THE INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC SERIES
VOLUME LXXVI
THE INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC SERIES
THE EVOLUTION OF
THE ART OF MUSIC
BY
C. HUBERT H. PARRY
D. C. L. DURHAM, M. A. OXON.
MTJS. DOC. OXON., CANTAB., AND DUBLIN ; HON. FELLOW
COLLEGE, OXFORD
NEW YORK AND LONDON
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
19 16
Authorized Edition, .
PEEFAOE
The following outline of the Evolution of Musical Art was
undertaken, at the invitation of Mr. Kegan Paul, somewhere
about the year 1884. Its appearance was delayed by the
constantly increasing mass of data and evidence about the
music of savages, folk music, and mediaeval music; and by
the necessity of exploring some of the obscure and neglected
corners of the wide-spread story of the Art. And though the
subject was almost constantly under consideration, with a
few inevitable interruptions, the book was not completed till
1893.
Obligations in many directions should be acknowledged —
especially to Mr. Edward Dannreuther, for copious advice,
suggestions, and criticisms during the whole time the work
was in hand j to Miss Emily Daymond, of Holloway College,
for reading the proofs ; to Mr. W. Barclay Squire, for untiring
readiness to make the resources of the Musical Library of the
British Museum available ; to Mr. A. J. Hipkins, for advis-
ing about the chapter on Scales ; and to Mr. Herbert Spencer,
Mr. H. H. Johnston, and many others for communications
about the dancing and music of savage racea
The title, under which the book was first published in 1893,
was evidently nisleading, and has therefore been slightly
amplified, with the view of suggesting the intention of the work
•340503
VI PREFACE
more effectually. It is hoped that the drawback under which
it labours, through the impossibility of introducing many
musical illustrations in such a narrow space, may before long
be remedied by the publication of a parallel volume, consisting
almost entirely of musical excerpts and works which are not
easily accessible to the general public, so arranged as to show
the continuous process of the development of the Musical Art
in actuality.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PRELIMINARIES
The artistic disposition — Susceptibility and impulse towards ex-
pression — Music in the rough, in animals, in savages — Design
essential — Expressive cries and expressive gestures leading to
■ong and dancing — Melody and rhythm — The art based upon
contrasts — Nervous exhaustion and its influence on the art —
Tension and relaxation — Organisation
CHAPTER II
SCALES
Definite relations of pitch indispensable — Slow development of scales
— Slender beginnings — Practicable intervals — Scale* variable in
accordance with the purposes for which they are wanted —
Melodic scales — Heptatonic and pentatonio — Ancient Greek
system — Modes — Persian system — Subtle organisation — Indian
system — Modes and ragas — Chinese system — Japanese — Javese
— Siamese — Bagpipe scale — Beginnings of modern European
system — Classification of notes of scale— Temperament . • IS
CHAPTER III
FOLK-MUSIC
Mnsio of savages — First efforts in the direction of design — Ele-
mentary types — Reiteration of phrases — Sequences — Tonality —
Ornament — Pattern tunes — Universality of certain types of
design — Racial characteristics — Expression and design — Highest
forms— Decline of genuine folk music . . . • 47
viu CONTENTS
CHAPTER IV
INCIPIENT HARMONY
turn
Murtc and religion— Musio of early Ohrietian Church— Doubling
melodies — Organum or diaphony— Counterpoint or descant —
Singing several tunes at once — Motets — Influence of diaphony
—Canons— Cadences— Indefiniteness of early artistio musio—
Influence of the Church 8a
CHAPTER V
THE ERA OF PURE CHORAL MUSIC
Universality of choral music — Aiming at beauty of choral effect —
Contrapuntal effect— Harmonic effect — Secular forms of choral
music— Madrigals— Influence of modes— Accidentals— Early
experiments in instrumental music — Imitations of choral forms
—Viols— Lutes — Harpsichords — Organ — Methods — Homo-
103
CHAPTER VT
THE RISE OP SECULAR MUSIC
Reforming idealists— First experiments in opera, oratorio, and can-
tata — Recitative — Beginnings indefinite — Expression — Ten-
dency towards definition— Melody— Arias— Realism— Tendency
of instrumental music towards independence . . iaj
CHAPTER VH
COMBINATION OF OLD METHODS AND NEW
PRINCIPLES
Renewed cultivation of contrapuntal methods — Influence of Italian
taste and style upon Handel— His operas— His oratorios— J. 8.
Baoh Influences which formed his musical obaracter —Differ-
CONTENTS lx
MM
enoe of iUlian and Teutonic attitude, towards music— Instru-
mentation-Choral effect-lUlian oratorio-Passxon musio-
Publio career of Handel-Bach's isolation-Ultunate uafluenoe
of their work
»57
«93
CHAPTER VIII
CLIMAX OF EARLY INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC
E. riy instrumental music contrapuntal-Fugue-Organ music-
Orchestral music-Harpsichord and cWhord-Su.tes and
£ rt itas-«Das wohltemperirte Clavier "-Unique poeitmn of
J. S. Bach in instrumental musio
CHAPTER IX
BEGINNINGS OF MODERN INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC
Systematise of harmony-The early Italian ™ U ™*- Di8 ^
^ tion of contrasted types of movements m «™P^™»
Latas-Harpsichord .onata.- Operatic influenoe-Overtur.
and Binf oni» ,•••••
CHAPTER X
THE MIDDLE STAGE OF MODERN OPERA
Formality of the opera seria-Intermeizos-Comic features-Style
F ^cfuck and e rpression-Piccini_Mozart-Itahan influence
Idomeneo - Instrumentation - Teutonic aspiration - Artistic
achievement ..•••*
CHAPTER XI
THE MIDDLE STAGE OF -SONATA" FORM
in a formal sense
«3
*33
X CONTENTS
CHAPTER XH
BALANCE OF EXPRESSION AND DESIGN
warn
Development of I— M l Importance of Mozart's work at the
particular moment— Beethoven's impulse towards expression—
His keen feeling for design— Preponderance of sonatas in bis
works— His three periods— Richness of sound— The pianoforte
—The orchestra— Use of characteristic qualities of tone-
Expansion of design— Expression— The scherzo— Close texture
of Beethoven's work— His devices— Programme . . . *49
CHAPTER Xm
MODERN TENDENCIES
Characterisation— Increase of impulse towards the embodiment of
definite ideas external to music— Spohr— Weber— Mendelssohn
Berlioz— Instrumentation— Resuscitation of oratorio— Its peculi-
arities—Change in the aspect of choral writing— Secular choral
works— Declamation— Solo song— Treatment of words— Expres-
sion and design -Pianoforte music— Obviousness and obscurity
—Realism— Great variety of traits and forms . • *73
CHAPTER XTV
MODERN PHASES OP OPERA
Italian disposition and its fruits— French opera— German ideals-
Wagner— Early influences— Instinct and theory— Exile and
reflection— Maturity— Methods and principles— Leit motive-
Tonality— Instrumental effect— Design and expression again—
Declamation and singing — Profusion of resources . 306
8CHMABT A»D COMOLDBKMi '333
INDEX **
THE ART OF MUSIC
CHAPTER I
PRELIMINARIES
There are probably but few people in the world so morose as
to find no pleasure either in the exercise or the receipt of
sympathy, and it is to be hoped there are very few so blind
or perverse as to regard it as an undesirable and useless factor
in the human psychological outfit. Whether it is the higher
development of an original instinct which enabled mankind
to rise above the rest of the animal world by co-operation and
mutual helpfulness, or whether it is the outcome of the state
of mutual dependence which is the lot of human beings, it is
obviously a quality without which society could hardly continue
to exist in the complicated state of organisation at which it has
arrived. The jarring interests of hurrying, striving millions
require something more than mere cold-blooded utilitarian
motives to keep them properly balanced ; and in matters of
everyday life the impulses which tend to mutual helpfulness and
forbearance are fed by the ordinary phases of this omnipresent
instinct. But there are many kinds and infinitely variable
degrees of sympathy, and some people love best to bestow it.
and some there are who much prefer to receive it. And
apart from the ordinary sympathetic consideration of every-
day life on the one hand, and of the devoted sym pathetic
heroism which often rises to the pitch of entire sacrifice of
self on the other, most people have some special lires and
subject* which excite their sympathetic instincts, and make
2 THE ART OF MUSIO
them specially conscious of the delight of fellowship in tastes
and jnternsts, whether it be politics, science, literature, art, or
sport ; and in such circumstances the instinct, without passing
the bounds of normal healthiness of tone, may rise to a degree
of refined responsive sensitiveness, which is productive of a very
high quality of happiness.
