worth having ever has been or can be free4 ,we nibble47 ,but poetry does1 at least1 express itself in words1 and words can be punctuated1 and spelled1 and parsed and scanned1 and1 above all1 words provide material for examinations4 ,you cannot do any of these things with music1 for it consists in mere sounds meaning nothing that any one can find out4 ,we do allow music to enter a corner of our educational sanctuary1 and then we slam the door on her and leave her there until ,june when we expect her to come forth garlanded for the graduation exercises4 ,the taxpayer attends these exercises and listens to the singing of the children in that complacent mood which he commonly assumes when he thinks he is getting his money's worth1 although he very likely knows that his own public school education in music did nothing whatever for him4 ,what are the claims of music as a means of educating the young8 ,to some educational administrators it seems to have almost no justification4 8,what can be accomplished by it80 they ask4 8,singing is not necessary as a factor in life40 8,music is of little importance in a work-a-day world40 ,so argue the school men who want 8results0 as they call them4 ,but the real object of education should be first to make human beings capable of hearing and seeing intelligently1 and of using their hands skillfully1 and then to train the mind so that it can receive and assimilate knowledge and turn it into wisdom4 ,there are a few school authorities who see music as an important part of such education1 but most of them--being in themselves unconscious of its power and of its value--only accept it because other people similarly placed have done so1 or as a relief from other studies1 or as a means of enlivening public school exhibitions4 ,that there is something in our natures which music fulfills and satisfies2 that great men have given expression to their ideas through it2 that the understanding and appreciation of their utterances depends on the training of the ear and of the imagination1 and that1 when this training has been completed1 a man or woman has access to a whole world of beauty--all this the average school man does not see4 ,nor can he be expected to see it1 for he has never experienced it in himself4 ,but he should be convinced by the phenomena2 by the large number of people who derive enjoyment and stimulation from great music2 by the persistence of the love for it2 even1 perhaps1 by the colossal sums spent on it4 ,but he cannot dispel his distrust of a study whose results are illusive2 he often sees it badly administered1 and is unable to remedy the condition1 so he leaves it to its fate4 ,the one medium of human expression that is universal1 that transcends language1 that knows no distinctions save such as it seeks out itself in our own souls2 that speaks to the tiniest child and to his grandfather in common terms2 that does not deal in beliefs1 or in dogma1 or in events1 or things1 or persons1 or localities--this he suspects6 ,put all this on his educational scales2 a few lessons in arithmetic will outweigh it4 ,the passion for categorical facts1 arranged in methodical sequence term by term1 year by year1 and culminating in a sky-rocket burst1 every fact blazing up separately for an instant as though it really were alive1 and then going out while the charred embers fall far apart on a patient earth--this is called ,education6 ,but this passion is almost ineradicable--is1 indeed1 one of the most common of human failings4 ,it is what is called in these days 8efficiency03 that is1 a sort of nose-on-the-grindstone persistency in detail entirely oblivious of those larger aspects of any case which really decide its destiny4 ,systems1 categories1 precedents2 these are safe4 ,why wander from beaten paths8 ,individual aspiration1 a desire for beauty--these are dangerous4 ,we have ceased memorizing the names of rivers1 or the capitals of ,patagonia and ,bolivia1 but we still cling tightly to 8useful0 subjects1 and we still test our education by weighing it in ,june4 ,i propose1 then1 first1 to examine the claims of music as a subject to be taught in our public schools2 second1 to examine into prevailing methods of teaching it2 third1 to investigate the results now obtained2 and finally1 to suggest ways of bettering our situation4 ,,ii4 ,,the ,,value ,,of ,,music ,,in ,,public ,,school ,,education ,in the last chapter ,i referred to the qualities in music which make it especially valuable for children1 and what ,i said there applies with equal or even greater force here4 ,any one who has compared town or city life in this country and in ,europe1 and has seen what a pleasure1 and what a civilizing influence music may become when it is properly taught in childhood1 must realize how great a loss our people sustain by the neglect of singing4 ,we are only now beginning to realize how long it takes to weld a diverse people into one by means of an intellectual conception of nationality4 ,the thin bond of self-interest1 the advantage of 8getting on0 in the world--these keep us together in ordinary times1 but in a great crisis these bonds break4 ,the leaven of sentiment is needed4 ,we want a common sympathy2 we want above all some means of expression for that sympathy4 ,there have been of late numerous great meetings at which the feelings of men and women have expended themselves in shouts1 in cheers1 in the clapping of hands1 and in other inarticulate methods of expressing emotions4 ,what would not a song have done for these thousands--a song they all knew and loved8 ,are we forever to be dumb8 ,our hope is in the children1 to whom music is of inestimable value4 ,in the first place 7as ,i have already pointed out7 music supplies the only means of bringing young children into actual and intimate contact with beauty4 ,in the kindergarten or in the early grades of our public schools children are capable of singing1 and love to sing1 simple songs which1 within their limited scope1 are quite perfect1 whereas their capacity for drawing1 or for appreciating forms and colors is comparatively slight4 ,in music children find a natural means of expression for that inherent quality of idealism which is a part of their nature4 ,when children sing together their natures are disciplined while each child at the same time expresses its own individuality4 ,activity of ear1 eye1 and mind together tends to cultivate quickness of decision and accuracy of thinking4 ,in the matter of rhythmic cordination alone music justifies itself4 ,rhythmic movements to music have long since come to be recognized as a means of mental and physical development4 ,all sorts of interesting and stimulating exercises can be used in connection with the teaching of songs to little children1 and any one who has ever watched a child's development through intelligent instruction in singing and in rhythmic exercises must have realized how keen its perception becomes and how valuable to its general intelligence the training is4 ,so important is training in rhythmic movement that it should be a part1 not only of all musical education1 but of all primary education everywhere4 ,singing beautiful songs prepares children by the best possible means for an intelligent understanding of the compositions of the great masters which1 for lack of this preparation1 many adults never comprehend4 ,the educational administrator who denies a great composer the distinction he gives to a great writer is going against the testimony of generations of cultivated and educated people all over the world1 and1 moreover1 is tacitly acknowledging that he believes greatness to be a matter of mere outward expression4 ,the element in ,shakespeare's writings1 for example1 which reveals his greatness is the same element that reveals ,beethoven's--namely1 an imaginative1 beautiful and true concept or idea of human life4 ,beethoven is as true as ,shakespeare4 ,the same fancy1 the same daring1 the same grandeur1 the same extravagance of imagination1 and the same fidelity to life are found in each4 ,that one uses words and the other mere sounds affects the case not at all1 or if at all1 in favor of music1 since these elements or qualities of life are expressed more directly and more intensely in music than in words4 ,yes1 there is every reason for giving music a real place in the curriculum save one1 and that is this3 you cannot give an examination in it4 ,fatal defect6 ,no ,a or ,a - for the child to take home proudly to its parents2 on a certain day at a certain hour you cannot find out by a set test what1 of the beautiful thing we call music1 a child has in its heart and soul4 ,the result you hope to gain consists chiefly in a love of good music1 and a joy in singing it--a result that is likely to affect the happiness of the child all its life long2 the whole tendency of singing in schools has been to civilize the child1 to make it happy1 and to help its physical and mental cordination2 yet you deny the value of such training1 you refuse to give it a real place in your curriculum1 you call it a fad or a frill4 ,what an extraordinary attitude for an educational administration to assume6 ,the world is1 then1 merely a place of eating and drinking1 of mechanical routine1 of facts4 ,there are to be no dreams2 the flowers and brooks and mountains1 the sky1 birds' songs and the whole fantasy of life--these are nothing4 ,beautiful objects in which the eye delights1 beautiful sounds that fill the soul with happiness and create for us a perfect world of our own1 these are useless because they won't submit to an examination in ,june and can't be made to figure in a diploma4 ,how many young people1 ,i wonder1 graduate from our institutions of learning with nothing but a diploma8 ,would it not be of great value to the children if they were taught to see and to hear vividly and intelligently1 to be alive to all beautiful objects1 to love a few beautiful poems1 to have the beginnings of a taste for literature1 to be able to sing fine songs1 to take part in choral singing1 and to know well a few pieces by ,mozart or ,schubert8 ,do not all great things establish relationship and do not all little things accentuate differences8 ,what education is better than that which unifies the individual with the universal8 ,is not this whole world of fine literature1 painting1 sculpture1 and music in the very highest sense1 then1 an education to the individual8 ,we march in endless file along a hard-paved way out of the sun1 our goal a place where use holds sway4 ,to reach the goal and begin our labors under the lash1 catching a glimpse only now and then of stars1 of flowers1 of brooks1 of green fields--only a glimpse1 for use holds us fast4 ,after a time we forget them altogether as use fastens its grip upon us more securely4 ,we plod onward1 machine-like1 until all sense of beauty is dead1 and the world is a treadmill of money-getting and of trivial pleasures4 ,then our blindness reacts on our children4 ,we have forgotten the impulse of our childhood4 ,the love for beautiful things has left us1 and we have no longer a sense of their value4 ,must our children continue to suffer for this8 ,must they1 too1 become the slaves of use8 ,,iii4 ,,false ,,methods ,,of ,,teaching ,that compliance of ours to which ,i have referred is nowhere more evident than in the large sums we spend on the teaching of music1 and in our ignorance of the results4 ,school boards and school superintendents usually possess little knowledge of the subject and have no means of knowing the quality and the effect of music teaching save by such evidences as are supplied by the singing of the children at the end of the school year4 ,no one asks what the one thousand or the fifty thousand dollars spent by the school board earns4 ,the money is appropriated and expended on salaries1 music books1 etc41 and there the matter is left hanging1 as it were1 in the air1 and not to be heard from again until the end of the school year4 ,no committee supervises the selection of the books or the methods of teaching4 ,the supervisor is in autocratic control4 ,the system is like an inverted pyramid propped up by an occasional show of singing1 by the fallacious excuse that singing is a relaxation after burdensome tasks 7fallacious because such relaxation by singing could be carried on without the expensive paraphernalia of a school music system71 but most of all supported and fostered by the equally fallacious belief that reading music 8at sight10 so called1 is an end in itself4 ,so completely divorced is it from such control as is exercised over other subjects that it has become the prey of theorists who have accumulated around it a mass of pedagogical paraphernalia quite unknown in any other form of music teaching1 and essentially artificial and encumbering4 ,i have attended conventions of teachers where all the interest centered in pedagogical methods1 and in the discussions of artificial terms and theories4 ,i have met teachers who say they discourage the children from singing--because it ruins their voices6 and who confine their instruction to the theory of music4 ,the fetish of sight-singing has cast its blight over the teaching of little children so that instead of letting them sing by ear simple and beautiful songs1--which nearly every child loves to do1--they are taught at the age of five or six years the mysteries of intervals1 etc4 ,and since the time divisions of music present difficulties too great for their young minds1 the vertical measure lines are discarded1 thus obliterating the accents and taking away from music one of its most fundamental elements4 ,this makes necessary the substitution of purely empirical terms to describe the time values of quarter notes1 eighth notes1 and so forth1 such as 8type one10 8type two02 or artificial syllabic terms are piled up one upon another until such a monstrosity as tafate-fetifi results4 ,it is obvious that a long experience of music through singing should precede any instruction as to the time values of notes1 and that if a child has sung many times by ear the sounds represented by these artificial terms1 and has continued to sing by ear for two years or more1 and has stored up a series of musical impressions that have developed its musical taste and instinct1 and has mastered the rudiments of numbers1 the teaching of the notes becomes a much simpler and more natural process1 involving no other terms than those ordinarily in use in music4 ,you can then call a note by its generally accepted name--8half10 8quarter10 8eighth10 etc4 ,how did this all come about8 ,primarily through the indifference of the public1 and through the incapability of the school authorities to control the teaching4 ,never having been so educated in music as to realize that it contains the highest kind of educational possibilities1 parents take little interest in the music their children learn in school4 ,the connection between music and life is lost4 ,the supervisor may1 or may not be a good musician2 he may be entirely indifferent to the higher possibilities of music as a factor in education2 his taste may never have been properly formed4 ,he is likely to be helpless even though he feels the need of reform because he needs music books1 and has to take what he can buy4 ,the making of music books for schools has become too much a matter of commercial competition1 and particularly of commercial propaganda1 and this latter condition is fostered by the summer schools for supervisors controlled and operated by the publishers of school music books4 ,the result of all this is that a cumbersome pedagogical system has become firmly entrenched in many ,american towns and cities4 ,one of the greatest difficulties connected with public school music teaching is the inability of some of the grade teachers to teach music4 ,the daily lesson is given by her4 ,the music teacher visits each room once in two1 three1 or even four weeks4 ,it is not necessarily the grade teacher's fault if she cannot teach music well1 because the training given her in the grade schools and normal school may have been quite inadequate4 ,but teach music she must--as a part of her regular duties4 ,my own observation leads me to believe that a good many grade teachers are capable of doing this work well1 that few do it as well as they might do if they were given more training1 and that some teach so badly that it results in more harm than good4 ,in any case ,i am opposed to any transference of the daily lesson from the grade teachers to an expert1 not because ,i think the expert would not do it in some ways better1 but because it would mean a very large increase in the expense of our schools and because ,i believe that only a few grade teachers are incapable under proper training of giving a satisfactory music lesson4 ,furthermore1 ,i believe in keeping the music lesson as a bond of sympathy between the grade teacher and the children4 ,singing is an entirely natural art for any human being who begins it in childhood and pursues it through youth4 ,i look forward to the day when we shall all sing4 ,i object to the displacement of the grade teacher in the one function of school life which is intimate1 free1 and beautiful1 in which facts1 members1 places1 events1 names are forgotten1 and in which the spirit of each child issues forth under the discipline of beauty4 7,i place these words in italics because ,i am constantly being told that the great thing in the education of children is to give them self-expression2 to which ,i reply that self-expression except under discipline--using the word in its larger sense--has never helped either the individual or the race47 ,we must look to the normal schools for this improvement in the ability of our teachers to teach music1 and the normal schools1 in turn1 must expect our high schools to send forth their graduates1 properly taught in music1 so that normal schools will not have to spend time 7as they often do now7 supplementing the imperfections of the earlier training4 ,at present we are moving in a vicious circle4 ,many of our normal schools still preserve something of that artificial pedagogy to which ,i have referred1 and still send out teachers who are1 humanly speaking1 ill-fitted to lead the children in music4 7,i refer to the human element in the matter because it is impossible to teach music properly if you have not had experience with the best of it1 and if you do not love the best more than any other4 ,so long as our normal schools lay too great stress on the technique of teaching music at the expense of the greater thing1 just so long will our schools suffer4 ,and it is easily possible for the normal school authorities to be deceived as to what is the best music1 as well as by a brave showing of musical performance47 ,the real failure in the administration of music is due to a false ideal4 ,and it is in this mistaken ideal or purpose that the crux of the whole matter lies4 ,nearly the whole stress of teaching is laid on expert sight-reading of music4 ,go into a schoolroom with a supervisor to hear his class sing and he will almost invariably exhibit to you with pride the capacity of the children to sing at sight4 ,he will ask you to put something impromptu on the blackboard as a test of their proficiency4 ,he will exhibit to you classes of very young children who have already learned to read notes and who can sing all sorts of simple exercises from the staff4 ,what is meant by the term 8sight-singing08 ,it means1 if it means anything1 that a person shall be able to sing correctly at the first trial his part in any piece of vocal music which he has never seen or heard before4 ,and this1 which we spend our money for1 is an entirely artificial attainment1 since in real life we are almost never required to do it4 8,sight-singing0 has become a shibboleth4 ,what we want is a reasonable capacity for reading music1 for that is all we are called upon to do in actual life4 ,in choral societies and choirs all over this country the number of singers who can read music at sight is negligible1 and there is probably not one of them who could master at once the intricacies of modern choral writing4 ,let us then teach children to read music by giving them as many trials as is necessary1 and let them gradually acquire such a familiarity with intervals and with rhythmic figures as will make it possible for them to sing with other people1 and enjoy doing so4 ,we shall then get rid of an artificial ideal and have just so much more time in which to cultivate music for its own sake4 ,it goes without saying that the vast majority of the children in our public schools never attain to that expertness which is the present objective of the teaching4 ,so we have a double failure--in ideal and in practice4 7,this is not the place for a discussion of the various methods of teaching sight-singing4 ,the method commonly used in this country is derived from ,english practice and we have ignored the much more accurate and scientific systems of ,france and ,germany47 ,the supervisor1 who takes so much pride in the capacity of his pupils to sing at sight1 ought to be chiefly interested in something much more important--namely1 their ability to sing a beautiful piece of music and particularly their joy in doing so1 for that is the only real justification for his presence there4 ,many supervisors seem to have almost forgotten that music is a thing of beauty and that the only way to keep it alive in a child's heart is to teach the child to sing beautiful songs4 ,constant contact with inferior songs for children may1 indeed1 have so affected the supervisor's taste that he himself can no longer detect the difference between good and bad4 ,,iv4 ,,good ,,or ,,bad ,,music8 ,for eight years1 then1 in our public schools children are taught--as far as may be--to sing at sight4 ,is there a fine song which presents a certain difficulty1 it is placed in the book at the point where that difficulty arises1 and is treated as a sight-reading test4 ,it is subjected to analysis as to its melodic progressions1 each of which is taken up as a technical problem4 ,this is precisely the method so often and so fatally used in connection with poetry4 ,the ,skylark's wings are clipped2 the ,grecian ,urn becomes an archological specimen2 the ,eve of ,saint ,agnes a date in the almanac4 ,this brings me to the most important part of the whole matter4 ,if expert sight-singing is not only a false ideal1 but one impossible of general attainment in public schools under the conditions at present existing1 what does justify our expenditure of such large sums of money8 ,the sole justification for it is to bring children to love the best music1 and so to train their taste for it as to make them capable of discriminating between good and bad4 ,now a thorough test of the children in the kindergarten or the lower primary grades of any public school anywhere will surely reveal that such children start life with the makings of good taste in music4 ,nature is prodigal here--prodigal and faithful4 ,in the most remote villages in this country1 in purely industrial communities1 among the poor and among the rich 7both having forgotten71 children love good songs4 ,it is their natural inheritance4 ,no excess of materialism in the generations affects it in the least4 ,this is the primitive endowment2 deep down in human character there lies a harmony of adjustment with nature4 ,overlay it as you may with custom or habit2 sully it with luxury2 it still persists1 for without it human life cannot be4 ,this idealistic basis of human life1 which is never destroyed1 appears fresh and unstained in children1 and in their song it bubbles up as from a pure spring4#e ,it has been a matter of frequent comment that there has been no such increase in choral singing either in town or city as our public school music teaching should lead us to expect4 ,in fact the countless young people who graduate from our schools seem to make almost no impression on choral singing4 ,it still remains the least of our musical activities4 ,it is as difficult as ever to secure people who care enough for the practice of singing to come to rehearsals4 ,voluntary choir singing1 for the pleasure to be derived from it1 is rare4 ,are not our public schools partly responsible for this condition8 ,is not that natural taste and love for good music1 to which ,i have just referred1 allowed to lapse and finally almost to disappear8 ,and is not this largely the result of too much technical instruction1 and too little good music8 ,i know that there are many more distractions for children than formerly2 ,i know that the home influence in music is slight1 and that parents assume less responsibility for their children than they used to do4 ,but1 granting all this1 the musical instruction in public schools does not fulfill its proper function1 nor can it hope to do so until it changes its ideals4 ,there is no doubt whatever that1 speaking generally1 the best music with which to train the taste of young children is that known as 8folk-song40 ,the supposition that any musician is capable of composing a fine enduring song suitable for children is false in its very essence4 ,the constant appearance of new songs for children and their inevitable disappearance in the next generation is evidence enough that this is so1 apart from the unmistakable evidence in the songs themselves4 ,in reality the good tune is right1 the poor tune wrong2 the good tune conforms to1 is a part of nature2 the poor tune is false in quantity and in sentiment1 and not a part of nature4 ,the fine tune is straightforward1 honest1 and genuine in sentiment2 the inferior tune professes to be so1 but it is not4 ,fine simple tunes of the kind suitable for children to sing have been composed1--8,way ,down upon the ,suwanee ,river0 is an example1--but they are very few in number4 ,the only safeguard is to keep chiefly to the old melodies whose quality has been proved4 ,and since the number of fine folk-tunes is more than sufficient for our purpose1 and since most of them are not copyrighted1 there would seem to be no reason whatever why they should not constitute the larger part of the music we give our children to sing in their early years of school life4 ,i have said that children like real