,,terpander ,,terpander or ,,music ,,and ,,the ,,future ,,by ,,edward ,j4 ,,dent ,illustration ,new ,york ,e4 ,p4 ,,dutton ,,company #fha ,fifth ,avenue ,published1 #aibg ,,by ,e4 ,p4 ,,dutton ,,company ,all rights reserved ,,printed ,,in ,,the ,,united ,,states ,,of ,,america ,all ancient writers who mention the progressive state of music in ,greece1 are unanimous in celebrating the talents of ,,terpander4 ,several writers tell us that he added three strings to the lyre1 which before his time had but four4 ,plutarch1 in his 8,laconic ,institutions10 informs us that ,terpander was fined by the ,ephori for his innovations4 ,however1 in his ,dialogue on ,music1 he likewise tells us that the same musician appeased a sedition at ,sparta1 among the same people1 by the persuasive strains which he sung and played to them upon that occasion4 ,there seems no other way of reconciling these two accounts1 than by supposing that he had1 by degrees1 refined the public taste1 or depraved his own to the level of his hearers4,,burney4 ,,terpander ,i ,in the early years of the present century a certain learned and cultivated musician1 then about eighty years of age1 was heard to say1 as he came out from a concert at which works by ,debussy had been played3 8,well1 if this is the #8music of the future1' ,i'm very glad ,i shan't live to hear it60 ,debussy has passed over to the classics since then1 but there are still plenty of music-lovers1 many of them1 too1 not more than middle-aged at the most1 who feel apprehensive about the future of music4 ,wherever they turn1 there seems to be complete chaos4 ,the music of the present day is for them an unending succession of hideous noises4 ,there are some who1 remembering that in their own lifetime they have passed through periods when even ,brahms and ,wagner1 ,richard ,strauss and ,csar ,franck seemed unintelligible1 are yet resolved not to be baffled by ,schnberg and ,stravinsky4 ,they study contemporary music with perhaps little pleasure1 but with passionate interest and curiosity4 ,yet they are inevitably conscious of difficulties which do not appear to have confronted them before4 ,they can see in the music of the early twentieth century some clear continuance of the classical tradition2 in the later music they can find nothing that gives them even a faint hope of being able to understand itsome day if not now4 ,they find themselves in the position of a man who sets out to learn a language which has no connection with the ,indo-,european stock4 ,it is bad enough to have to master a new alphabet2 one may possibly1 by dint of strenuous effort1 commit to memory a vocabulary of words which bear not the remotest resemblance to any in ,french or ,german1 ,latin or ,greek2 but when it comes to tackling an entirely strange system of syntax for the expression of unfamiliar ideas1 the mind revolts and the student asks whether all this jargon can really have any significance at all4 ,and the student of modern music is made still more sceptical by the fact that the musicians whom he respects among the apparent initiates are seldom in any agreement as to which of the various conflicting systems of music is to be regarded as the expression of the true faith4 ,can you tell me1 he asks1 often with genuine humility1 of one living composer whom you wholeheartedly accept as a great creative genius1 in the way in which you once accepted ,beethoven1 or ,brahms1 or ,wagner1 as the case might be8 ,the hardened critic hesitates1 names tentatively this or that musician,no1 replies the other firmly2 there seems to be no one whom you can name without some qualification4 ,and to scepticism he adds fear4 ,the new music1 he begins to feel1 requires not merely a new and unaccustomed intellectual effort3 it demands a new outlook on life altogether4 ,it may affect and disturb fundamental principles such as most people prefer to leave untouched4 ,it may be in truth what the old fogeys of the past have always said of it3 it may be 8positively dangerous40 ,let us consider our fundamental principles4 ,let us forget for a moment all this contemporary turmoil and ask ourselves what is honestly our attitude to the classics that we revere4 ,music1 it has often been said1 appeals to us in three ways4 ,it affects us first by the mere sensuous beauty of sound2 as we become more familiar with the art1 it works upon our emotions1 and finally we learn to contemplate it intellectually4 ,la musique est l'art de penser avec les sons4 ,to the musician who has been brought up on the classics this definition of ,combarieu's sums up his most complete experience4 ,the three forms of appeal summarily described above divide listeners conveniently into three categories1 but it is a very rough division1 and the same person may at any one time of his life and experience find himself in any one of the three groups according to the particular work which he may be hearing4 ,but it may be safely said that the large majority of those whom we can call music-lovers belong to the class for whom the appeal of music is mainly or exclusively emotional4 ,the first group1 those who are affected only by the physical quality of musical sound1 may be disregarded here4 ,and it must be remembered that any one who is sufficiently musical to enjoy what we colloquially call 8a tune10 however simple1 has at least the germ of intellectual appreciation2 he recognizes that a tune has a definite rhythmical shape and a definite tonality1 even if he is not able to say so in technical language4 ,but most people1 when they listen to music1 do not want to be bothered with formal analysis2 they want to have their emotions aroused4 ,the analysis of their musical experiences is a very complicated matter and far beyond the scope of this book4 ,there are many people who fear that if they acquired a knowledge of the structural principles of music they would lose all their pleasure in it4 ,they are confirmed in this belief by finding that persons who are learned in the science of music undoubtedly lose pleasure in much that satisfies the emotional requirements of the uninitiated1 and may in some cases appear to have lost pleasure in hearing any music at all4 ,the fear is groundless4 ,the character and quality of the pleasure may change1 and undoubtedly does change as a result of ripening and decaying age2 but no one1 even among those who detest all modern music1 however sadly he may say si vieillesse pourrait1 would admit after personal experience that the essential joy of music was destroyed by knowledge4 ,in default of knowledge1 the 8emotional0 group of music-lovers1 eagerly desiring to find some significance in the music which they hear1 often try to translate it into some other language with which they are more familiar4 ,some listeners maintain that music gives them positive sensations of colour4 ,there are many who in listening to music consciously construct pictorial images4 ,others will seek to interpret it as meaning something that could be expressed in terms of literature4 ,experiments have generally shown that when a number of listeners are asked to give their impressions of the same piece of music agreement hardly ever goes further than to such vague indications of character as the composer himself might give in his conventional ,italian directions for performance1 except in cases where the composer has deliberately set out to evoke some literary or pictorial image or has employed some well-worn conventional device for the awakening of familiar associations4 ,the psychological process of musical creation has hitherto eluded all scientific research4 ,no satisfactory result can be obtained from comparing the recorded utterances of the composers themselves as to what induced the composition of their works or what they intended to express in them4 ,people who are inclined to interpret the music which they hear in literary or pictorial terms are naturally attracted by definitely descriptive music1 and readily produce evidence in support of the theory that all composers set out to write music with a deliberately descriptive intent4 ,but the history of music shows us clearly that deliberately descriptive music rarely stands the test of time4 ,there are plenty of examples to be found of acknowledged great composers such as ,byrd1 ,purcell1 ,bach1 ,handel1 ,haydn1 and ,beethoven1 who have now and then set out to be descriptive2 and in almost every case we feel that their descriptive music is on a far lower level than their non-descriptive music4 ,indeed1 in many cases it is painfully ridiculous both as pure music and as description4 ,if it can be saved at all1 it is only by concentrating attention on its purely musical aspect4 ,the trained musician is content to take music as music and nothing else4 ,it is a logical and reasonable language1 although it cannot be translated into words4 ,writers on painting seem now to be pretty generally agreed that the 8story0 of a picture has nothing to do with its value as a work of art2 that depends upon line and colour alone4 ,it is nearly half a century since ,walter ,pater wrote that 8all art constantly aspires towards the condition of music40 ,it was yet a generation earlier that ,hanslick put forward his theory of musical beauty4 ,that theory of 8abstract music0 did not satisfy the age of ,wagner and ,liszt2 but although ,hanslick failed to work out his theory as fully as he might have done1 its further implications have come to be accepted with surprising cordiality by a generation of musicians whose art would probably have filled ,hanslick himself with the most unspeakable horror4 ,music expresses itself and nothing else4 ,a work may be dramatic1 illustrative1 or even descriptive in certain aspects2 but unless it is intelligible simply as music alone1 constructed on its own purely musical principles1 apart from all external considerations1 it must fall short of perfection as a work of musical art4 ,,ii ,those who have been brought up on the music of ,bach1 ,beethoven1 and ,brahms can readily accept this theory of musical sthetics4 ,it is eminently satisfactory as an interpretation of all that we commonly call classical music4 ,there are many people who do not want to listen to any other kind of music4 ,they have heard of great names in the days before ,bach1 but they are easily inclined to take the view that such composers as ,purcell and the elder ,scarlatti were merely the necessary forerunners who prepared the way2 that ,palestrina was an exceptional and unaccountable expression of a peculiarly exalted age of religious belief1 and that any one belonging to an earlier date can be dismissed as a primitive interesting only to the antiquary4 ,but at the present day the antiquaries are coming into their own4 ,both in ,england and abroad there is a vigorous revival of interest in the music of the centuries before ,bach4 ,after long years of dusty research the antiquaries have at last begun to convince a younger generation that a great deal of this so-called primitive music can be given life in performance1 and performance has shown that it has a surprisingly vivid power of appealing to the emotions of modern hearers4 ,leaders of