Non leve quiddam interest inter humanÆ mentis idola et divinÆ mentis ideas; hoc est, inter placita quÆdam inania et veras signaturas atque impressiones factas in creaturis, prout inveniuntur.—Bacon.
I
FACULTIES OF APPRECIATION It is only natural that a systematic induction should present itself somewhat late in the history of Science. At first, when the world is new, the process of exploration must necessarily be hazardous and tentative: the discoverer must walk with uncertain steps, and must find his way by the sole aid of his own personal qualities. Hence his method is a part of himself, and can no more be communicated than keenness of sight, or delicacy of touch, or rapidity of instinct; he reaches his conclusions with only a half-consciousness of the road by which they have been attained, and imparts his results more as separate individual dogmas than as interdependent parts of an ordered and coherent scheme. His followers, dazzled by the brilliance of his intellect, and unprovided with any test for distinguishing between facts and fancies, accept everything that he has said, and carry on the work, not by any presumptuous attempt to map out the ground that he has already covered, but by deducing further application of his laws and further development of his principles. It may be that the route which he suggested was purely conjectural; they follow it loyally in the full confidence that it will bring them to the goal. It may be that some assertion was a mere hypothesis—a rough and ready explanation which its propounder never lived to correct; none the less, they take it as axiomatic, and force the facts into compliance by some subtle and ingenious interpretation of its terms. The master's word is paramount, and if he and Nature disagree, it is so much the worse for Nature. For a time, no doubt, there is a real value in this attitude of subservience—this unquestioning acknowledgment of the prescriptive rights of genius. In science, as in political history, it is good that the earlier steps should be autocratic, and that men should not claim a share in the constitution until they have in some measure qualified themselves for its exercise. When the state is small, a posture of constant criticism is dangerous; when the populace is ignorant, it will pass no very reasonable judgments upon the code. But as the area widens, and the mental activity increases, it becomes more and more impossible to accept as law the untested utterances of an absolute monarch: subjects begin to feel their power and to arrogate their due position; they wish to understand the system which they obey, and, it may be, to revise such of its injunctions as have grown outworn or obsolete, until at last they find their champion, and some Novum Organum appears as the constituted representative of the popular voice. And so the story passes into its third and final stage; the judge himself is tried before a jury of the people at large, his enactments are criticised point by point, and his administration remodelled upon a charter of liberty to which all succeeding kings are amenable. It is hardly necessary to say that such criticism, if it is to be of any avail, must be moderate in tone and reverent in spirit. The inductive method does not 'equalise all intellects'; there will still be contrasts of hill and valley in the levels of the human mind; there will still be peaks of genius standing, remote and solitary, above the snow line. But it is equally certain that criticism is idle unless it be entirely honest and fearless. When it is uncertain, it should confess its uncertainty without reserve; when it is opposed by some consensus of great names, it should be prepared to acknowledge itself in the wrong, and should keep an open mind for conviction; but in no case should it insult with an unthinking assent any scientific law of which it understands neither the principles nor the application. Of course, not all men have time or inclination or capacity for all topics; some things must necessarily be left on one side in the press and hurry of life; but if we are interested in a subject, we are bound to take some measure of the responsibility which that interest entails. It is a poor occupation to look upon the conflicts of thought with an aimless dilettante wonder, and bear no hand, even in our own field, to maintain the cause with which we profess ourselves in sympathy. There have been some attempts to bar this rule with an exception. Science, we are told, is concrete, systematic, rational; a proper field for the exercise of analytic judgment and critical examination; but in art, as in Religion, there is a mystery into which it is impious to penetrate. The great doctrines of the Church should be exempt from criticism, because it is not given to man to comprehend them; the principles of art should be accepted in silence by a public which knows nothing of the inspiration from which they come. This dogma is probably the most dangerous half-truth that has ever helped to retard the progress of mankind. It is, of course, beyond all question that behind art, as behind Religion, there lies the unfathomable mystery of life: that, in estimating both, there is a point at which reason ends and faith begins; but it is equally sure that, before that point is reached, there is a wide and fruitful field for critical activity. Science itself has its mystery—its limit of explanation; yet no one regards Darwin as a traitor to biology, or Newton as a profane violator of the mathematics. It was no unchristian authority who bade us 'give a reason for the faith that is in us'; it is no inartistic teacher who tells us that the springs of true appreciation must flow from ourselves. And more: it is because Religion has been regarded as only a mystery that it has so often withered into a dead superstition: it is because art has been so regarded that generation after generation has stultified itself by false judgment. Grant that the production of a work of art demands certain qualities which are beyond the reach of analysis, it still remains true that the work itself can be fairly criticised if only we will find our standpoint. Prometheus may have stolen his fire from Heaven, yet, before we accept it at his hands, we should know something of its attributes, and form some measure of its value. Above all, we should have some means of distinguishing the true spark kindled at a divine flame, from the wandering marshlights that gleam and flicker with the phosphorescence of corruption. It is not from the great artists that one hears this plea for the mystery of their calling. Homer, Dante, Shakespear wrote to be understood, they did not wrap up their meaning in recondite phrase and elaborate symbolism. Raphael sent his drawings to DÜrer, not to exhibit their intricacy of conception, but 'to shew their handiwork.' Beethoven, on his deathbed, can trust the popular verdict, and know that his new quartett 'will please some day.' And it is idle to say that these men undervalued the religion in which they held the priesthood. Only they knew that its Theology was on broad, simple lines, that its gospel consisted of truths which could find a ready echo in the heart of the world; that its temple was one in which the humblest worshipper could find his appointed place. It is the sciolist, the dilettante, the half-educated amateur, who professes this Gnosticism of art, and replaces the teaching of the Church by some mystic subtleties of Æons and Pleroma. We of the general public are in a great measure responsible for the existence of this heresy. The seed has no doubt been sown by the arrogance of the minor artist, but it has found a fostering soil in our own cowardice and our own indolence. We may set on one side those men who are altogether outside the influence of any given art, men who have no feeling at all for music or for painting or for literature: they, at any rate, maintain the honest doubt in which lives more faith than in half the creeds, and, whatever their position, they lie wholly outside the limit of our present purpose. It is the rest of us that are really to blame, we who profess to care for painting or music, and yet lack the courage to express our own likes and dislikes, who wait timidly for some authoritative opinion, that we may gain the credit of agreeing with it, if it is right, and, if it is wrong, may divert from ourselves the responsibility of the error. No doubt this attitude has found some degree of excuse. Artists, like other enthusiasts, are apt to Rush on a benighted man,
And give him two black eyes for being blind;
nor does anyone like to be called blockhead, even by the representative of an opposing party. But we may reflect that free judgment is our best remedy against the intolerance of partisan spirit, and that, whatever be the issue, we are bound in common fairness and honesty to think for ourselves. Of all diseases to which the appreciation of art is liable, hypocrisy is the most fatal and the most insidious. More particularly is this true of music, the whole criterion of which is, in a sense, subjective. That is to say, in music we have no external standard of comparison, such as exists in the representative arts; we must draw all our rules of guidance partly from the constitution of our own mind, and partly from the established practice of the great masters. If the two conflict, we must weigh the evidence before summing up on the one side or on the other. It may be that a work is great, but not great for us, that it makes its appeal to some psychological feature or faculty in which we are deficient. In that case, we must rest content to be out of sympathy with it, unless, indeed, we can train ourselves to a wider and more catholic admiration. And this we are most likely to attain if we analyse the cause and material of our enjoyment, if we find out, first, what are the elements in our nature to which music attaches itself, and, second, what are the factors in musical composition to which our nature, as a whole, most readily responds. Here, then, are two questions for the inductive method to consider: the first a matter of pure psychology, the second a matter of pure Æsthetics. Of course, the two questions are complementary: indeed, they may almost be regarded as two aspects of the same problem: but it will be convenient to take them separately, and to illustrate each by the other. The reader may be warned at the outset that there is not going to be any attempt at exhaustive analysis. Æsthetics, even more than ethics, are 'too complex to admit of accuracy'; and, in dealing with the conditions of beauty, we must be content to leave much to individual judgment and individual perception. First, then, for the psychological side. We may well begin by accepting the ordinary tripartite division of human nature which has passed current ever since the time of Aristotle. Apart from the broad fact of life which is common to the whole organic world, the faculties of man may be classified under the three heads of sensation, which he undoubtedly shares with the other animals, emotion, which he shares with them in a higher and more developed degree, and reason, which, so far as our present knowledge attests, he possesses as a sole and special prerogative. There is no need to enter here into any vexed questions of limit and demarcation. A philosophy of evolution may some day show that all human faculties spring from a common source: it has not yet done so; and whether it succeed or fail, the fact remains that in our present condition the three classes are different both in property and in function. Emotion may be partly dependent on the nervous system, but it cannot be summed up in terms of nervous energy: still less can the work of the mind be resolved into formulÆ of chemical change and molecular movement. The spiritual principle in man is no more to be confounded with the brain which it employs as its instrument, than the sculptor with his mallet and chisel, or the violinist with his Stradivarius. Further, the rational principle may itself be regarded as twofold. On the lower side there is a discursive intellect, which weighs evidence and compares the reports of the senses, which is logical, inferential, ratiocinative: on the higher side there is faculty of pure intuition, whence come our axioms, our great Religious truths, our first principles of art and science. Here again we must wait to determine whether this distinction be one of aspect or faculty, until we are certain that we know the meaning of the two terms: at present it is only necessary to note that the distinction is recognised as real by psychologists, no less diverse in aim than Aristotle and Hegel. Faith to the Theologian is the exercise of the intuitive reason on divine things. Thought to the metaphysician is the faculty behind inference with which Being itself is correlative. But there is no need to call further testimony. It is enough to say in plain words, that if we know conclusions which we can prove, we must have some faculty of knowledge which deals with proof: if we know axiomatic laws which we cannot prove, we must have some faculty of knowledge which is independent of proof. We know that two straight lines cannot enclose a space: we know that the angles at the base of an isosceles triangle are equal to one another. In these two facts of knowledge the two aspects of reason are exhibited in their simplest exercise. Now, with this spiritual principle of intuition we have, for the present, nothing further to do. As it is the highest faculty in us, so it is the least capable of analysis; we cannot define it or describe it, or say more than that we are conscious of its existence. 