But of all types of humanity, those who are possessed with
artistic dispositions are notoriously most liable to an absorb-
ing thirst for sympathy, which is sometimes interpreted by
those who are not artistic as a love of approbation or noto-
riety ; and though a morbid development of the instinct may
sometimes degenerate into that unhappy weakness, the almost
universal prevalence of the characteristic cannot be summarily
accounted for on such superficial grounds, but deserves more
discriminating consideration. The reason that artistic and
poetic human beings are generally characterised by such a con-
spicuous development of their sympathetic instincts appears
to lie in the fact that they are peculiarly susceptible to beauty
of some kind, whether it be the obvious external kind of
beauty, or the beauty of thought and human circumstance ;
and that the keenness of their pleasure makes them long to
enhance their own enjoyments by bringing their fellow-men
sympathetically into touch with them. From this point of
view the various arts of painting, sculpture, music, literature,
and the rest, are_t-he_.outQgnifi. oi the_instinctive desire__to
convey impressions and enjoyments to others, and to re^
"present in the most attractive and permanent forms the
ideas, thoughts, circumstances, scenes, or emotions which
bave powerfully stirred the artists' own natures. It is the
intensity of the pleasure or interest the artist feels in what
is actually seen or present to his imagination that drives him
to utterance. The instinct of utterance makes it a necessity
to Cud terms which will be understood by other beings in^
whom his appeal can strikfe a sympathetic chord ; and the
stronger the delight in the thought or feeling, the greater is
the desire to make the form in which it is conveyed un-
mistakably clear and intelligible. But intelligibility depends
to a great extent in all things upon principles of structure,
PRELIMINARIES 3
And structure implies design; hence the instinctive desire to
make a thought or artistic conception unmistakably intelligible
is a great incentive to the development of .design.
Design has different aspects in different arts ; but in all it
is the equivalent of organisation in the ordinary affairs of
life. It is the putting of the various factors of effect in the
right places to make them tell. In some arts design seems
the very essence and first necessity of existence, and though
in music it is less easily understood by the uninitiated than
in other arts, it is in reality of vital importance. . Music indeed
cannot exist till the definiteness of some kind of design is
present in the succession of the sounds. The impression
produced by vague sounds is vague, and soon passes away
altogether. They take no permanent hold on the mind till
they are made definite in relation to one another, and are
disposed in some sort of order by the distribution of their
up and down motion or by the regularity of their rhythmic
recurrence. Then the impression becomes distinct, and its
definiteness makes it permanent. In most arts it is the
permanence of the enjoyment rather than that of the artistic
object itself which is dependent on design. In sculpture, for
instance, the very materials seem to ensure permanence ; but
undoubtedly a piece of sculpture which is seriously imperfect
in design soon becomes intolerable, and is willingly abandoned
by its possessor to the disintegrating powers of rain and frost,
or to some corner where it can be conveniently forgotten.
Painting does not seem, at first sight, to require so much skill
in designing, because the subjects which move the artist to
express himself are so obvious to all men ; but nevertheless
the most permanent works of the painting art are not those
which are mere skilful imitations of nature, but those into
which some fine scheme of design is introduced to enhance the
beauty or inherent interest of the artist's thought.
In music, form and design are most obviously necessary, not
only because without them the impression conveyed is indefinite
and fugitive, but also because the very source and origin of its
influence on human beings is so obscure. To some people beauty
of form in melody or structure seems the chief excuse for the
2
4 THE ART OF MUSIC
art's existence ; and even to more patient observers it seems to
be on a different footing from all tbe other arts in respect of it*
meaning and intention. Even the most unsophisticated dullard
can see what inspired the painter or the sculptor to express him-
self, but he cannot understand what music means, nor what it
is intended to express ; and many practical people look upon it
as altogether inferior to other arts, because it seems to have no
obviously useful application. Painting naturally appears to the
average mind to be an imitative art ; and, drawing a conclusion
from two premises which are both equally false, some people
have gone on to suppose that the only possible basis of all
arts, including music, is imitation, and to invent the childish
theory that the latter began by imitating birds' songs. There is
no objection to such a theory if considered as a pretty poetical
myth, and instances of people imitating birds in music can of
course be substantiated ; but as a serious explanation of the
origin of music it is both too trivial and too incompatible
with fact to be worth discussing. In reality, both arts are
much on the same footing, for painting is no more a purely
imitative art than music. People deliberately copy nature
chiefly to develop the technique which is necessary to enable
them in higher flights to idealise it, and to present their imagin-
ings in the terms of des ign which are f.hpir Hig hest sanctio n.
It is just when a painter deliberately sets himself to imitate
what he sees that he least deserves the name of an artist.
The devices for imitating nature and throwing the unsophisti-
cated into ecstasies, because the results are so like what they
themselves have seen, are the tricks of the trade, and, till they
are put to their proper uses, are on no other footing than the
work of a good joiner or a good ploughman. It is only when
they are used to convey the concentrated ideals of the mind
of the artist in terms of beautiful or characteristic design that
they become worthy of the name of art. Music is really much
on the same footing, for the history of both arts is equally *
that of the development of mastery of design and of the
technique of expression. The only real difference is that the i
artist formulates impressions received through the eyes, and
the musician formulates the direct expression of man's inner-
PRELIMINARIES 5
Inost feelings and sensibilitiea In fact, the arts of painting
and sculpture and their kindred are the expression of the
outer surroundings of mau, and music of what is within him ;
and consequently the former began with imitation, and the
latter with direct expression.
The story of music has been that of a slow building up
and extension of artistic means of formulating in terms of de-
sign utterances and counterparts of utterances which in their
raw state are direct expressions of feeling and sensibility.
Utterances and actions which illustrate the raw material of
music are common to all sentient beings, even to those which the
complacency of man describes as dumb. A dog reiterating short
barks of joy on a single note at the sight of a beloved friend
or master is as near making music as the small human baby
vigorously banging a rattle or drum and crowing with exuberant
happiness. The impulse to make a noise as an expression of
feeling is universally admitted, and it may also be noticed that it
has a tendency to arouse sympathy in an auditor of any kind,
and an excitement analogous to that felt by the maker of the
noise. A hound that has picked up the scent soon starts the
responsive sympathy of the chorus of the pack ; a cow wailing
the loss of her calf often attracts the attention and response of
her sisters in neighbouring fields; and the uproarious meetings
of cats at night afford familiar instances bf the effect such
incipient music is capable of exerting upon the feline dis-
position.