contemporary music indeed are clearly feeling that pre-classical and even mediaeval music has in many cases a more intimate affinity with that of our own day than the music of the last two hundred years4 ,it has even come to exercise a definite and admitted influence on the technique of modern composition4 ,to dissect out the causes and effects of this tendency would be a complicated and difficult task for which there is no space here4 ,but there is one point which is a matter of common knowledge to the trained musician1 and the general musical public is probably more or less aware of it though unable to explain it in technical language4 ,from the year #afjj to the year #aijj1 roughly speaking1 all ,western music is based on the same fundamental principle of tonality4 ,all music is composed in a key4 ,one note is adopted as a centre4 ,the remaining notes of the octave are brought into various clearly defined relationships to it4 ,they may further be arranged in groups1 sounded simultaneously1 known as chords4 ,each of these chords has its own fixed arrangement and its fixed relationship to the centre4 ,what has been done for one note of the octave may be done in exactly the same way for any other1 forming what we call the key of that note4 ,the musician may shift from one key to another in the course of his work1 but it is understood that he must make his main key clear and definite at the outset and must re-establish it again with equal decision at the end4 ,in the early years of the seventeenth century the efforts of musicians were directed chiefly to establishing one key clearly and towards the training of audiences to grasp the first principles of the system4 ,as they became more and more accustomed to the system the composers were able to extend and elaborate it4 ,the interrelations of notes and chords became increasingly subtle and delicate from the days of ,monteverdi to those of ,wagner2 but the fundamental key-system and the rhythmical system which is inseparable from it remained always precisely the same4 ,the language of music developed steadily and rationally just as the ,english language has developed from ,shakespeare to ,swinburne4 ,it is no wonder then that most musicians regarded its foundations as indestructible4 ,its grammar was codified by ,rameau early in the eighteenth century1 and later theorists saw no reason to repudiate the main principles of ,rameau's doctrine4 ,in the passionate stateliness of ,rameau's own music1 in the gigantic dignity of ,handel1 in the genial ,gemtlichkeit of ,bach1 we see the same lucid and logical precision of language4 ,it was only natural that eighteenth century criticism should regard the music of earlier centuries as crude and barbarous4 ,the nineteenth century approached the older music with a more penetrating sense of scholarship1 but could not help reading it in the same spirit4 ,an age of antiquarian research inevitably tended to consider its discoveries as historical documents to be examined in the dry light of theory rather than as the expressions of intensely passionate humanity4 ,the music of the ,middle ,ages and the ,renaissance was interpreted according to the system of ,rameau1 for no other system could be conceived4 ,if under these conditions it failed to make any emotional appeal1 that did not matter3 reverence for antiquity discouraged the unveiling of passion4 ,,iii ,the development of all kinds of historical studies during the past half-century has caused a wide and by no means learned public to take a keen interest in the life of the past and in its artistic expression4 ,we can no longer quietly accept the doctrine that music began with ,bach1 or evenas ,victor ,hugo suggestedwith ,palestrina4 ,the architecture1 sculpture and painting of the remote centuries1 as well as their poetry1 bring the ancient and mediaeval world vividly before our eyes and minds4 ,we cannot help seeing that music must have been no less important in the lives of our ancestors than it is in our own2 indeed1 it often seems that in those far-away times the art of music exercised an even more cogent influence than it does now4 ,how can it be1 we ask1 that people so strangely susceptible to the power of sound and at the same time so consummately accomplished in the other arts should have left behind them an art of music which we can only regard as crude and primitive8 ,if we attempt to consider this question seriously we shall soon find that we are confronted with fundamental problems of sthetics4 ,first of all we must rid ourselves of the habit of regarding music as something printed on paper which can be played on the pianoforte4 ,modern civilization easily leads us to take it for granted that whatever has been written down or printed is clearly fixed and recorded for all time4 ,but the real music is not that which is written down3 it is the sounds which are made by those who perform it4 ,a physician cannot cure his patient merely by giving him prescriptions to read4 ,the written notes1 even those of our own day1 require imaginative interpretation2 they require1 too1 an interpretation based on tradition and experience4 ,complicated as it is1 our contemporary notation is very inadequate1 although we of to-day are thoroughly accustomed to the practice of conveying information by written signs4 ,it is only natural that in centuries when very few people were able to read or write words at all the notation of music should have presented still greater difficulty4 ,we can see from early documents such as the ecclesiastical manuscripts of the tenth century that if music was written down it was not in order that complete strangers should be able to read it clearly and accurately at sight1 but merely to serve as a reminder to the singer of what he had already committed to memory by ear4 ,the records of the other arts are solid material facts1 things of wood1 metal or stone which are always before our eyes4 ,the music that was contemporary with them has disappeared into silence1 but that does not necessarily prove that it was not worth preserving4 ,yet we may well ask ourselves another question3 is any art worth preserving8 ,from the historian's point of view everything is worth preserving as a historical document2 but if we judge works of art from a purely sthetic standpoint can we honestly say that the art of the past has any value for us8 ,directors of museums and galleries may perhaps be shocked at so heretical a question4 ,but if1 as so many art-critics have suggested1 music is the ideal type of art we may legitimately approach the subject from a musical point of view in preference to a pictorial one4 ,the records of the other arts are solid material facts3 temples and cathedrals1 statues1 panels1 canvases4 ,compared with a symphony that may last an hour in performance1 they are almost to be considered indestructible and eternal4 ,if on hearing the symphony we find that it gives us no pleasure1 it is soon over1 and we need never hear it again4 ,once the cathedral has been put up1 it is more trouble than it is worth to take it away again4 ,a second generation may think it hideous1 a third takes no notice of it1 a fourth venerates its antiquity1 yet another decides to find it beautiful4 ,the statue or the picture meets with a similar fate1 but as it is less bulky1 it can at least be sold1 bought and sold again4 ,it may acquire value as a rarity1 for every material work of art is unique1 whereas a piece of music can be reproduced as many times and in as many different places as we choose4 ,the owner of a picture by ,titian possesses property which is his and his alone4 ,he might say the same of an autograph manuscript by ,beethoven2 but he cannot possess the symphony itselfthat belongs to the world at large4 ,the autograph may fetch a thousand pounds at auction1 but it is no more than a piece of dirty paper4 ,you can hear the symphony played for a shilling4 ,the fundamental question at issue is thisis a work of art a complete and finite thing1 beautiful when it left its maker's hand1 beautiful now and for ever1 or is it frankly transitory1 a momentary expression of a momentary experience1 speaking as a rule only to those who belong to the same generation8 ,the art dealer and the museum director naturally take the first view4 ,if you have paid some huge sum for a picture1 you may hesitate to burn it as soon as you are tired of it4 ,you must at least go on pretending to admire it4 ,and since material works of art are always before us1 it is natural that philosophers should have started to construct their artistic theories from an architectural or pictorial point of view4 ,it is perhaps inevitable that the criticism of music should borrow phrases from that of the plastic arts1 because music is an art so entirely complete in itself that it has never yet evolved an adequate vocabulary of technical terms1 let alone a vocabulary in which its nature can be described to the non-technical reader4 ,but although there may be something to be said for ,goethe's famous comparison of architecture to 8frozen music10 it is with poetry rather than with the plastic arts that music more legitimately may seek affinity4 ,literary critics have never yet succeeded in defining what poetry is2 but we can at any rate say that what distinguishes poetry from a statement of the same idea in prose is chiefly the presence of qualities which are common both to poetry and to music4 ,it has been clearly shown1 for instance1 that the lyric poetry of classical ,greece employed devices of construction which are curiously similar to those of ,beethoven4 ,habit induces us to imagine that the value of ,beethoven's music depends on our conventional scale and the harmonies derived from it2 but though we are bound to admit that every artist is limited by the peculiar qualities of his materials1 whether they be words1 marble or musical sounds1 we know that they cannot be turned to artistic account unless he has chosen them1 imperfect as they are1 to serve him in the expression of something conceived in his imaginationsomething of which he himself is definitely aware although he cannot communicate it to others without this material presentation4 ,that which is common to poetry and music is not a metaphysical figment4 ,it may often elude analysis2 but at present it has hardly been investigated scientifically4 ,it ought to be possible to find out a great deal more about it1 and to find out a great deal more about what constitutes the 8poetical0 qualityto use the epithet in a familiar if not very accurate senseof musical interpretation1 for these things are problems of actual physical sound4 ,the close connection between music and poetry would indeed be more immediately apparent if people of to-day had not acquired a distorted view of poetry by reading it in silence instead of reciting it aloud4 ,cheap printing and popular education have given readerspoets too1 perhapsan entirely false set of values4 ,people talk of the beauties of ,greek poetry2 how can they have any idea of them when the most learned scholars admit that nobody knows how classical ,greek ought to be pronounced8 ,they are in the same position as a musician