'Everyone,' said Gautier, 'has his measure of inspiration,' and the words, apart from the tone of mockery in which they were uttered, are literally true. Everybody is, at some time or another, affected beyond the reach of words by some great display of beauty or majesty or heroism; and at such moments we feel a true inspiration which is none the less real for being inarticulate. So in Music, the one function of this intuitive principle is the immediate apprehension of vitality in the best work. To one it may be the first hearing of a Beethoven symphony, to another it may be the Messiah, to another some complete and perfect Volkslied; but whatever the object, we cease to reason or criticise, and simply acknowledge it as divine, in virtue of a divine principle in ourselves. The work is a momentary scintillation from the great glowing fire of genius, and we can love it, because the best faculty that we possess is a spark kindled by the same light. Not that in admiring we claim equality. We are dumb poets, 'wanting the accomplishment of verse,' lacking the gift of articulation, which implies a clearer vision and a closer communion with the ideal. But to admire at all, in this true sense of enthusiasm and self-abandonment, is only possible when the highest chord of our nature is struck. Man is never lifted nearer to Heaven than when he bows himself to worship. Such moments of inspired admiration are of rare occurrence. But it is impossible to mistake them; impossible to confuse them with the careless, unthinking enjoyment of the senses, in which so much of our musical appreciation is supposed to consist. Between the spontaneous reverence for a masterpiece, and the unintelligent pleasure in mere sound, there is as wide a difference as between the two loves of Plato's fable and Titian's picture: the one is a daughter of Urania, the other of mortal parentage and of mortal passion. In our impulse towards beauty, as in all other affections of our nature, the two extreme points lie outside the limits of the discursive reason, and it is with the intervening space that rational analysis can be most profitably occupied. In other words, there is a whole realm of artistic appreciation in which we can resolve our pleasure into its constituent factors, and discover not only what it is that we enjoy, but how our capacity for enjoyment is originated and developed. And as almost all errors of musical judgment spring from carelessness of observation, such analysis will not only possess a scientific interest, it will also supply us with some criterion for estimating the value of separate styles and distinguishing the false and ephemeral from the true and abiding. In a previous essay some attempt was made to sketch roughly and imperfectly the four great corner-stones on which this method should rest: the law of vitality, the law of labour, the law of proportion, and the law of fitness to the matter in hand. It now remains to build upon this foundation, to trace out in some degree the application of these laws, and to discover, if discovery is possible, the axiomata media which these wider generalisations include. The mode, then, in which we are ordinarily influenced by Music may be roughly classified under three main types of affection. First, there is the purely physical, the effect of bodily pleasure or pain, which is produced on the nervous system by a concurrence or succession of air vibrations, and is analogous to those impressions of the palate, which are translated into taste, or those movements of the optic nerve, which are translated into colour. Secondly, there is the semi-physical, in which, for the mere corporeal excitation of the senses, we have that subtler and more sublimated form of influence which it is usual to comprise under the name of emotion. Here we may find analogy with the vague, half-conscious feeling of melancholy which we experience in reading Shelley's Stanzas written in Dejection, or the throb of courage and hopefulness which, without any thought of the artistic value of the poem, stirs in our heart as an answer to Browning's Prospice. Not, of course, that our appreciation of these two works is merely emotional; to say this would be to deny their position as products of art; but it has its emotional side, of which we are all conscious in a greater or less degree. It is a commonplace of criticism that verse which is religious or patriotic is often estimated entirely out of relation to its artistic worth; and that a poor poem may strike a responsive chord in our nature which leads us to give it an altogether factitious importance. And this error of judgment is due not to the spiritual part of our nature, for that takes artistic form for granted, and rises above it, but to an emotional sympathy with the tenour of the poem which blinds us for the moment to its literary imperfection. So in Music, it does not follow that because we feel ourselves stirred by a certain combination of notes, we are therefore in the presence of a real masterpiece. The passage in question may strike us because it is great, but it may equally do so because we are unintelligent; and though in either case our attitude has its noble aspect, for all genuine admiration is good up to its limits, yet it is a matter of some moment whether we are burning our incense before a true or a false shrine. There is no small difference between being stimulated by some prophetic utterance, and finding our consolation in the sound 'of that blessed word Mesopotamia.' Third, and most vital of the three, is the rational or logical side, through which we appraise an artistic work, not by any test of sensuous pleasure or emotional stimulus, but by some definite and intelligible scheme of Æsthetic laws. To this belongs our appreciation of style, our appreciation of structure, all that we really imply in the word 'criticism.' By this we estimate everything in art, of which the estimation can be reduced to laws, everything that is not confined to a bare statement of personal likes and dislikes. In the two previous forms of affection we are merely passive, the recipients of some mechanical or semi-mechanical impact from outside; in this alone we aid the composer by our own judgment, and respond to his call with a sane and intelligent answer. Grant that the application of logic to art has special and serious dangers, that to its misuse we owe all the pedantry and all the intolerance by which the history of criticism has so often been defaced; it still remains true that the method, if rightly exercised, is the one condition of any sound and scientific analysis. Grant that the highest art and the highest appreciation are both, in a sense, spontaneous, it will be found that they have not disregarded reason, but absorbed it. To touch the most purely spiritual part of man's nature is, ipso facto, to have removed furthest from the purely animal; and it is no very extreme paradox to hold that, if a limit be transcended, it must first have been traversed. So the greatest masterpieces in Music will be found to contain sensuous, emotional and rational factors, and something beside, some divine element of life by which they are animated and inspired. The fourth of these we shall never be able to analyse, but we may, at least, devote a little attention to the organic chemistry of the others. The sensation of sound is, on its material side, an affection of the auric nerve, under stimulus of regular and periodic air vibrations. The physical pleasure which results from it is entirely dependent on the degree of stimulation, and is therefore conditioned by two variables—the manner of vibration in the air waves, and the particular receptivity of the nerve. It will be convenient, for the sake of clearness, to take these two separately. The simplest air vibrations may differ from each other in three ways. By their rapidity is determined the pitch of the sound, that is, its distinction of high and low; by their size, the volume of the sound, that is, its distinction of loud and soft; and by their shape, the timbre of the sound, that is, the peculiar quality which distinguishes the 'voices' of the different musical instruments. It does not appear that the pleasurableness of the result is seriously affected by the first two of these, provided that they fall within the limits of clear sensation. No doubt there are at the extreme ends of the gamut notes which we cannot detect without some difficulty, but between them the differences of pitch are recognised by everyone as plain facts, which have little or nothing to do with the agreeableness of the tone. Again, when we are standing near the organ, on which some follower of Master Hugues is 'blaring out the Mode Palestrina,' our ear may be overcharged with sound, but in that case we can no more be said to hear the music than the eye can be said to see when it is dazzled with a sudden splendour of light. Differences of timbre, on the contrary, do seem to imply distinctions of pleasurableness or the reverse. Almost all people of imperfect musical cultivation have their favourite instruments; one enjoys the violin, but cares nothing for the piano; another remains in frozen indifference until he is melted by the human voice; another finds all music comprised in the invigorating skirl of the bagpipes. It must be remembered that such influences are wholly physical. They have nothing to do with artistic appreciation in the proper sense of the term; they are as purely sensuous as our delight in the colour of a flower or the taste of a dish. Now, the immediate effect of music upon the nervous system is incontestable. It has often been noticed in animals other than man; it is a matter of common observation in children; it has been made the basis of a proposal to use the art as a medicinal agency.[2] And as no two sets of nerves are exactly alike, it follows that in no two organisms will the same effect be produced. If the temperament be highly strung, and if there be no intellectual enjoyment of the art to divert attention, the nerve may be over-stimulated, and the result will be a feeling of pain. As the nerve strengthens, it will grow more tolerant; as education advances, the mind will be occupied with new interests. Questions of form and style will assert their pre-eminence over questions of tone. In a word, body will Get its sop and hold its noise,
And leave soul free a little. ThÉophile Gautier honestly defined music as 'le plus dÉsagrÉable de tous les sons.' Charles Lamb rushed from the opera-house to solace his sufferings amid the rattle of the cab wheels. And equally the child Chopin cried with pain at the first sound of the pianoforte, and the child Mozart fainted under the intolerable blare of the trumpet. In all these cases the explanation is the same—a nerve too delicate to endure the stimulus, and an absence of any counteracting influence that could inhibit the sensation. It is thus wholly erroneous to suppose that there is a gulf fixed between the man who 'has no ear' and the trained musician: on the contrary, the two extremes shade into each other by a thousand varieties of gradation. And this is particularly true of these complex impressions which result from several notes combined in harmony. The stimulus which we receive from a chord is, for obvious reasons, more vehement and acute than that which we receive from any of its constituent notes taken separately; and hence it is in our appreciation of harmonies, more than in any other form of musical effect, that the sensuous side of the art becomes apparent. Now, there is not a single chord in common use at the present day which has not been at some time condemned as a dissonance. The major third was once held to be a discord; so, later, was the dominant seventh; so, within living memory, was the so-called dominant thirteenth. Fifty years ago Chopin's harmony was 'unendurable;' thirty years ago the world accepted Chopin, but shrank in terror from Wagner and Brahms; now, we accept all three, but shake our heads over Goldmark. And the inference to which all this points is, that the terms 'concord' and 'discord' are wholly relative to the ear of the listener. The distinction between them is not to be explained on any mathematical basis, or by any a priori law of acoustics; it is altogether a question of psychology. At the same time, it may be held, fairly enough, that a composer is bound to write in a manner intelligible to his generation. Volapuk may be the language of the future, but a poet who, at the present day, should publish his epic in that tongue, has only himself to thank if he find no readers. True, but the composer, like the poet, is himself a part of his generation, and, if he write simply and naturally, may be trusted not to pass out of touch with contemporary thought. He is a leader, but it is no part of a leader's business to lose sight of his army. And in Music, it is not the sensuous question which matters, but the intellectual; not the fact of concord or discord, but the way in which they are employed. We still find Monteverde harsh and the Prince of Venosa crude, not because they use sharp dissonances and extreme modulations, but because they fail to justify them on any artistic grounds. They are in this matter children playing with edged tools. So, at the present day, a composer who should end a piece on a minor second would be deliberately violating the established language of the time; and would be reprehensible, not because a minor second is ugly—for it will be a concord some day—but because, in the existing state of Music, it could not be naturally placed at the close of a cadence. Imagine Handel's face on being shown a song which finished on a dominant seventh out of the key. And, having imagined it, turn to Schumann's Im wunderschÖnen Monat Mai. Again, supposing that a generation has mainly agreed to find the climax of sensuous pleasure in certain chords—the augmented sixth, the diminished seventh and the like—it by no means follows that a composition is delightful because it contains those particular effects. Everything depends on their relation to their context, or the standpoint from which they are introduced, on the general style of the passage in which they appear. Any amateur purveyor of hymn tunes and waltzes can learn to write them; the difficulty is to present them fitly and properly, and to place them, as points of colour, where they will harmonise with the complete scheme of the work. Even more recondite effects, like the wonderful 'voca me cum benedictis' in DvorÁk's Requiem, are qu sensuous of secondary value. Their true importance lies in their intellectual side, in their function of exhibiting new key relationships or new methods of resolution. And if a chord does not fulfil some such duty, if it does not justify itself by bearing some definite organic part in the total plan, then it is not art but confectionery. Hearers, whose only delight in music arises from the perception of 'sweet' harmonies, are on a par with the schoolboy in Leech's picture, who suggests that the claret would be improved by a little sugar. From this two conclusions would seem to follow. First, that Music can never be adequately criticised on sensuous grounds, partly because the receptivity of the nerve differs in different temperaments, partly because even where there is an agreement the sensuous side is wholly subordinate to the intellectual. Secondly, as a corollary from this, any musician who deliberately aims at sensuous effects alone, ipso facto, commits artistic suicide. He can be beaten on his own ground by the great masters, and he leaves untouched the whole of that field to the occupation of which they owe their greatness. Finally, it may be added, that sense notoriously grows tired, while mental activity endures. We very soon weary of the average drawing-room ballad, even if it gave us some animal pleasure at the first hearing: but we return again and again to the fugue of Bach or the sonata of Beethoven, because there we find the permanent expression of mind and intelligence. And thus the musical critic may virtually disregard the element of sensation, or at most may allude to it only so far as to show that it is, in Aristotle's phrase, 'obedient to reason.' Music affects our emotional nature in two ways: partly through the nervous system, partly through the ordinary law of association. It is a commonplace of psychology that our emotions are largely conditioned by physical states in the body,[3] and to this rule music assuredly offers no exception. Under certain circumstances, a current of energy, after passing from the ear to the brain, is transmuted into the nervous movements which constitute the material cause of the simple feelings, and thus we are roused or exhilarated or depressed by means as mechanical as those of any agency in external nature. Here, again, as in sensation itself, much depends upon the receptivity of the nerve. One hearer may be thrown into agitation by an impulse which leaves another comparatively cold, a strong temperament may be vehemently excited by conditions under which a weaker organism is stunned or paralysed. But all who are in any degree susceptible of the influence of music, have experienced some measure of this emotional stimulus, poured into the brain through sensation, and then sublimated in a physical alembic. Among the most conspicuous existing causes may be noted the rapid tremolo of the strings, as in the death song at the end of Tristan, the beat of a recurring figure, as in the 'Ride to the Abyss' of Berlioz' Faust, the reiteration of high notes on the violin, as in much of DvorÁk's chamber music, and the restlessness of frequent modulation or uncertain tonality. Any reader who is at the pains to analyse the effect produced upon him by these means of musical expression, will probably agree that they rouse first a particular kind of stimulus in the sense, and then, without any conscious intervention on his own part, a corresponding state of emotional feeling. Far more important is the influence of association. There is no reason in rerum natur why the minor mode should be sad, but our first ancestors noticed that a cry sank in tone as the power of its utterance failed, and hence established a connection between depression of note and waning strength. So began an association of ideas to which, by transmission and inheritance, the pathos of our minor keys is mainly due. Again, the bass naturally suggests gravity and earnestness, because that is the case with the speaking voice. 