Human beings are quite equally sensitive to all forms of
expression. Even tricks of manner, and nervous gestures,
and facial distortions are infectious; and very sensitive and
sympathetic people are particularly liable to imitate uninten-
tional grimaces and fidgets. But sounds which are uttered
with genuine feeling are particularly exciting to human
creatures. The excitement of a mob grows under the innuence
of the shouts its members utter; and takes up with equal
readiness the tone of joy, rage, and defiance. Boys in the
street drive one another to extravagances by like means ; and,
as Cicero long ago observed, the power of a great speaker often
depends not so much on what he cays, as upon the skill with
6 THE ART OF MUSIC
which he uses the expressive tones of his voice. All such
utterances are music in the rough, and out of such elements
the art of music has grown, just as the elaborate arts of
human speech must have grown out of the grunts and whin-
ings of primeval savages. But neither art nor speech begins
till something definite appears in the texture of its material.
Some intellectual process must be brought to bear upon both
to make them capable of being retained in the mind ; and the
early steps of both are very similar. Just as among the early
ancestors of our species, speech would begin when the in-
definite noises which they first used to communicate with one
another, like animals, passed into some definite sound which
conveyed to the savage ear some definite and constant meaD«
ing ; so the indefinite cries and shouts which expressed then
feelings began to pass into music when a few definite nofc«^
were made to take the place of vague, irregular shouting.
And as speech grows more copious in resources when the
delicate muscles of the mouth and throat are trained to
obedience in the utterance of more and more varied inflections,
and the ear is trained to distinguish niceties which have dis-
tinct varieties of meaning; so the Resources of music increased
as the relations of more and more definite notes were estab-
lished, in obedience to the development of musical instinct
and as the ear learnt to appreciate the intervals and the mind
to retain the simple fragments of tune. which resulted.
The examination of the music of savages shows that they
hardly ever succeed in making orderly and well-balanced
tunes, but either express themselves in a kind of vague wail or
howl, which is on the borderland between music and informal
expression of feeling, or else contrive little fragmentary figures
of two or three notes which they reiterate incessantly over and
over again. Sometimes a single figure suffices. When they
are clever enough to devise two, they alternate them, but
without much sense of orderliness ; and it takes a long period
of human development before the irregular haphazard alter-
nation of a few figures becomes systematic enough to have
the aspect of any sort of artistic unity. Through such crude
attempts at music, scales began to grow ; but they developed
PRELIMINARIES 7
extremely slowly, and it was not till special races had arrived
at an advanced state of intellectuality that men began to pay
any attention to the relations of notes to one another, or to
notice that such abstractions could exist apart from the music.
And it has even sometimes happened that races who have de-
veloped up to an advanced standard of intellectuality have not
succeeded in systematising more than a very limited range of
sounds.
But complete musical art has to be made definite in other
respects besides mere melodic up and down motion. The #
successive moments had to be regulated as well as mere
changes of pitch, and this was first made possible by the I
element of rhythm. r~
All musical expression may be broadly distributed into two
great orders. On the one hand, there is the rhythmic _part,
which represents action of the nature of dance motions ; and
on the other, all that melodic part which represents some
kind of singing or vocal utterance. Rhythm and vocal ex-
pression are by nature distinct, and in very primitive states, ,
of music are often found independent of one another, The
rhythmic music is then defined only by the pulses, and has no
change of pitch ; while purely melodic music has change of
pitch, but no definition or regularity of impulse. The latter
is frequently met with among savage races, and even as near
the homes of highest art as the out-of-the-way corners of the
British Isles. Pure, unalloyed rhythmic music is found in
most parts of the uncivilised globe ; and the degree of excite
ment to which it can give rise, when the mere beating of a
drum or tom-tom is accompanied by dancing, is well known
to all the world. It is also a familiar fact that dancing
originates under almost the same conditions as song or any
other kind of vocal utterance) and therefore the rhythmic
elements and the melodic elements are only different forms
in which the same class of feelings and emotions are expressed.
All dancing is ultimately derived from expressive gestures
which have become rhythmic through the balanced arrange-
ment of the human body, which makes it difficult for similar
vitions to be frequently repeated irregularly The evidence
2
g THE ART OF MUSIC
of careful observers from all parts of the globe agrees in
describing barbarous dances as being obvious m their into*
tion in proportion to the low standard of intelligence of the
dancers Savages of the lowest class almost always express
clearly in^their dance gestures the states of mind or the
circumstances of their lives which rouse them to excitement.
The exact gestures of fighting and love-making are reproduced
not only so as to make clear to the spectator what is meant
by the rhythmic pantomime, but even in certain cases so as
to produce a frenzy in the mind of both spectator and
performers, which drives them to deeds of wild ness and
ferocity fully on a par with what they wnuld do in the real
circumstances of which the dancing is merely an expressive
reminiscence. . „_„»*
Tn these respects, dancing, in its earlier stages, is an exact
counterpart of song. Both express emotions in their respe^ive
ways, and both convey the excitement of the performers to
sympathetic listeners; and both lose the obvious traces of
their origin in the development of artistic device* As the
ruder kinds of rhythmic dancing advance and take more of
>he forms of an art, the significance of the gesture, £—
V, be so obvious, and the excitement accompanying the per-
ormance tones down. An acute observer still can trace the
restures and actions to their sources when the conventions
Lt have grown up have obscured their expressive meaning,
aud when the performers have often lost sight of them _ and
the tendency of more refined dancing is obviously to disguise
the original meaning of the performance more and more .and
merely to indulge in the pleasure of various forms off: rhythnno
motion and graceful gesture. But even in modern times
rcasionalrevLionstoanimalism in depraved states oU***
revive the grosser forms of dancing, and forcibly recall the
primitive source of the art. ^ art *i-
In melodic or vocal music the process has been exactly
analogous. The expressive cries soon began to lose then,
airect significance when they were formalised into di tinct
musical intervals. It is still possible to find among low*
organised savages example, of a kind of musm which is m
PRELIMINARIES 9
little defined in detail that the impulsive cry or howl of
expression is hardly disguised at all by anything which could
be described as a definite interval. But the establishment of a
definite interval of any sort puts the performer under restric-
tions, and every step that is made in advance hides the
original meaning of the utterance more and more away under
the necessities of artistic convention. And when little frag-
ments of melody become stereotyped, as they do in every
savage community sufficiently advanced to perceive and re-
member, attempts are made to alternate and contrast them
in some way ; and the excitement of sympathy with an
expressive cry is merged in a crudely artistic pleasure derived
from the contemplation of something of the nature of a
pattern.
It is obvious that the rhythmic principle and the melodic
principle begin very early to react upon one another. Savages
all over the world combine their singing and their dancing;
and they not only sing rhythmically when regular set dances
are going on, but when they are walking, reaping, sowing,
rowing, or doing any other of their daily labours and exercises
which admit of such accompaniment. By such means the
rhythmic and the melodic were combine?!, and it is no reckless
inference that from some such form of combination sprung
the original rhythmic organisation of poetry.