of the future might be if he studied the scores of ,beethoven without any idea of what a tone or a semitone was4 ,they know what the words mean1 but they are in much the same case as the man who sees nothing in a picture beyond the story which it tells4 ,this preoccupation with the 8story01 natural and inevitable as it is1 has dominated the whole conception of art2 it has even contaminated the conception of music4 ,it is necessary to draw attention to it here1 because it constantly distracts the attention from the fact that all the arts are in a perpetual state of change4 ,we see the human form represented in the plastic arts and are inevitably tempted to judge them according to their skill in representing it faithfully4 ,we read about the common experiences of human life in poetry1 we accept translations from other languages without demur1 and take pleasure in the sense of human continuity4 ,the stability of material works of art gives us a false idea of sthetic permanence2 we are easily induced to take an analogous view of poetry4 ,but in actual fact language1 which is the material of poetry1 is in constant flux2 we are so well aware of that fact that we have almost ceased to notice it4 ,language changes because it is1 if not the most immediate1 at least the most useful1 of our means of expression4 ,the most immediate means of artistic expression is music1 and consequently music is of all the arts the most subject to change1 perhaps the most subtle1 certainly the most transitory4 ,,iv ,the art of music undergoes change1 as does language1 because it adapts itself to the expression of changing views of life4 8,everything new10 says ,frazer1 8is apt to excite the awe and dread of the savage40 ,the active and exploring temperament seeks new experiences intellectual as well as physical2 the temperament that is sedentary and passive shelters itself behind what is already well established4 ,it dreads novelty and dreads it particularly in musicthat is1 if it is susceptible to music at allfor the very reason that music is the most immediate means of expressing innermost experiences such as mankind often fears to express in the more easily misinterpreted medium of words4 ,music has at all times been strangely associated with fear4 ,from the earliest days it was the confederate of magic and religion4 ,even in classical ,greece it was regarded as a thing of danger if not kept under the severest control4 ,sir ,henry ,hadow has pointed out that in the whole of classical ,greek literature there is not a word of what we can call musical criticism1 that is1 criticism of music simply as an art in itself4 ,but although moralists discussed it from a strictly ethical point of view1 their very fear of it shows how powerful must have been its influence on those who enjoyed it4 ,the absence of critical writings does not necessarily imply an absence of artistic feeling or artistic discrimination4 ,it is a matter of common knowledge that the ,greek word for 8music0 covered a far wider field than the word does to-day4 ,music was to the ,greeks practically inseparable from poetry1 so that we find on the one hand that their poetry absorbs much of the inventive skill which we now consider to be more appropriate to music1 and on the other hand that music comes in for a good deal of the ethical censure which is more likely to be due to the poetry4 ,fortunately artists have at all times been reluctant to submit to the tyranny of moralists4 ,although practical experience may force us to admit that the perpetual change to which music has been subjected during the course of centuries makes it impossible for us to arrive even after prolonged study of documents at a complete understanding of the art of the remoter past1 it is nevertheless interesting to make the attempt for the sake of deepening historical knowledge4 ,if we cannot enter into the life of our ancestors without studying their arts as well as their politics1 we must certainly pay as careful an attention to their music as we do to their architecture or their painting4 ,the historians of music have only recently begun to set forth in a tentative way the evolution of musical forms4 ,they have paid little or no attention to the varying relations of music to the other arts and to life in general4 ,nor have they considered seriously the history of musical appreciation4 ,but if we are to understand the significance of music at various periods it is obviously of interest to discover at what date music began to be regarded as an independent artindependent1 that is1 not merely of poetry1 but also of magic1 religion or ethics4 ,and this will further lead us to the closely connected question of its varying psychological appeal4 ,the rough division1 suggested in a previous chapter1 of that appeal into the three aspects1 physical1 emotional and intellectual1 will at least serve to provide us with an experimental basis4 ,if we find it unsatisfactory we shall at least hope to make our minds clearer as to its real nature in the process of submitting it to a historical test4 ,there is1 too1 another well-known classification of artistic experience under the adjectives 8,dionysiac0 and 8,apollinian40 ,the latter coincides1 if ,i understand it aright1 more or less with what ,i have called the 8intellectual0 appreciation of music2 but the 8,dionysiac0 view of music seems to require more searching analysis4 ,it is clear that the ,dionysiac view of music must be very much the older1 as well as the commoner1 of the two4 ,the remoteness of ,greek art of all kinds has caused most people to regard it in a very chilly light1 although modern archology has gone some way towards correcting this view4 ,but it is highly probable that even to the more intellectual of ,greek music-lovers music 7using the word in our normal sense7 was more frankly a matter of physical sensation than cultivated musicians1 at any rate in ,england1 would willingly admit it to be for themselves4 ,it was pre-eminently vocal1 and as the ,greeks were a ,mediterranean people with a very clear and concrete outlook on life1 its appeal to them might be more reasonably compared with that of opera to ,south ,italians4 ,to people vividly conscious of all physical things singing naturally implies intensification of the personalityincluding the physical personalityof the singer4 ,this will account for ,plato's intimate conjunction of music with bodily conditions and his consequent apprehension of its possible danger to morals4 ,evidently1 too1 the associational appeal of music was then already recognized and deliberately exploited by composers1 though here it is difficult to separate clearly musical from purely rhythmical and poetical associations4 ,the ,romans seem to have regarded music merely as an amusement4 ,there are plenty of people in all countries to-day1 even in ,germany itself1 who take the ,roman view of music4 ,it does not necessarily preclude the view of music as an art by those who practise it for the mere amusement of others1 although it tends to lower standards because it inevitably encourages commercialism4 ,among the early ,christians we at once perceive a return to the fear of music as a dangerous thing4 ,it could only be tolerated as the 8handmaid of the ,church02 but though that doctrine is still being preached1 musicians have rebelled more and more resolutely against the acceptance of the ancillary position4 ,st4 ,augustine's famous description of the effect that music had on him shows how apprehensive he was lest music should become a more potent influence than dogma4 ,others1 less sensitively susceptible to the voice of music than ,augustine1 speak of it as a thing purely subservient4 ,the most illuminating phrase is that of ,st4 ,basil who compares the use of music in association with doctrine to the physician's use of honey to disguise the unpleasant taste of his medicines4 ,yet it is clear that during the first thousand years of the ,christian era there was developed in the shadow of the ,church an art of music which was highly sophisticated and self-conscious4 ,the ecclesiastical view of music had at least this to be said for it1 that it caused music to be written down4 ,it had for ritual reasons to be definitely fixed in an authoritative record1 whereas the music of the profane world1 composed for the delight of the moment1 was not recorded and has therefore been lost for ever4 ,v ,the mediaeval development of musical notation has an important bearing on the history of music as an art4 ,it brought music into direct contact with the graphic arts and must have helped to suggest that the melodies written in a book were no less beautiful and no less permanent than the pictures which illustrated the text4 ,the monks who invented notation in order to preserve liturgical music intact and uncorrupted from the vain errors of sinful man did as a matter of fact thereby provide him with the means of developing his error scientifically4 ,it occurred to someone that secular music could be recorded in notes as well as sacred4 ,the alphabet ceased to be practically a monopoly of the ,church4 ,the social status of the musician rose as soon as notation made it clear that the composition of a piece of music could be a thing apart from its performance4 ,when music can be read from notes its hearers inevitably begin to realize that the individual performer has no exclusive property in it4 ,his voice may have lost none of its thrill1 but the listener knows now that interpretation is not the same thing as spontaneous creation4 ,if a song or a dance tune is thought worth the trouble of writing out1 it means that it is held to be worth preserving4 ,the musician who made it begins to take rank with the learned clerk instead of being classed with tumblers and acrobats1 rogues and vagabonds4 ,the cultured amateur makes his appearance in the ages of chivalry4 ,music1 considered as a fine art1 belongs to the privileged classes alone4 ,no doubt the illiterate people had their songs and dances1 but the ordered progress of musical development was of necessity carried on mainly by those who could read and write4 ,it is in this period that the musical styles of ,east and ,west are sharply differentiated by the discovery of the principle of harmony4 ,harmony1 the simultaneous sounding of two or more different notes1 is so indispensable a part of music to-day that many people find it almost impossible to conceive of an art of music based on melody alone4 ,the most unlearned are so accustomed to the sounds of harmonic music that although their natural instinct inclines them first towards pure melody it may be doubted whether they can recall an ordinary tune without at least some vague half-conscious recollection of a harmonic basis to it4 ,this suspicion is confirmed by the fact that many tunes have become widely popular in which the melody has at moments no significance apart from the underlying harmonies4 ,the early history of harmonic experiment is still a matter of controversy2 but whether it came from the ,netherlands1 from ,england or from ,scandinavia1 it undoubtedly originated in the ,north of ,europe1 and for several generations the chief focus of