'No man of real dignity,' says Aristotle, 'could ever be shrill of speech;' and similarly, when we look for serious or dignified music, we expect to find some prominence given to its lower register. Much, too, of this association is due to the motions of our ordinary life: the force that strikes like a blow in the first phrase of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, the agitation so often expressed by rapid and irregular movement; the broken voices at the end of the Funeral March in the Eroica; and others of similar kind. Of course music cannot define any specific emotional state: it is far too vague and indeterminate to be regarded as an articulate language; but it undoubtedly can suggest and adumbrate general types of emotion, either by producing their sensuous conditions, or by presenting some form of phrase which we can connect by association with our own experience. But it is not in this emotional influence that the truest laws of musical criticism are to be sought. Its criterion is nobler than that of sense, partly because it deals with an aspect of our nature which is less animal, partly because it implies a greater degree of skill in the artist; but it is too personal and intimate to afford a satisfactory basis for discussion, and taken by itself, it offers little or no opportunity for the exercise of the higher faculties. In the Journal des Goncourt, there is a well-known passage describing the effect of music on a roomful of highly-strung and unintelligent listeners. The picture is not a little degrading to our humanity: nervous emotion trembling on the verge of hysteria, sentiment that has passed out of rational control, an intoxication of feeling morbid in itself and dangerous in its inevitable reaction. The case may be extreme, the account may be rhetorically exaggerated, but it contains a salutary truth. If we look on music merely as a stimulus to our emotional nature, we are really disregarding all that makes it of permanent value as an art. We are lowering it to the level of sentimental romance or bloodthirsty melodrama. Grant that this form of indulgence is less gross than the direct gratification of the senses, it is not a whit more critical. While we are under its spell, we are as incapable of sane judgment as Rinaldo in Armida's garden; we have abrogated our manhood, we have drugged our reason, we are lying passive and inert at the mercy of an external will. It is hardly necessary to point out that this state of mere recipience is altogether different from artistic appreciation. Art is not more a riot of the passions than it is a debauch of the senses: it contains, no doubt, sensuous and emotional elements, the importance of which there is no need to undervalue, but it is only artistic if it subordinate them to the paramount claims of reason. Even the purest and noblest emotions do not constitute a sufficient response. We are only in a position to criticise when we have passed through the emotional stage and emerged into the intellectual region beyond. To judge a composition simply from the manner in which it works upon our feelings, is no better than judging a picture or a poem merely from our sympathy with its subject. To this conclusion two possible objections may be urged: first, that it takes an 'ascetic' view of art; second, that it places the criterion in a mere subservience to abstract and mechanical laws. Both of these rest on a misunderstanding of the position. True art is neither ascetic nor intemperate: it implies a full command of the sensuous and emotional factors in beauty, but it knows how to employ them. Its object is to make the whole work beautiful, not to elaborate this or that aspect at the expense of the rest; and such an object can only be achieved in virtue of certain intellectual principles. Beethoven's harmony is not less exquisite, or his passion less true and vital because he regards the requirements of style and structure as paramount. On the contrary, the sensuous and emotional beauties of his work are themselves enhanced by the unerring skill with which he places his effects and contrasts his colours. Again, whatever their intellectual laws may be they are not mechanical. They afford no excuse for kapellmeistermusik, no justification for cold accuracy and dull correctness: so far from precluding genius, they presuppose it. They are not grammatical conventions which can be learned from text-books, they are the direct and spontaneous outcome of the human reason. Thus, in order to ascertain them, we must begin by discovering what is the broadest principle of formal beauty which can be deduced from the laws of mind, and use it as a provisional hypothesis with which to approach our problem. We shall then see how far this principle finds actual embodiment in the works of the great composers, and if there are exceptions or divergences, how far they can be explained. If our original hypothesis is confirmed by experience, we may reasonably conclude that it is true; if not, we must recognise that we are on the wrong line, and we must retrace our steps. In musical criticism, as in every other form of scientific investigation, it is not the function of man to anticipate facts, but to interpret them.
II
STYLE AND STRUCTURE 'It may be shown,' says Mr Herbert Spencer,[4] 'that Music is but an idealisation of the natural language of emotion, and that, consequently, Music must be good or bad according as it conforms to the laws of this natural language. The various inflections of voice which accompany feelings of different kinds and intensities, are the germs out of which Music is developed. It is demonstrable that these inflections and cadences are not accidental or arbitrary: but that they are determined by certain general principles of vital action; and that their expressiveness depends on this. Whence it follows that musical phrases, and the melodies built on them, can be effective only when they are in harmony with these general principles. It is difficult here properly to illustrate this position. But perhaps it will suffice to instance the swarms of worthless ballads that infest drawing-rooms, as compositions which science would forbid. They sin against science by setting to music ideas that are not emotional enough to prompt musical expression: and they also sin against science by using musical phrases that have no relation to the ideas expressed, even when these are emotional. They are bad because they are untrue. And to say they are untrue is to say they are unscientific.' In these words we may find a starting-point for sound criticism. If a musical composition is to make any bid for the rank of classic it must, as a primary essential, be genuine in feeling: by which we mean, that it must not only be original, though originality is implied and included, but that, in Wordsworth's fine phrase, it must be inevitable. To recognise a melody as perfect is to feel, when we come to know it, that it could not possibly have been written in any other way: that its phraseology, whether simple or complex, whether obvious or recondite, is the necessary outgrowth of the thought which it embodies. Of course this law does not preclude the element of surprise, which is one legitimate factor of musical effect. The hearer, like the composer, may sometimes be 'stung with the splendour of a sudden thought' and roused into a moment of exquisite consciousness by an unexpected cadence or a new modulation. But if the surprise be more than temporary, it is inartistic. Before we reach the conclusion of the work, we must be convinced that the effect in question bears some vital and organic part in the total structure: that it is, in short, a prediction which is justified by a future fulfilment. And, in that case, we end by acknowledging that it was not an isolated and deliberate attempt to stir our wonder, but part of an established plan which only astonished us at the moment because we were unable to foresee its issue. It is obvious that in the drama or the novel we are but little impressed by devices which we can detect as artificial. A writer who lets us see that he 'wants to make our flesh creep,' has forearmed us already against all his terrors: a playwright who tells us at the outset that he is going to persecute his heroine, simply fills us with an idle curiosity as to the precise form which the persecution will take. There can be no illusion where there is no appearance of spontaneity: no art when there is no concealment of artifice. Victor Hugo can move us intensely; Scribe cannot move us at all: for the former, with all his vehemence and exaggeration, is speaking out of the abundance of the heart, and the latter is merely using the stage as a chess-board for the elaboration of ingenious problems. So it is in Music. Meyerbeer is one of the 'cleverest' of musicians: brilliant, ready, resourceful, courageous enough to rob the grave of its horror and the Church of its majesty, if only he may rouse his audience to a higher strain of attention. Yet we are no more stirred by Meyerbeer than we are by Monk Lewis. The music is drowned by the soliloquies of the composer, who looks on from his box and wonders whether this scene is sufficiently terrible, whether that situation contains the requisite amount of pathos; and whether the effects, which have been so carefully calculated and so precisely measured, have after all proved to be a profitable investment. But there are lower depths than this. It is not long since an eminent composer of sentimental ballads was obliging enough to communicate to the magazines a complete recipe of his method. It is hardly worth while to give the details, but attention may be called to the singularly naÏve confession with which the disclosure ended:—that for a song to be truly successful 'its melody must always remind the audience of something that they have heard before.' Surely there has never been so complete an instance of artistic falsehood gibbeted by its own perpetrator. Poe, no doubt may be quoted as a parallel, but not with justice. The famous essay on the Raven is clearly an afterthought: a critical puzzle designed to mystify a credulous public. One might as well believe that Burger's Lenore was written by rule and measure, or that Berlioz planned his Marche au Supplice with a diagram of the procession at his side. Such examples of artistic failure are not always ignoble. It is quite possible that a man may be preoccupied with some scientific aspect of his art, that he may write not from the overmastering desire to express some beautiful thought, but from a deliberate wish to solve some difficult problem or transcend some technical limit. In such a case he will produce work which, though not valuable as an artistic achievement, is yet interesting as a study. He may show us some new method of resolving a discord, some new cadence for the conclusion of a phrase, some new shape which the melodic curve can legitimately assume: and thus, though he devote himself to a side issue, though his work will be purely formal and academic, he may yet claim an honourable place, not indeed among the poets of Music, but among its verse-writers. Of this type we have a conspicuous instance in Sir George Macfarren. He is essentially a musical grammarian, engaged all his life long in settling the doctrine of the enclitic de, wide of knowledge, sincere of purpose, and almost entirely devoid of spontaneity. Consequently there is not, in all his composition, a single page which is without interest to the student of harmony, and there is hardly one which can put forward any claim to rank as a living product of art. And this is not because he has regarded the intellectual aspect of Music as paramount,—for to do this is a necessary condition of good work,—but because he has emphasised the wrong intellectual aspect, because he has confused grammar with style. The great masters—Bach, Beethoven, Brahms—are every whit as correct as Macfarren, and every whit as ingenious, but to them correctness and ingenuity are subordinate, almost incidental: to him they appear to be the main object and aim of composition. Secondly, the feeling must not only be inevitable, it must be worth expressing. 