tunes in preference to false ones4 ,we have therefore a perfectly sound basis upon which to build4 ,but it must not be forgotten that singing is in itself an agreeable pastime to children and that their taste can be lowered as well as raised4 ,with their fundamental good taste to build on1 we can be reasonably sure of accomplishing our purpose if we provide them all through their school life with the best music and no other4 ,this is not done and the failure of our school music to justify itself can be attributed chiefly to this4 ,nowhere is this more evident than in the very place where it will do the most harm--namely1 in the kindergarten4 ,and this is true of kindergartens generally4 ,in the process of providing very young children with suitable words for their songs--which in the kindergarten are considered of first importance--the effect of inferior music seems to have been entirely ignored4 ,in other words1 the one sense through which young children receive their most vivid impressions has been systematically and persistently violated4 ,i have examined a great many song books used in ,american kindergartens and ,i have never found one that was really suitable for the purpose of training the musical taste of young children4 ,our craving for a complete pedagogical system is characteristic2 it is our refuge1 our bulwark4 ,instead of facing actual problems as they are1 we take some ready-made system--which some other perplexed person has made for a shelter--and proceed to adopt it in toto4 ,i mean by this that the custom of kindergarten authorities is to buy a book in the open market--a book whose sole guarantee is that it is for sale4 ,it probably contains inferior music1 but the purchaser asks no questions4 ,now an enterprising and well-equipped teacher could gather together during a summer holiday twenty-five simple folk-songs1 could have suitable words written for them1 and could have them mimeographed 7if more copies were needed71 and put into use in her school4 ,i say nothing of the benefit to her of doing this4 ,it is obvious1 then1 that our public school music labors under great difficulties4 ,the classes are too large1--sometimes forty-five children in a room1--the music lesson period is too short2 the music teacher visits each room at too great intervals2 the grade teacher is perhaps not properly qualified to teach music and the head master's interest in it may be perfunctory4 ,the study itself is1 therefore1 irregular1 as must be the case when such conditions as these exist4 ,yet we are trying to produce expert results4 ,why not say to ourselves that since our population as a whole is not yet actively interested in the best music1 and since the children are unlikely to hear much of it outside the school1 and since by nature and habit and association there is really nothing in our musical life to justify spending our money on teaching expert sight-singing to children--the undertaking being in a sense anomalous and detached2 why not say to ourselves3 8,we must first of all teach our children to love the best music1 and then we must train them to read it1 not necessarily #8at sight1' but to read it well enough to satisfy all the demands likely to be made in that direction in after life40#f ,i would sweep away half the pedagogical paraphernalia of our public school music teaching4 ,i believe much more valuable results could be secured by constant contact with the best music1 and continued observation of it1 with a minimum of technical exercises4 ,i believe the processes of music to have no significance whatever except as they appear in great compositions1 and that constant contact with and observation of fine music is more valuable than the study of the rules by which it is made1 or the technique by which it is produced4 ,in music as in poetry we deduce the rules and laws from the artistic objects themselves4 ,the composer and the poet are to us what nature is to them4 ,v4 ,,attempts ,,at ,,reform ,i have drawn the foregoing conclusions from an extended observation and experience of public school music1 and ,i ought to add--lest the record seem too despairing--that in a considerable number of places intelligent and open-minded men and women have been doing their best to stem the tide of inferior music and of artificial methods of teaching4 ,during the last two years ,i have been serving on an unpaid advisory committee appointed by the ,school ,committee of the ,city of ,boston to improve the teaching of music in the public schools4 ,the ,school ,committee of ,boston consists of five people elected by the people4 ,they became aware of the inefficiency of the teaching through an independent investigation carried on by ,dr4 ,a4 ,t4 ,davison1 of ,harvard ,university 7who is chairman of our committee71 and they asked him to form a committee to help them4 ,boston was spending some forty thousand dollars for public school music4 ,during one school year the members of our committee visited schools1 taking note of what they heard and saw1 and finally each member submitted a written report to the chairman4 ,these were made the basis for a general report to the ,school ,committee by whom it was accepted4 ,the ,boston teaching was especially weak in dealing with rhythm1 and for a perfectly simple reason4 ,rhythm was taught1 not as action1 which it is1 but as symbol1 which it is not4 ,the various rhythmic figures were taught1 in other words1 through the mind instead of through the body4 ,these rhythmic figures were given arbitrary names 7to which ,i have already referred71 and the children1 looking at the symbols1 were told the strange name given to them1 and1 sitting quite still1 produced the required sounds4 ,the teachers did not even beat the time4 ,the usual answer we got when asking about rhythm was1 8,oh1 they feel the rhythm40 ,this may have been true1 but1 if it were1 the children were extreme individualists6 ,this sort of rhythmic teaching is common in the ,united ,states and the defect is a grave one4 ,the arithmetical complications of rhythm in music should never be taught to little children at all4 ,just as they should sing the melody by imitating the teacher1 so they should be taught the rhythm by imitating1 in action1 the time value of the notes4 ,a child who has sung a simple folk-song many times1 and has danced1 or marched1 or clapped his hands in exact time and rhythm with the notes1 can be taught later the pitch names and the time names of those notes without the slightest difficulty and without any subterfuge whatever4 ,in a schoolroom containing some forty children1 and with the space largely occupied by desks and seats1 it is1 of course1 impossible to carry on any extended exercises in rhythm4 ,but every effort should be made to teach musical rhythms as action before they are taught as sounds4 ,whenever possible classes should be taken to the assembly room1 where there is a sufficiently large open floor space1 for such exercises4 ,but the most distressing condition in the ,boston schools--and this would be more or less true everywhere in our country--was that all the children in the kindergarten and primary grades were learning such songs as would eventually destroy their natural taste for fine music4 ,this is the one great indictment against public school music in the ,united ,states--that it has been made to order for schoolbooks1 and to fit technical problems1 and that it consequently fails to keep the allegiance of children4 ,nothing but the best will ever do that1 and until we supply the best our school music is bound to fail4 ,our committee1 as a preliminary step toward reform1 recommended that all instruction in reading music should be postponed until the last half of the third grade4 ,this allowed us to institute singing by ear and at the same time to teach rhythm by beating time1 clapping hands1 marching1 etc4 ,a book of folk-songs was compiled by ,dr4 ,davison and myself and was adopted and published#g by the ,school ,committee4 ,the greatest difficulty here has been to get suitable verses for the simpler songs4 ,we have spent much time over this one matter and have not1 even then1 always been successful4 ,good verses for very young children are difficult to secure1 and--to instance how painstaking the process of making a book of such songs is--we have sometimes received half a dozen sets of verses for a simple melody without finding one that we thought suitable4 ,it is perhaps too soon to draw very definite conclusions from the results of these reforms in the ,boston schools4 ,one thing is certain3 a very large number of children five1 six1 and seven years of age are now singing really beautiful songs without seeing any music at all and without being told anything whatever about the notes1 rests1 intervals1 etc41 which occur in them4 ,upon the experience of these two and one half years of singing by ear we shall build up skill in singing by note and this skill will be acquired with much greater ease than would be otherwise possible4 ,it is also worth noting that the expense of music books in these grades 7and the same will be true of later grades7 is more than cut in half4 ,in the kindergarten and the first primary grades the children sing without a book2 in the second and third grades they use a simple and inexpensive book of words1 while the teachers in these grades use the small collection of folk-songs already referred to4 ,in the ,boston schools ninety minutes a week is given to drawing1 and sixty minutes a week to music4 ,it is obvious that a daily lesson in music twelve minutes long is entirely inadequate for proper instruction4 ,an increase to twenty minutes a day1 or to three half-hours a week is highly desirable4 ,in many schools entirely too much time is devoted to preparing music for the graduation exercises4 ,failing an examination1 what is there left but an exhibition8 ,it is a task of real difficulty to reform any strongly entrenched system or method of education4 ,what is conclusively demonstrated as a more sensible method runs against self-interest1 tradition1 intellectual immovability 7to use a moderate term671 and other even more violent opposition4 ,the reforms we are instituting in ,boston need the combined force of all the persons in authority1 of all the teaching staff1 and of public opinion4 ,no one of these forces is being fully exerted owing to circumstances over which we have no control4 ,but we have accomplished something1 for we have reduced the expense and we have simplified the teaching2 and each of these improvements was sadly needed4 ,,vi4 ,,other ,,activities ,,in ,,school ,,music ,one of the encouraging signs of our advancement is in orchestral playing4 ,school orchestras have become important features of school life1 and the excellence of some of the orchestral playing is remarkable4 ,it often outshines the singing1 and it is frequently self-contained1 being under the direction1 not of the music teachers1 but of the head master or one of his assistants4 ,in this department of music teaching1 as in the singing lessons1 much depends on the attitude of the head master4 ,in our ,boston schools there are notable examples of fine music fostered and sustained by enthusiastic head masters who lay great stress on that as contrasted with mere technical expertness4 ,credit toward the high-school diploma is now given in ,boston for study of the pianoforte or an orchestral instrument outside school hours and with independent teachers4 ,lists are issued to indicate the standard of music and of performance for each grade1 and certificates of hours of practice are required of parents4 ,this system of credits depends for its success on securing competent examiners not otherwise connected with the schools1 for by this means poor teachers are gradually eliminated4 ,many schoolrooms are provided with phonographs which may be a powerful factor in building up or in breaking down the taste of children4 ,an approved list of records for the ,boston schools is in course of preparation in order to eliminate undesirable music and to increase the usefulness of the instruments4 ,singing by ear spontaneously and without technical instruction1 but rather for the joy of doing it1 and for the formation of the taste on good models1 is the proper beginning of all musical education4 ,such experience1 coupled with proper rhythmic exercises1 constitutes a real basis1 not only for sight-singing1 but for performance on any instrument4 ,no child should be admitted for possible credit in pianoforte playing or be allowed to enter violin classes until so prepared in singing and in rhythm4 ,the pianoforte neither reveals nor corrects the defective ear2 the violin1 on the other hand1 does reveal it1 though it does not necessarily correct it4 ,defective rhythm can be properly corrected only through actual rhythmic motions of the body4 ,many high schools now offer courses in what is called 8,the ,appreciation of ,music40 ,the success of such courses depends to a considerable extent on the quality of music used in the primary and grammar grades4 ,if the children have been singing inferior music for eight years1 the difficulties of teaching them to appreciate the best is correspondingly increased4 ,if1 on the contrary1 their taste has been carefully formed on good models1 the introduction to great music has already been made4 ,in studying symphonies1 for example1 one would begin with ,haydn whose symphonies and chamber music are largely based on folk-melodies4 ,in short1 courses in appreciation should be the culmination of the musical education of our young people4 ,such courses should have for their object1 first and foremost1 the cultivation of the musical memory1 for this is an absolute essential to anybody who hopes to listen to music intelligently4 ,after this has been accomplished1 the student should listen to simple instrumental pieces whose style and form should be explained1 and the explanation should be as untechnical#h as possible4 ,each of the properties or qualities of music is susceptible of treatment on the broad grounds of sthetics1 and one's success in teaching young people to understand it depends considerably on the ability so to present it4 ,the instructor and an assistant should play on a pianoforte all the music studied1 or1 failing that1 a mechanical piano-player should be used4 ,and now let me say that the most important and beneficial step any community could take toward improving its school music would be to secure a supervisor who is untainted by current ,american pedagogical theories of sight-singing1 who will not attempt to teach little children something they cannot possibly understand1 and who will use nothing but the best music from the kindergarten to the high school4 ,no community is really helpless if it will bestir itself4 ,if our public school music teaching were well devised and properly administered and if our children were taught to sing nothing but the best music1 we might look forward to a time1 not far distant1 when a generation of music-lovers would take the place of the present generation of music-tasters4 ,our young people would gravitate naturally into choirs and singing societies4 ,groups of people would gather together to sing2 families would sing together2 there would be chamber music parties2 we should pass many a quiet domestic evening at home listening to ,mozart and ,beethoven instead of playing bridge or going to a moving-picture theater4 ,the whole body of ,american music would be affected by the influx of those young people who would want the best4 ,in course of time1 perhaps1--although one must not expect the millennium1--the vapid drawing-room song would disappear along with the tinkling pianoforte show-piece4 ',cellists would play something better than pieces by ,popper2 the thirteenth concerto by ,viotti and the thirtieth ,hungarian rhapsodie would be relegated to that limbo where now repose 7we hope in death7 the 8,battle of ,prague0 and 8,monastery ,bells40 ,this cannot be brought about casually4 ,we must set about it2 and the place to begin is in our public schools4 ,,footnotes3 #e ,a certain small proportion of children are backward in music1 but the possibility of teaching them to sing has long since been satisfactorily demonstrated4 ,they need special attention which it is difficult to give in public schools4 ,they should1 ,i think1 never be taken from their seats in the room and placed at one side1 but should be asked to listen to the other children1 and occasionally to sing with them1 the teacher standing near for help and encouragement4 #f ,i do not mean by the foregoing that ,i consider a fair degree of expertness in reading music 8at sight0 an impossible attainment for children4 ,what ,i have said has been entirely in reference to our public schools as they are at present constituted1 and to the arrangements now made for the teaching of music4 ,the teaching of sight-singing requires the services of an expert1 more time than our schools now give1 and a more scientific method than that now employed4 #g ,now published by the ,boston ,music ,company1 #bf ,west ,street1 ,boston1 ,massachusetts4 #h ,counterpoint1 for example1 is1 strictly1 note against note1 two melodies parallel to each other2 sthetically1 counterpoint consists in illuminating1 illustrating1 or developing1 a phrase or theme by parts of itself--what in architecture would be described as making the ornament grow out of the structure4 ,,chapter ,,iv ,,community ,,music ,i4 ,,music ,,by ,,proxy ,in the preceding chapters ,i have dealt with special musical subjects1 and have constantly referred to music as a distinct and independent art having its own reasons for existence4 ,i have dealt1 also1 with some of its special functions as well as with its relation to the education of children4 ,in the present chapter it is my purpose to discuss music in its relation to communities large and small1 and this necessitates treating it on the broadest possible grounds4 ,by community music ,i mean1 first1 music in which all the people of a community take part2 second1 music which is produced by certain members of the community for the benefit and pleasure of the others2 and third1 music which1 while actually performed by paid artists1 is nevertheless somehow expressive of the will of the community as a whole4 ,i shall take no refuge behind generalities or theories of sthetics4 ,i want to reach everybody1 including the person who says1 8,i don't know anything about music but ,i know what ,i like10 and that other extraordinary person who says1 8,i know only two tunes1 one of which is #8,yankee ,doodle'0--each of these statements being quite incomprehensible1 since it is a poor person indeed who doesn't know what he likes1 and anybody who knows 8,yankee ,doodle0 has no excuse whatever for not knowing what the other tune is1 or1 so far as that goes1 what any other tune is4 ,i am1 in short1 appealing on common grounds about a common thing4 ,my only question is this3 ,if there is a means of interesting1 delighting1 and elevating a large number of people at very small expense1 by something which they can all do together and which brings them all into sympathy with one another1 and if the result of this coperation is to produce something beautiful1 is it not worth doing8 ,i intend to make as full an answer to this question as space permits4 ,it is in the 8doing0 and the 8doing together0 that the crux of the matter lies1 for a purely external connection with music never brings about a complete understanding of it4 ,it is no exaggeration to say that our connection with nearly all artistic things is largely external4 ,we do not draw2 we do not train the eye to see or the hand to feel and touch1 and artistic objects remain in a measure strange and unintelligible to us4 ,the whole tendency of modern life and of modern education is to delegate those functions which have to do with our inner being4 ,we delegate our religion to a preacher or to a dogma2 we delegate our education to a curriculum smoothed out to a common level2 some of us even delegate the forming of an opinion on passing events to a leader who presents them to us in a 8current events0 class4 ,the religion1 the knowledge1 the opinion of many a person belongs to some one else4 ,many a man prefers an inferior novel because the author not only writes it1 but reads it for him1 whereas to the wise man the author might almost be called an amanuensis4 ,in any case1 a writer of genuine power never does more than his share4 ,he depends on us to complete him4 ,and in like case1 if we expect to understand and love music we must use it2 the composer depends on us as much as the author does4 ,this external connection with music and this lack of intimacy with the thing itself naturally leads us to lay stress on the performance of it4 ,we revel in technique and we exalt the personalities of players and singers4 ,in our opera houses we are satisfied only when we have an 8all star0 cast by whom we expect to be astonished rather than delighted and elevated4 ,now1 fine singing1 as such1 is of little importance save as a means of reproducing fine music4 ,if fine singing means a sacrifice of the musical effect2 if it destroys the ensemble2 if it limits the repertoire--then it is not worth the sacrifice4 ,why should it ever do so8 ,simply because opera-goers suffer it1 and for no other reason in the world4 ,one merely needs to mention a reasonable plan of opera--such as has been carried out for generations in ,french1 ,italian1 and ,german cities--to be laughed at by those devotees who have sat for years at the feet of magnificence warming themselves in the effulgence of gilt and jewels4 ,so it is with solo recitals and orchestral concerts4 ,one continually hears people discussing the technique of pianists and violinists1 or the comparative merits of our various orchestras4 ,local pride--the last thing in the world to connect with artistic judgment--asserts itself in favor of one orchestra or another1 until it would almost seem that the only purpose of having an orchestra was to excel all the others4 ,how often1 on the contrary1 do we hear the music itself intelligently discussed8 ,in short1 we are trying to be musical vicariously by means of an occasional performance by other people of music the greater part of which is unfamiliar and1 therefore1 unintelligible to us4 ,this is like trying to be religious through going to church once a week and1 sitting passively1 being preached and sung at6 ,the most musical communities are not those where all the music of the year is crowded into a festival of three or four days1 but those where there is the most real music made at home4 ,a ,german musical festival used to be the culmination of a whole year of healthy musical activity1 and the occasion for the production of new works and a wide variety of old ones4 ,an ,english or an ,american festival is1 first of all1 an opportunity to hear 8,the ,messiah10 and secondly1 to hear a famous soloist4 ,the attendance on those two occasions is always much larger than at any others4 ,is it not true that all the higher functions of the soul of a man or a woman or of a community can be preserved only by being exercised8 ,in what follows ,i shall try to show how we may escape from the conditions in which we now too complacently rest4 ,the material for the change is abundant1 for there is in every community much more love of music than ever appears2 the means are simple and inexpensive1 for only a few dollars worth of good music are needed1 with a room in which to practice1 a piano and a leader4 ,let us make a start toward a sincere and intimate understanding of music through making it ourselves4 ,let us give up criticism of other people and begin to construct4 ,then shall we learn to see music as it is and to value it accordingly4 ,,ii4 ,,our ,,musical ,,activities ,as a preliminary to this discussion it will be well to look at the present status of music among us1 and to see how near we come to this necessary intimacy with the art4 ,in any small ,american community the first impression one gets about music is that it is useful to fill up gaps4 ,at the theater1 before public meetings1 at social affairs of one sort or another1 music is performed to a ceaseless hum of conversation or while people are entering and leaving4 ,the art becomes1 in consequence1 like the cracking of the whip before the team starts1 or like the perfunctory speeches and gestures of social amenities2 it is nothing in itself1 and falls in our estimation accordingly4 ,it is true that1 at such times1 only trivial music is usually played1 but this only makes the situation worse1 because1 after all1 it passes as music4 ,a bad piece of music at the theater or while one is dining in a restaurant is merely an annoyance2 a good piece beats its head against a flood of conversation1 tinkling glasses and other disturbances1 and is lost2 one feels as though its composer had been insulted4 ,all this incidental music must be partly due to the decline in conversation4 ,we are relieved of all responsibility save an occasional 8yes0 or 8no0 shouted above the din4 ,real musical activity in the average small community is limited to a very small number of its inhabitants4 ,only a few people sing2 a much smaller number play some musical instrument4 ,there are1 here and there1 choirs made up of volunteer singers1 but the spirit that animated the old choirs--the spirit which ,hardy has celebrated so lovingly in 8,under the ,greenwood ,tree0--has disappeared4 ,hymn-singing in church is often distressingly bad1 and with good reason1 since the composers of modern hymn tunes seldom take into consideration the needs and wishes of congregations4 ,church music has been delegated by us to paid singers1 and our church music becomes a thinly disguised concert1 or1 when the really abominable vocal quartette supplies the music1 a concert outright4 ,what days those were when old ,william ,dewey and ,dicky1 and ,reuben and ,michael ,mail played in the ,mellstock church6 ,what a fine personal character such music had6 ,how they loved to play--these simple rustics1 and how intimate was the relation between their music and the people and the place6 ,read the early chapters of 8,under the ,greenwood ,tree0 and listen to the ardent