But the tendency to revert to primitive conditions is fre-
quently to be met with even in the most advanced stages of
art ; and an antagonism, which it is one of the problems of
the art to overcome, is persistent throughout its history. In
very quick music the rhythmic principle has an inevitable
tendency to predominate, and in very slow music the melodic
principle most frequently becomes prominent. But it must
be remembered that the principle which represents vocal ex-
pression applies equally to instrumental and to vocal music,
and that rhythmic dance music can be sung. The difference
of principle between melodic quality and rhythmic quality
runs through the whole art from polka to symphony ; and,
paradoxical as it may seem, the fascination which some modern
sensuou? dance-tunes exercise is derived from a distinctly canto
IO THE ART OF MtJSIC
hi,, taoatment of the tune, -hid. appef * «T *"" '"^ '
through the languorous, sensuous, and self-lndulgent side of
^ho XT- show, Ml - much in men a, fa*. *
itself Dreamers and sentimentalists tend to lose their hold
'uTonrhythmie energy; while men of «?^ «£,««££
habits of mind set little store by expressive cantabile Com
poZ of a reflective aud romantic turn of mind hke Schumann
S3™* fa music which demands cantabile expression; and
Len X takHV fa *J*«* «*? • » ^v"
to nations. Certain branches of the Latin race tat. had »
very exceptional ability for singing, and have often shown
themselves very negligent of rhythmic defimtenes, wfate the
Hungarians manifest a truly marvellous instinct o wha «
rhythmic; and the French, being a nation particularly jpven
loexpressing themselves by gesticulation, have shown a most
singular predilection for dance rhythm in all branches of art
In The very highest natures the mastery of both forms of
sxp essioniseqfallyoombined; audit is under such condition,
X musicians who have both methods of expression ^weU
under command, that musio rises to **&**? £°° £
the use of the two principles supplies the basis of the widest
nnntrast of which the art is capable.
InThis respect the two contrasting principles of expression
are types of a system of contrasts which is he basis of aj
Tturlmusical design; and^hen the ultimate origin of all
SJdlrTct .xp^ion of feeling aud an appeal to sympa-
So feeling in olbers, i. considered, it is easy to see that
tanature of the human creature makes contra,; , uiiiversa ly
inevitable Fatigue and lassitude are just as certain to follow
rortheexerciiof mental and emotional faculties .. W
.be exercise of the muscles; and fatigue pu * ■ »«££*•
full enjoyment of the thing which causes it. It .sab oh ely
indispensable in art to provide against it, and it u> the instinct
of he artist who gauges human sensibi. itm, -^ ju,d M.
such respects that enables him to reach the high., ar«>c per
faction fa subtlety a, weU as scope of design The mind tost
S. ^d then .uffere pain from over-much reiteration of .
PRELIMINARIES 1 1
single chord, or of an identical rhythm, or of a special colour,
or of a special fragment of melody ; and even of a thing so
abstract as»a principle. In some of these respects the reason
is easily found in some obvious physiological fact, such as ex-
haustion of nervous force or waste of tissue ; but it appears
certain that the only reason why a similar explanation cannot be
enunciated in connection with the more intangible departments
of human phenomena is that the more refined and subtle
properties of organised matter are not yet perfectly understood
But it holds good, as a mere matter of observation, that the laws
which apply in cases where the physiological reasons are clear
apply also in less obviously physical cases. It is perfectly obvious
that when any part of the organism is exhausted, its energy
can only be renewed by rest. But rest does not necessarily imply
complete lassitude of all the faculties. It is a very familiar
experience of hard-worked men that the best way to recover
from the exhaustion of a prolonged strain is to change entirely
the character of their work. Many of the phenomena of art are
explicable on this principle. Up to a certain point the human
creature is capable of being more and more excited by a
particular sound or a particular colour; but the excitement
must be succeeded by exhaustion, and exhaustion by pain,
if the exciting cause is continued. If the general excitement
of the Whole being is to be maintained, it must be by rousing
the excitable faculties of other parts or centres of the organism;
and it is while these other faculties or nerve-centres are being
worked upon that the faculties which have been exhausted
can recover their tone. ( From this point of view a perfectly
balanced musical work of art may be described as one in
which the faculties or sensibilities are brought up to a certain
pitch of excitation by one method of procedure, and when
exhaustion is in danger of supervening, the general excitation
of the organism is maintained by adopting a different method,
which gives opportunity to the faculties which were getting
jaded to recover ; and when that has been effected, the
natural instinct is to revert to that which first gave pleasure;
and the renewal of the first form of excitation is enhanced
by tne consciousness of memory, together with that sense of
12 THE ART OP MUSIC
renewal of a power to feel and enjoy which is of itself a peon
liar and a very natural satisfaction to a sentient being.
In the earlier stages of the art the struggle to arrive at «
solution of the problem this proposes is dimly seen. As man
had only instinct to find his way with, it is not surprising
that he was long in finding out means of managing and dis-
tributing such contrasts. In the middle period of musical
history, when musical mankind had learnt its lesson, and
took a complacent view of its achievement, the method and
use of such contrasts became offensively obvious ; but in the
modern period they are disguised by infinite variety of musical
and aesthetical devices, and are necessarily made to recur with
extraordinary frequency in proportion to the exhausting kinds
of excitation employed by modern composers. In mature art
the systematisation of such contrasts is vital, and in immature
art it is incipient ; and this fact is the most essential differ-
ence between the two.
Of such types of contrast that of principle between the
r hythm ic and the melodic on one hand, and of e motional and
in tellect ual on the other, are the widest. The manner in
tfhich they are applied in the highest works of absolute
music, such as symphonies and sonatas, will hereafter come
under consideration.
In the earliest stage of musical evolution these respective
principles show themselves especially in the manner in which
definition is obtained, since, as has been pointed out, deBnite-
ness is the first necessity of art. From melodic utterance
came the development of the scale, from dancing the distribu-
tion of pulses. The former is the result of man's instinct to
express by vocal sounds, the latter of his instinct to express
by gestures and actions; and in the gradual evolution of the
art the former supplies the element of sensibility, and the
Utter that of energy ; and when the nature of both is con-
sidered it will be felt that these characteristics are in accord-
ance with the nature of their sources.
To sum up. The raw material of music is found in the
expressive noises and cries which human beings as well as
animals give vent to under excitement of any kind ; and
PRELIMINARIES 1 3
their contagious power is shown, even in the incipient stage,
by the sympathy which they evoke in other sentient beings.
Such cries pass within the range of art when they take any
definite form, just as speech begins when vague signals of
sound give place to words ; and scales begin to be formed
when musical figures become definite enough to be remem-
bered. In the necessary process of making the material
intelligible by definition, the rhythmic gestures of dancing
played an important part, for by their means the succession
of impulses was regulated. Both vocal music and dancing
actually originate in the same sources ; as they are different
ways of manifesting similar types of feeling. But they are in
their nature contrasted, for in the one case it is the sound
which forms the means of expression, and in the other it is a
muscular action ; and the music which springs from these two
sources is marked by a contrast of character in conformity
with their inherent differences. This contrast presents itself
as the widest example of that law of contrasts which runs
through the whole art, and forms, next to the definition of
material, its most essential featured
The law of contrasts forms the basis of all the important
forms of the art, for a most obvious and natural reason. The
principle of sympathetic excitement upon which the art rests
necessarily induces exhaustion ; and if there was no means of
sustaining the interest in some way which allowed repose to
the faculties that had been brought into exhausting activity,
the work of art could go no further than the point at which
exhaustion began. It is therefore a part of the business of
the art to maintain interest when one group of faculties is in
danger of becoming wearied, by calling into play fresh powers
of sensibility or thought, and giving the first centres time to
recover tone. And as there would be no point in such a
device if the first group of faculties were not called into
exercise again when they had revived, the balance and rationale
of the process is shown in mature periods of art by a return
to the first principle of excitation or source of interest after
the establishment of the first distinct departure from it,
which embodied this inevitable principle of contrast,
14 THE ART OF MUSIC
Taking the most comprehensive view of the story of musical
evolution, it may be said that in the earlier stages, while the
actual resources were being developed and principles of design
were being organised, the art passed more and more away
from the direct expression of human feeling. But after a
very important crisis in modern art, when abstract beatity
was specially emphasised and cultivated to the highest degree
of perfection, the balance swung over in the direction of
expression again ; and in recent times music has aimed at
characteristic illustration of things which are interesting and
attractive on other grounds than mere beauty of design or of
textura.