'The maiden,' says Ruskin, 'may sing her lost love, but the miser may not sing his lost money-bags.' Now it is obvious that worth is a relative term. We do not want gravity in a ballroom or solemnity in a comic opera. There is plenty of space in Music for lightness, and delicacy, and simplicity and humour, provided that they recognise their proper limits and are devoted to their proper themes. But there is no room for forms of expression which are silly or superficial or vulgar. We are not really moved by the sorrows of a little tin soldier, or the flirtations of a man and a maid under an umbrella. We do not really weep over the chorister boy who becomes an angel, or the carol singer (with organ obbligato) who dies in a snow-drift through half-a-dozen stanzas of imperfect verse. It is with very alien jaws that we laugh at the tedious horse-play and cheap catch-words of our 'humorous' songs. It is with very little fascination that we watch the posturing of our hoydenish polkas or our ill-bred slangy waltzes. And our aversion is not due to any pedantic insistence on the dignity of the art. Music has a perfect right, desipere in loco, but it ought to choose its place with opportunity, and regulate its folly by some laws of good behaviour. The limit for music, in short, is much the same as the limit for poetry. There is probably no generic type of emotion which the poet would dismiss as unworthy of treatment, but under each genus there are certain specific forms which he would naturally leave untouched as perversions, or degradations. Every normal and healthy instinct may have its artistic expression, no matter how slight or transitory its nature; it is the parodies, the simulations, the abnormal counterparts that afford no material to poet or musician. Schumann's nursery tunes are as delightful as the 'Child's Garden of Verses'; Mr Austin Dobson has not more skill in porcelain than Rameau or Scarlatti or Couperin. If we want romance, there is Chopin; if dance music, there is Strauss; if simple sentiment, there are the best of Mendelssohn's Lieder. Above all, if we must sing something which our audience can follow without thought and at a single hearing, let us discard our second-rate librettists and second-hand composers, and let us turn back to the national songs which have sprung from the very heart of our people. We shall not thereby aid in conferring royalties on writers who had far better be following some other profession: but we shall at least help to purify the atmosphere of contemporary art. There is no more melancholy spectacle of human infirmity than a so-called 'Ballad Concert' of the present day: unless it be the amateur reproductions, where all the faults of a bad system are faithfully copied, and the unconscious burlesque of feeling is itself unconsciously burlesqued. All music, then, which is worthy of serious regard must be the spontaneous outcome of a natural and healthy emotion. But this is clearly not the last word in the matter: if it were, we should be threatened with the reductio ad absurdum, that all genuine music is of equal value. Nor can the distinction be entirely explained by the fact that some emotional states are deeper and more serious than others: for, in the first place, such a classification of our feelings is almost impossible; and, in the second, even if it were effected, it would carry us but a little way towards a solution. The emotional basis of Beethoven's Eighth Symphony is lighter than that of Berlioz' Symphonie Fantastique, but Beethoven's is undoubtedly the greater work. We have, in short, the whole question of formal beauty to discuss, the whole analysis of those intellectual laws on which it has been already suggested that artistic perfection ultimately depends. It must be remembered that music is not only the expression, but the idealisation of feeling, and that its true worth will be largely conditioned by the qualities of abstract beauty which such an idealisation implies. These qualities may roughly be classified under the two heads of style and structure. By structure in music is meant the general distribution of ideas in a work or movement: the contrast and recurrence of themes, the organisation of the key system, the whole architectural plan which aims at the establishment of coherence and stability. By style is meant the due arrangement of the phraseology; the right melodic curve, the proper degree of richness and transparency in the harmonisation, the feeling for the special capacities of the different voices or instruments. No doubt the two cannot be sharply separated: they are in a great measure interdependent, and are more or less determined by the same ultimate principles. But as complementary aspects they may at any rate be logically distinguished, and in some cases may even suggest different lines of criticism. In some early sonata movements, for instance, the structure is coherent, but the phraseology deficient in force and contrast. In some works of our romantic period the phraseology is admirable, but the importance of key-relationship almost entirely disregarded. It is much the same with a play or a novel; the story cannot be perfectly told unless the characters are perfectly drawn; we may even add, unless the author has entire command of the right word and the telling phrase. But short of this ideal proportion the balance may swing to the side of plot or to the side of characterisation, to boldness of invention or delicacy of treatment. It is only in the greatest work that the form is, on both sides, entirely satisfying. Now, the highest type of formal perfection which our minds are capable of conceiving, is that of unity in diversity. The discovery of this principle in Nature, as a whole, was the main problem of Greek philosophy; its discovery in different departments of Nature is the entire problem of modern science. Knowledge is the unification of isolated facts under a single law: truth, which is the correlative of knowledge, finds its climax in the existence of law and the inter-relation of facts. More especially is this the case with that particular form of unification which we call organic; that in which the details are absolutely diverse in character, but all play interdependent parts in one single economy. The organism is not only our supreme example of physical structure, it is the type of all human society and all natural order. Again, our great evolutionist philosopher has told us that an organism must possess three main attributes. First, it must be definite, clear in outline, complete in substance, and filling with unbroken continuity the fixed limits by which it is circumscribed. Secondly, it must be heterogeneous: composed, that is, of a plurality of parts, each of which has its own special function, and no two of which are interchangeable. Thirdly, it must be coherent: holding this plurality in exact balance and equipoise, so that each part, incapable by itself of maintaining the whole body, is yet essential to the due health and efficiency of the others. Illustrations of this principle are the primary facts of biology. They may be traced in steady gradation from the earliest and most rudimentary forms of animal life until they culminate in the ordered complexity of the human frame. And a line of similar development runs through all political history, from the primitive tribe to the communities of our present civilisation. Mutatis mutandis, this scientific ideal is also the ideal of art. When we speak of a great picture, a great poem, a great novel, we mean one that groups its diverse elements round a central principle, one in which variety is never chaotic and unity never monotonous; one in which every stroke tells and every touch is essential. No doubt, in the representative arts, this principle is qualified by other considerations,—poetry has to criticise life, painting has to represent nature; but in both the element of formal perfection is of vital importance, and in both formal perfection means perfection of organism. A bad composition in pictorial art means one in which some detail can be obliterated without loss to the whole. A bad composition in literature means one which contains superfluous digressions and 'passages that lead to nothing.' Virgil is the great epic artist, Sophocles the great artist in drama, for precisely the same reasons that teach us to see extravagance in Wiertz' scenes from the Iliad, or make us laugh, not without pity, at Nat Lee's Bedlam Tragedy 'in Twenty-five Acts and some Odd Scenes.' Again the flexibility of fine verse simply means the organic inter-relation of different metrical devices. If we examine a dozen lines of Shakespear, or Milton, or Keats, or Tennyson, we shall recognise that their beauty of sound depends partly on the harmonious juxtaposition of words, each of which finds its natural complement in the rest, partly on the varieties of stress which balance and compensate one another throughout the whole. Take away the variety, and we get verse like that of Hoole's Tasso. Take away the compensation, and we get the misshapen prose of Byron's Deformed Transformed. Lastly, among all arts, it is to Music that the law of organic proportion most intimately applies. In Painting and Literature, an emotional state gives rise to a thought which gives rise to an appropriate form of expression: in Music, the state of emotion gives rise to a melody which is thought and form in one. While, therefore, with the representative arts, we can sometimes criticise the idea and the expression as two separate factors, with Music it is only in the expression that the idea can be ascertained. Again, the musician has a far more opulent command of formal resource than his brother artists. Contrasts of timbre and tone are at least as various as contrasts of colour: the complexity of musical rhythm is far beyond anything that language can achieve; while, in the devices of harmony, and still more of polyphony and counterpoint, the composer occupies a position which is virtually unique in human experience. Hence we may naturally expect that, in their highest development, the style and structure of Music should present the most complete examples of artistic organism: that they should be, as Mr Pater has described them, the perfect type to which it is the glory of other arts to conform. Before we proceed to test this hypothesis by reference to the practice of the great masters, there is one preliminary consideration on which it is advisable to lay some emphasis. Music assumes so many forms, and is devoted to so many purposes, that it would be idle to expect the same kind of organic perfection in all. The melodies of the dance and the ballad are, for obvious reasons, compelled to a certain uniformity of rhythm and stanza; and it is impossible that they should exhibit the same diversity as a work which is not bound by their restrictions. Again, a continuously recurrent figure may be used with admirable effect in a short pianoforte piece, or in the accompaniment of a song, though it would grow monotonous and wearisome if maintained through the whole length of a symphonic movement. In Music as in Poetry, the heterogeneity of a work will be in great measure conditioned by its extent and scale; only, as no composition is large enough to justify incoherence, so none is small enough to dispense with diversity altogether. Look at Heine's Du bist wie eine Blume simply as a matter of phrase and versification. The unity of the lyric is beyond all question, but we may note how the extra syllables come pressing into the more impassioned stanza, and how the style of the whole is perfected by the exquisite inversion in the last line. Examples It is precisely the same with a lyric tune like 'Barbara Allen.'[5] Here the stanza is prescribed by the exigencies of the ballad-form, in which the alternate strains answer each other perforce. But it is worth remarking, that although there is little variety in the rhythmic figure, there is almost perfect organisation in the notes that constitute the melodic curve. It is not too much to say that after the first phrase every detail in the tune is inevitable, made requisite either by some preceding gap which the ear desires to fill, or by some swing of metre which the mind desires to balance. Another and more highly organised instance may be found in the great tune from the finale of the Ninth Symphony.[6] Here the curve is as broad and simple as that of a Volkslied, filling its limit with entire and satisfying completeness, while the rhythm is perhaps the most marvellous example in Music of organic effect produced from the plainest and most elementary materials. In the first part only two rhythmic figures are employed, one of which is a bare statement of the tempo, while the other differs from it only by a dotted note, yet they are so presented that there is no sense of monotony in the stanza. The first two strains of the second part present a new set of figures, of which each is developed out of its predecessor, while the last two complete the unity of the tune as a whole, by recalling the first stanza and recapitulating its close. Still more, in cases where there is no external requisition of metre, shall we find the unity of the melodic organism qualified by the diversity of its parts. In the first movement of Mozart's G Minor Quintett, there is an admirable instance;[7] the first two bars balance in rhythm, but differ in curve and harmony; the third intervenes with a new figure in strong contrast; and the fourth closes the half-stanza by recalling the second. Then comes the most beautiful point of style in the whole tune. The figure of the third bar, which, hitherto, has only been used for contrast (like the third line of the Omar Khayyam stanza in verse), is answered and compensated by the fifth bar, which itself leads directly into the cadence-phrase. And thus every part is made vital, and differences themselves co-ordinated into uniformity of result. Finally, as a climax, we may take two more examples from Beethoven: the melody on which is founded the slow movement of the PathÉtique,[8] and the opening theme of the Violoncello Sonata in A.[9] The former contains six different rhythmic figures in eight bars, the latter is composed of disparate elements, no two of which bear any resemblance to each other; and yet both alike are complete melodic stanzas, as definite and coherent in their total effect as any dance-tune of Strauss, or any ballad-tune of Schumann. It is impossible for the organisation of melody to be carried to a higher pitch. Unity may be easily enough attained by an exact balance of similar phrases, but only a master can produce it from the interplay of factors so diverse and so incongruous. The earliest known method of harmonising a melody was a continuous series of consecutive intervals, produced when the same passage is sung simultaneously by two voices of different pitch. Here we have the first protoplasmic germ of this particular musical device, absolutely homogeneous in style, and therefore inartistic. Art in harmony began with organisation; that is, with the discovery that unity of effect might be combined with individuality in the part writing: that each voice might have a separate character, each chord be determined by some intelligible law of sequence, and yet the whole be developed into a coherent system. So rose the old counterpoint of Lassus and Palestrina, bound by certain conventional restrictions, but, within their limits, as highly organised as genius could make it: so in course of time grew the freer polyphony of Bach and Brahms and Wagner, which stands to the earlier method as the Romance languages to Latin. Thus there are two main tests of good harmony,—first, whether each part taken by itself is interesting; second, whether each chord can be explained and justified by its context. For instance, the setting of the words 'Und seinem Heil'gen Geist' from the chorale in the Lobgesang is badly harmonised; the last chord is simply out of balance, and it is only necessary to open any page of Bach to see the contrast. Of course, in song and drama, and, to a certain extent, even in sonata and symphony, it may be necessary to break the law of organism in some particular detail in order to obtain a special poetic effect. But in that case the passage in question must be regarded as a factor in the total result: the principle of criticism is not altered, but only applied to a wider area. And, at any rate, on all occasions where drama is out of place, and purity of tone the first requisite, the rule of organisation in harmony may be taken as paramount. There is no need to multiply instances; two lie ready to hand in our collection of Hymns Ancient and Modern. The second tune assigned in that volume to the 'Litany of the Incarnate Word' is a compendium of almost every fault of style which harmony can commit: the setting of 'Nun danket alle Gott' is as near perfection as it is possible for our system to attain. So far we have considered musical style in relation to isolated strains or melodies: and thus have led up to the more important question of its nature in the range of a continuous composition. It is obviously easier to write a good sentence than a good paragraph or chapter, even though all three are amenable to the same laws: and we can find many an artist who, like Horace's coppersmith, has skill enough in details, but remains Infelix operis summÂ, quia ponere totum
Nescit.
