Music

IN a recent quite lively discussion in the Daily Advertiser newspaper, about concert programmes, the ways and means of musically educating a people not as yet altogether musical have been descanted upon to a rather unusual extent. The discussion, beginning with a good-natured enough protest by a “ Disappointed Subscriber ” to Mr. Theodore Thomas’s series of Symphony Concerts, had at the outset little if anything to do with popular education. The subject of debate was at first mainly whether symphony concerts are as amusing entertainments as the public at large might desire. Had the discussion not bordered to a rather dangerous degree upon more weighty matters, we should have been wholly glad to see the subject approached from so un-Anglo-Saxon a point of view. A plea for amusement pure and simple, for amusement per se, divorced from all instructive and intellectual disturbing elements, coming from the very heart of Boston, is in itself a refreshing novelty, interesting and to our mind praiseworthy when considered in its purely social relations. But the matter in hand is so mixed up with things that are of indispensable educational worth, that we cannot but view our “ disappointed ” friend, together with his more desperately skeptical partisan “ B.,”in a questionable light. It is not our purpose, neither is this the place, to answer directly any of the statements or arguments of either writer; but taking the unfeigned interest in the subject that has been displayed throughout the discussion for our excuse, we venture to offer some ideas on the subject of musical education in this country as affected by concert programmes and concert-going.

Were any scheme of progressive popular musical education possible with us, we should advocate it by all means. But there are insurmountable difficulties in the way of such a plan. In the first place, the wondrously heterogeneous elements of which American society is, more than any other, composed, and the lightning pace of progress as well as the extreme complexity of modern civilization are against it. Even if our society were of that simple structure that we find in Germany in the thirteenth tentury, any rationally progressive system of general musical culture would prove impossible. In Germany the popular musical sense was rationally and gradually developed through a period of several centuries, its natural growth being fed by foreign (French, Dutch, and Italian) influences, until the Germans became the prëeminently musical people they are at the present day. But mark one all-important fact. These foreign influences, the results of the then higher æsthetic civilization of France and Italy, were only brought to bear very gradually upon Germany. When we consider the difficulty of communication then existing between different countries, we can easily understand how slowly and at the same time how generally these influences worked.

Every bit of French, Dutch, or Italian musical learning had time to be thoroughly assimilated by Germany before a new lesson came from beyond the borders. Little hints of foreign improvement in counterpoint and musical form came to Germany as the weekly paper comes to some lone backwoods village, in which every eager, news-loving mortal, from school-master to plowboy, knows every item of print by heart long before the next week brings a fresh supply. But America is now in a vastly different position from Germany in those old simple times. We are now, in our musical infancy, living in daily intercourse with Germany and Franee in the full heyday of their musical manhood and Italy in its musical decline, by this time quite sufficiently far advanced. In this age of steamboats, railways, and shilling-editions, he that runs may read, if he be so inclined, and the man that can assimilate most quickly soon outstrips his duller brother. Society rapidly falls into distinct musical classes, and he who cannot keep up with the foremost must take his chance in the rear. Those who cannot fly must sink until they reach some denser fluid in which they may at least swim, unless they be perchance of that specific gravity which can only be supported by solid ground of matter of fact, and are thus forced to walk this earth, unbuoyed by æsthetics of any sort. Which latter class of beings have also their use in the world.

The question now arises, Which class has the highest and most imperative rights? The class of swimmers are sure to largely outnumber the flyers. That is one point in their favor. But are majorities to rule unquestioned in matters of the intellect and of the æsthetic sense as they do in coarser affairs ? To our thinking the man of high æsthetic nature and cultivation has an almost divine right to exercise and nourish his superior faculties in what most transcendent manner he can. Let the mediocre majority feed after him, even on the crumbs that fall from his table, if need be. But what if the cultivated minority should cousent to waive their rights, harness themselves to the yoke of public instruction, and become merely didactic individuals for the benefit of plodding mankind? The idea has a seductive flavor of Christian charity and public-spirited self-immolation ! Supposing that all our cultivated musicians and music-lovers should forego their classical symphony concerts and fascinating experimentalizing among the more modern musical transcendentalists, and, taking their more ignorant neighbors by the hand, should try to lead them on through even the most judiciously selected course of progressive concerts, beginning with Nelly Bly in a hope of ultimately ending with Israel in Egypt, the Passion, and the later Beethoven quartettes. Supposing that our aspiring composers should devote themselves to the composition of such music as can be well assimilated by the multitude, instead of following their own highest ideal, and that both composers and music-lovers should for a period of ten or twenty years concentrate their æsthetic energies upon leading the masses step by step to an understanding of the higher music. We will not ask what thanks they would get, for that is a small matter, but we will ask what good they would do that would be in any reasonable proportion to the pains expended. The answer is, to our thinking, clearly, none! Any good result to be brought about by such a plan would be an unprecedented novelty in the history of civilization and culture. The whole country would be steeped in the most disheartening mediocrity. We must never forget what an overwhelming influence the fit individual has upon the whole culture of his age. The higher above the common herd the individual stands, the greater and surer will his influence be in the end. Could the masses he autocratically compelled to study music, some good might be done by taking up the didactic method ; hut as matters exist, this is impossible. The only feasible plan is to present to the public, and with all one’s might uphold examples of what is highest and best in music as well as in the other arts. Works of true, lofty genius cannot fail to have their purifying and elevating effect upon all who are amenable to musical influences ; sooner upon some, later upon others. A Beethoven A major symphony, a Mozart Bon Giovanni, a Bach PassionMusik are infallible as truth itself. Take even our most cultivated music-lovers away from the constant influence of works like these, place them under less exalting influences, and they will soon enough degenerate into a condition in which they will not be trustworthy guides even to the most ignorant. We would have no manner of compromise in the matter, and would oppose to the last inch any encroachment upon the perfect artistic structure of concert programmes. No standard is too high, not even the very highest. We are of course speaking of concerts which have only the advancement in the art for their object: symphony concerts, chamber concerts, and piano-forte recitals. The best of us are not perfect, neither are the wisest of us very wise.

