"PURE MUSIC"

The point has been raised in discussion—"Is there such a thing as pure music?" The question involved is whether music must necessarily convey any emotional message, or whether it may just be a concourse of sweet sounds signifying nothing. There are those who are prepared to lend support to the proposition on either side: but, inasmuch as the whole object of these pages has been to emphasise the spiritual message of music, our viewpoint would naturally lead us to take up a position in conflict with that of the "pure music" school.

The difficulty in all discussion, and particularly in such as this, consists in the fact of our own individual uniqueness. Little as we may realise it, our standards of judgment and criticism are purely individual and infinitely variable. Two people see a thing: put scientifically, the result of this is that each experiences a stimulation of the optic nerve. Apart from any differences arising from the varying powers of concentration and observation, the stimulus will be the same. But the next step in the process of seeing is the translation of this nerve-stimulus by the brain into a visual image: this can only be done by the awakening of a brain-picture which is already there—in short, by recognition. As the pictures already existing in the mind are compiled by the experience of the individual, and as no two sets of experiences can possibly be identical in all respects, it follows that the visual image awakened is a purely personal and unique one. The thing seen is variable according to the individual. It is impossible for us to observe alike even when we are concerned with concrete objects: still more is it impossible when we deal with abstract subjects such as Art and Beauty. Hence arises the fundamental difficulty of discussion.

In the world of affairs we have arrived at certain understandings or conventional views which we generally accept, and upon this basis we proceed to argue as if our facts were facts—which which they are not. We agree to regard a certain "colour" as red, although as a matter of fact it is neither a colour, nor is it red. Colour is merely the reflection of certain light rays transmitted by ether waves: our red object reflects the red rays of the spectrum, having absorbed all the others. But in the absence of light our object is no longer red, and colour does not exist. Had we generally agreed to call this colour blue, then it would be blue instead of red. The basis of any argument about colour must be some sort of convention of this kind to form a common meeting ground. The difficulty in discussion about music is that such a conventional basis of agreement does not exist.

Music may thus convey a message to one person and not to another: it may be "pure music" carrying no emotion to this man, and yet it may convey something peculiarly definite, to the mind of the other. The message is not a thing of which we can logically argue "either it is, or it is not": both statements may be true. Sound exists in the form of vibration, but if I am deaf I cannot hear it: it has no existence—FOR ME. The problem thus centres itself largely in the mind of the individual rather than in the question whether there is or is not a message and a meaning. Not only music, but the whole world is brimming over with messages and meanings which our dull senses cannot appreciate. The folk who populate this globe are largely dead. They answer to such a limited range of interests and sensations that they cannot in any real sense be said to be "alive."

The message of music may be a very gossamer thing, it may be far too tenuous to be expressed in words, though possibly it might be conveyed eloquently enough in some of the sister Arts, in dancing, posture, gesture, or in facial expression. "Pour not out words where there is a musician," says the writer in Ecclesiasticus. The message may scarcely be a thought, or emotion, or even an idea: it may simply be a mood. Words so often become our masters instead of our servants, and we are apt to think that if a thing cannot be reduced to a verbal formula it is an airy nothing, a figment of the imagination. So it may be, but it is none the less real. We have thought of ourselves as material individuals for so long that it is difficult for us to use other than material standards in our estimate of immaterial things: hence our confusion. We can feel a thousand things far too delicate to explain or express, joys too exquisite to voice, doubts too tenuous to utter, and griefs too heavy to be borne: we could not put them on paper, nor submit to be cross-examined as to their reality and substance, but there they are, and not all the argument in the world could impugn their reality to us. What is the most emotional of all the Arts? Music. No art has a deeper power of penetration, no other can render shades of feeling so delicate."[22]

Let us take a concrete example: the change from the major to the minor mode carries with it a change of sentiment. We feel that, quite noticeably, the minor mood is one of sadness and resignation as compared with the major of brightness and activity. It may be advanced that this is merely a matter of association in the mind, that we have been long accustomed to relate grief and melancholy and sadness with minor keys, and that therefore the one idea very naturally brings up the other. The argument is logical, and cannot be summarily dismissed. But when we reflect that this contrast of activity and resignation, as typified by the major and minor modes, also corresponds to the fundamental relation of the sexes, the active and the receptive, the "doing" and "being," we may question whether association is sufficient as an explanation. The major and minor modes may thus be themselves but expressions of some deeper spiritual relationship embodied in the nature of things.