Indeed, the preservation of balance and unity in a large work is an achievement that requires high gifts cultivated by long and patient training: every cadence gives a hostage to fortune, every phrase offers a pledge that must ultimately be redeemed. It is not surprising that composers have often been too fully preoccupied with the elaboration of single points to notice the due inter-relation of parts by which style in the whole is constituted. For instance, there can be no question of Grieg's genius. His lyric pieces for the pianoforte are almost uniformly charming: his songs are among the greatest possessions of the art. But as soon as Grieg attempts to fill a larger canvas, his imperfections of style begin to appear, and the work becomes either incoherent, as in the String Quartett, or monotonous, as in the first two numbers of the incidental music to Peer Gynt. Gounod, again, has some admirable qualities, but among them is not included any great gift for uniformity, beyond the limits of a Berceuse or a Serenade. The 'Calf of Gold' song in Faust opens with a magnificent phrase, and then degenerates into an anti-climax of pure irrelevance. The choruses in the Redemption and the Mors et Vita set out, for the most part, with a pompous fugue exposition, and discard counterpoint at the moment when its difficulties begin. Grant that the change of manner is due to deliberate choice and not to deficiency in technical skill; no plea of purpose can palliate the error. It would be just as reasonable for a dramatist to write the first act of his tragedy in Elizabethan English and drop to the nineteenth century for the other four. We shall find a more interesting example if we compare the two versions of Brahms' B major Trio. In the first, possibly misled by an apparent analogy from Beethoven,[10] Brahms allowed himself to spoil the opening movement with an incident of sheer incongruity: in the second he has completely rewritten the passage and reduced it to entire harmony with its surroundings. Not that the latter version is deficient in contrast, but it makes contrast subservient to coherence. And it is certainly a striking fact that the great master should have recalled his early work in order to correct the one offence against organism of style, which it may be held to contain. But we need look no further than Beethoven if we wish to see this principle in its most perfect embodiment. The opening movements of the two Sonatas, which he has numbered as Op. 27, stand on the outside verge of organic style: the former contains the maximum of diversity without being indefinite; the latter the maximum of unity without being monotonous: and between their bounds lie all those marvellous examples of contrast and antithesis, of variation and development, of firm outline and steadfast plan, which have placed his work as far beyond rivalry as that of Angelo or Shakespear. See how the stormy opening of the Waldstein is soothed and quieted by the melody of the second subject: how the bleak majesty of the first theme in the Appassionata finds its complement in the warm, rich tune that enters upon the change of key. Look at the balance of phrase in the first Rasoumoffsky Quartett, in the fifth Symphony, in the Emperor Concerto. But indeed the fact is too patent to need illustration, even if the selection of instances were possible. One might as well try to pick out examples of Milton's dignity and Goethe's wisdom, or direct attention to evidences of skill in Titian and Velasquez. Even the few imperfections may readily be condoned. The finale of the first Sonata is a legacy from an alien system: that of the Eroica an obvious experiment, that of the Sonata in A major an instance of the curious devotion to counterpoint which Beethoven specially manifested at the end of his career. And it should be noted that his comparative failures are always steps in a new direction, and are almost always followed by some conspicuous victory on the same lines. In any case, they may be counted on the fingers of a single hand. There is certainly no musician, there is probably no artist, whose work as a whole is so varied and yet so masterly.
A complete discussion of musical structure would involve a history of the art from the year 1600. It must therefore suffice for the present purpose to note the main stages of development, and to analyse the chief types, first as they appear in single movements, then as they are combined into the complex organisms of sonata and symphony. Before the Florentine revolution there was virtually no such thing as a system of key-relationship, no recognition of the important effects of contrast which may be produced in a work by the alternation of different tonics. Music during the Ecclesiastical period was entirely homogeneous in structure, bound within the limits of the mode, or, at most, transcending them for a moment of tentative audacity wholly different from the firm definite scheme of modern modulation. When the change came, it was only natural that the first consequence should be a period of chaos. The lay-brothers who had broken loose from the monastery went roaming about the world with no settled plan or direction, turning along any path which promised adventure, and ending their journey wherever they happened to stop at nightfall. The Moresca in Monteverde's Orfeo[11] is a good example of the reaction against uniformity. It can hardly be described without anachronism in our modern terminology, but, if the attempt must be made, we may analyse it as a single melodic phrase, beginning on dominant harmony and ending on tonic, repeated four times in four different keys. In other words, it is as deficient in structural coherence as the preceding method in structural diversity. But as our scale came into established use, and brought with it an intelligible system of related tonic notes, the value of key distribution began pari passu to be recognised. Men refused any longer to acquiesce in mere indefiniteness or mere monotony, and set themselves to find some means of organising the form of composition by combining different tonal centres into a coherent system. Scientific composers, loyal to the traditions of counterpoint, endeavoured to solve their problem by the elaboration of the fugue in which unity of style is secured by the recurrent subject, and diversity of structure by the free modulation. This form, which may be said to start with the Gabrielis, and to culminate in Sebastian Bach, is of the highest interest to musicians as an attempt to make style and structure play into each other's hands: the former possessing too little diversity, the latter too little coherence to stand as separate organisms. But as it is factitious in its origin, so it is liable to become rigid and mechanical in its results; an exercise of barren ingenuity, not a warm vital expression of true emotion. Bach no doubt could breathe poetry into it, as Corneille could fill with his splendid rhetoric the hard outlines of the classical drama, but both results are great in spite of their form, not in consequence of it. Considered merely as examples of fugue structure, Bach's compositions are not greater than those of a hundred kapellmeisters of his time: they owe their greatness to the purity of their themes, and to the unapproachable perfection of their harmony. But lay aside all questions of melody and harmony, everything, in short, which can be classed under the head of style, and Beethoven's sonatas will still remain supreme in virtue of their structure. Fugue form is an artificial thing which a man can learn: sonata form is a living thing which a man must feel. Hence it is interesting to notice that all the forms most intimately associated with the sonata may be directly traced to one primitive type of Volkslied.[12] The simplest possible contrast of key which man can adopt without falling into incoherence, is that of a melody in three strains: the first asserting the tonic, the second leading to some related key, the third repeating the tonic in order to complete the outline. Now, if we imagine the first strain given in duplicate, so as to suit the requirements of a four-line stanza of verse, we shall find ourselves with a melodic form of which 'The Bluebells of Scotland' and 'The Vicar of Bray' may be taken as familiar examples. It is probable that the immediate reiteration of the first phrase is a concession to the poet rather than a point of musical structure: in any case, the essential element of the form is to be found in the three clauses, assertion, contrast, and reassertion. 'Of this simple type,' says Dr Parry, 'there are literally thousands of examples.' It is, indeed, the most natural form of melodic sentence which the popular songs of any nation can assume: it is the living germ from which all our most complex musical organisms are developed. At the outset there are two possible lines of evolution. First, the clause of contrast and the clause of reassertion may be repeated alternately so as to extend the number of strains to five or seven, or whatever is required by the exigencies of the words. Thus we get the primitive type of rondo, which may be illustrated by Burns' 'John Hielandman,' or by the Skye Boat Song, or by our well-known hymn for Palm Sunday. A further stage of development is reached when the number of clauses is fixed at five: and when the fourth, instead of being an exact repetition of the second, affords a change of contrast by presenting a new episode in a new key. This gives us the rondo form as used by Rameau and Purcell, Haydn and Mozart, and occasionally Beethoven himself. We need only compare the exquisite song, 'I attempt from Love's sickness to fly,' with the Adagio of the Sonata PathÉtique to see that in point of structure they are identical. No doubt there were some experiments on the way. Haydn tried the form as a vehicle of variations; Mozart opened a new path in his Piano Sonata in A minor: but all these were only variants of the established type which either left its structure unaltered, or remained as exceptions. It was not until the time of Beethoven that the rondo passed into its third stage of development, and even with him the earlier form is of not infrequent occurrence.[13] Secondly, the number of clauses may be restricted to the original three, and each strain by itself organised into a higher degree of diversity. In its simplest form, which may be exemplified by the minuets of many early sonatas, the first strain ends with a full close in the tonic, and thus, while it fulfils the function of asserting its key, does so at the expense of complete detachment from the second. Hence it is a step towards organisation if the first strain is made to end with a half close, or even to modulate to the key from which the second is going to start. If this is so, the cadence of the third clause will have to be modified—since the tune must end with a full close in the key in which it began—and thus a new element of diversity is introduced into the work as a whole. Of this stage an instance may be found in the Minuet of Haydn's Piano Sonata in D (No. 6), where the first strain is divided into two sub-clauses, one in the tonic, the other in the dominant, and the third strain transposes the latter back and presents both of them in the same key. Here another point offers itself for consideration. If the clause of assertion has been allowed to modulate, and still more, if it has been allowed to dwell upon a key other than the tonic of the piece, it is obvious that the clause of contrast must be allowed still freer modulation—otherwise its purpose will remain unaccomplished. And by this time our clauses have grown in size and extent until it is not appropriate to call them clauses any longer. They have become sentences, or even paragraphs, each with its own subdivisions, its own structural character, and its own function in the general economy of the whole movement. For instance, in the Minuet of Mozart's Piano Sonata in A major, the first part consists of a 10-bar tune in A followed by an 8-bar tune in E: the second begins in B minor, drops to A minor, and then passes through an augmented sixth to the dominant of A, while the third brings the work to a logical conclusion by repeating the two sections of the first in the tonic key.