discussions between the players before they go out on their ,christmas rounds4 8#8,they should have stuck to strings as we did1 and keep out clar'nets1 and done away with serpents4 ,if you'd thrive in musical religion1 stick to strings1 says ,i4' 444 #8,yet there's worse things than serpents1' said ,mr4 ,penny4 #8,old things pass away1 'tis true2 but a serpent was a good old note2 a deep rich note was the serpent4' 444 #8,robert ,penny1 you was in the right6' broke in the eldest ,dewey4 #8,they should ha' stuck to strings4' #8,your brass-man is a rafting dog--well and good2 your reed-man is a dab at stirring ye--well and good2 your drum-man is a rare bowel-shaker--good again4 ,but ,i don't care who hears me say it1 nothing will spak to your heart wi' the sweetness o' the man of strings4'0 ,in the preface to his book ,hardy speaks of the advantage to the village churches of that time of having these volunteer players and singers1 and how their displacement by the harmonium with its one player 8has tended to stultify the professed aims of the clergy1 its direct result being to curtail and extinguish the interest of parishioners in church doings40 ,this holds good in our own village churches to-day1 for we consider music more a means of entertaining the church-goer than of enlisting his interest in the services4 ,women's clubs provide a certain sort of musical life to small communities4 ,they foster the performance by members of rather variegated programmes of pianoforte pieces and songs1 with an occasional concert by a paid performer from abroad1 and they sometimes make a study of a composer or a period of music4 ,many of them lose sight of the only possible means of vitally influencing the musical life of their own members and of the community at large4 ,in some of the communities of which ,i am writing there are choral societies4 ,in very few is there any well-sustained and continuous choral organization giving concerts year after year supported by the general public4 ,the record of choral singing in ,america shows a constant endeavor to attain grandiose results rather than to foster the love of choral singing for itself4 ,singing societies are continually wrecked by the expense of highly paid soloists1 and are continually striving for something beyond their reach4 ,this statement would not be complete were we to omit the instruments which play themselves4 ,the educational possibilities of these instruments have not been realized1 for they are used chiefly for amusement4 ,in spite of the extraordinary selections of music which one finds in people's houses1 and in spite of the seemingly incorrigible propensity to hear singing1 as opposed to hearing music1--,i mean the exaggerated and grotesque singing of certain famous people who care chiefly for sensation1--the graphophone1 which has the practical advantage of being portable and inexpensive1--it has transformed many a lonely farmhouse1--and the mechanical piano-players have become so popular that one can but conclude that there are multitudes of people whose desire for music has never before been satisfied4 ,would that this desire could be turned into proper channels2 that these instruments could be used systematically to build up taste and develop understanding of great music4 ,the larger number of people using them have no means of knowing what to buy4 ,if they could hear the best music their allegiance would probably be secured4 ,how many parents ever think of the responsibility laid upon them of preserving or improving the musical taste of their children by a careful supervision of the records or rolls used with these instruments8 ,this completes the list of our own personal activities in music4 ,and we have to admit that the most discouraging item of all comes at the end4 ,for we make little music of our own1 by our own firesides where all good things should begin1 and where we should find the community in embryo4 ,what a delightful element in family life is the gathering together of young and old to join in singing6 ,how few families cultivate this custom6 ,how few parents1 whether they themselves care for it or not1 realize that their children would enjoy it and be helped by it6 ,why should not such parents begin at once and be encouraged1 or even taught by their children until all can sing together heartily and well8 ,is it not worth while preserving the musical sense of children1 so that when they reach your age they will not be helpless as you are8 ,are you satisfied to have your child's music merely bought and paid for outside the home8 ,how can you expect it to flourish under such conditions8 ,let the children teach you1 if need be4 ,copy them1 learn their songs by ear1 and find out what music really is6 ,this somewhat meager showing of musical activity does not completely represent our connection with the art1 however1 for nearly all but the smallest communities spend considerable sums for concerts by paid performers from abroad4 ,but it is doubtless true that the majority of the people in any small community hear very little real music at all save at occasional concerts1 and if a fine composition is performed they seldom hear it again1 so that it is clearly impossible for them to understand it4 ,in towns of from five to twenty thousand people all over the country there is very little consciousness of what music really is4 ,highly paid performers occasionally appear1 and local pride asserts itself to provide them with the adulation to which they are accustomed1 but real musical activity or musical feeling is confined to a few4 ,in large communities these conditions are duplicated and even exaggerated4 ,there nearly all the music is bought and paid for1 and very little is home-made4 ,nearly all choirs are composed of paid singers4 ,in cities1 as in the country1 choral societies are struggling to find men who care enough about singing to attend rehearsals4 ,there1 too1 children go their rounds of 8music0 lessons4 ,the only possible way to estimate the state of music in our cities is to look at the population as a whole4 ,by counting up the number of fine concerts in fashionable halls one arrives at no significant conclusions4 ,do we sing at home1 or when we are gathered together in friendly converse8 ,are there small centers in cities where good music can be heard8 ,is there any good music within reach of people of small means8 ,the millionaire regales his friends with the playing of his private organist 7in imitation of the old patron days of art1 but generally without the love and understanding of music which was the sole justification for the proceeding71 but does the dweller in the modest flat ever have a chance to hear good music8 ,these are questions we need to ask if we want to estimate the state of music in our great cities4 ,is not all this grand music1 as ,i have said1 merely a largess of our prosperity8 ,the most grandiose and disconnected form of our musical activity is the opera4 ,and when we consider the love of drama which finds expression in nearly every small community in a dramatic club1 we cannot but deplore the almost complete detachment of opera from our natural thoughts1 feelings1 and instincts4 ,of this detachment there is no doubt whatever2 the whole plan of ,american operatic productions is exotic1 aristocratic1 and exclusive4 ,it is quite true that we are continually improving our musical status4 ,the effect of all our fine music may indeed be observed1 but our progress is undeniably slow1 particularly when we remember with what a liberal endowment we start4 ,that endowment is very little less than other peoples possess4 ,our children are musical1 and there is no reason why we should not be4 ,moreover1 the strain of ideality which runs through ,american life1 however nave it may be1 would seem to make us especially qualified to love and understand music4 ,,iii4 ,,what ,,we ,,might ,,do ,i have indicated in a former chapter something of our needs as regards the musical education of children4 ,the problem before me now is how to persuade ,american men and women into active coperation in making music4 ,it is obvious that there is only one way of doing this1 and that is by singing4 ,only an infinitesimal number of people can play musical instruments1 but nearly everybody can sing4 ,to play requires constant practice4 ,singing in groups does not4 ,in their right estate every man and every woman should sing4 ,now my urgent appeal for singing does not mean that every village1 town1 or city should turn itself bodily into a huge singing society4 ,some people will sing better than others and will enjoy it more1 or have more time for it4 ,but there are constant opportunities for large groups of people to sing--in church1 on ,memorial ,day1 at ,christmas time1 at patriotic gatherings1 or at dedications4 ,nothing is more striking on such occasions than the total lack of any means of spontaneously expressing that which lies in the consciousness of all1 and which cannot be delegated4 ,what a splendid expression of devotion1 of commemoration1 of dedication1 of sacred love for those who died in our ,civil ,war would a thousand voices be1 raised up as one in a great1 eternal1 memorial hymn6 ,what do we do8 ,we hire a brass band to be patriotic1 devout1 and commemorative for us4 ,this inevitably tends to dull our patriotism and our devotion4 ,to live they must spring forth in some sort of personal expression4 ,in a village ,i know well1 this custom mars an otherwise deeply impressive observance of ,memorial ,day4 ,the 8taps0 at the soldiers' graves in their silent resting places1 the sounds of minute guns booming1 the long procession of townspeople1 the calling of the roll of the small company of soldiers who marched away from that village green half a century ago1 with only an occasional feeble 8,here0 from the handful of survivors1 the lowering of the flag on the green with all heads uncovered1 all eyes straining upward--these make the ceremony fine and memorable4 ,it needs to complete it only some active expression on the part of every one such as singing would provide4 8,i know not at what point of their course1 or for how long1 but it was from the column nearest him1 which is to be the first line1 that the ,king heard1 borne on the winds amid their field music1 as they marched there1 the sound of ,psalms--many-voiced melody of a church hymn1 well known to him2 which had broken out1 band accompanying1 among those otherwise silent men40 ,so relates ,carlyle1 in 8,frederick the ,great10 of the march of ,frederick and his army before the battle of ,leuthen4 8,with men like these1 don't you think ,i shall have victory this day80 says ,frederick4 ,is not such singing a wonderful thing8 ,those soldiers1 with a common dedication to duty1 and a common disdain of death1 send up to some dimly sensed ,heaven1 from the very depths of their being1 a song4 ,how otherwise could they express the thoughts and feelings that must have been clamoring for utterance in their sturdy breasts8 ,their bodies were marching to battle4 ,what of their souls8 ,shall the very spirit of them slumber on their way to death8 ,and we8 ,we watch from afar2 we are dumb2 we look on this profoundly moving ceremony1 this simple pageant1 and utter nothing of what we feel and what we are4 ,why do we not sing8 ,is it not partly because of that self-consciousness which hangs about us like a pall1 and partly because we were never made to like singing well enough to pursue it8 ,the former difficulty we could overcome easily enough if the right opportunity continually offered itself4 ,the latter1 too1 would disappear as occasion arose when we could sing something worth singing4 8,the ,star-,spangled ,banner0 is a candle-snuffer on the flame of patriotic feeling2 never was there an air more unsuited to its purpose4 ,since we have almost no indigenous national melodies1 why should we not sing the old songs1 chorals1 and hymns that have survived all sorts of national changes and belong to every people8 ,the tune for 8,america0 is not an ,american tune1 neither is it ,english4 ,it originated in ,saxony4 ,there is no nationalism to stand in the way of such music1 because it speaks elementally and universally4 ,there are scores of fine melodies which we could well use4 ,the one place where singing might be fostered is in church4 ,but where the worshipers are asked to sing a hymn pitched too high for them1 or one that moves too quickly1 or is full of unfamiliar and difficult progressions in both melody and harmony1 what other result can be expected than poor singing and the gradual abandonment of all music to a paid choir8 ,the real purpose of the hymn tune has been lost4 ,it was intended to serve the needs of all the people1 and to do this it must be simple in both melody and harmony1 and within the range ,of every man1 woman1 and child in the congregation4 ,the sturdy old hymns and chorals of our forefathers were so4 ,nothing is finer in church music than good unison singing in which every one takes part4 ,no skilled choir singing can ever take its place4 ,even the manner of singing hymns has changed4 ,many of them are raced through at a pace which leaves one half the congregation behind1 and totally eclipses the other half6 ,in many of the old hymn tunes there is a pause at the end of each line1 during which the members of the congregation had a reasonable chance to take breath4 ,even these pauses have often been eliminated1 thus destroying the sense of the music and giving a colder shoulder still to the musical and devotional aspirations of the congregation4 7,if space permitted ,i should like to dwell here on the genesis of some of these old tunes4 ,they were deeply embedded in the common life of our remote forefathers1 and had no taint of self-consciousness in them4 ,springing from the soil1 they survived all changes of dogma and custom4 ,and they will survive4 ,we shall come back to them when we have survived our present attack of prettiness47 ,the decline in hymn-singing is evident enough4 ,save in churches where the liturgy restrains the ambitions of the choir1 almost anything is possible2 and even under that restraint there is a constant tendency toward display4 ,what is the office of church music8 ,is it to astonish or delight the congregation8 ,is it to supply them with a sacred concert or fine singing8 ,to take their minds off the situation in which they find themselves8 ,to ease the effect of a dull sermon1 or obliterate the effect of a good one8 ,to serve as a bait to catch the unwary non-church-goer1 or as a means of retaining the waverer within the fold8 ,or is it to induce devotion and religious feeling1 to keep the moment sacred and without intrusion8 ,if the choir is to sing alone1 why should we accept from it display pieces1 or arrangements from secular music1 or silly 8sacred0 songs overburdened with lush sentiment1 or anthems of a certain fluent type composed by anybody who can put a lot of notes together in agreeable sequence8 ,why should we tolerate the solo in operatic style1 or contemptible solo quartette music1 suitable 7and hardly that7 for the end of a commercial 8banquet08 ,is there1 then1 no reality behind church music8 ,is it merely any music set to sacred words8 ,he who has ever studied any art knows that this cannot be true4 ,the finest church music--of which ,palestrina and ,bach are the greatest exponents--is based on something more than a casual association with sacred words4 ,in the ,protestant churches of our cities the music is very largely derived from modern ,english sources1 and ,i count this an obstacle to our progress4 ,beginning with the last half of the nineteenth century1 ,english church music has been dominated by a school of composers whose music is charming1 or pretty1 or melodious1 or what-you-will1 but is not either profound or devout4 ,nearly all our organists are1 musically1 of ,english descent1 but they treat their forefathers with but scant respect4 ,there is no difficulty whatever in procuring good music for choirs4 ,there is a supply suitable for solo singing or chorus1 for small choir or large1 to be purchased at any music shop4 ,there are a dozen fine composers whose music is never heard in most ,american churches2 composers such as ,palestrina1 ,vittoria1 and others of the great period of church music2 or ,bach1 or ,gibbons1 ,byrd1 and ,purcell1 whose music is in the true idiom1 an idiom now almost entirely lost2 or ,john ,goss1 ,samuel ,wesley1 and ,thomas ,attwood in the early part of the nineteenth century1 before the decadence had fairly begun4 ,the earliest of this music is written for voices unaccompanied1 and is therefore too difficult for any but a highly trained choir2 but there are plenty of simple anthems with organ accompaniment by the early ,english composers named above1 and there are a certain number of ,bach's motets suitable for choirs of moderate ability4 ,let me mention 8,o ,thou1 the central orb10 by ,gibbons1 as an example of a fine anthem in the old style1 and 8,oh1 ,saviour of the ,world10 by ,goss1 as an example of the simpler and later type4 ,these are beautiful1 simple1 and dignified anthems suitable for city or country choir4 ,if the city choirmaster will give over for a time trying to provide the congregation with brilliant music which is chiefly notable for its extravagance of technique and its striking effects1 his listeners will1 perhaps1 be able to revert to that state of quiet devotion which the rest of the service has induced4 ,many choir directors would doubtless like to use simpler and more devotional music1 but are hindered from doing so because they feel upon them the weight of the opinion and taste of the congregation1 and perhaps of the preacher4 ,everybody1 regardless of his qualifications for doing so1 feels at liberty to criticize the music he hears in church4 ,social and musical clubs for women exist in great numbers all over the ,united ,states4 ,they are often useful in practical ways1 but their contact with artistic matters is1 on the contrary1 often ineffectual4 ,they offer their members continual sips at different springs1 but no deep draught at one4 ,the average member of a women's club1 if she is to be helped in anything1 must be helped from the position in which she then is2 and this is particularly true of music4 ,but she is torn out of her natural environment and asked to listen to a recital of1 say1 modern ,french music1 not one note of which answers to her intelligence or her feelings4 ,the passion for the last thing in music without any knowledge of the first is fatal to any one4 ,and when one considers the enormous membership in clubs for women in this country1 one can but wish that more effort were made to help the individual to progress simply and naturally step by step4 ,it is not to be expected that the average woman1 whose time is very likely occupied with domestic cares1 should make an extended study of music2 but it is possible to give her a chance to hear a few simple1 good compositions1 and to hear them several times during a season1 so that she may learn to understand them4 ,the more experienced and more advanced members of women's clubs are apt to dominate in these matters and to forget the needs of the others1 and there is certain to be a few rare souls who dwell entirely in the rarefied atmosphere of the very latest music1 and who look down on the common ignorance of the mass4 ,some women's clubs purvey only the performance of great players or singers1 and pride themselves on their lists of celebrities1 all too forgetful of those delicately adjusted scales which demand equal weight in kind4 ,if a women's club in a small town 7or in a large one1 for that matter7 should abjure for the moment pianoforte and vocal recitals of the latest music1 and should proceed to devote a little time to singing1 in unison1 some fine old songs in which every one could take part1 a fair start would be made4 ,i am not attempting to belittle the musical capabilities of these clubs1 nor am ,i decrying expert performances2 ,i am merely speaking for the average woman who has had little opportunity for musical education or musical experience1 and who is usually left far behind as club programmes run1 yet who is capable of understanding music if it be brought to her in the proper manner4 ,ask her to sing with you and she is brought into the fold instead of straying blindly outside4 ,every meeting of a women's club 7why qualify8--of any club1 save1 perhaps1 a burglar's1 where silence would be desirable7 should begin with a hearty song4 ,step by step--not a violent leap to a dizzy height2 we cannot become musical by the force of our aspiration even though it be quite sincere2 nature unrelentingly exacts of us that same slow growth which she herself makes4 ,there is no to-morrow4 ,if all the people in a community expressed themselves at appropriate times and seasons by singing1 it would naturally follow that a goodly number of them would form themselves into a singing society4 ,this society would satisfy the desire of the community to hear such music as can be performed only after considerable practice4 ,i cannot emphasize too strongly the connection between the community and the singing society4 ,the latter should be the answer to the community's desire1 and not be a spectacle--if ,i may mix my metaphors to that extent4 ,,iv4 ,,an ,,experiment ,i live in a town of some six thousand inhabitants which about answers to the description given near the beginning of this article4 ,there was a singing society in the place about thirty years ago1 but since then there has been little choral singing4 ,two years ago ,i asked some thirty people to come together to practice choral singing4 ,i then stated that ,i should like to train them if they would agree to two conditions3 first1 that we should sing none but the very best music1 and second1 that our concerts should be free to the townspeople4 ,these conditions were at once agreed to and we started rehearsing4 ,we found it possible to get the use of the largest church containing a good organ1 and we found four people who played the violin and two the violoncello4 ,our little orchestra finally grew until we had some eight or ten string players4 ,we borrowed kettledrums and one of our enthusiasts learned to play them4 ,we have given three concerts1 at each of which the church was more than filled--it seats about six hundred people4 ,our programmes have contained ,brahms's 8,schicksalslied0 7,song of ,fate7 and parts of his 8,requiem10 ,bach's motet1 8,i ,wrestle and ,pray10 arias from the 8,st4 ,matthew ,passion10 and similar compositions4 ,our soloists have been members of our chorus1 with little previous experience of such music as we have been singing1 but with a profound sensibility to it brought about by continued practice of it4 ,the townspeople who have come to hear our music have given certain evidence of a fact which ,i have for many years known to be true1 namely1 that when people have a chance to know thoroughly a great composition it invariably secures their complete allegiance4 ,we have therefore repeated our performance of these various works1 sometimes singing one piece twice in the same concert4 ,we have given1 for example1 the 8,schicksalslied0 three times in two years1 and both singers and audience are completely won over to it4 ,our singing society is supported by the payment of fifty cents each by any individual who cares to subscribe4 ,we give two open concerts a year1 at which six hundred people hear the finest choral music at a total annual expense of about seventy-five dollars4 ,every one connected with the project gives his or her services free4 ,our concerts take place on ,sunday afternoons4 ,at the last one ,i tried an interesting experiment4 ,bach's motet1 8,i ,wrestle and ,pray10 is based1 as is common in his choral pieces1 on a chorale which is sung by the sopranos in unison1 with florid counterpoints in the other parts4 ,at the end the chorale is given in its original form1 so that the congregation may join in the singing of it4 ,it was a simple matter for us to get six hundred copies of this chorale reproduced by mimeograph1 and these were distributed in the pews4 ,the result was almost electrifying to one who had heard the feeble church singing of feebler hymns in our churches4 ,the second time the motet was sung--we performed it at the beginning and at the end of this concert--nearly every one joined in and the echoes rolled as they had never rolled before in that church4 ,why8 ,these very same people send up feeble1 timid1 disorganized1 slightly out-of-tune sounds every ,sunday morning in their various churches4 ,has a miracle happened that they are lustily singing together8 ,not at all4 ,they have merely been offered an opportunity to do what they are all quite capable of doing1 namely1 singing a hymn suited to them4 ,this chorale has a range of but five tones--from f to c2 it is largely diatonic1 proceeding step by step of the scale1 and it is noble and inspiring4 ,how often had such an opportunity been presented to them before8 ,why not8 ,the members of our chorus are such people as one would find in most ,american towns of the same size4 ,perhaps we are more than usually fortunate in our solo singers and our orchestra4 ,i believe the chief reason why a project like this might be difficult in many places is because it might not be possible to find a leader who cared more for ,bach and ,brahms than for lesser composers4 ,the technical problem is not extreme1 but the leader must have unbounded belief in the best music and tolerate nothing less4 ,the moment this latter condition lapses1 choral singing will lapse--as it would deserve to do4 ,there are many small communities where choral concerts on a large scale are occasionally given4 ,great effort and great expense are not spared4 ,several hundred voices1 a hired orchestra1 and hired soloists make the event notable4 ,but the music performed is of such a character that no one wants to hear it again2 neither the singers who practice it nor the audience who listen to it are moved or uplifted4 ,there have even been systematic efforts in some middle western states to establish community singing4 ,the effect of such efforts depends there1 as here1 on the