musical development was centred in ,flanders4 ,this geographical factor has its significance4 ,melodic music is individualistic1 harmony is co-operative4 ,when two voices sing different notes simultaneously in a piece of music1 they are obliged to show a certain consideration for one another4 ,in the first place they must not try to shout each other down4 ,secondly1 they must agree to accept some common system of rhythm and pace1 if there is to be ordered principle of consonance between them4 ,and if their music is to be pleasing in its general effect1 they must accommodate their voices one to the other so that they blend agreeably4 ,each of these points involves a certain self-sacrifice and subordination of the individual to the community which is fundamentally irksome to the ,mediterranean temperament4 ,the distinction between composer and performer becomes sharper than ever4 ,the history of musical composition from the time of ,sumer is icumen in 7#abfj7 to that of ,josquin des ,prs 7c4 #adde-aeba7 shows the persistent effort of musicians to curb the recalcitrant independence of the individual parts in the interests of harmony and order4 ,the writing down of music no doubt helped considerably towards this4 ,the tradition of extemporary singing1 even in harmony1 was kept up for a very long time1 but it is obvious that awkwardnesses which might be overlooked at a single impromptu performance would be submitted to criticism and correction when they had been set down on paper4 ,the ,netherland school of the fifteenth century devoted much study to intricate technical devices1 and we see here the most conspicuous example in early times of music in which emotion is completely sacrificed to mechanical ingenuity4 ,it need hardly be said that this elaborate art was employed exclusively in the service of the ,church4 ,the extreme examples of it can hardly have afforded any listener the opportunity of enjoying the sensuous pleasure of sound1 either in single voices or in the combinations of its harmony4 ,nor can we imagine that it was a type of music which evoked associative images4 ,a product of the intellect it certainly was2 but ,apollo must have been as little responsible for its inspiration as ,dionysus4 ,it was discipline2 and at any rate its poverty of melodic invention1 its passionless indifference to sensuous beauty and its rigid obedience to rule may have represented the three monastic virtues4 ,,vi ,yet some of the very composers who devoted their time to the solution1 or construction1 of such futile puzzles were themselves pioneers of what we can call modern1 as opposed to mediaeval1 music4 ,with ,josquin the ,renaissance in music may be said to begin4 ,his sense of harmony might be compared with the dawning sense of perspective in painting4 ,the true history of the part played by music during the ,renaissance has yet to be written4 ,here only a few salient points can be touched upon4 ,the invention of printing brought music within the reach of a far wider circle4 ,the cultivated amateur comes more and more into notice4 ,the leaders of music in the earlier period were still the ,netherlanders4 ,they overran ,italy and came into contact with ,italian poets4 ,the offspring of this union was the madrigal4 ,the output of secular music from the presses of ,italy was enormous1 and it was soon imitated in other countries4 ,music was still to a large extent under the patronage of princes1 but instead of being a rare luxury for the enhancement of courtly splendour it became a universal ornament and pleasure of all cultured society4 ,this is especially observable in ,elizabethan ,england4 ,what is important to realize about the secular music of the sixteenth century is that music was no longer the monopoly of a close corporation of professional musicians in which the distinction between composer and performer was very indefinite2 it was written very largely with full consciousness of the enjoyment which ordinary people could derive from the actual practice of it4 ,as music becomes more and more one of the normal delights of cultured life1 it becomes less and less of a mystery and more of a conscious art4 ,josquin and his school had laid the firm foundations of the classical language of music4 ,if we take a long view of the history of the art from ancient times to the present day1 concentrating our attention mainly on secular music1 which obviously expresses the genuine musical feelings of mankind1 rather than on church music1 which in spite of the natural impulse of composers has always been subject to anti-artistic restrictions of style1 we shall be convinced that the revolution associated with the name of ,monteverdi and the beginnings of opera was a small matter compared with the establishment of the harmonic system a century and a half earlier4 ,the ecclesiastical composers had undoubtedly made important contributions to technique4 ,for one thing1 the mere length of the works required gave them space in which to work out their technical devices completely4 ,secular music1 with its swifter interplay of emotion1 required a more compressed style1 an art of vivid suggestion rather than of exhaustive discussion4 ,from the beginning of the sixteenth century onwards music moves gradually faster and faster4 ,its development assumes in the listener a knowledge of what has gone before4 ,madrigals were arranged for the lute1 just as nowadays operas are arranged for the pianoforte4 ,a good deal had to be left out in the process of arrangement1 but some acquaintance with the original might reasonably be presupposed4 ,music thus develops as an art of associative suggestion4 ,naturalism plays its part1 probably under the influence of naturalistic painting4 ,often enough the results are ridiculous1 but the general effect1 viewed at the distance of time1 was to enrich the musical language4 ,the intimate association of music with poetry sometimes led the musician into dangerous paths4 ,an interesting contrast is exhibited by ,byrd and ,marenzio4 ,the ,italian is vividly descriptive and illustrative2 only his strong sense of key prevents his work from becoming fragmentary and disjointed as he follows every suggestion of his poet4 ,byrd is never literary2 he is perhaps the greatest pure musician of the whole age4 ,he represents the perfect ,apollinian type1 ,marenzio the ,dionysiac1 and it is odd to find the ,mediterranean romantic and the ,northerner classical4 ,,vii ,the appetite for music increases in the seventeenth century and the development of musical drama brings the commercial aspect into prominence4 ,it is the age of the theatrical and rhetorical style4 ,it is an age of speed4 ,there was little music printed1 but much circulated in manuscript4 ,this does not mean that the general output was less than before4 ,the manuscripts are much more easily legible than the printing from type2 only engraving1 rarely practised outside ,england1 can rival them4 ,it is the century of 8figured bass10 a system of notation which enabled a composer to write down a mere outline of his accompaniments1 leaving them to be filled up extempore by the player4 ,it saved time in composition1 time in writing out2 copying by hand took less time than type-setting1 and there was no need to multiply copies to any great extent4 ,by the time that the copyist has made one the composer has produced another work1 and his public want the very latest4 ,one of the things that strikes us in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is the incredible fertility of composers4 ,operas1 cantatas1 quartets or symphoniesit is nothing unusual to find composers reckoning them in hundreds4 ,and we cannot dismiss this copious output with contempt4 ,it is easy enough to say that one work sounds very much like another1 and that even the greatest men have their moments of dullness2 but even for people who have not specialized in antiquarian studies there is a vast quantity of this music which still seems to have power to stir the emotions4 ,it must have been composed in a hurry1 performed in a hurry and thrown away in a hurry2 it is a marvel that at this distance of time we can still feel that even if we do not want to hear it often we are still glad to hear it once4 ,the agitated rhetoric of the seventeenth century becomes in the eighteenth a convention of grandiloquence4 ,the intellectual basis of the classical key-system proves to be a foundation upon which structures of extraordinary massiveness and dignity can be reared4 ,the immense productivity of the age was only made possible by the frank acceptance of convention1 even in the case of those rare composers like ,domenico ,scarlatti and ,haydn who systematically made fun of it4 ,this acceptance of convention was stabilized by the fact that there had been time for the long accumulation of tradition4 ,the constant demand for new music was in no way inconsistent with the preservation of tradition2 it was preserved not so much by the practical revival of old music as by the absorption of its style into what was contemporary4 ,it is significant that the eighteenth century marked the beginning of the study of musical history4 ,,viii ,it is during the eighteenth century that the classical symphony becomes a power that could seriously threaten the supremacy of vocal and dramatic music4 ,the chief centres of symphonic activity are those places where northern and southern musical culture met,vienna1 ,mannheim1 and in a lesser degree ,paris4 ,it was in the north that the preparatory work had been done long before1 in the music meetings at ,oxford and in the ,collegium musicum of ,german universities4 ,that movement towards instrumental music was largely due to the amateurs4 ,it must not be forgotten that the orchestra of ,prince ,esterhazy for which ,haydn composed symphonies was made up mainly from the domestic servants of the household4 ,the ,conservatoire at ,vienna was founded by amateurs in order to provide them with help in their own private performances4 ,the symphony1 along with the string quartet and the sonata for harpsichord or pianoforte1 was the means of transferring the musical expression of the ,italian opera to the homes of people who had no opportunity of entering an ,italian theatre4 ,the operatic aria became idealized and transfigured in the process just as a hundred years later the operatic melodies of ,bellini were transfigured in ,chopin's nocturnes4 ,the spiritual result may be looked at in two ways1 according to our temperament and our point of view4 ,we may say that this transference conveys music to a higher sthetic plane in that it removes it from the direct contact with physical human personality to a region of suggestion1 association and evocation4 ,or we may say that in losing this direct contact we are losing touch with reality1 that we are sentimentalizing the art until we prefer pretence to truth4 ,it is at this stage of musical history that the fundamental sthetic problem becomes acute1 although it must have existed for centuries beforehand4 ,that the problem was felt to be acute at the moment is shown by the appearance in #agej of ,baumgarten's sthetik1 which was the starting-point of