[14] In its present stage of development the form is admirably suited to the short lyric movements in which it usually appears. Taken by itself it typifies the classical minuet, the air for variations, and the majority of such pianoforte pieces as the Kinderscenen and the Poetische Tonbilder. Extended by the addition of a second example, and completed by a restatement of the first, it gives us the minuet and trio of our sonatas and the common structure of the march and the polonaise. But, as the form grows in bulk and importance, as it discovers new functions and adapts itself to a new environment, so it will naturally submit to certain changes of organism. The two sections of which the first part is composed, appear at present in a direct juxtaposition which will seem crude and disconnected if the movement be increased to a larger size: and it will therefore be advisable to join them by a link of modulation that shall carry the ear gradually over the change of key. Again, the sections of contrast in the second part have hitherto fulfilled their purpose by a complete digression, not only presenting new keys but using them to exhibit new material; and it is obvious that, after the limit of a few bars, such a digression will be fatal to the unity of the work as a whole. Now the variety of key in this part is, as we have already seen, a structural necessity: and thus the readiest means of unification will be attained if we minimise the novelty of material, and use the sections of contrast, either wholly or mainly, to express phrases and themes that have been already stated in the first part of the composition. Lastly, we may notice that the third part ends by repeating in the tonic precisely the same melodic cadence which the first part ended by asserting in the dominant; and it will sometimes happen, that the clause which served admirably as the finish of a paragraph may appear abrupt or inconclusive as the finish of a chapter. In such cases the composer can extend his third part by the addition of an epilogue or coda, completing and rounding off the outline, which would otherwise be left imperfect. It must be remembered that, as a point of structure, the existence of the coda is optional. The composer may wish, for certain reasons of style, to make the first part of his work conclusive, or the last inconclusive: and in either event the need of an epilogue disappears. But, as a general rule, it may be said that the more highly organised the movement the more it will require the employment of this particular device. Continuity is best secured if all the parts of the work be made interdependent, and in that case it is only by a coda that any real climax of phraseology can be attained. One more detail and the organism is complete. Among the many experiments in structure which mark the course of musical evolution, one of the most important is the so-called French Overture. The main feature of this form, which may be readily illustrated by the Overture to the Messiah, was its habit of prefacing the chief division with an introduction or prologue in slower tempo; and this device has been adopted by the great cyclic composers, and especially by Beethoven, in order to prepare the hearer for movements of unusual importance or solemnity. Like the coda, the introduction is optional in its use: depending not on the structure of the work, but on the manner of its thought and the style of its expression. In Beethoven we find three principal types: the first merely calling attention to the key of the piece, either by directly asserting it, as in the Piano Sonata in F sharp major, or by rousing expectation, as in the third Rasoumoffsky Quartett, the second containing in addition some melodic phrase which is to be employed in the succeeding movement, as in the Sonata PathÉtique or the Piano Trio in E flat; and the third, as in the A major Symphony, foreshadowing the key-system, not only of the opening allegro, but of the whole work. It is hardly fantastic to compare the respective prologues of Henry VIII., of Pericles, and of Romeo and Juliet. This, then, is the highest type of structural development to which Music has yet arrived. The three clauses of the primitive ballad-tune have grown into three cantos, all different in character and function, all working together in the maintenance of a single economy. The first, technically known as the Exposition, presents two subjects or paragraphs, diverse in key, and connected by a short episodical link of modulation: the second, technically known as the Development Section, consists of a fantasia on themes or phrases of the first, with such freedom of key as the composer chooses to adopt: the third, technically known as the Recapitulation, repeats the two subjects with any minimum of change that may be implied in the transposition of the second to the tonic key. Finally, if the style of the movement require it, the whole may be introduced by a Prologue and summed up by an Epilogue.[15] It is hardly necessary to point out that the principle of perfect symmetry embodied in this form is precisely the same as that on which is constructed a great drama or a great novel. At the outset our attention is divided between two main centres of interest; as the work proceeds the plan is complicated by the introduction of new centres; at its close the complications are cleared away and the interests identified. For instance, the Alcestis of Euripides opens with the bare contrast of life and death, continues with those of youth and age, of mourning and hospitality, of vacillating weakness and genial strength, and finally returns to its two first themes, and unifies them by restoring its heroine from the grave. But the parallel is hardly a matter for further illustration. The exact balance and proportion of the structure will best be exhibited if we epitomise its three parts under their appropriate abstract names:—duality for the first, plurality for the second, unity for the third. Omitting a few rare exceptions, such as the Finale of the Hammerclavier Sonata, we may say that all movements in so-called Classical form represent some definite stage in this line of evolution. No doubt experiments were tried by Schumann and Chopin and other composers of the Romantic School, but even these are not so much new discoveries as variants of the established type, sometimes due to carelessness or indifference, and sometimes to deliberate plan. It must be remembered that the generation which succeeded Beethoven paid much less attention to structure than to expression. The essays of Berlioz and Schumann, admirable in most respects, are almost entirely silent on the subject of musical form, and their work, considered from this standpoint, is not an advance but a retreat. Schumann, of course, was far the greater of the two; yet even with him we feel that deliberation has not always brought counsel. The introduction to his A minor Quartett, and still more the first movement of his C major Symphony, are really steps away from organism, condoned in part by undeniable beauties of style, but at the same time needing condonation as structural errors. Even in the shorter narrative forms of ballade and impromptu, of fantasia and novellette, the same rule holds good. Their structure will be found satisfactory in proportion as it is organic, it will be found organic in proportion as it conforms to this law of natural development. There remains a word to be said about the combination of different numbers or movements into a continuous work. The complete sonata-form, like the Trilogies or Tetralogies of the classical drama, is a complex organism of which each part is itself organic, a corporate body composed of separate but interdependent members. Hence we should naturally expect that in the earliest examples there would be a comparative homogeneity of melodic style and key system, and that this homogeneity would be gradually differentiated as the form advanced towards perfection. This is precisely what has happened. In the first pianoforte sonata of Haydn all the movements are in the same key, as they were in the suites and partitas of a previous age; then, by steps which are readily traceable, the form progressed and developed until it reached its structural climax in Brahms. So also with the style of the work as a whole, by which is meant the selection of different organic types in its constituent members. Out of all possible alternatives—the minuet, the rondo, the air with variations, the fully-developed 'ternary' form—it is clearly the composer's business to choose specimens which will afford the most complete contrast and yet combine into the most organic unity. The gradual application of this rule is simply another name for the growth of the sonata form. One has only to compare Haydn's first quartett with one of the Rasoumoffskys to see the advance; one has only to compare the Eroica Symphony with Chopin's B-flat minor Sonata to see the retrogression. In this, as in other respects, Brahms has restored the balance and has adapted the traditions of Beethoven to the language of the present day. Enough has been said to show that this principle of organic growth not only explains the style and structure of all great Music, but answers to a fundamental need in human nature. Its laws are not mere grammatical rules, framed in one generation to be broken in the next; it makes no transitory appeal to faculties that change with every mood and every condition: if there be anything permanent and abiding in the mind of man, it is here that it will find its counterpart. Not, of course, that the present stage of development is to be regarded as final: there is probably no such thing as finality in any art. But progress is not change, it is a kind of change, and one which, from its very nature, points to a fixed ideal. We, with our limited capacities of knowledge, and our limited appreciation of beauty, may still be far behind the position that is to be occupied in future ages. But, unless the teaching of History be wholly false, we may predict with some security the direction in which that position will lie. It is as inconceivable in art as it is in physical nature, that the process of organic evolution should revert or turn aside. No doubt there will be further modification of detail—some 'Shakspearian convention' abandoned, some scheme of artistic composition revised; but every step that brings greater freedom will bring greater responsibility, and will shift the issue from artificial laws to the great code of human intelligence. We cannot suppose that the generations which look back upon our own masters will ever rest satisfied with incoherence or shapelessness or monotony. There will be new methods in the days to come, but the principles of art will remain unaltered.