kind of music which people are asked to sing1 for this is the heart of the whole matter4 ,no advance in music1 or in anything else1 can be expected without constant striving for the very best4 ,and it is quite within bounds to say that most of these efforts are nullified by lack of a really high standard4 ,finally1 let me say that a concert of good music by a local choral society is1 to the people of any community1 immensely more valuable than a paid musical demonstration by performers from abroad which costs five times as much money4 ,v4 ,,music ,,as ,a ,,social ,,force ,leaving this actual experience and its effects on the community1 let us ask ourselves what this singing means to the individuals who do it4 ,in the first place1 it makes articulate something within them which never finds expression in words or acts4 ,in the second place1 it permits them to create beauty instead of standing outside it4 ,or1 to speak still more definitely1 it not only gives them an intimate familiarity with some great compositions1 but it accustoms them to the technique by means of which music expresses itself4 ,they learn to make melodic lines1 to add a tone which changes the whole character of a chord2 they learn how themes are disposed in relation to one another2 they come into intimate contact with the actual materials of the art by handling them4 ,this1 we do not need to say1 is the key to the knowledge and understanding of anything4 ,you cannot understand life1 or love1 or hate1 or objects1 or ideas1 until you have dealt in them yourself4 ,singing has the profound psychological advantage of giving active issue to that love of beauty which is usually entirely passive4 ,the artist has two functions3 he draws1 or paints1 or models2 he uses language or sounds4 ,this comprises his technique4 ,but he also possesses imaginative perception4 ,now1 nothing is more certain than that our understanding of what he does must be in kind4 ,we learn to understand his technique by actual experience of it4 ,so1 also1 we learn to enter into the higher qualities of his art by the exercise of the same faculties which he uses4 ,our feelings1 our minds1 and our imaginations must take a reflection from him as in a mirror4 ,if the glass is blurred or the angle of reflection distorted we cannot see the image in its perfection4 ,the light comes from we know not where4 ,let any reader of these words ask himself if the statement they contain of the qualities of music and of our relation to it could not with equal force be applied to his own business or occupation4 ,is not his understanding of that business or occupation based on these two essentials3 first1 familiarity with its methods and materials1 and1 second1 some conception of the real meaning1 significance1 and possibility that lie behind its outward appearance and manifestation8 ,i have not laid sufficient stress on the advantage to men of singing4 ,not only does it enable them to become self-expressive1 but it gives them the most wholesome of diversions1 it equalizes them1 it creates a sort of brotherhood1 it takes their minds off per cents1 and gives them a new and different insight4 ,this is1 of course1 not accomplished by the kind of music men now sing1 which is chiefly associated with sports and conviviality4 ,so long as music is only outside us1 so long as we educate our children without bringing them into actual contact with its materials1 giving them little real training in the development of the senses1 just so long will it remain a mystery1 just so long will its office be misunderstood4 ,what a perplexity it is now to many of us6 ,how it does thrust us away6 ,we have got beyond being ashamed to love it1 but we love it from afar4 ,from a sociological point of view this discussion has thus far been somewhat limited4 ,now1 the possibilities in music to weld together socially disorganized communities have never been fully realized in ,america4 ,were we to set about using it directly to that end1 we should find out how valuable it is in breaking down artificial barriers4 ,by choral singing1 people in any one locality can be brought into a certain sympathy with each other4 ,groups who attend the same church1 the fathers and mothers of children whom the settlements reach--wherever there is a 8neighborhood0 there is a chance for singing4 ,it needs only a person who believes in it1 and who will rigidly select only the best music4 ,and where neighborhood groups have been singing the same fine music1 any great gathering of people would find everybody ready to take part in choral singing4 ,this would make community music a reality1 and would doubtless so foster the love of the art as eventually to affect the whole musical situation4 ,any one who has ever had personal experience of bringing fine music to those who cannot afford to attend concerts knows that such people are as keen for the best as are those who can afford it4 ,there is no one so quick to appreciate the best as the person who lives apart from all those social usages of ours which constitute our silk-spun cocoons4 ,there we lie snugly ensconced1 protected from sharp winds1 completely enshrouded1 while these other folk are battling with life itself4 ,we may be satisfied with a gleam or two through the mesh2 they are not4 ,they meet reality on every hand and know it when they see it4 ,no make-believe can deceive them4 ,and when ,i say this ,i mean that the experiment has been tried over and over again4 ,in what are called 8the slums0 of the greatest ,american and ,english cities ,i have seen hundreds and even thousands of poor people listening to the music of ,beethoven1 and to a few simple words about it in rapt and tense silence1 and have heard them break out into such unrestrained applause as comes only from those who are really hungry for good music4 ,put a good orchestra into any one of these places and you will find the best kind of an audience4 ,such people have no taint of hyper-criticism1 no desire to talk wisely about the latest composer4 ,they have not constructed for themselves a nice little sthetic formula which will fit everything--a sort of protective coloring2 their minds are not 8made up40 ,let us not misunderstand this situation4 ,i am not writing about painting or sculpture1 for ,i know that these arts involve certain perceptive and selective qualities of the mind which require long training4 ,i am writing about music1 which appeals to a sense differentiated and trained long before the sense for color-vibration or for beauty of form was developed1 a sense which we possess in a highly developed state in very childhood4 ,imagine a small opera house in the lower ,east ,side of ,new ,york or in the ,north ,end or ,south ,end of ,boston1 which the people there might frequent at sums within their means2 imagine a small ,western city with such an opera house2 and compare the probable results with those now attained by our gorgeous and needlessly expensive operatic performances which1 whether at home or abroad1 leave little behind them but a financial vacuum1 and a dim idea that somehow opera means famous 8stars0 singing in a highly exaggerated manner in a strange language1 in stranger dramas1 where motives and purposes are stranger still4 ,concerts and operatic performances such as ,i have advocated would supplement and complete our own musical activities4 ,these paid artists would be playing and singing to us in a language we ourselves had learned by using it4 ,music would be domestic2 we should understand it better and love it more4 ,i am familiar with the old argument that concerts and operas so conducted would not pay4 ,to this ,i reply that it is probably true4 ,does settlement work pay8 ,does a library pay8 ,does any altruistic endeavor anywhere pay8 ,no2 nothing of this sort ever shows a money balance on the right side of the ledger4 ,but we do not keep that column in figures4 ,it foots up in joy1 not in dollars4 ,the best kind of social 8uplift0 would be something that made people happier4 ,the real uplift is of the soul1 not of the body4 ,let a rift of beauty pierce the dull scene4 ,let us have a taste of heaven now2 and let it be not yours or mine1 but theirs4 ,in music everybody makes his own heaven at the time4 ,but it is not money that is lacking4 ,hundreds of thousands are annually spent to make up the deficits of our symphony orchestras4 ,millions are spent for the physical well-being of our poorer people4 ,beauty for the well-to-do1 who are1 like as not1 too well-to-do to care much for it2 materialistic benefits for the poor and unfortunate1 who are fairly starving for something bright and joyous4 ,what would it not mean to these latter were they able to go once a week to a hall in their own part of the city1 to hear a fine concert at a fee well within their means1 and to know that there would be no chairman there to tell them 8what a great privilege10 etc41 but that they would be let alone to enjoy themselves in their own way4 ,these1 after all1 make up the great body of our city populations2 from these humble homes come the future ,american citizens2 in some ways they are superior to us1 for they survive a much harder battle1 and preserve their self-respect in face of enormous difficulties4 ,why should we dole out to them what we think they need8 ,why not offer them something that puts us all on the same level8 ,the inevitable conclusion to be drawn from an investigation of our musical situation is that we need only opportunities of expressing ourselves4 ,every village contains a potential singing society1 every church contains a potential choir1 every family in which there are children might sing simple songs together4 ,there is a singing club hidden away in every neighborhood4 ,every city might have1 on occasion1 thousands of people singing fine songs and hymns4 ,what is the present need8 ,leaders3 educated musicians who have learned the technique of their art and have1 at the same time1 learned to understand and appreciate the greatest music1 and who prefer it to any other4 ,our institutions for training musicians are sending out a continual stream of graduates1 many of whom begin their labors in small towns and cities4 ,nearly every community has at least one man who has sufficient technical knowledge of music to direct groups of singers1 large and small4 ,what kind of music does he1 in his heart1 prefer8 ,the answer is to be read in programmes here and there1 in the record of unsuccessful singing societies1 in the public performances of 8show pieces40 ,should not our institutions pay more attention to forming the taste of their students8 ,is it really necessary to teach them technique through bad examples of the art of music8 ,can they safely spend several years dealing with distinctly inferior music for the sake of a facile technique8 ,is rhetoric or oratory superior to literature8 ,there is no such thing as teaching violin or piano-playing and teaching music4 ,if the violin or piano teaching deals with poor music which the pupil practices several hours a day1 no lessons in musical history1 theory1 form1 or sthetics can counteract the effect of that constant association4 ,we cannot advance without leaders4 ,we look to the training schools for them4 ,and these schools cannot expect to supply them to us unless they so conduct their teaching as to develop in students a love and understanding of the best4 ,this article1 then1 expresses my conviction that the average ,american man or woman is potentially musical4 ,i believe the world of music to be a true democracy4 ,i am convinced that our chief need is to make music ourselves4 ,i believe that under right conditions we should enjoy doing so2 ,i think all art is closely related to the sum of human consciousness4 ,and just as ,i see great music based on what we are and what we feel1 so ,i see the expert performance of music as being merely our own performance magnified and beautified by extreme skill4 ,i see1 in short1 a necessary and natural connection between ourselves and both composer and performer4 ,i believe that all the great pictures and sculpture and music lay first in the general consciousness and then became articulate in one man4 ,i believe no statesman1 no philosopher1 no1 not even a ,christ1 to be conceivable save as he lies first in men's hearts4 ,what they are in posse he is in esse4 ,that we all are more musical than we are thought to be2 that we are more musical than we get the chance to be--of this there is no doubt whatever4 ,,chapter ,v ,,the ,,opera ,i4 ,,what ,,is ,,opera8 ,the form of drama with music which we loosely call 8opera0 is such a curious mixture of many elements--some of them closely related1 others nearly irreconcilable--that it is almost impossible to arrive at any definite idea of its artistic value4 ,a great picture or piece of sculpture1 a great book or a great symphony represents a perfectly clear evolution of a well-defined art4 ,you do not question the artistic validity of 8,pendennis0 or of a portrait by ,romney2 they have their roots in the earlier works of great writers and painters and they tend toward those which follow4 ,the arts they represent grew by a slow process of evolution1 absorbing everything that was useful to them and rejecting everything useless1 until they finally became consistent and self-contained4 ,the development of opera1 on the other hand1 has been a continual compromise--with the whims of princes1 with the even more wayward whims of singers1 and with social conventions4 ,its increasing costliness 7due sometimes to the composer's grandiloquence and sometimes to the demands of the public7 has necessitated producing it in huge opera houses entirely unsuited to it2 and1 being a mixed art1 it has been subject to two different influences which have not by any means always been in agreement4 ,its life-line has been crossed over and over again by daring innovators who1 forgetting the past1 have sought to force it away from nature and to make it an expression of excessive individualism4 ,methods which would find oblivion quickly enough in any pure form of art have been carried out in opera1 and have been supported by an uncritical public pleased by a gorgeous spectacle or entertained by fine singing4 ,all the other art-forms progress step by step2 opera leaps first forward1 then backward2 it becomes too reasonable1 only to become immediately afterward entirely unreasonable2 it passes from objectivity to subjectivity and back again1 or employs both at the same time2 it turns a man into a woman1 or a woman into a man2 it thinks nothing of being presented in two languages at once2 it turns colloquial ,bret ,harte into ,italian without the slightest realization of having become1 in the process1 essentially comic3 in short1 there seems no limit to the havoc it can play with geography1 science1 language1 costume1 drama1 music1 and human nature itself4 ,any attempt1 therefore1 to deal here with the development of opera as a whole would be an impossible undertaking4 ,we should become at once involved in a glossary of singers 7now only names1 then in effect constituting the opera itself71 an unsnarling of impossible plots1 an excursion into religion1 into the ballet1 into mythology1 demonology1 pseudo-philosophy1 mysticism1 and ,heaven knows what else4 ,we should see our first flock of canary birds1--released simply to make us gape1--and we should hear a forest bird tell the hero 7through the medium of a singer off the stage7 the way to a sleeping beauty2 we should hear the hero and the villain sing a delightful duet and then see them turn away in different directions to seek and murder each other2 we should find the ,pyramids and the ,latin ,quarter expressible in the same terms2 our heroines would include the mysterious and demoniac scoffer1 ,kundry1 the woman who doubts and questions1 the woman who should have but did not1 and the woman who goes mad and turns the flute-player in the orchestra to madness with her2 we should see men and women1 attired in inappropriate and even unintelligible costumes1 drink out of empty cups1 and a hero mortally wound a papier-mch dragon2 we should have to shut our eyes in order to hear1 or stop our ears in order to see2 if we cared for music1 we should have to wait ten minutes for a domestic quarrel in recitative to finish2 if we cared for drama1 we should have to wait the same length of time while a prima donna tossed off birdling trills and chirpings4 ,we should1 in short1 find ourselves dealing with a mixed art of quite extraordinary latitude in style1 form1 dramatic purpose1 and musical texture4 ,it will be sufficient for our purposes1 therefore1 to state that both sacred and secular plays with music have existed from the earliest times1 and that their development has tended toward the form as we now know it4 ,the introduction of songs into plays was1 in itself1 so agreeable and interesting that their use continually increased until some vague operatic form was reached in which music predominated4 ,but there are two great revolutionary epochs to which proper attention must be paid if we are to understand opera at all4 ,the first of these is the so-called 8,florentine ,revolution0 in the years #aeie to #afjj1 and the second is the ,wagnerian reform in the middle of the last century4 ,,ii4 ,,opera ,,in ,,the ,,old ,,style ,the 8,florentine ,revolution0 was an attempt to create an entirely new type of opera in which all tradition was thrown to the winds4 ,to 8,eurydice10 the best known of these ,florentine operas1 its composer1 ,peri1 wrote a preface1 from which we quote the following3 8,therefore1 abandoning every style of vocal writing known hitherto1 ,i gave myself up wholly to contriving the sort of imitation 7of speech7 demanded by this poem40 7,is this1 indeed1 ,peri speaking8 ,or is it ,gluck1 or ,wagner1 or ,debussy87 ,in any case1 the abandonment1 in any form of human expression1 of every style known hitherto is a fatal abandonment1 for no art1 or science1 or literature can throw away its past and live4 ,the ,florentine ,revolution was not revolution1 but riot1 for it undertook to tear down what generations had been slowly building up1 and to substitute in its place something not only untried but 7at that time7 impossible4 ,it was an attempt to found a new art entirely detached from an old one4 ,beethoven without ,haydn and ,mozart1 ,meredith without ,fielding1 the ,gothic without the ,classical1 a ,renaissance without a birth1 daylight without sunrise4 ,it was an entirely illogical proceeding from first to last1 but opera came forth from it because opera can subsist--it has1 and does--without logic or even reasonableness4 ,there had been composed before the year #afjj the most beautiful sacred music the world possesses--that which culminated in the works of ,palestrina4 ,a style or method of expression had been perfected1 and this style or method was gradually and naturally being applied to secular and even to dramatic forms4 ,there were at that time1 also1 songs of the people which had been often used in plays with music1 and which might have supplied a basis for opera4 ,but the creators of the new opera would have none of these4 ,they had a theory 7fatal possession for any artist73 they wanted to revive the ,greek drama1 and they believed that1 in opera1 music should be subservient to the text4 ,it was ,peri and his associates who first saw this will-o'-the-wisp1 which has since become completely embodied into a fully equipped and valiant bugaboo to frighten and subdue those who love music for music's sake4 ,all that one needs to say on this point is that there is no great opera in existence1 save alone 8,pellas et ,mlisande0 by ,debussy1 in which the music is not supreme over the text 7and ,debussy's opera is unique in its treatment and leads nowhere--or1 if anywhere1 away from opera74 ,peri's reforms were artistically unreasonable1 but the composers who followed him gradually evolved what is called the aria or operatic song and did eventually make a more or less coherent operatic form1 although a long time passed before opera unified in itself the various elements necessary to artistic completeness4 ,it was only a short time1 however1 before opera attained the widest favor all over ,europe1 a favor which it has enjoyed from that day to this4 ,the reasons for this never-waning popularity are found first in the natural preference on the part of the public for the human voice over any instrument4 ,for whatever facility of technique or felicity of expression musical instruments may have1 they lack the intimate human quality of the singing voice4 ,the voice comes to the listener in terms of himself1 whereas an instrument may be strange and unsympathetic and awaken no response4 ,so complete is this sympathy between the singer and listener that almost any singer with a fine voice 7she is1 very likely1 called a 8human nightingale07 is sure to attract an audience1 no matter what she sings or how little musical intelligence she shows4 7,it is this sympathy1 too1 which inflicts on us the drawing-room song1 the last word in utter vacuity47 ,coupled with this is the delight the public takes in extraordinary vocal feats of agility4 ,the singer vies with a flute in the orchestra1 or sings two or three notes higher than any other singer has ever sung1 and the public crowds to hear her4 ,but it is useless to dwell on this3 the disease is incurable2 there will always be1 ,i fear1 an unthinking public ready for any vocal gymnast who sings higher or faster than anybody else1 or who can toss off trills and runs with a smiling face and a pretty costume1 and in entirely unintelligible words4 ,and1 second1 when this singing1 which the public dearly loves1 is coupled with the perennial fascination of the drama1 the appeal is irresistible4 ,i do not need to dwell here on the quality in the drama which has made it popular from the remotest time until now4 ,one can say this1 however3 that to people who are incapable of re-creating a world of beauty in their own minds--although nature surrounds them with it1 and imaginative literature is in every library--the stage is a perpetual delight4 ,there they behold impossible romances1 incredible virtues and vices1 heroes and heroines foully persecuted but inevitably triumphant1 impossible scenes in improbable countries1 everything left out that is tiresome and habitual and necessitous1 no blare of daylight but only golden sunrise and flaming sunset3 the impossible realized at last4 ,these qualities are in all drama to a greater or less extent1 for they embody the essence of what the drama is4 schylus and ,shakespeare divest life of its prose as completely as does a raging melodrama1 for a play must move from one dramatic and salient point to another2 and while those great dramatists imply the whole of life1--whereas the ordinary play implies nothing1--they do not and cannot present it in its actual and complete continuity4 ,now the drama is subject more or less to public opinion and to public taste1 because in the drama we understand what we are hearing4 ,on the other hand the opera1 considered as drama1 is almost free from any such responsibility1 because it is sung in a foreign language2 or if1 by chance1 in our own tongue1 the size of the opera house and the disinclination of singers to pay any attention to their diction renders the text unintelligible4 ,so the libretto of the opera escapes scrutiny4 8,what is too silly to be said is sung10 says ,voltaire4 ,let us note also that when an art becomes detached from its own past1 when it is not based on natural human life1 and does not obey those general laws to which all art is subject1 it is sure to evolve conventions of one sort or another and to become artificial4 ,this is to be observed in what is called the 8rococo0 style of architecture1 as well as in the terrible objects perpetrated by the 8futurists0 and 8cubists0 7anything that is of the future must also be of the past1 no matter whether it is a picture1 or a tree1 or an idea74 ,opera was soon in the grip of these conventions from which1 with a few notable exceptions1 it has never escaped4 ,even the common conventions of the drama1 which we accept readily enough1 are in opera stretched to the breaking point4 ,for many generations operas were planned according to a set1 inflexible scheme of acts2 a woman took a man's part 7as in ,gounod's 8,faust072 characters were stereotyped2 the position of the chief aria 7solo7 for the prima donna was exactly determined so as to give to her entrance all possible impressiveness2 the set musical pieces 7solos1 duets1 choruses1 and so forth7 were arranged artificially and not to satisfy any dramatic necessity4 ,there is some justness in ,wagner's saying that the old conventional opera was 8a concert in costume40 ,an example of this conventionality and lack of dramatic unity may be found in the famous quartette scene in ,verdi's 8,rigoletto10 an opera which is typical of the ,italian style 7in which1 in ,meredith's phrase1 8there is much dallying with beauty in the thick of sweet anguish074 ,in this scene there are two persons in hiding to watch two others4 ,the concealment is the hinge upon which1 for the moment1 the story swings4 ,but the exigencies of the music are such that1 before the piece has progressed very far1 all four are singing at the top of their lungs and with no pretext of concealment--in a charming piece of music1 indeed1 but quite divested of dramatic truth and unity4 ,and then1 naturally enough1 the thin veneer of drama having been pierced1 they answer your applause by joining hands and bowing1 after which the two conceal themselves again1 the music strikes up as before1 and the whole scene is repeated4 ,but one of the most artificial elements in the old operas was the ballet4 ,its part in the opera scheme was purely to be a spectacle1 and great sums were lavishly spent to make it as gorgeous as possible4 ,it had usually nothing whatever to do with the story1 but was useful in drawing an audience of pleasure-lovers who did not take opera seriously4 ,once upon a time1 in ,london1 by an extraordinary unlucky stroke of fate1 ,carlyle was persuaded to go to hear an opera containing a ballet2 whereupon he fulminated as follows3 8,the very ballet girls1 with their muslin