modern sthetic philosophy4 ,it has often been said that in the eighteenth century the musician had no other function than to accompany the clatter of dishes at princely dinner-tables4 ,even if this were strictly true one might at least reply that in this respect the aristocracy of the eighteenth century did more for the art of music than their descendants4 ,the music of that period may have been conventional1 courtly and designed to give pleasure2 but if so1 its freedom from emptiness1 vulgarity and triviality is astonishing4 ,church and ,state may have deliberately encouraged the 8light-hearted gaiety of the ,viennese0 in order to distract their thoughts from the more serious problems of politics2 but music in those days was at any rate still an art1 not a mere commercial product4 ,at the same time the printing presses were active4 ,a symphony might have been composed for the entertainment of a prince1 but as soon as it was printed it became accessible to audiences outside the aristocratic circle4 ,it was an age of 8sensibility02 fine feelings1 sighs and tears were all the fashion4 ,music beginswe can see it in ,couperin1 in ,boccherini1 in ,mozart tooto display the quality of refinement1 a quality which in a later generation was to have a disastrous effect on the vitality of the art4 ,,ix ,the outstanding characteristic of the nineteenth century is its moral fervour4 ,the religious preoccupation of ,victorian ,england is only a small part of this age of aspiration4 ,in most countries of ,europe philosophy1 science1 literature1 art1 and social life bear witness to the ethical passion1 even in the cases of the most indignant revolt against it4 ,it dominates music from the time of ,beethoven onwards2 and even now it is not entirely extinct in the musical world4 ,the spirit of the ,french ,revolution transformed the musician from a lackey to a prophet4 ,mozart was cut off just as he had recorded his vision of the new age in ,the ,magic ,flute4 ,beethoven proclaims it in the ,choral ,fantasia and illuminates it still more intensely in ,fidelio1 in the ,choral ,symphony1 the ,missa ,solemnis and the last quartets4 ,one cannot class ,beethoven with the ,romantics any more than ,kant or ,goethe4 ,romanticism stood not for enlightenment but for the reaction against it4 ,the ,romantics were like men who after an earthquake return to the ruins of their city to see what they can recover from them4 ,it was not always their own property that they recovered4 ,the aristocrats had lost their material privilege1 but they were still determined to remain a class apart4 ,the ,catholic revival1 on the ,continent even more than in ,england1 was the assertion of aristocracy as a moral principle4 ,it affected music apart from the music that was definitely liturgical because it brought about a revival of interest in ,palestrina comparable to the revival of interest in ,dante4 ,the emancipation of the artist from feudal servitude encouraged him to assume something of the privilege of the aristocracy4 ,the typical figure of this movement is ,paganini1 from whom are descended ,liszt and a multitude of minor musicians who made it their life-work to play the prophet in public4 ,the mechanical developments of the new century contributed to the development of the new outlook on music4 ,as travelling became easier and music-printing cheaper concerts increased in number and increasing newspapers gave them increasing publicity4 8,seid umschlungen1 ,millionen60 sang ,beethoven1 and the millions were embraced1 though perhaps not quite in the way in which ,schiller and he had intended4 ,the modern musician is often tempted to see nothing in the art of the past century but pretentiousness4 ,it is not altogether just to accuse the century of megalomania4 ,isolated musicians1 such as ,liszt1 ,berlioz and ,wagner1 were certainly possessed with the idea of their own greatness4 ,one might say the same of ,beethoven himself2 but in ,beethoven's case the consciousness of his own greatness was inseparable from a deep feeling of humility and an overwhelming sense of duty4 ,beethoven was no respecter of persons1 but he had the philosopher's intuition of his relation to humanity and of humanity's relation to the universe4 ,undoubtedly many artists of the nineteenth century were stimulated by his example to attempt works on a needlessly colossal scale1 especially in ,germany1 where metaphysical studies have always influenced a circle that extended far beyond the professed philosophers4 ,an ethical view of music became more and more strongly marked in ,germany2 during the latter half of the century it made itself felt in ,england1 and to a slighter extent even in ,france4 ,by the end of the century there was a very definite tendency to regard music as a form of free religious worship1 expressing and stimulating mystical experience for temperaments which could no longer be satisfied by dogmatic theology4 ,x ,it is at all times difficult to draw a line between religious exaltation and rhetorical pretentiousness4 ,a consideration of the technical means of expression in music may help us to clear our minds4 ,since the middle of the fifteenth century music has exhibited a perpetual struggle between counterpoint and harmony1 between what are sometimes called the horizontal and vertical tendencies of the art4 ,the horizontal conception of music is1 as all musicians know1 the primary musical instinct to sing and to elaborate the art by the combination of voices each singing its own independently expressive line and achieving further emotional force by the ordered clash of dissonance4 ,the vertical conception cannot really be separated entirely from the horizontal1 for it has grown out of it4 ,it derives its emotional force from the assumption of periodic stresses1 and the study of harmony is therefore inseparable from that of rhythm4 ,it is regular rhythm which gives different kinds of chords their sthetic and the quasi-logical values4 ,melody represents individuality and counterpoint the interaction and conflict of individualities4 ,harmony represents the community as a whole under the direction of the mind which has created the music4 ,it is therefore natural that as music comes to be associated with communal feeling on a large scale1 with such ideas1 for instance1 as the universal brotherhood of man1 it should tend to become more and more predominantly vertical in method4 ,the ordinary music-lover can realize this from his recollections of ,bach and ,handel4 ,bach's music is mainly horizontal in tendency4 ,it is music for small groups of performers1 seldom suited to interpretation by large bodies4 ,handel's music1 in which the vertical method is far more conspicuous1 gains rather than loses by the multiplication of voices and instruments1 and for this reason ,handel is to most ,englishmen the ideal composer for occasions of national ceremony4 ,the emotional effect is intensified by the actual increase of sound and along with this by the rhythmical unanimity of the chorus or orchestra4 ,the ordinary man seems to be curiously susceptible to emotion at the sight of several hundred people doing exactly the same thing at one moment1 as in military and gymnastic displays1 even though the movements executed may be not in the least interesting in themselves4 ,the communal feeling which is at the back of most of the music of the nineteenth century finds its technical expression in blocks of chords and in strongly accentuated rhythms4 ,a typical example is the theme which opens the finale of ,beethoven's ,c minor symphony4 ,lohengrin and ,elijah are full of instances4 ,in some cases the impression may be no more than momentary1 a mere two or three chords1 but the trick makes its effect4 ,it becomes too obviously a trick in the hands of ,liszt4 ,as a pianist he could not help being attracted by it4 ,the mechanism of the pianoforte suits full chords better than the complication of counterpoint1 and the percussive action of itself exaggerates rhythmical stresses4 ,it was the ideal instrument for ,liszt's grand heroic manner4 ,the pianoforte was the amateur's instrument as well as the virtuoso's4 ,the nineteenth century is the age of the amateur pianist4 ,music became the pleasure of the rising middle class1 for whose domestic consumption an endless flood of polite and agreeable music was printed after the examples set by ,mendelssohn and ,schumann4 ,whatever the present age may think of those two composers it can safely be said that no musicians have ever been regarded by the general musical public with so widespread and so heartfelt an affection4 ,whoever easily recalls the lines ,as for some dear familiar strain ,untir'd we ask1 and ask again4 ,ever1 in its melodious store1 ,finding a spell unheard before must surely connect them in immediate memory with the ,scenes of ,childhood or the ,songs without ,words4 ,it used often to be said of ,mendelssohn that 8he had nothing to say1 but said it like a gentleman40 ,to that ,i may add the observation of one of my own teachers3 8,when ,mendelssohn couldn't think of anything else to say1 he said his prayers40 ,is it surprising that the ,england of ,thackeray adored him8 ,to ,mendelssohn and ,schumann we owe the fashion of what used to be called 8characteristic pieces0quasi-pictorial exploitations of certain idioms which at once established themselves as universally recognizable conventions both of technique and of sentimentall those 8hunting songs10 8spinning songs10 barcarolles1 cradle songs1 wedding marches and funeral marches4 ,at this distance of time they may have the charm of old-world refinement4 ,but considered historically1 what they brought into music was a multitude of insincere clichs4 ,mendelssohn and ,schumann are themselves remembered for their very genuine merits4 ,the style which they represented was absorbed into the work of followers whom it is equally impossible to forget as well as into that of the innumerable hundreds of purely commercial composers4 ,romantic clich reached its apotheosis in the symphonic monstrosities of ,gustav ,mahler4 ,but between ,mendelssohn and ,mahler there came othersworthy in some ways of our deepest and sincerest respectwho from their own high seriousness became victims of the impressive platitude4 ,ethical fervour led them only too fatally into reverent pomposity4 ,all this false sentiment was diffused universally by the pianoforte2 not merely by the enormous multiplication of instruments and of performers thereon1 but by the intrinsic acoustical character of the instrument itself4 ,for the sound of the pianoforte cannot press onwards like that of the voice1 the wind instrument or the violin4 ,that is why 8horizontal0 music is in reality impossible to it2 the most it can do is to recall the memory of something heard before4 ,it can do this with extraordinary subtlety4 ,the sudden impact of the hammer on the string gives it even in its most delicate moments a far clearer articulation than the voice or the singing instruments4 ,its whole art is an art of evasion1 illusion and association4 ,it was the ideal instrument for the romantic temperament4 ,it suggested melody1 it intensified