CHAPTER II
SCALES
I The first indispensable requirement of music is a series ticfl of the ancients was in
like manner exactly contr aVv, t o ours^ To take one con-
sideration out of many as an illustration. The leading note of
modern music always tends upwards ; in other words, the
note which lies nearest to the most essential note of the
■cale, which is always heard in the final cadence, and is its
most characteristic melodic feature, is below the final and
rises to it. But this is exactly the reverse of the natural
instinct in vocal matters, and contrary to the meaning of
the word cadence.
SCALES 19
Most of the natural cadences of the voice in speaking tend
downwards. When a man raises his voice at the end of a
sentence he is either asking a question or expressing astonish-
ment, and these are expressions of feeling which are in a
minority. (Pure vocal art follows the rule of the inflections
in speaking ;, and in melodic systems, which are so much in-
fluenced by the voice, cadences which rise to the final sound
are almost inconceivable. They might be possible as ex-
pressing great exaltation of feeling and power; but in most
cases a cadence means, artistically, a point of repose, and it is
only in very exceptional cases that a point of repose can be
imagined on a high note ; for the sustainment of a high note
implies tension of vocal chords and effort, and such sustained
effort can scarcely be regarded as a point of repose. In
modern music the cadence is a harmonic process, and not a
melodic one ; and the upward motion from the leading note
to the tonic in cadences becomes intelligible as successive
positions of upper portions of the essential harmonies which
happen to coincide with aesthetic requirements of melody when
supported by the chords which supply the other requisites of
a cadence simultaneously.
In melodic systems the majority of cadences are, as the
word implies, made downwards ; and undoubtedly in a majority
of cases the scale was developed downwards. In such circum-
stances the difficulty of accounting for the more frequent
appearance of the fourth than the fifth in scales used only
for melodic purposes disappears, for, going downwards, it is
perfectly natural and easy to hit the interval of the fourth.
Moreover, a notable peculiarity in the construction of many
and various scales increases the likelihood of the fourth having
heen first chosen downwards, while it also explains the early
appearance of the interval of a third, lit is an indubitable
fact that scales are developed by adding ornamental notes to
the more essential notes which have been first established ;
that is, notes which lie close to the essential notes, and to which
the voice can waver indefinitely to and fro. A note of this
kind would not at first be very exact in its relative position.
Mere uncertainty of voice would both suggest it and make it
20 THE ART OF MUSIC
variable ; but undoubtedly it became a conspicuous feature ol
tbe cadences very early. If the fourth below was chosen by
a musical people in developing the melodic scale downwards,
it is likely to be verified by the frequent appearance ot a note
a semitone above it, as this would be the first addition made
to the scale, and would serve as the downward-tending leading
note of the system.
There are many facts which justify this theory of the
development of the scale, notably the construction of ancient
Greek scale, and of the modern Japanese and the aboriginal
Australian scale, such as it is, and even of the scale indicated
by the phonographed tunes of some of the Red Indians of
North America. \The first scale which history records as
having been used by the Greeks is indeed absolutely nothing
more than a group of three notes, of which those which are
furthest apart make the interval of the fourth, and the re-
maining note is a semitone above the lower note. This is
precisely the group of notes which analogy and argument
alike lead us to expect in the second stage of scale-making
under melodic influences, and it affords an almost decisive
proof that the first interval chosen was the downward fourth.
The Japanese system had no possible direct connection with
the Greek system, but the same group of notes is prominently
characteristic, and is undoubtedly used with persistent reitera-
tion in their music. A modern European can get the effect
for himself by playing C, and the At?' and G below it on«
after another, and reiterating them in any order he pleases,
so long as he makes At? the last note but one, and G the final.
The result is a curious reversal of our theories of musical
aesthetics, for G seems to become the tonic, and C the note of
secondary importance — a state of things which is only con-
ceivable if we think of the scale as tending downwards instead
'A upwards.
But it is not to be denied that some races seem to have
chosen a rising fifth as the nucleus of the scale, though it is
much less common. The voice has to rise in singing as well
as to fall, and it is conceivable that some races should have
thought more o r the rise, which comes early in the musical
SCALES 2 1
phrase, than of the fall, which naturally comes at the end.
One of the most astute and ingenious analysts of musical
scales, Mr. Ellis, thought that early experimenters in music
found out the fifth as the corresponding note to the fourth ou
the other side of the note from which the fourth was first
calculated. The proof of the fifth's being recognised early —
beyond its inherent likelihood — lies in the fact that some bar
barous scales comprise the interval of an augmented fourth,
such as C to F$, which is only intelligible in a melodic system
on the ground of the F$ being an ornamental note appended
to the G next above it. The original choice of a fifth or a
fourth as the basis or starting-point may have had something
to do with the fact that nearly all known scales which have
arrived at any degree of completeness can be grouped under
two well-contrasted heads. ( Thescah3s of China, Japan, Java,
and the Pacific Islands are all pe n tatonic in their recognised
structure. That is, they theoretically comprise only five notes
within the limits of the octave, which are at various distances
from one another. But in this group the fifth above the
lowest note is a prominent and almost invariable item. The
rest of the most notable scales of the world are structurally
heptatonic, and comprise seven essential notes in the octave.
Suchare the scales of India, Persia, Arabia, probably Egypt,
certainly ancient Greece and modern Europe. ^ And in these
the fourth was the interval which seems to have been first
recognised. To avoid misconception, it is necessary to point
out that all these scales have been subjected to modifications
in practice, and their true nature has thereby been obscured.
But the situation becomes intelligible by the analogy of our
own use of the modern scales. Ours are undoubtedly seven-
note scales, as even children who practise them are painfully
aware; but in actual use a number of other notes, called
accidentals, are admitted, both as modifications and as orna-
ments. The key of C is clearly represented to every one by
the white keys of a pianoforte, but there is not a single black
note which every composer cannot use either as an ornament
or as a modification without leaving the key of C. Similarly,
nearly all the pentatonic scales have been filled in, and th«
22 THE ART OF MUSIC
natives who use them are familiar with other notes besides
the curious and characteristic formula of five ; but in the back-
ground of their musical feelings the original foundation of
their system remains distinct, just as the scheme of the key
of C remains distinct in the mind of an intelligent musical
person even when a player sounds all the black notes in a
couple of bars which are nominally in that key.