saucers round them1 were perhaps little short of miraculous2 whirling and spinning there in strange mad vortexes1 and then suddenly fixing themselves motionless1 each upon her left or right great toe1 with the other leg stretched out at an angle of ninety degrees--as if you had suddenly pricked into the floor1 by one of their points1 a pair1 or rather a multitudinous cohort1 of mad restlessly jumping and clipping scissors1 and so bidden them rest1 with open blades1 and stand still in the ,devil's name60 ,one remembers1 also1 8,war and ,peace10 with its scene at the opera--and ,tolsto's reference to the chief male dancer as getting 8sixty thousand francs a year for cutting capers40 ,so1 looking over the older operas which still hold their place in the repertoire1 we think of them as rather absurd1 and comfort ourselves with the reflection that to-day opera has outgrown its youthful follies and has become a work of art4 ,,iii4 ,,wagner ,,and ,,after ,then came the second great operatic reform1--that of ,wagner1--which was supposed to free us from the old absurdities and make of opera a reasonable and congruous thing4 ,this1 ,wagner's operas1 at the outset1 bade fair to be4 ,in 8,der ,fliegende ,hollnder10 8,tannhuser10 and 8,lohengrin0 there is a reasonable correspondence between the action and the music2 we can listen and look without too great disruption of our faculties4 ,wagner's librettos are1 with one exception1 based on mythological stories or ideas4 ,his personages are eternal types--,lohengrin of purity and heroism1 ,wotan of power by fiat1 ,brunhilde 7greatest of them all7 of heroic and noble womanhood4 ,he adopted the old device by means of which certain salient qualities in his characters--such as ,siegfried's youth and fearlessness1 ,wotan's majesty1 and so forth--were defined by short phrases of music called leit-motifs2 he made his orchestra eloquent of the movement of his drama1 instead of employing it as a 8huge guitar02 he eliminated the set musical piece1 which was bound to delay the action2 he kept his music always moving onward by avoiding the so-called 8authentic cadence10 which in all the older music perpetually cries a halt4 ,but by all these means ,wagner imposed on his listener a constant strain of attention3 leit-motifs recurring1 developing1 and disintegrating1 every note significant1 a huge and eloquent orchestra1 a voice singing phrases which are not parts of a complete melody then and there being evolved1--as in an opera by ,verdi1--but which are related to something first heard perhaps half an hour before in a preceding act 7or a week before in another drama73 we have all this to strain every possibility of our appreciative faculty1 and at the same time he asks us to watch an actual combat between a hero and a dragon1 or to observe another between two heroes half in the clouds with a ,god resplendent stretching out a holy spear to end the duel as he wills it1 while a ,valkyrie hovers above on her flying steed4 ,or he sets his drama under water1 with ,undines swimming about and a gnome clambering the slippery rocks to filch a jewel in exchange for his soul4 ,yes1 even this1 and more2 for he asks us to witness the end of the world--the waters rising1 the very heavens aflame--when our heart is so torn by the stupendous inner tragedy of ,brunhilde's immolation that the end of the world seems utterly and completely irrevelant and impertinent4 ,after all1 we are human4 ,we cannot be men and women and1 at the same time1 children4 ,we should like to crouch down in our seat in the opera house and forget everything save the noble1 splendid1 and beautiful music1 seeing only just so much action as would accord with our state of inner exaltation4 ,an opera must be objective or subjective2 it cannot be both at the same time4 ,the perfection of 8,don ,giovanni0 is due to the exact equality between the amount and intensity of the action and of the musical expression--or1 in other words1 to the complete union of matter and manner1 of form and style4 ,the 8,ring0 cycle is objective and subjective2 it is the extreme of stage mechanism 7and more71 and1 at the same time1 everything that is imaginatively profound and moving4 ,it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that ,wagner in those great music-dramas lost sight of the balance between means and ends1 and the proportion between action and thought4 ,his own theories1 and the magnitude of his subject1 led him to forget the natural limitations which are imposed upon a work of art by the very nature of those beings for whom it was created4 ,the 8,ring0 dramas should be both acted and witnessed by gods and goddesses for whom time and space do not exist1 and who are not limited by a precarious nervous system4 ,no one can be insensitive to the great beauty of certain portions of these gigantic music-dramas1--every one recognizes ,wagner's genius as it shows itself1 for example1 in either of the great scenes between ,siegfried and ,brunhilde1--but the intricate and well-nigh impossible stage mechanism and the excursions into the written drama constitute serious defects4 7,for the scene between ,wotan and ,fricka in 8,das ,rheingold0 and similar passages in the succeeding dramas are essentially scenes to be read rather than acted47 ,one would suppose that ,wagner had made impossible any repetition of the old operatic incongruities4 ,quite the contrary is the case4 ,one of the latest ,italian operas is1 if anything1 more absurd than any of its predecessors4 ,what could be more grotesque than an opera whose scene is in a mining camp in the ,west1 whose characters include a gambler1 a sheriff1 a woman of the camp1 and so forth1 whose language is perforce very much in the vernacular1 whose plot hinges on a game of cards1--an 8,outcast-of-,poker-,flat0 opera1--and this translated1 for the benefit of the composer1 into ,italian and produced in that language8 8,i'm dead gone on you1 ,minnie10 says ,rance2 8,ti voglio bene1 ,minnie10 sings his ,italian counterpart4 8,rigoletto0 does entrance us by the beauty and the sincerity of its melodies2 it is what it pretends to be2 it deals with emotions which we can share because they derive ultimately from great human issues4 ,the ,count1 ,magdalina1 ,rigoletto1 and ,gilda are all types2 we know them well in literature--in poetry1 novel1 and drama2 they are valid4 ,we accept the strained convention of the scene as being inevitable at that point in the development of the opera4 ,but after ,wagner's reforms1 and the influence they exerted on ,verdi himself1 the greatest of the ,italians1 it would seem incredible that any composer could lapse into a 8,girl of the ,golden ,west40 ,nearly all ,puccini's operas are a reversion to type4 ,the old-fashioned lurid melodrama appears again1 blood-red as usual2 as in 8,la ,tosca10 which leaves almost nothing to the imagination--one specially wishes that it did in certain scenes4 8,local color10 so-called1 appears again in all its arid deception--as in the ,japanese effects in the music of 8,madame ,butterfly02 again we hear the specious melody pretending to be real1 with its octaves in the orchestra to give it a sham intensity4 ,it is the old operatic world all over again4 ,when we compare any tragic scene in ,puccini's operas with the last act of ,verdi's 8,otello10 we realize the vast difference between the two4 ,it is true that ,puccini gives us beautiful lyric moments--as when ,mimi1 in 8,la ,bohme10 tells ,rudolph who she is2 it is true1 also1 that we ought not to cavil because ,puccini is not as great a composer as ,verdi4 ,our comparison is not for the purpose of decrying one at the expense of the other1 but to point out that the greater opera is not called for by the public and the lesser is2 that we get 8,la ,bohme10 8,madame ,butterfly10 and 8,la ,tosca0 twenty times to 8,otello's0 once1 and that we thereby lose all sense of operatic values4 ,the most trumpeted operatic composer of to-day is the worst of operatic sinners4 ,nothing could be more debasing to music and to drama than the method ,strauss employs in 8,electra40 ,in its original form 8,electra0 is a play of profound significance1 whose art1 philosophy1 and ethics are a natural expression of ,greek life and thought4 ,it contains ideas and it presents actions which1 while totally alien to us1 we accept as belonging to that life and thought4 ,in the original1 or in any good translation1 its simplicity and its elemental grandeur are calculated to move us deeply1 for we achieve a historical perspective and see the meaning and significance of the catastrophe which it presents4 ,this great story our modern composer proceeds to treat pathologically4 ,nothing is sacred to him4 ,he invests every passion1 every fearful deed with a personal and immediate significance which entirely destroys its artistic and its historical sense4 ,the real 8,electra0 is an impersonal1 typical1 national1 and religious drama2 ,hofmannsthal and ,strauss have made it into a seething caldron of riotous1 unbridled passion4 ,the lead given by ,strauss in 8,salome10 8,electra10 and1 in different form or type1 in 8,der ,rosenkavallier0 has been quickly followed4 8,the ,jewels of the ,madonna0 is an 8,electra0 of the boulevard1 in which the worst sort of passion and the worst sort of sacrilege are flaunted openly in the name of drama4 ,it belongs in the 8,grand ,guignol40 ,let any reasonable person read the librettos of current operas and form an opinion1 not of their morals1--for there is only one opinion about that1--but of their claims on the attention of any serious-minded person4 ,i refer to the moral status of these stories only because many of them stress the abnormal and lack a sense of proportion4 ,art seeks the truth wherever it be1 but the truth is the whole truth and not a segment of it4 ,a novel may represent almost any phase of life1 but it must keep a sense of proportion4 ,dostoevsky pushes the abnormal to the extreme limit1 but on the other hand he is 8a brother to his villains0 and he gives us plenty of redeeming types4 ,the hero in 8,the ,idiot0 is a predominating and overbalancing character4 ,the object of all great literature is to present the truth in terms of beauty4 8,tess of the ,d',urbervilles0 is as moral as 8,emma40 ,but the further one gets from a deliberate form of artistic expression like the novel1 the less latitude one has in this respect4 ,an episode in a novel of ,dostoevsky would be an impossible subject for a picture4 ,so opera1 which focuses itself for us in the stage frame and within a limited time1 must somehow preserve for itself this truthfulness and fidelity to life as it is4 8,the ,jewels of the ,madonna0 might serve as an episode in a novel of ,dostoevsky1 or of ,balzac2 as an opera libretto it is a monstrosity4 ,,iv4 ,,when ,,music ,,and ,,drama ,,are ,,fitly ,,joined ,i have referred to these various inconsistencies and absurdities of opera1 not with the idea of making out a case against it2 on the contrary1 ,i want to make out a case for it4 ,this obviously can be done only by means of operas which are guiltless of absurdities and of melodramatic exaggeration1 which answer the requirements of artistic reasonableness1 and are1 at the same time1 beautiful4 ,this cannot be said of 8,cavalleria ,rusticana0 7,rustic ,chivalry--,heaven save the mark671 8,la ,bohme10 8,la ,tosca10 8,the ,girl of the ,golden ,west10 8,thas0 7poison1 infidelity1 suicide1 sorcery1 and religion mixed up in an intolerable mlange71 8,contes d',hoffman0 7a ,don ,juan telling his adventures in detail7--these are bad art1 not because they are immoral1 but because they are untrue1 distorted1 without sense of the value of the material they employ4 ,operas which are both beautiful and reasonable do exist1 and one or two of them are actually in our present-day repertoire4 ,the questions we have to ask are these3 ,can a highly imaginative and significant drama1 in which action and reflection hold a proper balance1 in which some great and moving passion or some elemental human motives find true dramatic expression--can such a drama exist as opera8 ,is it possible to preserve the body and the spirit of drama and at the same time to preserve the body and spirit of music8 ,does not one of these have to give way to the other8 ,we want opera to be one thing1 and not several4 ,we want the same unity which exists in other artistic forms4 ,we want to separate classic1 romantic1 and realistic4 ,if opera changes from blank verse to rhymed verse1 so to speak1 we want the change to be dictated by an artistic necessity as it is in 8,as ,you ,like ,it40 ,we want1 above all1 such a reasonable correspondence between seeing and hearing as shall make it possible for us to preserve each sense unimpaired by the other4 ,a few such operas have been composed4 ,a considerable number approach this ideal4 ,from ,gluck's 8,orfeo0 7produced in #agfb7 to ,wagner's 8,tristan0 7#ahfe7 the pure conception of opera has always been kept alive4 ,gluck1 ,mozart1 ,weber1 ,wagner1 and ,verdi are the great names that stand out above the general level4 ,gluck's 8,orfeo0 is even more interesting since the dark shadow of ,strauss's 8,electra0 has appeared to throw it into relief4 ,once in a decade or two 8,orfeo0 is revived to reveal anew how nobly ,gluck interpreted the old ,greek story4 ,and it must be remembered that ,gluck lived in the latter part of the eighteenth century1 when music was quite inflexible in the matter of those dissonances which are considered by modern composers absolutely necessary to the expression of dramatic passion4 ,after ,gluck came ,mozart with his 8,don ,giovanni10 preserving the same balance between action and emotion1 with an even greater unity of style and the same sincerity of utterance4 ,mozart possessed a supreme mastery over all his material1 and a unique gift for creating pure and lucid melody4 ,in his operas there is no admixture3 his tragedy and his comedy are alike purely objective--and it is chiefly this quality which prevents our understanding them4 ,we1 in our day and age1 cannot project ourselves into ,mozart's milieu2 the tragedy at the close of 8,don ,giovanni0 moves us no whit because it is devoid of shrieking dissonances and thunders of orchestral sound4 ,our nervous systems are adjusted to instrumental cataclysms4 7,we are conscious only of a falling star2 the serene and placid ,heavens look down on us in vain47 ,could we hear 8,don ,giovanni0 in a small opera house sung in pure classic style1 we should realize how beautiful it is2 we should no longer crave the over-excitement and unrestrained passion of 8,la ,tosca02 we should understand that the deepest passion is expressible without tearing itself to tatters1 and that music may be unutterably tragic in simple major and minor mode4 ,don ,giovanni is a type of operatic hero1--he may be found in some modified form in half the operas ever written1--but ,mozart lifts him far above his petty intrigues and makes him a great figure standing for certain elements in human nature4 7,it is the failure of ,gounod to accomplish this which puts 8,faust0 on the lower plane it occupies47 ,the stage setting of 8,don ,giovanni10--the conventional rooms with gilt chairs1 and the like1--the costumes1 the acting1 the music 7orchestral and vocal71 are all unified in one style4 ,and this1 coupled with the supreme mastery and the melodic gift of its composer1 makes it one of the most perfect1 if not the most perfect1 of operas4 ,beethoven's 8,fidelio0 7produced in #ahje7 celebrates the devotion and self-sacrifice of a woman--and that devotion and self-sacrifice actually have for their object her husband6 ,it is a noble opera1 but ,beethoven's mind and temperament were not suited to the operatic problem1 and 8,fidelio0 is not by any means a perfect work of art4 ,the ,beethoven we hear there is the ,beethoven of the slow movements of the sonatas and symphonies2 but we could well hear 8,fidelio0 often1 for it stands alone in its utter sincerity and grandeur4 ,the romantic operas of ,weber tend toward that characterization which is the essential equality of his great successor1 ,wagner1 for 8,der ,freischtz0 and 8,euryanthe0 are full of characteristic music4 ,weber begins and ends romantic opera4 7,romantic subjects are common enough1 but romantic treatment is exceedingly uncommon4 ,scott's 8,bride of ,lammermoor10 for example1 in passing through the hands of librettist and composer becomes--in ,donizetti's 8,lucia di ,lammermoor0--considerably tinged with melodrama47 ,there is evidence enough in 8,der ,freischtz0 and 8,euryanthe0 of ,weber's sincerity and desire to make his operas artistic units4 ,each of them conveys a definite impression of beauty and avoids those specious appeals so common in opera4 ,meanwhile1 in the early part of the nineteenth century1 opra comique was flourishing in ,france4 ,auber1 ,hrold1 ,boieldieu1 and other composers were producing works in which the impossible happenings of grand opera were made possible by humor and lightness of touch4 ,the words of these composers are full of delightful melody and are more reasonable and true than are many better-known grand operas4 ,then comes the ,wagnerian period1 with its preponderance of drama over music4 ,in 8,tristan und ,isolde0 ,wagner1 by his own confession1 turned away from preconceived theories and composed as his inner spirit moved him4 8,tristan0 is1 therefore1 the work of an artist rather than of a theorist1 and although it is based on the leit-motif and on certain other important structural ideas which belong to the ,wagnerian scheme1 it rises far above their limitations and glows with the real light of genius4 ,in 8,tristan0 the action is suited to the psychology4 ,it is a great work of art and the most beautiful of all recantations4 ,in it we realize how finely means may be adjusted to ends1 how clearly music and text may be united1 how reasonable is the use of the leit-motif when it characterizes beings aflame with passion2 how the song1 under the influence of great dramatic situations1 can be expanded2 how vividly the orchestra can interpret and even further the actions2 how even the chorus can be fitted into the dramatic scheme--everywhere in 8,tristan0 there is unity4 ,this is not true of most of ,wagner's other operas4 8,die ,meistersinger0 comes nearest to 8,tristan0 in this respect4 ,may we not say that of all the music-dramas of ,wagner1 8,tristan0 and 8,die ,meistersinger0 lay completely in his consciousness unmixed with philosophical ideas and theories8 ,in them the leit-motif deals chiefly with emotions or with characteristics of persons rather than with inanimate objects1 or ideas2 in them is no grandiose scenic display2 no perversity of theory1 but only beautiful music wedded to a fitting text4 ,wagner's reforms were bound to bring about a reaction1 which came in due season and resulted in shorter and more direct works1 such as those of the modern ,italians4 ,no operas since ,wagner1 save ,verdi's 8,otello0 and 8,falstaff10 approach the greatness of his music-dramas1 and the tendency of many of these later works has been too much toward what we mildly call 8decadence40 ,but there is a great difference between the truthfulness and artistic validity of 8,carmen0 and that of 8,la ,bohme0 and 8,la ,tosca40 ,the former is packed full of genuine passion1 however primitive1 brutal1 and devastating it may be2 and its technical skill is undoubted4 ,the most interesting phrase of modern opera is found in the works of the ,russians4 ,it was inevitable that they should overturn our delicately adjusted artistic mechanism4 ,dostoevsky's 8,the ,brothers ,karamazov0 is as though there never had been a ,meredith or a ,henry ,james1 and ,moussorgsky's 8,boris ,godounov0 is as though there had never been a ,mozart or a ,wagner4 ,it has something of that amorphous quality which seems to be a part of ,russian life1 but1 on the other hand1 it has immense vitality4 ,how refreshing to see a crowd of peasants look like peasants1 and to hear them sing their own peasant songs2 and what stability they give to the whole work6 8,boris ,godounov0 gravitates1 as it were1 around these folk-songs1 which give to it a certain reality and truthfulness4 ,v4 ,,opera ,,as ,a ,,human ,,institution ,these various works have long since been accepted by the musical world as the great masterpieces in operatic form4 ,many of them are practically out of the present repertoire of our opera houses4 ,were we to assert ourselves--were the general public given an opportunity to choose between good and bad--we should hear them often4 ,and who shall say what results might not come from a small and properly managed opera house1 with performances of fine works at reasonable prices8 ,opera is controlled by a few rich men who think it a part of the life of a great city that there should be an opera house with a fine orchestra1 fine scenery1 and the greatest singers obtainable4 ,it does not exist for the good of the whole city1 but rather for those of plethoric purses4 ,it does not make any attempt to become a sociological force2 it does not even dimly see what possibilities it possesses in that direction4 ,opera houses and opera companies are sedulously protected against any sociological scrutiny4 ,they are persistently reported to be hot-beds of intrigue2 they trade on society and on the love of highly paid singing2 they surround themselves with an exotic atmosphere in which the normal person finds difficulty in breathing1 and which often turns the opera singer into a strange specimen of the genus man or woman2 they go to ruin about once in so often1 and are extricated by the unnecessarily rich2 they are too little related to the community that supports them save in the mediums of money and social convention4 ,these artificial and false conditions are bound to bring evils in their train1 but these conditions and these evils are chiefly the result of our own complacency4 ,were opera in any sense domestic2 were opera singers to some extent1 at least1 human beings like ourselves1 moving in a reasonable world2 did we go to hear opera as we go to a symphony concert1 or to an art museum1--to satisfy our love of beauty1 and quicken our imagination by contact with beautiful objects2 were the conditions of performance such as to enable us to hear the words1 then would opera become a fine human institution1 then would it take its place among the noble dreams of humanity4 ,in my endeavor to make some distinctions between good and bad opera ,i have drawn a somewhat arbitrary line4 ,i do not wish to give the impression that ,i think all opera on one side of the line is bad and on the other good4 ,i have tried to strike a just balance by applying certain admitted principles of artistic construction and expression4 ,from these principles1 which lie at the basis of life and1 therefore1 of art1 opera has unjustly claimed immunity4 ,and finally we come to that point in our argument where reasoning must stop altogether4 ,for opera is to many people a sort of fascination entirely outside reason4 ,they refuse to admit it as a subject of discussion2 they enjoy the spectacle on the stage and the spectacle of which they are a part2 the sight of three thousand people well dressed like themselves comforts them2 the fine singing1 costumes1 and stage-setting1 the gorgeous orchestra throbbing with passion entirely unbridled--all these they enjoy in that mental lassitude which is dear to them4 ,they are1 perhaps1 slightly uncomfortable at a symphony concert2 here there are no obligations4 ,opera is1 in short1 to such people a slightly illicit sthetic adventure4 ,,chapter ,,vi ,,the ,,symphony ,i4 ,,what ,,is ,a ,,symphony8 ,in the first chapter ,i discussed the nature of music itself in order that ,i might clear away certain popular misconceptions about it and arrive at some estimate of what it really is4 ,in the intervening chapters ,i have dealt with various phases of music3 ,i have discussed it in connection with words or action1 as a sociological force1 and as a matter of pedagogy1 and in so doing ,i have had to take into consideration all sorts of non-musical factors4 ,now the symphony is 8pure music10 so called2 it exists as a separate and distinct thing whose only purpose is to be beautiful and true to life4 ,furthermore it has always been largely independent of its audience4 ,the opera has been subject to the vagaries of singers1 to the demands of the audience for fine costumes and scenery2 the symphony1 on the contrary1 has grown naturally and freely1 being hindered only by the slow development of instruments and of the technique of playing them4 ,nearly every great symphony has persisted in the face of the opposition of the public and of many of the critics2 the gibes hurled at the ,first ,symphony of ,brahms were as bitter as those hurled at the ,second ,symphony of ,beethoven4 ,in discussing1 therefore1 what is undoubtedly the greatest of musical forms1 ,i desire first to state as nearly as may be what1 in its essence1 it is4 ,a symphony is1 of course1 like other music in being an arrangement of rhythmic figures1 of melodies 7usually called 8themes07 and of harmonies4 ,but before describing it as such--before dealing with its materials1 its form1 its history1 and its place in the art of music--,i wish to treat it solely as a thing of beauty expressed in terms of sound4 ,many people seem to think music an art dealing with objects or with ideas4 ,some1 never having become sensitized to it in childhood1 look upon it as of no importance whatever4 ,a large number have tried to perform it on an instrument and have failed4 ,others have succeeded at the price of thinking of it only in terms of technique4 ,a certain happy few1 some of whom can perform it1 and some of whom cannot1 are satisfied to take it as it is and be stimulated by it4 ,these are the true musicians and we should all aspire to join their happy company4 ,what we call a symphony is merely a series of ordered sounds produced by means of instruments of various kinds4 ,it is sound and nothing else4 ,our programme books tell us about 8first themes0 and 8second themes10 and we make what effort we can to patch together the various brilliant textures of symphonic music into a coherent pattern1 but the music