harmony2 it falsified the values of both4 ,the pianoforte naturally attracted intelligent musicians of all grades because it seemed to place the whole of music within the grasp of two hands4 ,singing came to be regarded as something almost vulgar1 the more so since nature has not always distributed voices and brains in equal proportions4 ,as the ethical view of music deepened1 musicians of serious intention turned more to the stringed instruments than to the human voice4 ,the instruments could do so much more1 they could run about faster1 they had in practice a cleaner accuracy of intonation and a more extended compass4 ,it was easy to forget that after all they were nothing more than instruments1 and indeed the very fact that they were instruments seemed to give them a magical character that appealed mysteriously to the romantic mind4 ,,xi ,professor ,weissmann has well pointed out that in the romantic days the orchestra dominated music because it was made to represent the unseen supernatural forces against which mere humanity struggled in vain4 ,and the orchestra appealed to many sides of human temperament4 ,it was the appropriate instrument of an age of machinery1 and mechanical invention rapidly increased its powers4 ,it appealed to the megalomania of certain types of genius1 as well as to the philosophical worshipper of the infinite4 ,it appealed to the plain man by its discipline1 by its presentation of a number of nameless individuals doing the same thing at the same moment1 and in later daysnow1 perhaps1 more than ever beforeby the sight of this huge force controlled and directed by the apparent inspiration of the virtuoso conductor4 ,the great singers1 the few who have reached the highest summits of fame1 have always wielded an incomparable power over their hearers4 ,but that very element of personality which gives the supreme singer his greatness distracts the listener on any level but the highest4 ,personality is a capricious thing1 and in singing1 more than in any other form of music1 the listener's judgment is liable to be distorted by temperamental considerations which have nothing to do with art4 ,in the case of the instrumentalist they can be more easily set aside4 ,personality is what human nature values more than anything else in the artist4 ,we see it at its plainest when a singer faces an unsophisticated public2 when the public is less simple-minded and inexperienced1 when the music put before it is less direct and immediate in its expression1 the judgment of personality may be misleading1 and may easily mislead artistic judgment4 ,a vigorous personality may delude the public into accepting bad music as good2 certain types of music1 on the other hand1 may falsify the judgment of personality4 ,these statements represent merely the obvious extremes2 what must be remembered is that this interaction may vary subtly from moment to moment even during the course of one piece of music4 ,the multiform appeal of orchestral music bewilders even those who deliberately listen to it in an analytical frame of mind4 ,the difficulty is complicated by the luxuriant growth1 during the last hundred years1 of what is called 8programme-music0music that sets out to describe or illustrate some idea that can be expressed1 and often better expressed1 in a literary or pictorial form4 ,to dissect out and trace the history of all the means of emotional stimulus in such modern orchestral music as has become generally popularsuch names as ,wagner1 ,tchaikovsky1 ,richard ,strauss1 ,elgar and ,scriabin will give a sufficient idea of the categorywould require a whole volume of highly technical analysis4 ,fortunately there are many music-lovers who have heard enough music to grasp intuitively1 if vaguely1 certain principles1 conventions and technical methods which they are unable to describe in words4 ,they will recognize how 8picturesqueness0 is achieved by the exploitation of conventional idioms3 how these idioms evoke associations not merely with things outside music1 but far more widely with the recollection of music of past generations as familiar to them as it was to the composer who exploits it4 ,they will recognize conventions of sound without sensestrings of notes that perhaps once had musical value but have now become mere formul1 rushing winds and roaring waves 8full of sound and fury1 and signifying nothing40 ,they would have learned also1 one hopes1 to mistrust the composers who delude their audiences1 perhaps delude themselves too1 with a shimmering veil of indeterminate harmonies1 and to mistrust no less those who with an aggressive air of sincerity and directness assume the solemn pose of mystery and chivalry4 ,,xii ,those who live on the outskirts of the world of music may say that they cannot get as much of it as they desire2 those who are in the midst of it are painfully aware that they cannot escape the overwhelming flood4 ,the commercialization of music has led to overproduction4 ,this is apparent enough in ,england1 where commercialization has fostered the spawning of a thoroughly degraded type2 in ,germany the over-production has been a greater danger because the vast complexity of the musical industry has encouraged respectable mediocrity4 ,it is not to be wondered that plenty of musicians would be glad to make a clean sweep of all the music of the past and start fresh from the beginning4 ,we cannot2 it is a hopeless delusion4 ,even if we could make the clean sweep1 we are still men of the twentieth century2 we cannot return1 for just one aspect of our lives and that perhaps the most direct and immediate1 to primitive savagery4 ,civilization has forced us to remember what we ought in the nature of things to have forgotten4 ,commercialism has always been only too glad to throw dust in our eyes with the pretence of culture4 ,we tell people that they ought to know and love their musical classics4 ,being out of copyright1 they can be reprinted cheaply4 ,teachers find it least troublesome to teach what they have always taught2 concert-givers play what they have always playedit is the safest thing and requires the least rehearsal and study4 ,the casual listener loves the 8dear familiar strain40 ,it is not as if people knew their classics intimately in a scholarly way4 ,and the scholar is easily tempted into false judgments under the itch for research4 ,old music has its interest for the musical anatomist1 but from an artistic point of view most of it is much better forgotten4 ,there are some who sadly deplore the popularization of the classics on the ground that they risk being desecrated4 ,why not8 ,if some unlettered person goes into a cinema1 hears a fragment of the ,unfinished ,symphony for the first time and receives a new thrill1 surely it is all to the good1 at any rate for him4 ,if others feel that the vulgar associations of the cinema have destroyed the music's beauty for them1 let them have done with it1 throw it away as a worn-out thing and turn to something else4 ,we may reasonably say that people who are the prey of their unwilling associations1 unable to view a work of art with detachment1 do not deserve to experience artistic enjoyment2 but at the same time we should do well to admit frankly that music which cannot survive momentary degradation 7and all things connected with music are and must be merely momentary7 is not worth preserving and reproducing4 ,when we consider the innermost nature of music it is surprising that any of it should survive for more than a generation4 ,some has survived for less1 some for far more2 but that is no reason why it should survive for ever4 ,occasionally some work of a remoter age is exhumed and seems to have a new significance for us after having been forgotten for centuries4 ,but its significance is what our own age puts into it4 ,that is one of the advantages of dealing in the art of the past2 we can do what we like with it4 ,the art of the present1 if it has any vitality1 compels us to submit our minds to itself4 ,the present age revolts from the music of the past century because of its insincerity and pretentiousness4 ,musicians of the older generation will repudiate this charge with indignation4 ,the criticism is indeed a very summary one1 and the man of to-day1 if pressed with cross-questioning1 may probably be induced to admit a good many single exceptions to his universal condemnation4 ,but technical analysis will show that there is a sounder basis for modern criticism than mere caprice of youthful iconoclasm4 ,the wealth of harmonic resource which the nineteenth century built up was derived1 as has been shown1 to a large extent from associations1 some extra-musical1 some intra-musical1 some derived from literary or pictorial ideas1 some depending on recollections of previous music4 ,these two categories interact on each other again and again1 so that it is not easy to separate them out clearly4 ,like a system of monetary wealth1 the wealth of western music has become largely a paper currency and with the realization of this fact values have in many cases become suddenly depreciated4 ,it may be urged that music as an art has derived enormous benefit from the tendency to widen the scope of its significance1 from its closer alliance with other intellectual activities and from the deepening conviction of its ethical influence4 ,is it not childish1 it may be asked1 for us deliberately to throw away all that we have gained and revert to a condition of music in which it shall be at best a mere entertainment or possibly no more than a physiological stimulus of dangerous passions8 ,the lofty idealism of ,beethoven and certain of those who came after him1 both composers and interpreters1 is a thing which we cannot possibly deny or ignore2 but we may justly question whether the artistic expression of it is still convincing to modern ears4 ,that noble and visionary idealism1 in its ardent insistence on the spiritual1 tended more and more to suggest that the reality of music lay not so much in the actual sounds perceived by the physical ear as in the relations between them1 in soundsor rather in relations between soundsnever actually heard at all1 but induced in the perceptive faculty by association4 ,the works of ,beethoven's third period often seem to lead us into a metaphysical labyrinth4 ,but philosophical language is apt to degenerate into a jargon1 and philosophical music1 when it is the product of lesser minds than ,beethoven's1 into platitudinous rigmarole4 8,fiddle1 we know1 is diddle3 and diddle1 we take it1 is dee40 ,swinburne's parody has its musical application too4 ,the classical key-system of ,rameau and ,bach established a tradition that was academic in the most honourable sense of the word4 ,it won too much respect4 ,it had the symmetrical logic of the heroic couplet in poetry4 ,we can see how in literature the austere reverence for the great academic tradition inevitably petrifies poetry into what discreet reviewers call 8scholarly verse40 ,music followed an analogous course4 ,by the irony of fate the music of the last century1 when it was designed to edify1 has become vapid and tedious2 what has survived1 quaintly artificial though its freshness