It undoubtedly made a great difference whether the fifth or
fourth was chosen, for it is noticeable that small intervals like
semitones are rare in five-note systems and common in seven-
note systems ; and this peculiarity has a very marked effect
in the music, for those which lend themselves readily to the
addition of semitones have proved the most capable of higher
development.\^p is unnecessary to speculate on the way in
which savages* gradually built their scales by adding note to
note, as the historical records of Greek music go so far back
into primitive conditions that the actual process of enlarge-
ment can be followed up to the state which for ancient days
must be considered mature. It is tolerably clear that the
artistic standard of the music of the Greeks was very far
behind their standard of observation and general intelligence
in other matters^fcThey spent much ingenious thought upon
the analysis of th&r scales, and theorised a good deal upon
the nature of combinations which they did not use ; but their
account of their music itself is so vague that it is difficult to
get any clear idea of what it was really like. And it still
seems possible that a large portion of what has passed
into the domain of " well-authenticated fact " is complete
misapprehension, as Greek scholars have not time for a
thorough study of music up to the standard required to judge
securely of the matters in question, and musicians as a rule
are not very intimate with Greek. But certain things may
fairly be accepted as trustworthy. Among them is, of course,
the enthusiasm with which the Greeks speak of music, and
their belief in the marvellous power of its effects. >r^he stories
of Orpheus and Amphion and others testify to this belief
strongly, and mislead modern people into supposing that
their music was a great art lost, when the very details and
SCALES 23
style of their evidence tend to prove the contrary. It is not
in times when art is mature that people are likely to tell
stories of overturning town walls or taming savage animals
with it ; but rather when it is in the elementary stages,
in which the personal character of the performer adds so
much to the effect. It is a sufficiently familiar fact that in
our own times a performer of genius can move people more
and make more genuine effect upon them with an extremely
simple piece than a brilliant virtuoso of the highest technical
powers can produce with the utmost elaboration of modern
ingenuity. A crowd of people of moderate intelligence go
almost out of their minds with delight when a famous singer
flatters them with songs which to musicians appear the baldest,
amptiest, and most inartistic triviality. The moderns who
are under such a spell cannot tell what it is that moves them,
and neither could the Greeks. They would both confess to
the power of music, and the manner of their confession would
seem to imply that they were very impressionable, but had
not arrived at any high degree of artistic intelligence or
perception. The Greeks, moreover, were much nearer the
beginning of musical things, and may be naturally expected
to have been more under the spell of the individual sympa-
thetic magnetism of the performer than even uneducated
modern people; and the accounts we have of their system
tend to confirm these views. Its limitations are such as do
not encourage a belief in high artistic development, for at no
time did the scheme extend much beyond what could be
reproduced upon the white keys of the pianoforte and an
occasional Bb" and C#; and all the notes used were comprised
within the limits of the low A in the bass stave and the E
at the top of the treble stave. The first records indicate the
time when the relations of three notes only were understood,
which stood in much the same relation to one another that
A F E do in our modern system. This clearly does not
zj^ r^ ey -^-U represent the interval of a third with a semi-
* ^ - H tone below it, but the interval of a fourth
looking downwards with F as a downward lending note to E.
This was called the tetrachord of Olympos. In time the not*
3
24 THE ART OF MUSIC
between A and F was added, which gave a natural flow down
S F— re _^,
from A to E. This was well recognised
as the first nucleus of the Greek^s^em,
and was cal led the Dnn'o-^etr p^ nrd. It was enlarged by th«
simple process of adding another group of notes which corre-
sponded exactly to the first, such as E, D, C, B, below or
above, thereby making a balance to the other tetrachord. It
is possible that their musical sense developed sufficiently to
make use of the artistic effects which such a balance suggests ;
and it is even likely that the desire for such effects was the
immediate cause of the enlargement of the scale. In course
of time similar groups of notes, called tetrachords, were added
one after another, till the whole range of sounds which the
Greeks considered suitable for use by the human voice was
mapped out. The whole extent of this scale being only from
A in the lower part of the bass stave to A in the treble, indi-
cates that the Greeks preferred only to hear the middle portion
of the voice, and disliked both the high and low extremes, which
could only be produced with effort ; and it proves also that
their music could not have been of a passionate or excitable
cast, because the use of notes which imply any degree of agita-
tion are excluded. The last note which is said to have been
added in the matter of range was the A below the lowest B,
which was attributed to a lyre-player of the name of Phrynis
in 456 B.C. But this note was considered to stand outside the
set of tetrachords, and was not used in singing, but only to
enable the harp-player to execute certain modulations.
The Greek musical system being a purely melodic one, it
was natural that in course of time a characteristic feature of
higher melodic systems should make its appearance. For the
purposes of harmony but few arrangements of notes are neces-
sary ; but for the development of effect in melodic systems it
is very important to have scales in which the order of arrange-
ment of differing intervals varies. In the earliest Greek
nucleus of a scale, the Doric, there was a semitone between
the bottom note and the next above it ix. each tetrachord — u
between B and C, or E and F. In course of time the posi-
tions of the semitones were altered to make different scales,
*£££> fi>H SCALES 25
and then the tetrachord stood as B, Cjf, D, E, or, as in our
modern minor scale, D, E, F, G. This Hfijsjjajled th aJPhry gian.
and was considered the second oldest. Another arrangement
with the semitone again shifted, as B, 0$, D& E, resembles
the lower part of our modern major scale, and was known as
the " Lydj an." When the tetrachords were linked together
at first they overlapped ; as in the Doric form, if the lower
tetrachord was B, C, D, E, the one added above it would be
E, F, G, A, the E being common to both tetrachords. This
was ultimately found unsatisfactory, and a scheme of tetra-
chords which did not overlap was adopted about the time of
Pythagoras. Thus the Doric mode stood asEFGABODE,
the semitones coming between first and second and fifth and
sixth ; the Phrygian mode became like a scale played on the
white notes of the pianoforte beginning on D; and the
Lydian like our ordinary major scale ; and more were added,
such as the ^Eolic, which is like a scale of white notes begin-
ning on A; the Hypolydian, like one beginning on F, and
so forth.
The restrictions of melodies to these modes secured a well-
marked variety of character, to which the Greeks were keenly
alive ; and they expressed their views of these diversities both
in writing and in practice. The Spartan boys were exclu-
sively taught the Doric mode, because it was considered to
breathe dignity, manliness, and self-dependence ; the Phrygian
mode was considered to have been nobly inspiring also, but in
different ways; and the Lydian, which corresponded to our
modern major mode, to be voluptuous and orgiastic, probably
from the fact that the semitones lay in the upper part of
the tetrachords, which in melodic music with a downward
tendency would have a very different aspect from that of our
familiar major mode under the influence of harmony. But
this mode was not in great favour either in ancient times or
in mediaeval times, when attempts were made to revive the
Greek system.
In this manner a series of the notes which were supposed
to ba fit for human beings to sing were mapped out into dii-
2 6 THE ART OF MUSIC
tinct and well-defined positions. But one of the most imp or-
tant developments of .the scale still remained to be made. In
modern times the scale has become so highly organised that
the function of each note and the particular office each fulfils
in the design of compositions is fairly well understood even
by people of moderate musical intelligence. What is called
the tonic, which is the note by which any key is named, is
the most essential note in the scale, and the one on which
every one instinctively expects a melody or a piece of music
in that key to conclude; for if it stops elsewhere everyone
feels that the work is incomplete. To the tonic all other
notes are related in different degrees-the semitone be ow, as
leading to it; the dominant, as the note most strongly con-
trasted with k and so forth. But to judge from the absence
of comment upon such functions of various notes of the scale
by Greek writers, and the obscurity of Aristotle's remarks on
the subject, it must be assumed that the ideas of the Greeks
on such a head were not clearly developed. \^**°™*
when there were only three notes to work with , it ^ seems a
if their musical reason for existence necessarily defined their
functions. But it is probable, as frequently happens in similar
cases outside the range of music, that composers speculated
in arrangements of the notes which ignored the purposes
which brought them into existence; and that, as the scale
grew larger and larger, people ceased to recognise that any
particular note was more important than another It » true
they had distinct names for every note m a mode , and^ two
are specially singled out as important, namely the midd e
note and the "highest," which all modern writers .agree was
what we should call the lowest. If anything can be gathered
Lm the ancient writings on the subject at all, it .won Id see-
to be that the middle note, the « mese," was something like our
dominant, and the "hypate," which we should I call the low**,
was the note to close upon. If this was so, the ongmal func-
tions described on page 20 were still recognised in th ry,
but the wisest writers on the subject in modern time, think
that matters got so confused that a Greek musician would end
upon any note that suited his humour. This vagueness coin-
SCALES 2 J
cides with the state of the scales of all other melodic systems ;
and though the Greeks were more intelligent than any other
people that have used a melodic system, it is very likely that
without the help of harmony it was almost impossible for
them to organise their scale completely.