we seek lies behind these outward manifestations as1 in a lesser sense1 the significance of a great poem lies behind the actual words4 ,so it is with all the greatest art1 whatever the medium may be4 ,the chief difference between a symphony and any other form of artistic expression--such as a novel1 a play1 a painting1 or a piece of sculpture--is that a symphony is not a record of something else2 it is not a picture of something else2 it is itself only4 ,and it is this quality or property of being itself that gives to all pure music its remarkable power4 ,any intelligent person1 on being shown a diagram or plan of a symphonic movement1 could be made to understand how and why the material was so disposed1 for that disposition is dictated to the composer by the nature of sound and by the limitations and capacities of human beings1 and it conforms to certain principles which operate everywhere2 but that understanding would not reveal the symphony to him4 ,there is in every one of us a region of sensibility in which mind and emotion are blended and from which the imagination acts1 and it is to this sensibility that music appeals4 ,now1 the imagination1 which we believe to be the highest function of human beings1 cannot act from the mind alone4 ,mathematics1 for example1 does not lie entirely in the domain of the mind1 and the same thing may be said of any other department of science4 ,the chief value of scientific studies in school and university lies in the stimulation of the student's imagination rather than in the acquisition of scientific facts4 ,now1 we cannot conceive any act of the imagination whatever that does not glow with the radiance of emotion1 so that music1 in appealing to the whole being1 is not so completely isolated as is generally supposed4 ,but the simultaneous appeal of music to the mind and the feelings has led to much confusion on the part of writers who have not been sensitive to all its qualities4 ,in his essay on 8,education0 ,herbert ,spencer1 for example1 in discussing the union of science and poetry1 says3 8,it is doubtless true that1 as states of consciousness1 cognition and emotion tend to exclude each other4 ,and it is doubtless true also that an extreme activity of the feelings tends to deaden the reflective powers3 in which sense1 indeed1 all orders of activity are antagonistic to each other40 ,now this statement reveals at once the limitations of a philosophic mind when dealing with something that requires apprehension by the feelings also4 ,in listening to music the reflective powers are not engaged with objects or with definite ideas1 but with pure sound that requires correlation only with itself1 and the condition of mutual exclusion between thought and feeling no longer exists because the music is expressing thought and feeling in the same terms4#i ,spencer speaks of science as full of poetry1 which is true enough1 but his statement about music reveals an incapacity to understand it4 ,and his misconceptions about art in general may be illustrated by the following concerning the axis in sculpture as applied to a standing figure3 8,but sculptors unfamiliar with the theory of equilibrium not uncommonly so represent this attitude that the line of direction falls midway between the feet4 ,ignorance of the laws of momentum leads to analogous errors2 as witness the admired ,discobolus1 which1 as it is posed1 must inevitably fall forward the moment the quoit is delivered40 ,this observation completely misses the quite sound reasons for the pose of that remarkable statue1 and1 if applied to sculpture in general1 would destroy the famous 8,victory of ,samothrace0 and many other fine examples of ,greek sculpture4 ,but it is strange and mysterious1 after all1 that these ordered sounds should be so precious to us2 that we should preserve their printed symbols generation after generation and continually reproduce them as sound1 feeling them to be strong and stable and true2 that we should even come to say1 after many generations1 that their creator was a wise man who had in him a profound philosophy4 ,but it is stranger still to realize how convincing this philosophy is as compared to any philosophy of the reason1 and to see how profound in it is the sense of reconciliation--a reconciliation that the mind seeks in vain4 ,our life consists of thought1 feeling1 and action1 phenomena of what we are1 and in actual life never quite reconcilable4 ,but the world of music is not actual life4 ,music is absolved from actual phenomena1 and achieves by virtue of this freedom a complete and profound philosophy--a philosophy unintelligible to the mind alone1 but intelligible to the complete being4 ,the strength of every art lies chiefly in its detachment from reality4 ,sculpture does not gain by being realistic1 picturesque1 or decorative2 on the contrary1 it is at its highest when it is ideal1 detached1 and superhuman4 ,painting does not gain by being categorical1 but is greatest when it seeks something beyond the outward1 physical view4 ,the novel or the essay depends for its greatness on its power of relating real persons1 things1 and ideas to that greater and deeper reality of which they are a part4 ,in this sense music stands supreme above the other arts because it is the most detached4 ,the elements of thought and feeling are1 in music1 presented as elements2 the thought is not thought even in the abstract1 for it is not 8about0 anything2 the feeling is not actual feeling1 and the action is not real action4 ,each of these properties or states of the human being is here expressed in its essence1 detached from all actual manifestation4 ,none but the highest type of mind1 none but a heart full of deep human sympathy1 none but a vigorous militant spirit could have conceived and brought forth such compositions1 for example1 as the ,third and ,ninth ,symphonies of ,beethoven1 yet they are nothing but sound--neither the thought nor the feeling nor the action is real4 ,but we may also truly say that in ,conrad's novel it is not the person1 ,lord ,jim1 who moves us1 but rather the author's deep insight into the elements of human character expressed through the central figure4 ,a portrait by ,velasquez is a portrait of the personality that lived within the outward appearance4 ,the figure of ,pendennis is not so much the youth by that name as it is youth itself--youth1 care-free1 but bound by tradition and love4 ,all great art is subjective1 lying in the mind of man4 ,it is from this point of view1 then1 that ,i approach the symphony4 ,i do not need now to dwell on its history1 on its form1 or on its means of expression1 because they are merely incidental to its being a profound human document4 ,pure music at its highest is the will of man made manifest1 and one may doubt if that will becomes fully manifest in any other of his creations4 ,it compasses all his actions1 all his thoughts1 all his feelings2 it translates his dreams2 it satisfies his insatiable curiosities2 it justifies his pride 7as he himself never does72 it makes him the god he would be2 it is like a crystal ball1 in whose mystic depths the whole of life moves in a shadow fantasy4 ,,ii4 ,,how ,,shall ,,we ,,understand ,,it8 ,it is obvious1 then1 that the only possible way to understand a symphony is to accept it as it is and not try to make it into something else4 ,music is not a language2 it does not exist in other terms1 but is untranslatable4 ,when a trumpet blares and you make any of the conventional associations with the trumpet1 such as a battle1 a hunt1 a proclamation1 a signal1 off goes your mind on a stream of alien ideas that may carry you anywhere and that will certainly carry you farther and farther away from the music itself4 ,each of the orchestral instruments has its own individual association--the oboe reminds you of a shepherd's pipe1 the flute of a bird's song1 the ,french horn of hunting1 and so forth2 but each one of the instruments in the orchestra as you listen to it is forming lines1 and adding colors1 as it were1 in a great design4 ,and this design1 always complete at any one point1 goes on unceasingly forming itself ever and ever anew4 ,it is always complete and always incomplete1 always moving onward1 always delicately poised for inevitable flight4 ,as you listen you have lived a thousand lives2 dream after dream has dissolved itself in your consciousness2 each moment has been a perfect and complete existence in itself4 ,when it is finished you awake to what you call happiness or unhappiness1 peace or struggle1 satisfaction or chagrin2 the unreal spectacle of the world imposes itself upon you again2 you are once more a human being4 ,why ask that glorious world in which your nature has been freed and your soul has been disencumbered of your body to assume all the imperfections of this one8 ,the gods1 of necessity1 dwell in the heavens4 ,no1 you cannot understand music by translating it into other terms1 or by preserving your associations with the world in which you live4 ,mind and feeling1 sublimated by the magic of these sounds1 must detach themselves and rise to a world of pure imagination where there is no locality4 ,reconciliation6 ,a philosophy without a category2 a religion without a dogma2 an indestructible shadow world which offers no explanations1 promulgates no opinions1 and has no mission--which exists completely in itself4 ,what more shall we ask for8 ,why cry to the heavens for a manifestation8 ,why take refuge in a so-called 8system0 of philosophy8 ,why shuffle off the whole problem on a dogma8 ,what comfort to a squirrel in a cage to know the number of its bars8 ,is our slow and inevitable progress from the unknown to the unknown any more significant because we have learned to tell our beads1 intellectual1 religious1 or sthetic1 to mumble our little formul1 and to pick our way1 eyes downward1 amongst the stones and thorns1 never once glancing clear-eyed upward to the sun8 ,we have always sought a fourth dimension1 and have always had it4 ,we want what we have not2 we wish to be what we are not2 and all the time they have been within our grasp4 ,we make a far away heaven to answer this universal cry1 when our hand is on its very doorlatch4 ,our imagination falters most when we apply it to things nearest us4 ,where can heaven be if not here8 ,is it an omnibus in which you may secure a comfortable seat by paying your fare8 ,or is it a state of yourself toward which you continually struggle and to which you occasionally attain8 ,this1 then1 is my thesis4 ,a symphony is not merely an arrangement of rhythms1 melodies1 and harmonies2 it is not a record of the thoughts1 feelings1 and deeds of men2 it is not a picture of man or of nature4 ,rather does it launch itself from these into the unknown4 ,it is pure imagination freed from the actual4 ,the foregoing does not1 in any sense1 preclude that idea of a symphony which is expressible in terms of rhythm1 melody1 and harmony4 ,what ,i have said has been said for the purpose of preventing a conception of it in these terms only 7and1 of course1 in still lower terms74 ,our physical hearing is a transit to the imagination and we want the physical hearing to serve that purpose4 ,nothing retards it more than an attempt at the time to intellectualize the process4 ,in other words1 listening to a symphony should consist in giving yourself freely to it2 in making of yourself a passive medium4 ,your study of the arrangement of themes1 and so forth1 should precede or follow the actual experience4 ,and if you have no leisure or opportunity for such study and depend entirely on an occasional concert1 you should nevertheless continue to pursue the same inactivity1 allowing the music itself to increase your susceptibility little by little4 ,if the mind is employed in an attempt to extricate order from confusion1 it usurps for the moment the other functions of listening4 ,and ,i would go so far as to say that the proper goal of a musical education should be to arrive at such a state of impressionability to pure music as would leave the mind1 the feelings1 and the imagination free to act subconsciously without active direction1 and without struggle4 ,the matter is so obvious4 ,there is the music2 here is the person4 ,it awaits him4 ,it was created of him and for him4 ,it is inconceivable without him4 ,it is his spirit coming back to him purified4 ,it is the only thing he cannot sully1 and which cannot sully him1 for in the very nature of it1 it cannot be turned to base uses4 ,what man would be1 here he is4 ,in making this beautiful spectacle of life1 as ,conrad says1 he has found its only explanation4 ,so we should avoid marring the actual experience by conscious intent on the technical details4 ,what ,i have said thus far may seem of but slight assistance to the average person who attends symphony concerts4 ,i have stated what ,i thought symphonic music to be1 and have urged my readers not to listen to it analytically4 ,but my purpose here is not to attempt to blaze an easy path for the music-lover2 in fact1 ,i am unqualifiedly opposed to that too common practice of sthetic writing4 ,there is no easy path1 and an attempt to find one is disastrous to any progress whatever4 ,every person who has attained to a real understanding of sthetic objects knows that the growth of that understanding has been slow4 ,the characteristic weakness of our artistic status is self-deception4 ,we are not frank with ourselves2 we are unwilling to admit ourselves in ignorance2 we advance opinions which are not our own4 ,the only possible basis for advancement in anything is intellectual honesty4 ,information about a symphony is useless unless there is a real appeal in the music itself4 ,so ,i do not attempt to provide here a panacea2 just the opposite is my purpose4 ,all ,i want to do is to show that the symphony is worth struggling for1 and to brush away such misconceptions about it as might retard the progress of those who have the will and the perseverance to struggle4 ,and when there is no will to struggle1 nothing can be accomplished4 ,what is called 8mental lassitude0 is almost a contradiction in terms4 ,it is obvious that a proper musical education would have solved our problems in a natural manner4 ,if1 as children1 we had been taught to sing only beautiful songs2 if we had been trained to listen to music2 if our memory for musical phrases1 rhythms1 etc41 had been cultivated1 we should be quick in apprehending all the qualities of a symphony1 for all our analytical reasoning would have been done beforehand4 ,and nothing can ever take the place of such an education1 because the natural taste for music1 which is so strong in childhood1 has in us been allowed to lapse4 ,so that our first duty is to our children4 ,we want them to avoid our mistakes4 ,in every household1 in every school1 public or private1 this ideal of music-study should be upheld--namely1 that the children should enter life so prepared by their early training as to be able to enjoy the greatest music4 ,i take a form of pure music as a type of our highest attainment1 because when music is allied to words or to action it gives certain hostages4 ,furthermore1 the symphony evolved slowly under the law of its own being1 and it represents the application to music of those general laws of proportion and balance1 of unity and variety1 which govern all artistic expression4 ,it has never been subjected to alien influences2 popularity has not been its motive power2 virtuosity has never dictated to it4 ,if you understand the symphony you can apply that understanding to any other form of music4 ,if one compares it with the opera this distinction is at once evident4 ,in the opera that antagonism of which ,spencer speaks between states of feeling and of cognition does exist1 because the mind is there appealed to through objects rather than through pure sound4 ,the symphony speaks in its own terms2 opera speaks in terms of characters in action1 of costume and of scenery1 as well as of music4 ,even the greatest operas cause you to reflect on something outside themselves--on human motives as they find expression in human action4 ,in either 8,don ,giovanni0 or 8,tristan10 although the music reaches great heights of beauty and is profoundly moving1 there is the inevitable struggle between seeing and hearing1 the inevitable difficulty between a simultaneous state of cognition and of feeling4 ,the symphony entirely escapes this dilemma4 ,np doubt great motives lie beneath it2 no doubt it1 too1 is a drama of human life1 for otherwise it could not be great as a work of art2 but the play of motives in a symphony is hidden behind the impenetrable veil of sound4 ,the ,third1 ,fifth1 and ,ninth ,symphonies of ,beethoven are truly dramatic1 but only in this sense4 ,they range from the tender to the terrible2 they have their own emotional climaxes2 they philosophize1 they brood1 they grin like a comic mask2 action and reaction follow each other as in life itself2 nothing is lacking but that one inconsequential thing1 reality4 ,art is truth2 life is but a shadow fading to nothingness as the sun sets4 ,,iii4 ,,the ,,materials ,,of ,,the ,,symphony ,i have said that the symphony evolved slowly under the laws of its own being1 and ,i wish to state briefly and 7as far as possible7 in simple terms how that evolution came about4 ,if ,i should go back to the very beginning ,i should have to point out that the primal difference between music and noise consists in the intensity of vibration and in the grouping of the sounds into regular series by means of accents4 ,a series of unaccented tones does not make music4 ,if a clock1 in striking twelve1 should1 by accenting certain strokes1 throw the whole number into regular groups1 it would supply the basis for music4 ,in any great piece of martial music these accents and these impulses in groups constitute the element that moves us to comply with it ourselves2 we beat time with hand or foot2 we are infused with the momentum4 ,and the force of the impetus may be observed at the close of nearly every piece of music where conventional chords ease off its stress4 ,the last forty measures of the ,fifth ,symphony of ,beethoven constitute a sort of brake on the huge moving mass4 ,chopin's ,polonaise1 opus #bf1 number #a1 on the contrary1 does not end2 it stops4 ,in ,fielding's 8,tom ,jones0 the impetus of the action is carried on so far that the climax is postponed to a point dangerously near the end of the book1 which leaves us with a sense of breathlessness or even of aggravation4 ,in music1 when this impetus is of extreme vigor1 any temporary displacement of it produces almost the effect of a cataclysm--as in the first movement of ,beethoven's ,third ,symphony1 where great chords in twos clash across already established metrical groups of threes4 ,within the metrical groups all sorts of subdivisions may exist1 and these constitute what is called 8rhythm0 in music4 ,rhythm1 in brief1 is the variety which any melody imposes on the regular beats that constitute its time basis4 ,it is from this rhythmic movement that the symphony gets its quality of action1 and the precursors of the symphony in this respect were the old folk-songs and dance-tunes the melodies of which are full of rhythmic diversity4 ,the line from these early nave compositions down to symphonic music was never broken1 and there is hardly a symphony in existence that does not pay direct tribute to them4 ,i dwell on this point at some length because here lies a large part of the energy of music4 ,the rhythmic figures to which ,i have already referred contain within themselves a primal force4 ,they are capable of throwing off parts of themselves1 and these1 caught in the primary orbit1 live as separate identities1 until the too powerful attraction of the greater mass absorbs them again4 ,as rhythm1 then1 a symphonic movement is like sublimated physical energy4 ,as the first oscillations of its impulse strike our consciousness we are caught up into a world of movement which has the inevitability of star courses4 ,we ourselves are all rhythm--rhythm imprisoned and awaiting release4 ,in music we become one with all that ceaseless movement or vibration without which there would be no physical or spiritual world at all4 ,i say1 then1 that rhythm is the very heart of music2 that while we are all susceptible to it 7though comparatively few people can move their hands or feet or bodies in perfect rhythm--they would be much better off if they could67 we do not altogether see what significance it has as an sthetic property of music4 ,when the heart of music stops beating 7as in one of ,beethoven's scherzi7 we are surprised1 or perhaps disturbed1 not answering to the marvelous silence2 when two or even three rhythms are acting simultaneously we are confused and helpless before the most fascinating of sthetic phenomena4 ,let me next dwell briefly on that element in the evolution of symphonic music which consists in the use of several themes simultaneously4 ,should we trace this back to its original we should find ourselves in the ninth century4 ,now1 while ,i know that this is not the place for a dissertation on any abstruse musical terms1 ,i shall venture this much1 not only because this method of writing is used in nearly all really fine music1 but because a large part of the pleasure to be derived from listening to a symphony depends on our capacity to follow the varied strands of melody that constitute it4 ,is it not so1 also1 with the novel8 ,the chief theme of ,meredith's 8,the ,egoist0 has numberless counter-themes running through and around it4 ,it is not by any means to be found in ,sir ,willoughby alone1 for you understand it through ,vernon's good sense1 through ,clara's dart-like intuitions1 through ,mr4 ,middleton's patient surprise at having such a daughter1 through ,letitia1 and ,crossjay1 and ,horace ,de ,cray--all these are continually explaining and illuminating the theme for you4 ,it is true that music asks you to listen to several melodies at once1 but what does the episode of ,crossjay's unwitting listening to ,sir ,willoughby's belated declaration to ,letitia ask you to do8 ,is it enough merely to record the scene as it is unfolded to you8 ,or do you remember ,crossjay's father stumping up the avenue in his ill-fitting clothes8 ,clara's intercessions for ,crossjay8 ,vernon's attempts to adjust himself to ,sir ,willoughby's overbearing grandiloquence8 ,and do you not have to remember1 especially1 that ,crossjay had been locked out of his room by ,sir ,willoughby and had sought the ottoman as a refuge8 ,these are all strands of the chief melody in that remarkable composition4 7,not all the strands are there1 for satire never tells the whole truth4 8,tony0 in ,ethel ,sidgwick's 8,promise0 and 8,succession0 is also an egoist47 ,a novel1 then1 in this sense1 is not successive1 but simultaneous4 ,all that has been and all that is to be exist in every moment of life1 for that is all what we call 8the present0 means4 ,the chief difference between such play of character around an idea and the movement of many musical themes around a central one lies in the detached and spiritualized quality of sound4 ,it is obvious that music1 written for an orchestra containing some twenty or more different kinds of instruments and scores of performers1 must have great variety of expression4 ,each instrument has its own tone color1 its own range1 and its own technique1 and each must be given its own thing to say4 ,in this sense symphonic music is an intricate mesh of melodies1 each intent on its own purpose1 each a part of the whole4 ,in no other of its varied means of expression is the symphony more strictly and more fully an evolution than in this one of complex melodic textures4 ,there has been no hiatus4 ,from its first great moment of perfection in the time of ,palestrina1 through the madrigal and fugue1 through dance-tunes conventionalized in the suite1 through organ pieces1 oratorios1 and the like1 this method of writing has persisted4 ,wagner bases his whole musical structure on the play and interplay of melodic lines in his leit-motifs4 ,bach is all melodic texture4 ,music written in this manner is called 8polyphonic10 and the method of writing it is called 8counterpoint40 ,in direct contrast to this is 8monodic0 music which employs only one melody against an accompaniment of chords4 ,a large part of the music we hear is monodic2 an aria by ,puccini1 a popular song1 most church music--these have one melody only4 ,so has ,poe's 8,for ,annie40 ,polyphonic music has the great advantage of being intensive in its expression2 it evolves out of itself4 ,when ,i say that almost the whole of the first movement of ,beethoven's ,ninth ,symphony is evolved out of a few measures near the beginning1 ,i mean that the melodic fragments of the theme take on a life of their own and by so doing illustrate and expound the significance of the original thesis from which they sprang4 ,this quality1 or property in music1 upon which ,i have laid some stress1 is1 then1 not so much a matter of technique as of sthetics4 ,the thing done and the manner of doing it is each the result of general laws1 and ,i venture to dwell on them here1 not for expert1 technical reasons1 but because ,i wish to offer the listener to symphonies one of his most delightful opportunities4 ,note should finally be made of the important fact that only those symphonic themes which have a varied and vibrant rhythm serve well the purpose of counterpoint1 for the essence of instrumental counterpoint lies in setting against each other two or more melodic phrases in contrasting rhythms4 ,i do not mean to imply by the foregoing that symphonic music persistently employs counterpoint as against simple melody4 ,there are whole passages in the symphonies of ,haydn1 ,mozart1 and ,beethoven where one tune is given out against an accompaniment of chords1 and a lyric composer like ,schubert employs counterpoint somewhat rarely4 ,but in the greatest symphonies the predominating method of expression is through polyphony4 ,in writing about counterpoint ,i have dwelt on the rhythmic quality in melody1 and have stated that a well-defined and varied rhythm is essential to contrapuntal treatment4 ,i might almost have said that all