may be1 is the music that was made only for ephemeral entertainment4 ,la ,belle ,hlne has outlived ,les ,batitudes4 ,,xiii ,it is quite untrue to say that the music of to-day is predominantly frivolous4 ,the modern composer might well reply that even for those who cling to the ideals of the past there are plenty of old-world frivolities that have triumphed over their contemporary solemnities4 ,the devotees of ,haydn1 ,mozart and ,cimarosa easily forget that all these three wrote music of deeply serious character and that it was chiefly their serious music which won the respect of their own audiences4 ,there is not even anything new in the modern composer's occasional habit of making a fool of his critics4 ,but the jokes of the old composers1 like those of ,aristophanes1 often require the elucidation of learned commentators1 whereas in our own day the newspapers provide the needful commentary1 sometimes before the musician makes his joke4 ,the 8verbal hmorrhage0as it has been appropriately calledof musical journalism is responsible for most of the deliberate silliness recently perpetrated by composers1 who in these days are fully alive to the value of publicity4 ,music of this type is as ephemeral as the criticism which it is designed to provoke4 ,at the same time it is perfectly reasonable that modern composers should occupy themselves in an artistic spirit with modern dance-forms4 ,they may well take their place in musical history just as the waltz1 the minuet1 the pavan and the galliard have done4 ,weakness of inspiration is more evident in the tendency to play modern tricks with old forms and old styles4 ,the sham antique suite of nineteenth-century drawing-room music is one of the products of the past which are now beneath even ridicule2 the contemporary practice of taking a theme which suggests some commonplace of ,bach or ,haydn and treating it to a development which suggests an orchestra of amateurs reading at sight from badly copied parts may fulfil some useful function in making the idolatry of the classics ridiculous1 but as contributing to the expression of contemporary thought its value is purely negative4 ,there is enough criticism of music already without that which is written in notes4 ,it is natural enough that young composers should wish to shock the respectable and it is very good for the respectable to be shocked4 ,music which is intentionally destructive may help to clear the ground and sweep away some of the romantic rubbish that still encumbers the minds of us who listen4 ,but the composers must be careful not to forget that the listeners will be only too glad to return to the fleshpots of sentimentality if the prophets of the new generation can give them nothing but emetics with which to assuage their hunger4 ,a characteristic of modern music which often baffles the listener of an older generation is its abruptness4 ,there are various causes which contribute to this4 ,abruptness of expression is characteristic of our time2 it is the mark of our speech as well as of our music4 ,abruptness is often deliberately assumed by composers as a protestperhaps superfluousagainst the ceremonial formalities of the older music4 ,it is sometimes even a new form of sentimentalism1 a cult of the mysteriously fragmentary1 a continuation of the example set once or twice by ,schumann4 ,and in very many cases it is due to the examples of the painters1 who have little scruples about exhibiting sketches which are studies of particular technical problems4 ,a great deal of modern music is sketchy for the simple reason that a great many new technical problems have arisen and it is both interesting and necessary to make studies of them in isolation4 ,the publication of such studies may often help other people to understand what the artist is trying to achieve1 whether in paint or in sounds4 ,it is the museum habit and the astuteness of the picture-dealer which have combined to make the public attribute to these things an exaggerated value1 for financial values easily become confused with moral ones4 ,in the case of musical studies of this type it is perhaps more often the composer who attaches the exaggerated value and the public that is disappointed at not obtaining it4 ,the most frequent accusation brought against modern music is that it is devoid of melody4 ,it is an accusation which has been made for at least a hundred years4 ,when it is made to-day the modern musician may point out that many of the most advanced teachers of composition insist on their pupils practising the composition of real independent melodies1 that is1 of melodies which do not depend on an implied harmony4 ,the ordinary lover of melody is hardly capable of realizing what this means1 and the most gifted pupils generally find it an unexpectedly severe discipline4 ,what the plain man understands by a tune is a melody in simple and obvious rhythm2 and he is by now so accustomed to the classical key-system that its conventional stresses automatically suggesteven if only half consciouslythe conventional harmonic relations1 with the result that he is quite willing to accept as a tune a succession of notes which in reality is often meaningless when considered as a pure melody4 ,our popular hymn-books will provide plenty of examples4 ,the rejection of the classical key-system makes this type of melody impossible1 and one of the chief reasons why the present age has rejected the classical key-system is because it is seeking new and more supple rhythms for its melodic line4 ,another favourite accusation1 expressed in different ways by different people1 and to most people curiously difficult of expression1 may be generally formulated by saying that modern music is devoid of feeling1 or even that it stimulates and appeals to feelings which are unpleasant or even morally repugnant4 ,my attempt to put this charge into a few words is unreasonable1 ,i admit1 but ,i think it more or less represents the attitude of a large number of people whose conduct is guided more frequently by good feeling than by conscious reasoning4 ,such people feel instinctively that music1 more than anything else1 is or ought to be a matter of instinctive feeling4 ,as music-lovers1 they are exactly the people who are most completely under the spell of association4 ,but as ,i have already attempted to show1 it is just this tyranny of association against which the leaders of new movements most energetically rebel4 ,in time they or their successors will accumulate a new store of associations2 for the present they are compelled and indeed anxious to do without them altogether4 ,if the older listeners persist in attaching unpleasant associations to the new music1 it is the listeners' own fault2 it is they who by force of habit provide those associations out of their own good feeling4 ,,xiv ,it is by no means the first time that musicians have tried to 8return to nature10 but the difficulty of going back to a state of primitive savagery presumably becomes greater as civilization becomes more elaborate4 ,the enthronement of idiocy may for a moment be amusing but it soon becomes tiresome2 these two favourite epithets of musical journalism are not without their appropriateness4 ,nevertheless it is only common sense frankly to face the fact that music is made up in the first instance of physical sounds4 ,the metaphysical attitude towards music has given us the last quartets of ,beethoven1 but in the general practice of music it has done much to lower our standards of performance1 especially in the matter of singing2 indeed among singers who have deservedly obtained a reputation for high musicianship and intelligence those purely vocal qualities on which the emotional power of the voice in the first instance depends are in all countries only too often conspicuous by their absence4 ,instrumental music has been affected hardly less4 ,it is difficult for the musician who has been trained on the classical system to adapt himself to this new point of view4 ,he feels inevitably that he is being asked to lower his intellectual standards4 ,he has built them up by the application of a lifetime2 they have brought him his most precious experiences and he feels that to desert them is an act of disloyalty to his most cherished ideals4 ,it is one of the consolations of increasing years that our intellectual appreciations are deepened2 at any rate we like to think so4 ,but we have regretfully to admit that increasing years are apt to bring a blunted sense of emotional values4 ,our direct impressions are less vivid1 our capacity for enthusiasm shrinks4 ,before it is altogether too late1 before we lose all sensitive response to the stimulus of musical sound1 it may perhaps be wise to relax our austerity of principle and allow ourselves to enjoy the primary pleasure of sound as we once did naked and unashamed4 ,it might yet be the beginning of a genuinely new and delightful experience if we would risk the adventure4 ,all art1 after all1 is an adventure4 ,in the art of the past the things which directly move our sthetic emotions are the moments of adventure1 the moments at which we join the artist in perceiving intuitively and directly something which we know to be artistically true and beautiful although it is not consistent with the conventional principles on which the art is based4 ,as culture ripens and art becomes a recognized and definite part of our spiritual life1 conventions are codified and systematized4 ,in music the classical key system provides us with an obvious example4 ,we acquire the habit of applying our intellectual and reasoning faculties to it4 ,but our sthetic emotions are not stirred until we are thrown into contact with the irrational4 ,the irrational in this case does not imply utter intellectual chaos and anarchy any more than it does in mathematics or metaphysics4 ,the mathematician perceives a new truth intuitively by an act of imagination1 but it is of no use to him until he can prove it by reason2 yet reason is of no use to him unless he has creative imagination as well4 ,this imaginative plunge into the irrational is what produces a number of common and elementary physical pleasures1 such as the child's first attempt to walk and such diversions as swimming1 riding a bicycle and flying1 although all these processes very soon become rational and indeed automatic4 ,we have analogous adventures in the world of art from the beginning4 ,we may say that music is to speech as swimming is to walking4 ,the mind very soon regularizes the new experiences1 but the fascination of the arts is that they are always offering us the chance of further ones4 ,we do not enjoy music as an art until we have learned to appreciate it rationally2 but at the same time it cannot give us a real sthetic emotion unless it confronts us forcibly with a further irrational element4 ,it is this irrational reaction which causes us still to be stirred by the music of the past4 ,we listen to a quartet of ,mozart2 we recognize a familiar convention1 we are easily set back into a past cultural period in which ,mozart's language was the language of the day4 ,we understand every phrase1 and we may even run the risk of