The Qreeks subjected their scales to various modi fic atio n a
in the courBe of history. It was very natural that such*"
intellectualists as they were should try experiments to enhance
the opportunities of the composer for effect. One experiment
was made very early, which was to add a note like C$, but
less than a semitone above the C, which stood next above the
lowest note of the old Doric tetrachord; and this was called
the chromatic genus. Other experiments were tried in sub-
dividing into yet smaller intervals ; but the various writers
who describe these systems indicate that they were not
altogether successful, as the chromatic genus was regarded
as mawkish and insipid, and the enharmonic genus as too
artificial.
The Greek system may therefore be considered to have
irrived at its complete maturity in the state in which a range
Df sounds extending only for two octaves was mapped out into
a series of seven modes, which can be fairly imitated on a
modern pianoforte by playing the several scales which begin
respectively on E, F, G, A, B, C, D, without using any of
the black keys. The difference between one and another
obviously lies in the way in which the tones and semitones
are grouped, and the device affords a considerable opportunity
for melodic variety. But it appears improbable that the
Greeks arrived at any clear perception of the functions of the
notes of the scale after the manner in which we regard our
tonic and dominant : the full development of this phase of
scale-making had to wait till after the attempt to systematise
ecclesiastical music on what was supposed to be the ancient
Greek basis in the early middle ages ; when the new
awakening of the sense of harmony soon caused scales to take
entirely new aspects. But this being the highest artificial
development of the scale element of music in connection with
harmony must be considered later, as there are many other
2 8 THE ART OF MUSIC
melodic systems like that of the ancient Greeks in principU
but different in their order of arrangement.
In the many and various melodic systems of the world,
scales are found of various structure, but the building of all of
them has evidently been achieved by similar processes. Races
show their average characteristics in their scales as much as
they do in other departments of human energy and contriv-
ance. Such as are gifted with any degree of intellectual
activity have always expended a singular amount of it on
their scales; and the result has been pedantically minute,
or theoretic, or extravagantly fanciful in proportion to their
inclinations in these respects. The Chinese, as might bo
expected, have been at once minutely exact in theory and
bombastically complacent in fancy. The races of the great
Indian peninsula have been wildly fanciful in their imagery,
and equally extravagant in ingenious grouping of notes into
modes; while the Persians and Arabs have been remarkable
for their high development of instinct in threading the difficult
and thorny ways of acoustical theory in such a manner as to
obtain a very perfect system of intonation. The Persian
system is probably the most elaborate scale system in the
world. Nothing appears to be known of early Persian music,
though the earliest records give examples of scales which are
already very complete, implying a very long period of ante-
cedent cultivation of the art. In the tenth century they had
already developed a scale which has the appearance of being
singularly complete, as it comprised all the intervals which are
characteristic of both our major and minor modes, except the
major seventh, which is our upward-tending leading note.
That is, it appears as the scale of C with both E flat and E
natural, and both A flat and A natural, but B flat only instead
of our familiar leading note B. This shows that they certainly
did not at that time attempt cadences of the kind so familiar
in modern harmonic music, but kept to the forms which were
v suitable to a melodic system. They did not, however, long
rest satisfied with a scale of such simplicity. By the time of
Tamerlane and Bajazet the series of notes had been enlarged
by the addition of several more semitones, and had been
16
8CALES 29
systematised into twelve modes, on the same principle and for
the same purposes of melodic variety as had been the case with
the Greeks. In fact, the first three agree exactly with the
ancient Ionic, Phrygian, and Mixolydian modes of the Greeks,
but go by the very different names of Octrag, Nawa, and
Bousilik. But even this did not go far enough for the subtle
minds of the Persians and Arabians. A famous lute-player
adopted a system of tuning which gave intervals that are
quite unknown to our ears ; as, for instance, one note which
would lie between E^ and E, and another between A^ and A,
iL the scale of C. The former is described as * neutral
third, neither distinctly major nor minor, which probably
had a pleasant effect in melodic music ; and the latter, as a
neutral sixth.
Going still further, they applied mathematical treatment of
a high theoretical kind to the further development of the
scale. They evidently discovered the curiously paradoxical
facts of acoustics which make an ideally perfect scale im-
possible, and, to obviate the difficulties which every acoustical
theory of tuning presents, they subdivided the octave into no
less than seventeen notes. Their object was not to have such
a large number of notes to make melodies with, or to employ
quarter tones, but to have a copious variety to select from as
alternatives. The arrangement of these notes was quite
systematic, and gave two notes instead of the one familiar
semitone between each degree of the scale and the one next
to it. That is to say, between D and C ther§ would be two
notes, one a shade less than a semitone (making the interval
known as the Pythagorean limma 243 : 256), and another
a little less than a quarter tone from D (making the interval
known as the comma of Pythagoras (524288 : 531441). And
similar intervals came between D and E, and so on through
the scale. By this ingenious arrangement they secured
absolutely true fifths and fourths, a major third and a major
sixth that were only about a fiftieth of a semitone (that is,
a skisma) short of true third and sixth, and a true minor
seventh. Theoretically this is the most perfect scale ever
devised. Whether it really was used exactly in practice it
30 THE ART OF MUSIC
another matter. Even under harmonic conditions, when notea
are sounded together, it is impossible for the most expert
tuners to make absolutely sure of intervals within such
narrow limits as the fiftieth of a semitone ; while it is well
known that in melodic systems the successions of notes used
by the performers are only approximately true ; for the finest
ear in the world can hardly make sure of a true third or a
true sixth when the notes are only sounded one after the
other. In modern times this remarkable system of the
Persians has been changed still further, by the adoption of
twenty-four equal quarter tones in the octave. But this plan
really lessens the delicate perfection of the adaptability of the
system ; for though it looks a larger choice of notes, it will not
give such absolutely true intervals as the earlier scheme.
With all this wonderful ingenuity in dividing off the range
of sounds for use and defining the units exactly, it appears
that the Persians and Arabians had but an uncertain sense
of what we call a tonic, and, as far as can be gathered, stopped
short of classifying the notes in accordance with their artistic
functions, just as the Greeks seem to have done.
In strong contrast to the Persians the inhabitants of the
great Indian peninsula appear to have sedulously avoided
applying mathematics to their scales ; and though the Indian
scales are even more complicated and numerous than the
Persian, they have been handed down from generation to
generation for ages, purely by aural tradition. Unfortunately
this avoidance of mathematics has caused the subject of
Indian scales to be extremely obscure, and the extraordinarily
high-flown imagery which is used in Indian treatises on music
renders the unravelling of their system the more difficult.