good melody depends on rhythm4 ,i do say--expecting many a silent protest from certain of my readers--that all the greatest melodies have a finely adjusted rhythm1 and ,i apply this statement to all melody from the folk-song to the present time4 ,i might enumerate beautiful melodies whose effect depends on other properties than rhythm1--as the second melody in ,chopin's ,nocturne in ,g major1 opus #cg1 number #b1--;but ,i should add that1 as melody1 existing by itself1 it is not fine and the reason is that its rhythm is monotonous4#aj ,and when ,i say it is not fine1 ,i mean that it is not highly imaginative1 and that it depends too much on its harmonization4 ,and when1 in turn1 ,i say that1 ,i mean1 perforce1 that it is too emotional4 ,the difference between such a theme and one with a really fine rhythm is the difference between ,poe's 8,the ,raven0 and ,keats's 8,ode to a ,grecian ,urn40 ,in the former the mind is being continually lulled by the soft undulation of the rhythms and rhymes2 in the latter the mind is being continually stimulated by their complexities4 ,yet ,keats's ode is as unified as ,poe's lyric4 ,there are melodies for songs for the pianoforte1 for the violin1 and for the orchestra2 there are sonata melodies and there are symphonic melodies just as there is a shape for a hatchet and a shape for a pair of scissors--which is only stating once again the old law that the style must suit the medium of expression1 or that the shape must suit the uses to which a thing is put4 ,symphonic themes1 in contradistinction to themes for songs or short pianoforte pieces1 or dances1 should be inconclusive2 they are valuable for what they presage rather than for what they state1 and they should indicate their own destiny4 ,the four notes with which the ,fifth ,symphony of ,beethoven begins are so1--in fact the whole theme is valueless by itself1--but they contain enough pent-up energy to vitalize not only the first movement1 but the three which follow it4 ,if it were possible for each reader of these words to hear--as an interlude to his reading--a series of great symphonic melodies1 and if he would listen to them carefully1 he would find almost every one to contain a finely adjusted rhythm4 ,symphonic themes present certain difficulties to the listener whose understanding of melody is limited to a square-cut strophic tune4 ,he is accustomed to a certain musical punctuation--a comma 7so to speak7 after the first and third lines of the music1 a semicolon after the second1 and a period at the end4 ,and when he gets an extra period thrown in 7as he does after the third line of the tune 8,america07 he is all the happier4 ,when he hears the opening theme of the 8,eroica0 ,symphony break in two in the middle and fall apart1 he gets discouraged1 for his musical imagination has not been sufficiently developed to see that that very breaking apart presages the tragic turmoil of the whole movement4 ,when ,brahms gives out1 in the opening measures of his ,third ,symphony1 two themes at once1 he does not fathom the element of strife which is involved1 and so cannot follow its progress to the final triumph of one of them4 ,but the symphony contains everything1 and there is a place in it for lyric melody1 provided the flight be long and sweeping4 ,the 8slow movement0 of a symphony contains such themes1 but they are not content to be merely fine melodies4 ,they1 too1 must contain some potentiality which is afterwards realized4 ,the best and most familiar example will be found in ,beethoven's ,fifth ,symphony1 where the first rhythmic unit 7contained in the first three notes7 of the beautiful romantic theme detaches itself and pursues an almost scandalous existence full of delicate pranks and grimaces1 and comic quips and turns1 now gentle1 now ironic1 now pretending to be sentimental1 until it finally rejoins the theme again4 ,this piece is a romance touched with comedy--a romance great enough to suffer all the by-play without the least dilution of its quality4 ,any attempt in a book like this to explain the intricacies of harmonic development as it is seen in the symphony must be inconclusive4 ,harmony is1 in itself1 less tangible than either rhythm or melody1 for it lacks to a considerable extent the element of continuity4 ,i mean by this that groups of harmonies do not possess coherence in relation to each other4 ,they do not stay in the memory as a line of melody does2 the impression we get from them is fleeting4 ,it may touch with light or shade one brief moment in a piece of music 7as it frequently does in ,schubert's compositions72 it may produce a bewildering riot of color 7as in ultra-modern music72 or it may cover the whole piece with a subdued shadow 7as in the slow movement of ,franck's quintette74 ,but the real office of harmony is to serve melody4 ,i mean by this that when two or more melodies sound together they make harmony at every point of contact1 and this harmony1 incidental to the movement of melodic parts1 has a reality which chords by themselves cannot acquire4 ,and the whole justification for many of the sounds in ultra-modern music lies in this one perfectly correct theory4 ,not that the laws must not be obeyed--as they frequently are not2 not that a composer may violate nature1 and do what he likes4 ,he must1 as of old1 justify in reason all the dissonances arising from his melodic adventures4 ,he should remember ,bach1 whose melodies clash in never-to-be-forgotten stridence1 striking forth such flashes of strange beauty as can only come from a war of themes4 ,the symphony is1 then1 an arrangement of rhythms1 melodies1 and harmonies4 ,each of these three elements has a life of its own1--the rhythms1 taken altogether1 have their own coherence1 the melodies theirs1 and the harmonies theirs1--but each belongs to the whole4 ,the rhythm of ,poe's 8,for ,annie0 would be an impossible rhythm with which to carry forward the purposes of any part of 8,the ,ring and the ,book40 ,equally useless would be the rhythms of ,schubert's 8,unfinished0 ,symphony to carry forward the purposes of ,beethoven's ,ninth4 ,the whole structure of ,poe's poem would disintegrate if one single word fell out of place2 so would the fabric of a ,schubert melody were a note destroyed4 ,in every direction1 wherever we look1 this cohesion of all objects in themselves1 this blending of all objects into a greater body1 reveals itself4 ,this is the basis of all religious belief1 of a novel1 of the composition of a picture1 or of life itself4 ,to say that a symphony is made up of separate elements1 that each of these elements has a life of its own1 and that they all unite in a common purpose1 is to state a truism4 ,and to suppose that a symphony can be understood without an understanding of all its elements is to suppose an absurdity4 ,,iv4 ,,tone ,,color ,,and ,,design ,such has been the development of the elements of symphonic music4 ,the processes ,i have described are the natural processes of an art which is continually striving for wider and deeper expression4 ,and1 speaking humanly1 it is not too much to say that within ourselves there should take place a complete analogue to that development and to those processes4 ,the connection between ourselves and the sounds may graduate all the way from complete unconsciousness of their significance 7even though we hear all the sounds clearly7 to that state wherein they strike fire in our souls1 and there passes between the imagination of the composer and our own that spark of undying fire which illumines our whole being4 ,for in the last analysis it is not so much the music that communicates itself as it is the soul of the composer reaching us over whatever stretch of time4 ,he who creates beauty is immortal4 ,is not this what we seek8 ,is not this the object of all beauty everywhere8 ,is it not always trying us to see if we are in tune8--as1 indeed1 everything else is3 labor1 love1 objects1 knowledge1 religion--all these await our answer4 ,but ,i should not leave this part of my subject without setting forth the relation between these elements of symphonic music and the orchestral instruments by means of which they find expression4 ,i do not wish to attempt here any account of orchestration1 as such1 but rather to point out that in symphonic music it is by the quality of tone that the essence of an idea is conveyed4 ,the tone of the instrument is like the inflection of the voice in speaking1 wherein the truth is conveyed although you speak an untruth4 ,an oath might be a prayer but for the inflection4 ,the pianoforte or the violin1 or any other single instrument1 has but little variety of tone2 the orchestra1 on the other hand1 has not only four distinct groups of instruments1 each group having its own tone quality1 but within two of these groups#aa there are considerable differences in what is called 8tone color40 ,it is of no great importance to know that the solo near the beginning of the slow movement of the ,csar ,franck symphony is played on an ,english horn1 but it is important to feel the quality of the tone1 and to realize how largely the effect of the theme depends on it4 ,for some obscure reason many people remain insensitive to qualities of tone color4 7,perhaps they have received their musical education at the pianoforte which1 under unskillful hands1 differs only in loud and soft47 ,one so seldom observes a listener even amused by the antics of ,beethoven's double-basses1 and yet1 in at least four of his symphonies1 their behavior is at times extremely ludicrous4 ,he whose humor ranges all the way from the most delicate1 ironic smile to a terrible1 tragic laughter1 wherein joy and sorrow meet1--as meet they must when either presses far1--he achieves these remarkable effects largely by means of the tone quality of the instruments4 ,in his ,fifth ,symphony he creates the most thrilling effect by means of some score or more of reiterated notes in the soft1 muffled tones of the kettle-drum4 ,in the finale to the ,first ,symphony of ,brahms it is the tone of the ,french horn1 and again of the flute1 that creates for us such profound illusions of beauty as pierce to our very soul4 ,from the depths of the orchestra the horn chants its ennobled song2 then follows the dulcet blow-pipe of the flute singing the same magic theme4 ,these varied tones succeeding one another1 or melting one into the other--these are the colors that animate and beautify the forms into which the thoughts fall4 ,what delicate nonsense filigree the violins draw in the slow movement of ,beethoven's ,fifth ,symphony2 how sepulchral the bassoon with its mock sadness2 what a vibrant quality do the violoncellos and the contra-basses give to the great melody in the finale to the ,ninth2 with what poignancy does the clarinet give voice to the sentiment of the second theme in the slow movement of ,brahms's ,third ,symphony4 ,how luxurious and vivid is the application of all these varied hues to the design4 ,a fine singing voice has1 perhaps1 the most beautiful of all tone colors1 but the sensibility of many people seems to be limited to that alone4 ,in fact the love of singing is1 in many cases1 merely a sentimental thrill unconnected with any intellectual process and entirely devoid of imagination4 ,in the orchestra the tone of the instrument is to the theme itself what the color is to the rose4 ,it is much more than that1 of course1 because it is at any time both retrospective and prospective2 this tone color is a darker or lighter shade of that1 or1 perchance1 another hue entirely4 ,the colors shift from moment to moment always as a part of the design rather than as mere color4 ,taking it all together--rhythm1 meter1 melody1 harmony1 and tone color--this substance of a symphony is a wonderful thing4 ,nothing quite so delicately organized has ever been created by the mind and the imagination of man4 ,with an interplay of parts almost equal to that of a finely adjusted machine1 it seems to go where it wills to go regardless of anything but a whim4 ,how marvelously does it express both the actions and the dreams of human beings2 how true is it to their deeper consciousness--a consciousness that dimly fathoms both life and death2 that knows itself to have come from across the ages1 and feels itself to be a part of the ages to come4 ,it is just as likely that life is a brief1 shadowed moment in an endless light1 as that it is 8a rapid1 blinking stumble across a flick of sunshine40 ,,footnotes3 #i ,i stated in the first chapter what justification there is for using the word 8intellectual0 in regard to music1 and ,i speak here of thought in that sense4 #aj ,as examples of melodies with finely adjusted rhythms ,i may cite the theme of the slow movement of ,beethoven's pianoforte sonata1 opus #ac1 and that of the slow movement of ,brahms's pianoforte quartette1 opus #fj4 #aa ,in the 8wood-wind0 group1 so called1 there are flutes1 oboe1 clarinets1 bassoons1 ,english horn1 etc42 in the brass1 there are trumpets1 ,french horns1 trombones1 tubas1 etc4 ,,chapter ,,vii ,,the ,,symphony 7continued7 ,i4 ,,the ,,unity ,,of ,,the ,,symphony ,for the ordinary listener to a symphony the one great difficulty lies in 8making sense0 out of it as a whole4 ,he enjoys certain themes and is1 perhaps1 able to follow their devious wanderings1 but he retains no comprehensive impression of the symphony as a complete thing1 and he may even never conceive it as anything more than a series of interesting or uninteresting passages of music4 ,now1 it is obvious that an art of pure sound1 if it is to have any significance at all1 must have complete coherence within itself1 and that the longer the sounds go on the more necessary does this coherence become4 ,this is1 of course1 the problem of all music4 ,even opera must have a certain musical coherence1 for it cannot depend entirely on being held together by the text and action2 even the song must make musical sense in addition to what sense 7by chance7 there is in the words4 ,give what glowing1 what romantic1 even what definite title you will to a piece of programme music1--call it 8,the ,hebrides10 or 8,death and ,transfiguration10 or descend to such a title as 8,a ,simple ,confession10--you must still give your music coherence in itself4 ,as a matter of fact1 the titles of pieces of programme music do not lessen the composer's responsibilities in the least1 and there is no fine piece of such music in existence that does not obey the general laws of form as applied to music4 ,the title is1 after all1 merely a suggestion1 an indication1 an atmosphere4 ,schumann's 8,the ,happy ,farmer0 is merely jolly2 it is not even bucolic1 and you hunt for the farmer in vain2 8,trumerei0 is made rhythmically vague in order to create the illusion of reverie1 but has1 nevertheless1 complete musical coherence2 8,tod und ,verklrung0 of ,strauss contains no evidence of sacrificing its form to its so-called 8subject10 and the ,wagnerian leit-motif is suggestive and not didactic4 ,the development of form in the symphony is too large a subject to be covered here1 but there are certain fundamental aspects of it upon which ,i may dwell with safety1 since they obey laws which apply everywhere4 ,to make clear what ,i mean let me say that an art whose fundamental quality is movement must have for its problem the disposition within a certain length of time of a certain group of themes or melodies4 ,the distinction between this art and that of painting is that in music the question is 8,when80 in painting 8,where80 ,in this sense literature is nearer music than is painting1 and ,i shall shortly point out some analogies between literary and musical forms4 ,i stated in the first chapter the fundamental synthetic principle of music1 which is that no one series of sounds formed into a melody can long survive the substitution of other series1 unless there be given some restatement1 or1 at least1 some reminder of the first4 ,there is no musical form that does not pay tribute directly or indirectly to this principle4 ,and this1 much modified by the medium of language1 applies also to literature4 ,most novels contain near the end a 8looking backward over traveled roads02 a too great digression from any thesis requires a certain restatement of it4 ,the first appearance of ,sandra ,belloni is heralded by her singing in the wood near the ,poles' country house4 ,the epilogue to 8,vittoria0 closes with the scene in the cathedral3 8,carlo ,merthyr ,ammiani1 standing between ,merthyr and her1 with old blind ,agostino's hands upon his head4 ,and then once more1 and but for once1 her voice was heard in ,milan40 ,the unessential characters and motives of ,sandra ,belloni disappear in 8,vittoria0--,mrs4 ,chump1 an unsuccessful essay in ,dickens1 finds a deserved oblivion2 so do the 8,nice ,feelings0 and the 8,fine ,shades02 but the presence of ,merthyr in the cathedral is as necessary to that situation as is the absence of ,wilfred4 8,war and ,peace0 would be an inchoate mass of persons1 scenes1 and events1 were it not for certain retrospects here and there which hold the whole mass together4 8,the ,idiot0 is a striking illustration1 for the early part of ,mishkin's career only appears in the sixth chapter1 as if to tide over more successfully the vastness of the scheme2 and the final chapter brings back most vividly the experiences of his boyhood4 ,the sonnet is the most concise example of this process1 and ,i do not need to dwell on the precision with which it illustrates it4 ,one great difference exists1 however1 between music and literature1 and that is in the number of its subjects or characters4 8,war and ,peace10 to take an extreme example1 contains scores of characters1 while a whole symphony would usually contain not more than twelve or fourteen themes4 ,the prime reason for this is that themes have no established law of association1 and so do not represent something else with which we are already familiar as do names of persons in books4 ,we remember the names of such characters as ,joseph ,andrews or ,tom ,jones1 or even ,dr4 ,portsoaken1 for1 although they lived a long time ago1 we have enough word association to contain their names and we can understand them and can follow the devious courses of their adventures and the philosophy of life they represent4 7,the absence of this association makes it difficult for us to remember the characters in ,russian novels47 ,when we hear a musical theme1 however1 we have to remember it as such4 ,i have frequently stated the somewhat obvious fact that music obeys general sthetic laws1 and the foregoing is intended to show how these laws are modified by the peculiar properties of sound4 ,a symphony in this sense1 then1 is a coherent arrangement of themes4 ,this brings me to the important question of the detachment or the unification of the several movements of a symphony4 ,is a symphony one thing or four8 ,should we listen to it as a unit1 or as separate contrasting pieces strung together for convenience8 ,the conventional answer to these questions--the answer given by the textbooks--is that a few symphonies transfer themes from one movement to another1 but that1 speaking generally1 a symphony is a collection of four separate pieces contrasted in speed and in sentiment1 etc4 ,now ,i wish to combat this theory as vigorously as possible1 and ,i should like to rely solely on general sthetic laws1 and say that no great work of art could1 by any possibility1 be based on such a heterogeneous plan as that4 ,or ,i might base my opinion on psychology and say that1 since there are four different movements1 different in general and in particular characteristics1--one containing themes which evolve as they proceed1 producing the effect of struggle toward a goal1 another suited to states of sentiment1 another for concise and vivid action1 and so forth1--and since the mind of a great man is a microcosm of the world and contains everything1 it follows1 as a matter of course1 that he tries to fuse his symphony into one by filling its several parts with the various elements of himself1 a process that has been going on ever since there has been any music at all4 ,the composer is not four men1 nor is his mind separated into compartments4 ,one symphony will differ from another because it will represent a different stage in his development1 but any one symphony--unless arbitrarily disjointed--will express the various phases of its composer's nature at the time1 and will have a corresponding internal organism4 ,this is sufficient evidence of the soundness of this view in the great symphonies themselves4 ,i cannot specify at length here1 but any reader having access to ,mozart's1 ,beethoven's1 and ,brahms's symphonies or that of ,csar ,franck may investigate for himself4 ,let me merely point out a few instances which ,i choose from celebrated and familiar symphonies4 ,in the last movement of the ,c major of ,mozart 7commonly called the 8,jupiter07 there is a rapid figure in the basses at measures nine and ten which is derived from the beginning of the first movement4 ,the theme of the last movement is drawn from--is another version of--the passage in measures three and four of the first movement4 ,in ,beethoven's 8,eroica0 the first theme of the last movement is drawn directly from the first theme of the first movement4 ,the theme of the ,c major section of the 8,marche ,funbre0 is the theme of the first section in apotheosis1 and each owes a debt to the first theme of the first movement4 ,illustrations of this principle could be multiplied almost indefinitely1 and it is not too much to say that there is in all great music this inward coherence4 ,in other words1 form in music is not merely a sort of framework1 or1 if you please1 a law or precedent1 but the expression of an inward force4 ,themes having no organic relation are1 of course1 introduced in symphonic movements for the play of action against each other which results from their antagonism4 ,the novel depends largely on the same element4 ,if it were not for ,blifil there could hardly have been a ,tom ,jones4 ,sandra ,belloni must have ,mr4 ,pericles as a foil to that finer character of hers which rises above the prima donna1 and she needs ,wilfred and ,merthyr in order to achieve ,carlo4 ,in short1 the symphonic movement is not unlike the novel which is based on the juxtaposition of contrasted or antagonistic characters or elements1 the struggle between the two1 and1 finally1 their reconciliation2 and sufficient analogy could be drawn between this and life itself to illustrate the principle as a cardinal one4 ,but ,i believe the symphony to be still in flux4 ,i see no reason why it should not continue to develop from within and finally to achieve an even greater inward coherence than that already attained4 ,this will almost certainly not be brought about by an extension of its outward form or by an enlargement of its resources--as is the case with many modern symphonies4#ab ,in brief1 the composer is an artist like any other2 he is dealing with human emotions and aspirations as other artists are2 he is subject to the same laws2 he1 too1 draws a true picture of human life in true perspective1 with all the adjustments of scene1 of persons1 of motives1 carefully worked out--even though he deals only with sound4 ,it is almost incredible that any one should suppose otherwise2 the real difficulty is in getting the ordinary person to suppose anything6 ,so ,i say that the symphony is a mirror of life1 and that all the great symphonies taken together are like a book of life in which everything is faithfully set forth in due proportion and balance4 ,i have said that the symphony contains everything and that it has room for disorder4 ,this is its ultimate purpose4 ,the secret of its power lies in this4 ,life itself is an inexplicable thing4 ,the great symphony compresses it into an hour of perfection in which all of its elements are explicable4 ,here that dream of man which he calls by such names as 8heaven0 or 8happiness10 and which he has always sought in vain1 becomes not only a reality1 but the only reality possible for him4 ,for nothing would be more terrible than endless happiness or a located heaven4 ,,ii4 ,,stages ,,of ,,its ,,development ,the history of the symphony is the history of all art4 ,it moves in cycles2 it marks a parabola4 ,it began as a nave expression of feeling2 it learned little by little how to master its own working material1 and as it mastered that1 it became more and more conscious in its efforts2 as soon as new instruments for producing it were perfected1 it immediately expanded its style to correspond to the new possibilities2 as its technique permitted1 it continually sought to grasp more and more of the elements of human life and human aspiration and to express them4 ,in ,haydn we see it as nave1 folk-like1 tuneful music1 not highly imaginative1 smacking of the soil--like ,burns1 but without his deep human feeling4 ,in ,mozart it reaches a stage of classic perfection which may be compared to ,raphael's paintings4 ,hardly a touch of the picturesque1 the romantic1 or the realistic mars its serene beauty2 it smiles on all alike2 it is not for you or for me1--as ,schumann is1--but for every one4 ,and being purely objective it belongs to no time and lasts forever4 ,and how delightful are ,mozart's digressions4 ,he is like ,fielding1 who1 when he wants to philosophize about his story1 proceeds to write a whole chapter during which the action awaits the philosopher's pleasure4 ,later writers never drop the argument for a moment2 if there is a lull in the action it is somehow kept in complete relation to the subject-matter4 ,mozart often enlivens you with a story by-the-way1 but he always manages to preserve the continuity of his material4 ,the difference between his method and that of ,brahms1 for example1 is like that between ,fielding's philosophic interlude chapters in 8,tom ,jones0 and ,meredith's 8,our ,philosopher10 who1 looking down from an impersonal height upon the characters in the story1 interjects his ,olympian comment4 ,a new and terrific force entered music through ,beethoven1 new to music1 old as the human race--namely1 the spirit of revolt4 ,the world is always the same4 ,in its fundamentals1 human life1 within our historical