being bored4 ,suddenly ,mozart does something which the average music-maker of his day would not have done2 we are thrown off our rational balance1 we have to apprehend directly and intuitively4 ,our minds have to make some unfamiliar movement just as our bodies may in certain circumstances have to make some movement incompatible with normal equilibrium4 ,in the case of bodily movements practical experience and a knowledge of mathematics may subsequently show that this unfamiliar movement is really just as reasonable as walking4 ,something of the same kind happens in our artistic experience too4 ,even ,mozart may cease to interest us4 ,the once unfamiliar experience becomes automatic1 the new harmony becomes a clich4 ,there need not really be anything so very terrifying about the abandonment of the classical system4 ,after all1 we can always go back to it when we feel inclined1 just as we may take up ,dante and return to mediaeval astronomy4 ,the lurking fear which besets us is perhaps that if we abandoned ourselves to the artistic adventure of modern music we might find1 not merely that we did not particularly enjoy it1 but that somehow it had made it impossible for us to go back wholeheartedly to the music of our youth4 ,it is impossible4 ,everybody has to ask himself the question and answer it for himself honestlyam ,i ready and keen to face fresh intellectual adventures8 ,as age increases1 increasing vanity has to be taken into account4 ,we elderly people are easily prone to deceive ourselves and to think that we can convince others of the doctrine that connoisseurship is an adequate substitute for direct enjoyment4 ,,xv ,some of the composers of the present day appear to be pursuing adventure in a definitely intellectual spirit comparable almost to that of the mediaeval ,netherlanders4 ,their admirers often seem to be somewhat at a loss to expound their music to the uninitiated4 ,they draw our attention to various technical ingenuities and they insist1 no doubt justly1 on the entire sincerity of the composers4 ,as regards sincerity1 it is a virtue with which art has no concern4 ,as regards technical ingenuities1 we have learned too many lessons from the past4 ,there are many devices which look quite amusing on paper1 but which in practical performance pass unnoticed4 ,to this the composer may reasonably reply that the perception and enjoyment of technical ingenuities in performance is a matter of practice and experience2 there is no reason why he should compose music for fools4 ,ingenuity is by no means a quality to be despised2 there are innumerable moments in the works of ,purcell1 ,bach and ,mozart at which technical ingenuity has brought about some peculiarly poignant expression of beauty4 ,constructive skilland this is what is really meant by the musician's technical word formis what makes music an art2 and constructive skill has to be attained by study and experiment4 ,it is desirable too that listeners should be trained in its appreciation1 not so much by books and lectures as by the actual experience of hearing4 ,the composers to whom ,i have alluded assume in their hearers a long experience of music in general and also something of that habit of mind previously mentioned which tends to regard music less as a series of actual sounds than as a series of relations between sounds4 ,it may be called a mathematical conception of music1 and1 like mathematics1 it soon comes to deal with irrational quantities4 ,it is an interesting question how far the human mind can advance in this direction4 ,to certain temperaments music of this type is definitely repulsive2 but they often feel no less repulsion towards mathematics and philosophy1 studies which have been closely associated with music from very early times4 ,we must however beware of being misled by superficial criticism into supposing that the understanding of such musical complexities requires a practical knowledge of mathematical or philosophical technicalities4 ,in the scientific study of musical sthetics there ultimately arise problems which bring all three branches of learning into contact2 but in common practice they do not affect either the composer or the listener4 ,there are writers on music who make use of a philosophical jargon to conceal their incapacity for clear thinking2 but the truly philosophical habit of mind aims1 if but with rare success1 at lucidity4 ,the practical value of this 8mathematical0 system of composition lies not so much in its employment of technical devices which were practised some five hundred years ago1 as in its new method of handling them4 ,it was a great moment in the history of music when someone first discovered that two different tunes could be sung simultaneously and thereby produce harmony4 ,the artistic result of this proceeding depended on two factors which had to be brought into relationthe interest of each tune considered by itself1 that is1 the driving force which made it perceptible as a continuous tune1 and1 secondly1 the satisfaction derived from the consonance of the two voices where it happened to occur4 ,at one period the interest of the tune predominated1 at another it was sacrificed to the interest of consonance4 ,both interests are however subject to changes of value in the course of time4 ,it is clear enough that such composers as ,purcell1 ,bach and ,mozart were deeply interested in the problem of exploiting these two interests1 and of finding out how far the driving force of a tune could induce the listener to put up with dissonant harmony4 ,we can see now1 at this distance of time1 that they positively increased the value of the harmonic interest by the way in which they deliberately tortured the ear of the sensitive listener of their own time4 ,our ears have become not less but more sensitive to dissonance1 more able at any rate to discriminate between varieties of it4 ,but1 as ,i have already indicated1 this preoccupation with harmony and with relations between sounds has led to an indifference towards the actual sounds themselves1 and the loss of interest in the actual sounds has certainly brought with it a diminished appreciation of melody4 ,this is clear1 not from the complaints directed against the unmelodiousness of modern music1 but from the common inability to appreciate the emotional force of melody as it was conceived by composers of two hundred years ago and more1 composers who undoubtedly were intensely preoccupied with pure melodic expression4 ,certain modern composers are devoting themselves to the same fundamental problem that interested ,purcell1 ,bach and ,mozarthow far the inherent force of melody can carry the listener over the obstacles of dissonance4 ,it is not for me to attempt to measure the force of the actual melodies which they write4 ,this force1 too1 is curiously complicated by problems involving various qualities of sound4 ,the harshness of a dissonance may be mitigated or aggravated according to the instruments which produce it1 and modern musicians are devoting much care to the minuter shades of what are sometimes called 8colour-values40 ,the name is misleading1 like all expressions which tempt the reader to apply to music the critical methods appropriate to painting4 ,it has been suggested that music is now moving towards a phase in which 8colour-values0 will be the principal means of expression4 ,the experiment may be tried1 and it may well contribute something useful towards the stock of artistic material4 ,what this movement really signifies is nothing more than a subtilization of already recognized harmonic values1 for from the point of view of acoustics it is impossible to draw any clear distinction between what is perceived as a 8tone-colour0 and what is perceived as a 8chord40 ,,xvi ,the mechanical inventions of recent years have provided us with increased facilities for the diffusion of music4 ,the present era may come to be regarded as similar in historical importance to those which first benefited by the invention of the stave and by the invention of music-printing4 ,to some extent these changes represent merely the adaptation of practical conditions to the increase in population4 ,but whereas the invention of the stave and the invention of music-printing must in all probability have increased the number of persons who could read music at sight1 the modern reproductive machinery cannot do more than increase the number of those who confine themselves to listening4 ,it remains to be seen what proportion of those who acquire the habit of listening will be stimulated to learn something of the art of performing4 ,we hear much of the enthusiasm for music amongst 8the masses40 ,apparently they are now singing ,bach1 whereas their grandparents sang ,handel2 does it make much difference8 ,it is said that modern music has lost contact with 8the people40 ,had it ever any contact with them1 if by 8the people0 is meant those whose musical education is not more than elementary8 ,by all means let us do our utmost to raise the standard of musical education in all classes of society2 but we cannot get away from the fact that at all periods of musical history the music which really made that history was in its own day the possession only of a limited circle of highly cultivated enthusiasts4 ,this is inevitable4 ,the moment we recognize music to be an art and not merely the instrument of magic we have to apply our intellectual faculties to the understanding of it4 ,architects and painters complain bitterly enough of the public's unwillingness to meet them halfway4 ,for the musician the case is still worse2 the practical difficulty of grasping a piece of music in the transitory moment of performance is one reason1 and another is the intensity with which musical sounds act upon human emotions4 ,it is small wonder if large numbers of people still regard music as almost magical4 ,it is the remnant of these primitive beliefs which leads so many serious-minded and otherwise reasonable persons to take an apprehensive view of modern music1 even though they may consider themselves more enlightened than those who view the music of all ages with moral apprehension4 ,the danger1 if it exists now1 has always existed2 people have always feared that which they do not understand4 8,it is difficult10 says ,dr4 ,burney of ,plato1 8to refrain from numbering this philosopher1 together with ,aristotle1 ,aristoxenus and ,plutarch1 though such illustrious characters1 and1 in other particulars1 such excellent writers1 among the musical ,grumblers and ,croakers of antiquity4 ,they all equally lament the loss of good music1 without considering that every age had1 probably1 done the same1 whether right or wrong1 from the beginning of the world2 always throwing musical perfection into times remote from their own1 as a thing never to be known but by tradition4 ,the ,golden ,age had not its name from those who lived in it40 99 99 99 99 99 ,transcriber's ,notes3 ,text in italics is enclosed by underscores 7italics74 ,punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected4 ,archaic and variable spelling has been preserved4 ,variations in hyphenation and compound words have been preserved4