Without giving rise to any definite emotion, and in the absence of any specific programme, it is thus quite possible for music to suggest a mood or to induce an atmosphere. Surely this is, in effect, the conveyance of a message and a meaning, even though both be inarticulate. Such influences may call to like moods or atmospheres within ourselves and bring them into expression: by being made thus explicit instead of remaining latent they gain added strength, and are recorded in ourselves by memory. Thus even the mood suggested by the music of the moment may be a lasting item in our soul's growth. Art in all its variety of noble forms is ever beckoning to the best in us, to the sense of the beautiful and to the unformulated ideal: it is the spirit clothed in form calling to the spirit not yet expressed, bidding it build beauty. "This building of man's true world—the living world of truth and beauty—is the function of Art. Man is true, where he feels his infinity, where he is divine, and the divine is the creator in him. Therefore with the attainment of his truth he creates."[23] This call to spirit is the old allegory of the sleeping beauty waiting to be awakened to her royal rank by the kiss of the seeking prince: it is the same truth as expressed in the Bible—"We love Him because He first loved us."

It is not music alone that thus seeks to arouse our latent divinity and to stimulate the tenuous virtues which expression alone can make robust. When rhythm without calls to the rhythm within, it answers because it must. "Dancing is symbolical, it means something, it expresses a feeling, a state of mind."[24] The grace of the dancer may very well stir something in mind that ordinarily receives but little awakening. With the changes in the rhythm of the dance, and the gestures that vary in consonance, the echo within sings to a new tune. Perhaps we find ourselves tapping the rhythm with our feet or our fingers, or it may be that we find the very expression on our own face is altering to match that upon the countenance of the dancer. The skilful speaker also can arouse almost any emotion he pleases in the minds of his audience. He may one moment have them laughing, and then the next, as if by magic touch, he may bring them to sober mood or even to sorrow. Music no less surely does the same through the agency of rhythm, melody, and harmonic texture. There may be no words in the music or the dance, but the emotion is nevertheless conveyed. Moreover, each idea in mind has its own associations, and when once the central idea is implanted it forthwith proceeds to clothe itself in these associations, decking itself out according to the native colour of the mind.

We find it impossible to conceive that anything which may be termed music is devoid of significance, though there are certainly gradations and degrees of import. It may well be that music, like so many other things in nature, has a three-fold aspect corresponding to our own make-up as body, soul, and spirit. The outer form, the composition and actual structure, represents the "body" of music: that part which is visible even to the unobservant eye and audible to the indiscriminating ear. This is a matter of notes and tones quite apart from any real meaning or value. Such would be an academic exercise, or a technically correct but unconvincing ballad. It might possibly make some appeal to the intellect by by virtue of the "exhibition of balance and symmetry, the definiteness of plan and design, the vitality and proportion of organic growth,"[25] but this would not suffice to place it in the category of music displaying the "soul" element.

This second and higher "soul" significance shows itself in the emotional appeal of the music, in the feelings it provokes and the mood it engenders. Here sound speaks in parables with an outer story and an inner meaning. The non-musical person hears sounds, but the musical mind hears sense. Whether the tidings be of sweetness, affection, or delight, of strength, vigour, or energy, of sorrow or regret, there is all the difference in the world between the outward comprehension and the inner interpretation. The formal part of the music is the frame, but the emotion supplies the picture within.

Yet this is not all. There is still the significance which the picture is intended to convey, the spirit, the very heart of it. This constitutes the inspiration and "if this inner reality (Spirit) does not exist in a work it ceases to be a work of art at all: it becomes an example of beautiful handiwork—fine craftsmanship, perhaps—but not art."[26]

It is only in the spirit that the real meaning of true music is to be found, minor and partial revelations may be met and enjoyed at the lower stages, and at their level these may satisfy the aspirations of those who cannot take the higher seats at the musical feast. It is impossible that this spiritual message should be comprehended except by those who have in some measure unfolded their own spiritual perceptions. Spiritual things must be spiritually discerned. The Bible has its literal and verbal message, appropriate in degree to those whose intellectual accomplishment rises no further than an ordinary story: but there is an inner meaning which the more advanced can appreciate. There is yet an esoteric meaning, a holy of holies, into which only the initiated and instructed can penetrate, and this only those whose spiritual vision is unfolded can discern. "Only those in whom the spirit is evolved can understand the spiritual meaning."[27] But each stage has its gospel, though that of the higher stages is incomprehensible to those in the lower. So in all true music there are meanings within meanings, and nothing is meaningless. "Pure" music perhaps conveys the innermost meaning of all, for "shades of colour, like shades of sound, are of a much subtler nature, (and) cause much subtler vibrations of the spirit than can ever be given by words."[28]

In this three-fold aspect of music, then, we may perhaps find the key as to whether music must necessarily imply anything or not. There are the outer courts of the Temple of Art, where the meaning and expression is adapted to those who may foregather only there, but there are the inner courts where "more of truth" is to be found by those who have ears to hear. But in the inmost chamber we may discern in the greatest masterpieces in music that "something beside, some divine element of life by which they are animated and inspired."[29] All true music has true meaning, but this must correspond at each stage with the power and grade of discrimination and appraisement possible for the individual. We are wise in our generation if we refrain from disparaging what we do not understand; it is easy to reflect upon ourselves in such disparagement. Conversely, if there be no meaning, surely there is no music, and we need waste no time in endeavouring to find a message and a meaning in that composition wherein the composer himself could find none to put.