III
FUNCTION A character in one of Mr Sturgis' delightful comedies propounds a recipe for beauty, and is met by the criticism that he has omitted one important element—the beauty itself. Some such objection may perhaps be brought against the analysis of the preceding chapter. It may be said that Music cannot be appraised in terms of law and method, that scientific theories can tell us nothing about inspiration, and that without inspiration art degenerates into a soulless and mechanical exercise. No discussion of balance and design, of diversity and coherence will ever explain why we are stirred to the depths of our being by the love-duet in Tristan, or the slow movement in the Fifth Symphony, or the Missa PapÆ Marcelli. No account of proportion in phraseology or system in key-relationship can answer the question why we find Grieg piquant, or Schumann vigorous, or Chopin graceful. In short, our Ars Poetica is a mere Gradus ad Parnassum, containing, it may be, some hints for versification, but leaving the essentials of artistic conception entirely untouched. This objection is only of force if it confines itself to the bare truism, that inspiration is not a matter which we can define. It breaks down if it goes on to infer that inspiration is not a matter which we can detect. For the artistic organism, which has hitherto been under consideration, necessarily requires life as its formative condition; and any attempt to produce it artificially must result either in total failure or in the mere copy of some existing scheme. Our academic composers who publish music on the ground that they have studied counterpoint, are, as a rule, only tolerable where they are imitative: as soon as they try to devise a new melody or elaborate a new cadence they are almost certain to become trivial or vulgar. Indeed, it would seem to be shown by experience that Music has no chance of surviving unless it arise spontaneously from a healthy state of emotion, and that, if it does so arise, it will naturally manifest itself, to a greater or less degree, in an organic shape. We may, therefore, fairly conclude that perfection of musical form, in its widest and deepest sense, is a mark or sign of genuineness in musical feeling, and that analysis, though it can never tell us whence inspiration comes, may at least direct us where we can look for it. But as yet the analysis itself is incomplete. It has attempted to describe what Music is, not what Music does: in other words, it has investigated the problem of structure, but not that of function. There remains, therefore, the further question of the object for which the art exists, the place that it occupies in our Æsthetic life, and the particular means of action by which its purpose is fulfilled. Some hints towards an answer have already been suggested: the sensuous pleasure communicated to the nervous system by certain air-vibrations: the emotional impulses which can be aroused by sense or association, or both: and the intellectual satisfaction which naturally answers to the spectacle of organic balance and symmetry. It follows, then, to arrange these premises, and to carry them, as far as possible, to their logical conclusion. Now, the general function of music may be stated in a single word—to be beautiful. It is the one art in which no human being can raise the false issue of a direct ethical influence. It allows absolutely no scope for the confusion of thought, which, on one side, brought Madame Bovary into the law-courts, and, on the other, has taught the British public to regard as a great religious teacher the ingenious gentleman who illustrated the Contes Drolatiques. Of course, all contemplation of pure beauty is ennobling, and in this sense music may have the same indirect moral bearing as a flower or a sunset or a Greek statue. But of immediate moral bearing it has none. It means nothing, it teaches nothing, it enforces no rule of life, and prescribes no system of conduct. All attempts to make it descriptive have ended in disaster: all attempts to confine it to mere emotional excitement have ended in degradation. Grant that nations and individuals of imperfect musical experience have not advanced beyond the emotional aspect: that Plato had to prohibit certain modes as intemperate, that governments have had to prohibit certain melodies as dangerous. In almost all such cases it will be found that the music in question is vocal, and that more than half the stimulus is due to its words or its topic. Considered in and by itself, the ultimate aim and purpose of the art is to present the highest attainable degree of pure beauty in sound. For the fulfilment of this purpose, the first and most obvious requisite is an entire command over materials and method. Nothing is more ugly than palpable failure: nothing more likely to destroy confidence than an appearance of uncertainty or vacillation. In many of our so-called popular song-tunes, we can lay our finger on some place where the composer was in evident difficulty: where he inserts an awkward or irrelevant phrase, because, like an unskilful chess-player, he can only extricate himself by breaking his design. Again, in ill-written harmony, we shall often find poor or hollow chords inserted, not because the composer wanted them, but because he could find no other way of resolving their predecessors. Of course, it will sometimes happen that a great, though imperfect master will stray from his appointed domain, and wander for a moment in unfamiliar territory. The fugue in DvorÁk's Requiem is conspicuously unsuccessful, but it need not affect our estimate of the 'Dies IrÆ' or the 'Recordare Jesu pie.' We only feel it a pity that the artist who can do such magnificent work in his own style, should be forced by convention into a manner for which he has no aptitude. In structure the first movement of Chopin's Pianoforte Trio is as badly drawn as some of the later Correggios: but the error, though more fundamental than that of DvorÁk, only circumscribes the master's province, without overrunning it. We remember the circumstances under which the Trio was written, and turn aside to the Études and the Nocturnes. One genuine success in art is enough to outweigh a thousand failures: but the difference between failure and success remains unimpaired. At the same time, it is most important that we should recognise the necessary limitations to which musical expression is subject. It is idle for us to go about lamenting, like the fool in Rabelais, that 'there is no better bread than that which can be made with wheat.' Our scale is notoriously a rough approximation in which only certain types of melodic curve are possible. Our harmony is often reduced to a choice between two incompatible alternatives: the striking chord required by the context, or the smooth progression required by the parts. In such cases the test lies ready to hand. Is the material difficult? Let us see how the great masters have treated it. Are the options mutually exclusive? Let us see which of them makes for organism of structure and general effectiveness of function. We have no right to pass final criticism on any detail of a work until we have heard the whole: and even then our judgment must depend on some knowledge of precedents and parallels. The chief danger of 'a little learning' is its predisposition to intolerance. If unskilfulness be the death of style, cleverness is among the most insidious of its diseases. Nothing in all literature is more exasperating than that 'cult of the unusual word' which arises now and again as a periodic fashion. Whether it take the form of the sham-antiquarianism which has been happily nicknamed from Wardour Street, or of an ostentatious acquaintance with the by-ways of the dictionary, or of the unsynonymous synonyms of the country journalist, it is in equal measure the sign-manual of euphuism and affectation. No doubt the unusual word may have a perfectly legitimate employment. It may carry a metaphor, it may complete a rhythm, it may make a point of colour: and in all such instances it is justified by the purpose that it achieves. But if it is merely unusual, it had far better be left out altogether. We do not think very highly of a verse-writer who invariably says 'quaff' instead of 'drink,' because 'quaff' is poetical and 'drink' is commonplace. The same is true of musical euphuism. A recondite chord is of absolutely no value in itself; its whole worth depends on its purpose and its context. A fresh twist in the shape of a melody is only beautiful if the preceding curve leads up to it. For instance, we appear to be passing, at the present day, through a period of feverish activity in the invention of new cadences. Now a new cadence in the hands of a master like Brahms or Parry is a delight, for, with all its novelty, we feel that it is the logical outcome of the passage from which it springs. It is only necessary to quote the close of the first stanza in the Schicksalslied or of the 'Sacrificial Chorus' in Judith, or the brilliant practical joke of the 'Æschylus Motif' in the Frogs. Again, the new cadences of Grieg and DvorÁk are always charming, because they are in exact harmony with the chromatic style which is natural to those two writers. But when inferior composers attempt the same thing, they only produce results which are crude and incongruous, or, at worst, make their exit on a mechanical epigram, in which the head of one platitude is appended to the tail of another. Indeed, self-consciousness is only a more subtle form of unskilfulness. The 'clever' artist is like the enchanter's servant in the old story, possessing just enough magic to raise the spirit, but not enough to keep it under control. It now follows to consider more directly the manner in which the influence of Music is exercised. And first, we may notice that the art, as appealing primarily to the ear, necessarily involves a fixed continuity in time, and so, in a sense, is always throwing our attention forward to its issue. The conditions under which we apprehend a picture, and those under which we apprehend a melody, are entirely different; the former enables us to follow the constituent parts in any order we choose, the latter binds us to a settled and irreversible sequence. Indeed, so firmly is this law established, that we are notoriously incapable of recalling the most familiar tune backwards, and are even in some straits to recognise a fugue-subject when it appears 'cancrizans,' as it does, for instance, in the Finale of the Hammerclavier Sonata. Hence a great part of the effect of Music is prospective, and depends upon the particular way in which it rouses and satisfies an attitude of expectation. This method may roughly be classified under three heads. First, the Music may give us precisely what we should naturally anticipate; in other words, it may suggest some coming resolution or cadence, and proceed to it at once without interruption. Everyone remembers the Æsthetic damsels, in Mr Du Maurier's picture, who 'never listen to Mendelssohn, because there are no wrong notes.' They were unconsciously enunciating an important piece of scientific criticism. For Mendelssohn never disappoints, and never surprises; his style flows on as placidly as a level stream in a pastoral country, and the hearer floats down it with no effort of intelligence, with no expectation of adventure, knowing that even beyond the distant bend there will be the same overhanging willows, and the same intervals of sunny meadow, and the same rippled reflections of an April sky. Hence, of all composers, Mendelssohn appeals most intimately to audiences that are untrained or inexperienced; and hence, also, critics, who are anxious to acquire a cheap reputation, usually begin by expressing contempt for him. The best of his lighter work is as charming as that of Miss Austen; and it is only now and then that we feel inclined to say—as Charlotte BrontË said after reading Emma—'I don't want my blood curdled, but I like it stirred.' Secondly, the Music may directly contradict our anticipation by diverting an apparently straightforward passage into an unforeseen channel. Under this head come all effects of surprise, all sudden modulations, all unusual cadences and unexpected turns of phrase. An amusing instance is the change from A minor to D flat major in the 'Pro Peccatis' of Rossini's Stabat Mater, which is almost as irresistible as a joke from Aristophanes: a far more august and magnificent example is the great Neapolitan sixth, which, in the first movement of Beethoven's A major Symphony, comes just before the cadence phrase in the exposition. Indeed, the device may be used for purposes of humour, as it is in Mr Aldrich's delightful story of Marjory Daw, or for purposes of romance, as it is by Victor Hugo in 'Le Roi s'amuse.' The finale of Beethoven's Eighth Symphony contains a distinct effect of comedy in the unexpected C sharp, which persistently intrudes itself among other people's keys, until at last it worries the orchestra into accepting it. On the other hand, the slow movement of DvorÁk's F-minor Trio notably exemplifies the romantic use. No one who has ever heard it can forget the last page: the innocent diatonic opening of the melody, and the abrupt, bewildering change which follows in its second bar. It is obvious that the sense of incongruity, which stimulates all astonishment, may, under different conditions, arouse either laughter or apprehension: and both these effects lie well within the range of musical art. They form, in fact, two of the most important emotional types which it has the power of adumbrating: not, of course, by depicting any humorous scene or suggesting any particular terror, but by administering the appropriate kind of nervous shock. Grant that if a man knows nothing at all about music, he will form no expectations, and consequently will never be either astonished or amused. It does not follow that his limitations are representative of the human race. One might as well argue that there is no fun in a French comedy, because none was detected by Mr Anstey's British audience. Thirdly, the music may baffle anticipation by suggesting alternatives and throwing us in doubt as to the selection that it is going to make. After a little experience, we come to learn that there are certain typical shapes of melodic stanza, certain common devices of modulation, certain forms of cadence which are in ordinary use. Hence, when we listen to a new work, we frame a half-conscious forecast of probabilities, and the composer, if he has the skill, may stimulate our minds by offering two or three possible issues and defying us to determine which he means ultimately to accept. This is the highest form which the prospective effect in Music can assume, and is roughly parallel to ingenuity of plot in narrative or dramatic literature. For example, a common type of four-line stanza in music opens with a clear-cut phrase, then repeats it a degree higher or a degree lower in the scale, then goes on to the clause of contrast, and finally returns to the original key. So when we hear the central tune in Chopin's F minor Fantasia, and find that its first two strains exactly correspond to this pattern, we feel that we know already how it is going to proceed, and settle ourselves to watch our expectations fulfilled. But Chopin knows better, and gives us a third strain which, instead of embodying the clause of contrast, consists of another repetition of the same phrase, a tone lower still. By this time we begin to wonder whether the tune is going to be entirely homogeneous in style, and whether, in the one strain that is left to complete the stanza it can possibly get back without awkwardness to the key from which it has strayed. Both these doubts are solved in the most masterly fashion by the concluding line, which not only carries the modulation with consummate ease, but completes the organic outline of the melody with the daintiest delicacy and finish. Again, in Grieg's F major Violin Sonata, the principal