Instead of wasting so much breath and ink upon a chimerical gradual cultivation of the masses, it would be much more to the purpose to do all in our power towards the still higher and highest cultivation of the already enlightened few. Let our leaders in opinion be as perfect as possible. But we are again told that if this is the case, the common herd will merely take the leader’s opinions on faith, thus paving the way for self-deception, sham enjoyment of high music without appreciation or understanding, hypocritical hero worship, and evils without end. This is most stupendously untrue. It is out of the nature of things. Nobody to-day who is worthy the name of man, and is not a mere eating and sleeping featherless biped, will take anything on faith. The uncomprehended invites investigation, the uncomprehended good more than the uncomprehended evil. Culture is infectious. Where the most highly cultivated nucleus exists, there will be the highest general cultivation. Nothing is more fatal to general culture than that intellectual aud æsthetic communism which would have the foremost wait until those who lag behind shall have caught up with him.

But let none mistake our meaning. The very last thing we would aim our shafts at is general education, æsthetic or otherwise. But general rudimentary education is not to be undertaken with the mature man. That is the business of the school-boy. Where rudimentary musical education is taking such strides as it is in our public schools, there is little fear of a want of that. The next generation will be upon us soon, and let our leaders look to it that they be in fit condition to preach the evangel of Bach and Beethoven to these coming youngsters, who do know their right hand from their left. The generation of “ musical infants ” is passing away. What if there still linger some few pitiable beings who cheat themselves into liking Beethoven symphonies, because Beethoven is fashionable? What harm is done? We think that this sham admiration for classic music in our audiences has been, upon the whole, overrated. It is hardly conceivable that human folly should reach the pitch of going, year in, year out, to concerts merely for the sake of throwing dust in the eyes of one’s fellow-creatures.

There is a strong tendency with many people to look upon music as a mere amusement, and to decry all music from which they fail to derive such pleasure as one gets from eating and drinking, or any other merely sensual enjoyment, as purely mathematical. “Scientific” is the word commonly used in this connection. People are fond of contrasting “ music of the head ” with “ music of the heart,” generally classing under the former term all music that they do not like, and under the latter all music that they do. Now the enjoyment derived from music is much of the same kind as that derived from the contemplation of a fine painting or statue, a beautiful face or form, or from fine poetry. Music to be beautiful must needs be scientific, that is, it must follow the fundamental laws of the art, just as a painting must follow the laws of perspective, anatomy, and coloring. By scientific we mean in accordance with laws that are discoverable by science. A composition, as a logically consistent whole, must have its why and wherefore, and be capable of analysis into mutually dependent parts. But the enjoyment to be derived from it as a work of art does not depend

upon the recognition of such analysis by the listener, any more than the enjoyment of a painting depends upon our recognition of the correctness of its anatomy and perspective. The beauty of both composition and painting is instinctively felt. If the details, the,mechanical part of the work, are faulty, our enjoyment is lessened in the exact ratio of our knowledge of what it should be to be perfect. But mechanical perfection of detail, or mere truth to nature, never of themselves made either a composition or a painting enjoyable; although both may be indispensable to the perfect enjoyment of the cultivated art-lover. These are but the body, not the soul of art. It is just the indescribable beauty either of form, sentiment, or passion, that one enjoys in music, —an element that can rarely exist to a marked degree in a technically faulty composition, but which is of a higher nature than mere technicality and wholly distinct from it. If “ music of the head ” means music that is merely technically perfect, then it means music that is simply worthless, and we know of infinitely little classic music that can be ranked under such a heading. What “music of the heart ” may mean, unless it simply means good music, we are at a loss to discover. That many people fail to feel the beauty of much of the grandest music, because of their want of acquaintance with musical forms of expression, is no more strange than that many of us would fail to see the beauty of a Sanskrit poem. It is with the greatest delight that we see so many “thoughtfully intent faces” at our concerts, bent upon finding out the beauties of the great symphonies. This persevering study is as sure of its reward as is the pursuit of truth itself. All the beauty of melody, sentiment, passion, tragic power, or comic humor, that can be found in music at all, can be found in hundredfold intensity and grandeur in the great classic music. The classic music is, to be sure, intellectual, but it is all the more inspiring for that, and with an inspiration that lasts. But music that is simply amusing generally fails to amuse more than a few times; and, excellent as its function may be in the proper place and at the proper time, it can hardly be a very promising means of education.