retrospect1 remains what it was4 ,an art takes what it can master--and no more4 ,music was ready2 the world was in a turmoil at just that moment1 and the result was what we call 8,beethoven40 ,mozart was his dawn1 ,schumann and the other ,romanticists his mysterious and beautiful twilight4 ,he himself represents at once the spirit of revolution1 that inevitable curiosity which such a period always excites1 and that speculative philosophy which tries to piece the meaning of new things4 ,the world was full of flame2 battle thundered only a few miles from ,vienna2 the spirit of equality and fraternity was hovering in the air4 ,beethoven's piercing vision compassed all this4 ,he sounded the triumph of the soul of man--as in the great theme at the close of the ,ninth ,symphony2 he took the simplest of common tunes and made it glorious--as at the end of the 8,waldstein0 ,sonata2 his imagination ranged at will over men struggling in death-grapple1 over the gods looking down sardonically on the spectacle4 ,he was the great protagonist of democracy1 but he was also a great constructive mind4 ,he never destroyed anything in music for which he did not have a better substitute1 and there is hardly a note in his mature compositions that is not fixed in nature4 ,this great force having spent itself1 the art turns away and starts in another direction--as it must4 ,the lyric symphony of ,schubert appears4 ,his was the most perfect song that ever asked for expression by the orchestra4 ,with small intellectual power1 with but scanty education of any sort1 ,schubert1 by the very depth of his instinct1 creates such pure beauty as to make intellectualism seem almost pedantic4 ,he strings together melody after melody in 8profuse1 unmeditated art40 ,he was a pendant to ,beethoven1 and often enough in listening to ,schubert's music we catch the echo of his great contemporary4 ,then comes the so-called 8,romantic ,school0 of ,schumann with its tender1 personal qualities1 its glamour1 its roseate hues4 ,like all other romantic utterance it had a certain strangeness1 a certain detachment from reality1 and a certain waywardness which give it a bitter-sweet flavor of its own4 ,like all other romantic utterance1 too1 it was impatient and refused to wait the too-slow turning of the clock's hands2 it is the music of youth and of hope4 ,its effect on the development of the symphony was slight4 ,it was ill at ease in the large spaces of symphonic form1 for its hues were too changing1 its moods too shifting1 to answer the needs of the symphony4 ,no really great symphonic composer appears between ,schubert and ,brahms1 but during that period the rich idiom of the ,romantic ,school had become assimilated as a part of the language of music4 ,brahms using something of this romantic idiom1 but having a broad feeling for construction1 and firmly grounded on that one stable element of style1 counterpoint1 produced four symphonies worthy to stand alongside the best4 ,they are restrained in style1 for ,brahms has something of that impersonality which is needed in music as much as in other forms of art 7and one may say1 in passing1 that the greatest of all composers1 ,bach1 is the most impersonal74 ,the flexibility of the language of music increased rapidly during the nineteenth century aided by ,wagner and the ,romanticists1 and in ,brahms the symphony becomes less didactic and more introspective4 ,i may1 perhaps1 make the comparison between music like his and that later stage of the ,english novel wherein the author desires the action to appear solely as the result of the psychology of the characters1 and wherein1 also1 words are made to answer new demands and serve new purposes4 ,brahms could not have said what he did say had he been limited to the style of ,mozart2 nor could ,meredith had he been limited to the style of ,thackeray4 ,brahms's symphonies1 in consequence of the complicated nature of his style1 are not easily apprehended by the casual listener4 ,let a confirmed lover of ,longfellow1 or even of ,tennyson1 take up for the first time 8,love in the ,valley0 and he will have the same experience4 ,every word will convey its usual meaning to him1 but the exquisite beauty of the poem will elude him4 ,he will go back to 8,my ,lost ,youth10 or to 8,blow1 ,bugles1 ,blow10 for healing from his bruises4 ,any one of my readers who has access to ,brahms's ,first ,symphony should examine the passage which begins twenty measures before the poco sostenuto near the end of the first movement if he wished to understand something of ,brahms's powers of re-creating his material4 ,here is a melody of great beauty which is derived from the opening phrase of the symphony1 and which has a bass derived from the first theme of the first movement4 ,as it originally appeared it was full of stress as though yearning for an impossible fulfillment4 ,here its destiny is at last attained1 and the law of its being fulfilled4 ,music progresses from one point of time to another4 ,contemporaneous with ,brahms stands ,tschaikovsky to reveal how varied are the sources of musical expression4 ,no two great men could be farther apart than these--one an eclectic1 calm1 thoughtful1 and impersonal1 restraining his utterances in order to understate and be believed2 the other pouring out the very last bitter drop of his unhappiness and dissatisfaction entirely unmindful of a world that distrusts overstatement and has only a limited capacity for reaction from a colossal passion4 ,of ,tschaikovsky's sincerity there is no doubt whatever4 ,he so believed2 life was to him what we hear it to be in his symphonies4 ,but life is not like that4 ,if it were we should all have been destroyed long since by our own uncontrollable inner fires4 ,so1 aside from any technical considerations1--and he contributed nothing of importance to the development of the symphony1--,tschaikovsky represents a phase of life rather than life itself4 ,dvok's 8,new ,world0 ,symphony adds a new and interesting element to symphonic evolution4 ,dvok was like ,haydn and ,burns1 a son of the people1 and the themes he employs in this symphony are essentially folk-melodies4 ,but where ,haydn merely tells his simple story with complete unconsciousness of its possible connection with life in general1 ,dvok sees all his themes in their deeper significance4 ,the 8,new ,world0 ,symphony is a saga retold4 ,a new phase in the development of the symphony appears in ,csar ,franck1 whose musical lineage reaches back over the whole range of symphonic development and beyond4 ,his spirit is medival4 ,in his one symphony rhythm plays a lesser part1 and one feels the music to be quite withdrawn from the vivid movement of life1 and to live in a realm of its own4 ,franck was one of those rare spirits who remain untainted by the world4 ,his symphony is a spiritual adventure2 other symphonies are full of the actions and reactions of the real world in which their composers lived4 ,this action and reaction always depends for its expression in music on the play and inter-play of rhythmic figures4 ,franck's symphony broods over the world of the spirit2 his least successful themes are those based on action4 ,,iii4 ,,chamber ,,music ,,as ,,an ,,introduction ,,to ,,symphonies ,my object in writing all this about the form and substance of the symphony1 and in drawing comparisons between it and the novel or poetry1 has not been to lead my readers to understand music through the other arts1 for by themselves such comparisons are of small value4 ,i have dwelt on these common characteristics of the arts because they exist1 because they illuminate each other1 and at the same time because they are too little considered4 ,the only way to understand music is to practice it1 or1 failing that1 to hear it under such conditions as will permit a certain opportunity for reflection4 ,we are incapable of understanding symphonic music chiefly because we have so little practice in doing so4 ,an occasional symphony concert is not enough4 ,how shall this difficulty be overcome8 ,there is a natural way out1 and it consists in what is called 8chamber music40 ,a piece of chamber music is a sort of domestic symphony4 ,a string quartette1 a pianoforte or violin sonata1 a trio1 quartette1 quintette1 etc41--these are all little symphonies2 the form is almost identical1 the same devices of rhythm1 melody1 harmony1 counterpoint1 and so forth1 are employed4 ,in chamber music paucity of idea cannot be covered up by luxury of tone color2 everything is exposed2 so that only the greatest composers have written fine music in this form4 ,now1 if in every community there were groups of people who played chamber music together1 and if these would permit their friends to attend when they practice1 the symphony would soon find plenty of listeners4 ,such rehearsals would give an opportunity to hear difficult passages played over and over again2 there would be time for discussion1 and1 above all1 for reflection4 ,every town and village should have a local chamber-music organization giving occasional informal concerts4 ,under these circumstances a sympathetic intimacy would soon be established between the performers and listeners and the music itself4 ,the inevitable and indiscriminate pianoforte lesson is an obstacle to this much desired arrangement4 ,some of our children should be taught the violin or the violoncello in preference to the pianoforte4 ,then the family circle could hear sonatas for violin and pianoforte by ,bach1 ,mozart1 ,beethoven1 or ,brahms1 and would accomplish what years of attendance at symphony concerts could not bring about4 ,chamber music has the great advantage of being simple in detail2 one can easily follow the four strands of melody in a string quartette1 whereas the orchestra leaves one breathless and confused4 ,the practice of chamber music by amateurs would be one of the very best means of building up true musical taste4 ,i cannot dwell too insistently on the fact that the majority of those people who do not care for such music would soon learn to care for it if they had opportunities to listen to it under such conditions as ,i have described4 ,the argument proves itself1 without the evidence--plentiful enough--of individuals who have gone through the experience4 ,furthermore1 by cultivating music in this way1 we should gradually break down some of the social conditions which now operate against the art4 ,if we all knew more about it and loved it for itself1 we should give over our present adulation of technique4 ,we should put the performer where he belongs as an interpreter of a greater man's ideas4 ,by our uncritical adulations we place him on far too high a pedestal4 ,,iv4 ,,the ,,performer ,,and ,,the ,,public ,i have spoken of certain social conditions which affect music unfavorably4 ,there has been always a certain outcry against music because of its supposed emotionalism4 ,the eye of cold intelligence1 seeing the music-lover enthralled by a symphony1 raises its lid in icy contempt for such a creature of feeling4 ,the sociologist1 observing musical performers1 wonders why music seems to affect the appearance and the conduct of some of them so unfavorably4 ,the pedagogue1 who has his correct educational formula which operates like an adding-machine1 and automatically turns out a certain number of mechanically educated children1 each with a diploma clutched in a nervous hand--he tolerates music because it makes a pleasant break in diploma-giving at graduation time1 and because it pleases the parents4 ,the business man leaves music to his wife and daughters and is willing to subscribe to a symphony orchestra provided he does not have to go to hear it play4 ,now1 if the sociologist would put himself in the place of the singer1 who1 endowed by nature with a fine voice1 is able1 on account of a public indifferently educated in music1 to gain applause and an undue source of money1 even though he has never achieved education of any sort whatever--if the sociologist would but think a little about sociology1 he would perhaps finally understand that he himself is very likely at fault4 ,for it is very likely that he knows almost nothing of this art which is one of the greatest forces at his disposal4 ,he is1 perhaps1 one of the large number of persons who make musical conditions what they are4 ,public performers are the victims1 not the criminals4 ,we must remember of old how disastrous has been the isolation of any class of workers from their fellows4 ,i have referred in this and in the preceding chapters to certain unities in symphonic music--in its several elements of rhythm1 melody1 and harmony1 and in the whole4 ,i have said that every object is unified in itself1 and that it is a part of a greater whole4 ,in this sense a symphony is a living thing2 every member of it has its own function1 and contributes a necessary part to the whole4 ,but is not this equally true if we carry the argument into life itself and say3 ,here is a thing of beauty created by man2 it is a part of him--one of his star-gleams2 can he be complete if he loses it altogether8 ,can his spirit hope for freedom if he depends on his mind alone8 ,is the satisfaction of intellectual or material achievement enough8 ,would he not find in music a realm where he would breathe a purer air and be happier because he would leave behind him all those unanswerable questions which forever cry a halt to his intelligence8 ,moral idealism is not enough for the spirit of men and women1 for1 humanity being what it is1 morality is bound to crystallize into dogma4 ,the ,puritans were moral in their own fashion1 but they were as far away from what man's life ought to be--under the stars1 and with the flowers blooming at his feet--as were the gay courtiers whom they despised4 ,intellectual idealism is not enough1 because it lacks sympathy4 ,we all need something that shall be entirely detached from life and1 at the same time1 be wholly true to it4 ,our spirit needs some joyousness which objects1 ideas1 or possessions cannot give it4 ,we must have a world beyond the one we know--a world not of jasper and diamonds1 but of dreams and visions4 ,it must be an illusion to our senses1 a reality to our spirit4 ,it must tell the truth in terms we cannot understand1 for it is not given to us to know in any other way4 ,,footnote3 #ab ,the reason for this is one to which ,i referred in the chapter on 8,the ,opera0--namely1 that a work of art must not overstrain the capacities of those human beings for whom it was intended4 ,,chapter ,,viii ,,conclusion ,one of the most unfortunate conditions surrounding our musical life is the small part men take in it4 ,this is not altogether their fault4 ,their business is engrossing1 and concert-going is made difficult for them4 ,there should be some music for the business man between the time when he leaves his office and the hour of his dinner1 and it should be so arranged as to cause him the minimum of trouble and give him the maximum of enjoyment4 ,this means a half-hour or forty minutes of good music available1 say1 at five o'clock1 and not too far away4 ,it means1 also1 that he shall be provided with a repetition of every long or complicated composition so that he may have a chance to understand it4 ,the average listener hears a ,brahms symphony once in1 say1 two or three years1 and there is little chance of his finding it intelligible4 ,no doubt1 in course of time this will come about4 ,no doubt1 too1 workers in shops and offices will by and by be able to hear a little really fine music at lunch time4#ac ,the influx of men into concert rooms would be of great benefit to the cause of music1 as well as to the men themselves4 ,we should1 after a time1 get rid of that curious ,anglo-,saxon idea that art is effeminate1 and should begin to value it for what it really is4 ,whenever ,i think of this mistaken notion the figure of ,michael ,angelo rises before me4 ,there was as heroic a man as even the world of war ever produced2 capable alike of the ,herculean task of the ,sistine frescoes1--the actual physical labors of which would kill an ordinary man 7and ,michael ,angelo was then over sixty years old71--of the heroic ,moses1 and again of that most tender and beautiful of all sculpture1 the ,piet2 a stern and noble nature capable of fighting for his principles no matter what the risk4 ,or ,i think of ,beethoven1 ill1 lonely1 deaf1 and poor1 but nevertheless creating virile music of the kind we know4 ,or of ,bach1 sturdy as an oak tree1 without recognition from the world1 bringing up a large family on almost nothing a year1 wholesome1 profound1 and true--the equal in all that goes to make a man of any 8captain of industry10 any soldier1 or any statesman4 ,these are the ones ,i should match men with4 ,i would have men listen to the strains of these composers1 look at the works of that colossal genius of ,italy and ask themselves3 ,is art effeminate or am ,i blind and deaf8 ,but men1 having comparatively little leisure1 cannot be expected to waste it on sentimental music or on mere virtuosity4 ,a violinist who plays sweet little pieces1 or who astonishes you by his technical skill1 should expect no response from human beings who are at work day by day and hour by hour facing the hard facts of life4 ,men1 dealing with exact laws or under the necessities of trade and barter1 are forced to distinguish between true and false1 between reality and unreality1 for their very existence depends on so doing4 ,i do not mean by this that these common experiences of men fit them to understand great music1 but ,i think men possess thereby a certain sense of values and a certain discrimination between what is real and what is false1 and that a great piece of real music will find an answer in them4 ,i believe that the opera has much to do with the average man's attitude toward music4 ,to spend from three to four hours in an overheated and badly ventilated opera house after a day of business1 and to listen to the sort of hectic emotionalism which is common in opera is enough to disgust the average business man with all music4 ,how patient he is6 ,but ,beethoven1 who loved and hated1 and suffered and triumphed1 we can all understand4 ,when we come to listen to the opening of his violin concerto1 for example1 we must all say3 ,here is a man4 ,and when we have compassed the whole of that great composition we shall learn to say3 ,here is reality turned true at last4 ,we shall then have learned one of the great lessons that art teaches--namely1 that there is nothing in the world so heroic1 so noble1 or so profound but that its qualities may be increased by the imagination and the skill of the great artist4 ,for however profound a human emotion may be or however noble a deed1 it becomes more profound or more noble when it is seen in relation to the whole of life and over a stretch of time4 ,the artist gives it true perspective1 and enables us really so to see it4 ,dante the poet is greater than ,dante the lover4 ,but my plea that music should be made easy of access for men is based chiefly on the fact that they need it4 ,it is so easy for human beings--men or women--to become completely submerged in the details of life2 and the round of daily acts and daily associations does1 in course of time1 completely engulf many people1 so that they only catch glimpses of something beyond--glimpses of a promised land into which they never enter4 ,i can conceive almost any business as being interesting in itself2 the 8game0 of life has its own rewards2 and there is no trade1 no profession1 no business that does not offer some play to the imagination4 ,but every weight needs a counterbalance1 and every human being whose daily occupation is full of practical detail must save himself or herself by some equal force in the opposite direction4 ,the law is as old as life itself4 ,the best preparation for an education in engineering is a course in the classics1 and the man who grinds all things in the mill of business eventually goes into the hopper himself4 ,but love of beauty is a secret and inviolate thing4 ,our tendency to-day is to seek our salvation--of whatever kind--in the crowd4 ,we form literary and musical clubs1 and drama leagues1 and art circles to accomplish what each person should do alone4 ,this is an old human fallacy4 ,to attempt to be literary or artistic or socialistic or religious by means of an organization is to waive the whole question4 ,there is only one way of being literary and that is to love good literature and to read it in privacy2 there is only one way to understand the drama and that is to read by yourself the great plays from schylus onward1 and to see as many good plays as possible4 ,i know that it is impossible to hear the symphonies of ,beethoven except with some thousands of other people2 nevertheless1 you are yourself alone1 and1 by yourself1 you must solve the mystery4 ,never can there be a more complete isolation of the individual than when1 sitting with the crowd1 a piece of fine music begins4 ,never is your own individuality so precious to you as then4 ,straight to your soul come these sounds1 automatically separating all the diviner part of you from the lower1 singling out what is commonly inarticulate and inchoate1 and fanning into life again that smothered spark which never wholly dies4 ,how impossible it is to look at pictures with other people4 ,the mind and the imagination demand freedom to wander at will1 to ponder1 to speculate4 ,what passes from the picture to you1 and from you to the picture1 is a sort of trembling recognition1 too delicate to be shared1 too intimate to be uttered4 ,so it is with books4 ,you need silence and retirement so as to feel the perspective of knowledge1 so that your mind may wander through whatever courses open to it4 ,it has often been remarked that1 in ,america1 women have now both leisure and independence to pursue the arts and to satisfy their desire for what is called 8culture10 and that in this respect they have taken the place frequently occupied by men4 ,the most characteristic element in this situation is1 however1 that in the pursuit of intellectual or artistic advancement1 woman joins a club6 ,these clubs are of very great use to the individuals who belong to them and to the communities in which they flourish when they undertake--as they frequently do--the betterment of social conditions4 ,any one familiar with what they have accomplished in this respect must pay them a real tribute4 ,but in their pursuit of 8culture0 they have been less successful1 and for the reasons already outlined here4 ,they pursue too many subjects1 and they dissipate their energies4 ,but above all1 they seem unconscious of the fundamental principle of education which is that one really educates one's self4 ,for education1 after all1 consists in the gradual enlargement of one's own perceptions through coming in contact with greater minds1 and its processes are secret and intensely personal4 ,as you read 8,the ,idiot10 for example1 you connect ,mishkin with ,lohengrin1 ,parsifal1 the ,arthurian legends1 or even with ,christ4 ,the extraordinary account of his thoughts as he falls in the epileptic fit1 and his use of the words1 8,and there was no more time10 bring up a whole fascinating sequence of psychological speculations4 ,the character of ,nastasya calls to your memory scores of other characters from ,kundry down to ,sonia1 and1 as you read1 the whole warp and woof of life1 shot through and through with its drab and scarlet1 flashes before you4 ,now1 these contacts are as nothing if some one else makes them4 ,the spark must strike in your own imagination4 ,you yourself must feel the current of this magnetism which reaches from the earth to the stars and makes all things akin4 ,a good book should be a provocation to the reader4 ,a club for 8culture0 is a collection of human beings each hoping for vicarious salvation through the other4 ,women's clubs not only waste energy in their pursuit of knowledge1 but they debilitate the intellectual strength of the individual woman4 ,nothing could be worse for the mind than the peaceful acceptance of the point of view of another without resistance and without the test of your own thoughts and your own personality4 ,smatterings of knowledge are almost useless4 ,nothing is yours until you make it so4 ,the relation between music and life is1 then1 an intimate and vital relation4 ,any person1 young or old1 who does not sing and to whom music has no meaning1 is by just so much a poorer person in all that goes to make life happy1 joyous1 and significant4 ,any community which employs no form of musical expression is by just so much inarticulate and disorganized as a community4 ,any church that buys its music and never produces any of its own loses just so much in spiritual power4 ,we all need music because it is a fluent1 free1 and beautiful form of expression for those deeper impulses of ours which are denied expression by words4 ,our speech is too highly specialized2 we discriminate with words instead of with inflections and gestures2 we smother our natural expressiveness2 we hold words to be synonyms of thought1 whereas thought is half feeling and instinct and imagination1 no one of which can really find issue in exact terms4 ,all great literature is inexact4 ,music frees us4 ,not only does it let each of us say for himself what he cannot say in words1 but1 at its best1 it reveals to us a higher reach of life1 detached1 yet a part of the inmost being of us all4 ,when we truly respond to it1 there is set up in us a certain harmonious vibration which tunes us to one another1 to the mother earth1 the everlasting sea1 and to that larger world of suns1 stars1 and planets of which they are a part4 ,nothing ever dies4 ,what we call death is only a transformation from one form of life to another4 ,all the music that ever was still sounds2 all the music that is to be still slumbers4 ,life and death are one1 and1 in the truest sense1 the whole universe is a song4 ,,the ,,end ,,footnote3 #ac ,i do not mean a phonographic record of the tenor solo in 8,l',elisir d',amore10 or anything of that sort4 ,i mean something which will be more than a casual moment's entertainment4 ,the ,riverside ,press ,,cambridge 4 ,,massachusetts ,u 4 ,s 4 ,a