theme of the middle movement seems to get into inextricable difficulties of phraseology, and we listen to it with the same apprehensive interest with which we look on at the imbroglio in Evan Harrington. But at precisely the right moment there appears a new cadence, which would never have occurred to anyone but Grieg, and the difficulties are cleared away as if by magic. It is hardly necessary to point out that Bach and Beethoven are equally rich in this kind of musical resourcefulness. The harmonic progressions of the one, the melodic form of the other, constantly suggest a balance of alternative issues, and as constantly make the selection which the hearer finally acknowledges as the best. The same rule holds good in the matter of key distribution. When the sonata form was young, the key of its second subject was fixed by an almost unalterable convention: if the movement was in a major mode, it was the dominant, if in a minor mode, it was the relative major. Hence the audiences of Haydn and Mozart always expected the same key system, and were hardly ever disappointed. But Beethoven, from the outset of his career, broke through this traditional arrangement, and so began by surprising his hearers, and ended by making their intelligence co-operate with his own. Take, for instance, the first movement of the Hammerclavier Sonata. The first subject is in B flat, and the transition after modulating to its dominant F, proceeds with a vehement and emphatic assertion of the new key, as though Beethoven intended to revert to the customary usage, which, it must be remembered, he often follows. But the very emphasis makes the hearer suspicious. It is not in Beethoven's manner to underline his keys with so much flourish and ostentation: perhaps, after all, appearances are deceitful, and he is only throwing us off the scent. Then our uncertainty is artfully intensified by an interpolation of the opening theme, which, at this stage of the movement, is the last thing in the world that we expect; and immediately after it comes a modulation to G major, and a presentation of the second subject in that key. The anticipation of this event is an exercise of critical sagacity not dissimilar to that afforded by a novel of Balzac or a play of Shakespear. In the famous scene of Madame Marneffe's confession, we are half-cheated into believing that the woman's repentance is real, though we know that its reality is rendered impossible by all laws of characterisation. When Lear decides between his three daughters, we feel that Cordelia's coldness of manner has raised a false issue which the subsequent development of the drama will correct. In short, the true function of structure, whether it be in literature or in music, is to set before us two competing impulses and bid us reflect upon them. But it may be urged that a musical composition can only surprise or baffle on the first occasion: after that we remember what is coming, and can foretell the end as readily as the composer himself. This view pays an undeserved compliment to the capacities of human nature. The average listener does not really hear a work of any complexity the first time that it is performed in his presence: he apprehends more or less of it according to the degree of his ability or experience, but there will certainly be effects that escape his notice, and, if the composition be truly organic, those effects will be vital to the appreciation of the whole. Indeed, we have here one of the most obvious tests of a great work. We grow tired of a trivial melody or a shallow fantasia, for it tells us its whole secret at a single hearing: but we may spend our lives over Bach's Fugues or Beethoven's Symphonies without ever hoping to exhaust their limitless reserve. Again, we are not such creatures of pure logic that an effect once produced in us is incapable of repetition. We may know our Shakespear by heart, and yet be moved by the humour of Falstaff and the pathos of Imogen, by the subtle questionings of Hamlet and the frenzied self-accusations of Othello. So in listening to great Music we often allow ourselves to be carried away by the impulse of the moment: we forget that we know what is going to happen, or expect it in a new mood and from a new standpoint. There are many avenues by which the sense of novelty can be approached, and among them not the least important is that of our own imagination. No doubt this influence would be seriously impaired if we were to hear the same passage day after day and hour after hour, but this, of course, we are never called upon to do. With the present range and variety of our musical literature, an effect that is genuinely striking may be weakened by familiarity, but can hardly be ever wholly obliterated. It will thus be seen that the manner in which we are impressed by Music is enormously complex. First, there is the sensuous appeal, the different characteristics of timbre and tone, of rich harmony and full orchestration, of all those devices which are usually described in metaphors of taste and colour. Second, and inclusive of the first, is the emotional appeal, the exhilaration of rapid movement, the gravity of stately chords and broad diatonic melody, the restlessness of broken rhythm and frequent modulation, the shades of surprise which follow upon a sudden change or an unexpected crisis. Third, and inclusive of the other two, is the intellectual appeal, the exhibition of balance and symmetry in the management of these several effects, the definiteness of plan and design, the vitality and proportion of organic growth. If to these be added the two supreme requirements of originality in the composer and of fitness to the occasion of display, we shall have at any rate a rough criterion for determining work that, in the truest sense of the term, is classic. In thus summing-up results, it is almost a presumption for any writer to suggest illustrations: but if it be permissible to point to masterpieces, in which these principles are embodied with absolute and unfaltering perfection, we may select, as typical instances, the choral numbers from Bach's B minor Mass, the Seventh Symphony of Beethoven, and Brahms' Schicksalslied. Before leaving this subject, of which, indeed, only the outer courts have been trodden, there are three objections which it may be advisable to meet. The first would discard the whole analysis as a piece of a priori inference. As a matter of fact, it would say, the hearer does not trouble himself about these elaborate questions, he does not follow the subtleties of style or the coherence of key-system, he does not anticipate the course which a passage is going to adopt, he simply listens to the music, and enjoys it, because he finds it pleasant. It is idle to suppose that a man cannot admire Beethoven without being prepared to pass an examination in the technicalities of abstract science. This objection is wholly beside the mark. Men reasoned correctly long before Aristotle invented the syllogism, but none the less his theory of the syllogism is an analysis of correct reasoning. In like manner the unscientific hearer may be totally unconscious of the causes which underlie his enjoyment, and yet the causes themselves be both operative and capable of analysis. The laws of musical philosophy, like those of physiological science, are not artificial subtleties: they are an attempt to explain the ordinary conditions of health, and every man who has the taste to prefer one tune to another must necessarily have made reference, however unconscious, to some principles of discrimination. Indeed this argument from ignorance has already been anticipated in a parallel form. 'Voici quarante ans que je dis de la prose,' says M. Jourdain, 'sans que j'en susse rien.' The second objection is of more interest. Grant, it may be said, that our analysis enables us in some measure to explain the supreme masterpieces of Music, there will still remain a wide range of lower achievements with which it would appear wholly inadequate to deal. If a composition is weak in structure or careless in style, it has failed to satisfy our test, but we have no right to infer that it is without value. On the contrary, an imperfect work may often survive in spite of its imperfections, and may counterbalance its worst errors by some attractiveness of charm or some inherent vitality of thought. In Jane Eyre are faults which would have killed a novel of less genius, but the reviewers who condemned it are now only remembered as carping and illiberal pedants. Shelley may be 'ineffectual,' and Keats 'immature,' but the most adverse critic can no longer deny the beauty that they have added to English literature. And in like manner we shall find musical compositions which fall short of the highest level, which fail to attain the most satisfying completeness of organic form, and which yet deliver a message that is well worth the hearing. There is a broad expanse between the summit of Olympus, where the gods have their habitation, and the low-lying meadows and valleys of our ordinary life. In such a case we can only judge fairly by a careful balance of merits and defects, and, above all, by a careful revision of our standpoint in relation to both. It may be that the structure which we regard as inorganic is really a new type of organism, a further development along the line which we have already traced. It may be that the style which appears careless, has really some subtle method which we are as yet too clumsy to detect. And even if we are honestly unable to convince ourselves of error, even if our certitude only grows and gathers as we study the passage afresh, it by no means follows that the fault which we have noted is a final ground for condemnation. There can be no perfection without entire control of resource, but control is notoriously difficult in proportion to the variety and novelty of the emotional expression. Hence the more complex and striking the ideas which a composer wishes to embody, the harder he will find it to present them in a supreme artistic form. In Schumann, to take the highest example at once, we sometimes seem to find a great thought struggling with an intractable medium: we feel rather than hear what it is that he wishes to express, we apprehend his meaning from broken phrases and incomplete suggestions. Compare his symphonies with those of Beethoven, and you see the baffled Titanic strength beside the serene unerring mastery of the divine hand. Yet, if it be failure, it is noble failure, better by far than the elaboration of smooth commonplaces and finished platitudes. It is not carelessness but preoccupation, not unskilfulness but audacity, not scantiness of resource but prodigality of expenditure. Schumann's music is always manly, forcible, genuine, and it is no serious dispraise to say that in the larger forms he is a less perfect artist than he is in his lyrics. Here, then, we may see the solution of the present problem. All music which appeals to us as true has for us a certain measure of value. It is only conceit and dishonesty, and self-conscious artifice, that merit absolute and unqualified reprobation: for the rest we may appraise our work partly in reference to its particular purpose, partly by an estimate of the success with which its object is attained. If it present any passage of real interest, we owe it a corresponding debt of gratitude: if it counterbalance a fault of one kind by a beauty of another, then criticism should determine which of the two has the more important bearing on the case. But there can be no sound judgment without a code, and no code in music without a recognition and acknowledgment of its masterpieces. Thus the analysis of perfect art does not preclude us from the consideration of art that is imperfect, for it is only through the former that the latter is possible. In the third place, there may be enthusiasts who are still inclined to cry, with Gebir,— Are we to hold seriously that Music can be explained by any system of laws and regulations, that its influence upon us can be classified under heads and reduced to scientific maxims? Is it not rather degrading to analyse the divine art into tricks of surprise and devices of rhetoric, into this kind of figure and that kind of modulation, into a nice adjustment of curve and harmony and cadence? Where is the 'fine careless rapture' of the artist? Where is the inspiration of the poet? Surely it is better that we should ignorantly worship than that we should be turning Apollo into a sophist and setting the Muses to keep school. Part of this objection has already been met. The true sphere of analysis is not life but the living body, not inspiration but the form in which it is manifested. And herein we may contend that there is a right as well as a wrong use of law. Some rules of Music are purely transitory in their nature, and can therefore only afford an imperfect basis for judgment even in the generation that accepts them. The prohibitions of the old counterpoint, for instance, were in many cases merely conventional limits, determined by the particular characteristics of the human voice; they are therefore no longer binding on our instrumental composers. The restrictions of early harmony were merely retrospective inferences from the actual practice of past compositions: they had no logical validity, and therefore became obsolete. But the laws which here present themselves as a part of the artistic code have a double claim on our acceptance: first, that they are, as a matter of fact, embodied in the greatest works of the greatest masters; and second, that they draw their origin from the fundamental attributes of our human nature. For the essential qualities which underlie the artistic character have altered very little since the earliest authentic record of its history. Revolutions have come and gone, fashions have arisen and have passed away, yet the work that made Athens beautiful is still our type and climax of perfect achievement. Literature has been shaken by the clash of contending parties, it has submitted to new dynasties and new leaders, yet the great principles of its constitution are the same now as in the time of the Odyssey. And Music, though it has grown more slowly and deliberately than the representative arts, may still be shown to have sprung from the same source, and to have followed an even more continuous line of evolution. If, then, we can analyse the conditions that have made that evolution possible, we are not degrading Art into a mere ingenious mechanism, but explaining the necessary laws of its life and progress.
Finally, it must be remembered that if excellence in musical art be difficult to formulate, it is not, for that reason, difficult to apprehend. The beauty of a great masterpiece rises from the supreme and consummate expression of characteristics, which, in a greater or less degree, are common to all normal humanity. No doubt, in different races, there are differences of convention, as there are of scale and instrument and musical language, but convention in itself is always negative, and its sole force is the establishment of temporary limitations. Within their widening scope the whole range of the art gradually extends; within them lie its wonders of purity and sublimity, its treasures of pathos and humour, its contrasts of wise reticence and opulent display. And for the proper appreciation of these gifts, there are no strange or recondite qualities demanded, only receptivity of ear, only sanity of emotion, only patience that is willing to observe, and courage that is ready to speak its mind. The rest is a matter of training and experience: training by which we rouse our faculties to a higher stage of development, experience by which we learn to equip our criticism with new facts and new relations. In Music it is essentially true that 'admiration grows as knowledge grows': it is equally true that knowledge itself lies open to the attainment of all honest endeavour.
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