The method used for arriving at the actual scales used by
musicians is to ascertain the exact length of the subdivisions
of the strings which are indicated by the positions of the frets
upon the lute-like instrument called the vina, which has been
in universal use for many hundreds of years, and to test and
compare the notes which are produced by sounding the strings
when "stopped" at such points. The frets are supposed to
mark the points at which the string should be stopped witb
SCALES 3 1
the finger to get the different notes of the scale ; but in
practice a native player can always modify the pitch by
making his finger overlap the fret more or less, and thereby
regulate the fret to get the interval which tradition taught him
to be the right one. In fact the frets on different instruments
vary to a considerable degree — even the octave is sometimes
too low and sometimes too high ; but through examining a
number of specimens a rude average has been obtained, which
seems to indicate a system curiously like the modern European
system of twelve semitones. But it is clear that this can be
only a rough approximate scheme upon which more delicate
variations of relative pitch are to be grafted, for the actual
system of Indian scales is far too complicated to be provided
for by a mere arrangement of twelve equal semitones.
As in the case of the Persian and Arabic system, the
Indian scale does not come within the range of intelligible
record till it is tolerably mature and complete from octave
to octave. In order to get a variety of major and minor
tones and semitones, the scale was in ancient times divided
into twenty-two small intervals called s'rutis, which were a
little larger than quarter tones. A whole tone contained
four 6'rutis, a three-quarter tone three, and a semitone two.
By this system a very fair scale was obtained, in which the
fourth and fifth were very nearly true, and the sixth high
(Pythagorean). In what order the tones and semitones were
arranged seems to be doubtful ; and in modern music the
system of twenty-two s'rutis has disappeared, and a system
of the most extraordinary complexity has taken its place.
The actual series of notes approximates as nearly as possible
to the European arrangement of twelve semitones; and the
peculiarity of the system lies in the way in which it has been
developed into modes. The virtue of the system of modes
already been pointed out, as has the adoption of a few
diverse ones by the Greeks. The Indians went so far as
to devise seventy-two, by grouping the various degrees of the
scale differently in respect of their flats and sharps. The
system can be made intelligible by a few examples out of
this enormous number. Our familiar major mode form!
3 2 THE ART OF MUSIC
one of them, and goes by the name of Dehrasan-kftrabharna.
Our harmonic minor scale also appears under the name of
Kyravani, the Greek modes also make their appearance, and
every other combination which it is possible to get out of the
semitones, but always so that each degree is represented in
some way or another. The extremes to which the process
leads may be illustrated by the following. Tanarupi corre-
sponds to the following succession —
C, Dt?, Et?t> t F, G, A| B, a
Gavambddi to
C, D!?, E>, B| G, A>, B», 0.
This obviously carries the modal system as far as it can go
in the way of variety.
But besides these modes the Indians have developed a further
principle of restriction in the " ragas," which are a number
of formulas regulating the order in which the notes are to
succeed each other. The rule appears to be that when a
performer sings or plays a particular raga he must conform
to a particular melodic outline both in ascending and descend-
ing. He may play fast or slow, or stop on any note and
repeat it, or vary the rhythm at his pleasure ; it even appears
from the illustrations given that he may put in ornamental
notes and little scale passages, and interpolate here and there
notes that do not belong to the system, so long as the
essential notes of the tune conform to the rule of progression.
— Just as in modern harmonic music certain discords must
be resolved in a particular way, but several subordinate notes
may be interpolated between the disccrd and the resolution. —
An example may make the system clearer. The formula given
for the raga called Nada-namakr/a is C, D>, F, G, At>, C in
ascending, and C, B, A>, G, F, E, Dt?, C in descending. In
practice it is evident that the performers are not restricted
to the whole plan at once. G may go either to F descending
or to At? ascending, and At? may either go to or back to G,
and so on ; but the movement from any given note must be
in accordance with the laws of the raga, up or down. Th«
SCALES
33
example of this raga given in Captain Day's Music of Southern
India helps to make the system clear.
In the mode of Maya-milayagaula, and the raga Na la-namakrf i
j^g^Jf-ci
By such means the freedom of the performer is restricted,
but curious special effects are obtained. For instance, the
ascending scheme of Mohanna is C, D, E, G, A, C, which
produces precisely the effect of Chinese or any other pent a
tonic music, though the Indian music belongs to the heptatonic
group of systems ; and close as the restrictions seem to be,
it may be confessed that, judging from the examples given, a
great deal of variety can be obtained without transgressing
them. A similar device to that of the ragas is very commonly
met with even in modern European music, when a composer
restricts a melody to a particular group of notes in order to
give it more definite character.
Pursuing their love of categorising still further, the Indians
restrict particular ragas to particular hours of the day, and
they used also to be restricted to particular seasons of the
year. As was the case with the Greeks and their modes,
the different ragas have different attributes, and are believed
respectively to inspire fear, wonder, anger, kindness, and so
forth. And moreover they are all personified as divine beings,
and have wives and histories, and are the subjects of elaborate
pictures, and apparently also of fanciful poems. This all
points to a very long period of development, and to a con-
siderable antiquity in the established system ; for even peopl«
34 THE ART OF MUSIC
who luxuriate in imagery and fancifulness like the Indians, do
not attribute divine qualities to a scheme which they them-
selves have only devised in comparatively recent times. The
whole story points to a considerable gift for the organisation
of artistic material ; but it is nevertheless recorded that the
Indians have little feeling for anything like a tonic, or for
relative degrees of importance in the notes that compose the
scale; and there seems little restriction as to which note in
the scale may be used for the final close.
The ancient Greek, and the Persian and Indian systems,
are the most important of the heptatonic order, all of which
appear to have been developed from the basis of the fourth ;
and these have served for the highest developments of pure
melodic music. Some of the pentatonic systems (with modes
of five notes) have also admitted of very elaborate and
artistic music; but the standard is generally lower, both in
the development of the scale and of the art for which it
serves.
The system which is usually taken as the type of the pen-
tatonic group is the Chinese, which stands in strongly marked
contrast to the Persian and Indian systems in every way.
The passion for making ordinances about everything, and
the obstinate adherence to schemes which have received the
approval of authority, which characterise the Chinese, make
themselves felt in their scale system as everywhere else.
A.ccording to authorised Chinese history, their music is of
marvellous antiquity, and copious details are given about
the surpassing wonders of the ancient music, and of the great
emperors from nearly 3000 B.C. onwards, who composed music,
and ordinances for its regulation ; but the account is so over-
whelmed by grandiose and absurd myths and extravagances that
it is impossible to trace the development of the scale. It has
been altered several times, but the alterations are by no means of
the nature of developments. About 1300 B.C. the scale is said to
have cones
ponded to C, D, E, G, A, /jr
which may be taken to be the old pentatonic formula.
SCALES 35
About noo B.o. it was amplified to C, D, E, F& G, A, B,
i
Later still, when a great
Mongol invasion occurred, the Mongols changed the Fg to 3?,
and made the scale like our major mode. But then some of
the musicians wanted to use F and some FJJ, and Kubla Khan,
founder of the Mogul dynasty, ordained that there should
be both F and F$ in the scale, which accordingly became
C, D, E, F, Fj, G, A, B, C. About a couple of hundred*
of years later the Fjf was abolished again, and soon after
that the late form of the pen ta tonic scale was adopted,
which stands as 0, D, F, G, A. (S ^ t
But meanwhile the Chinese had from early ages a complete set
of twelve semitones just as we have, but arrived at, as their
history tells, in a singular semi-scientific manner. According
to the very careful and conscientious treatise of Van A alst, the
Chinese say that there is perfect harmony between heaven
and earth ; and that as the number 3 is the symbol of heaven
and 2 of earth, any sounds that are in the relation of 3 to 2
must be in perfect harmony. They accordingly cut two tubes,
one of which is two-thirds the length of the other, and took
the sounds which they produced as the basis of their musical
system. Fanciful as the story is, it points to the germ of
truth, that the interval of the fifth, which is produced by
such a pair of tubes, was really the nucleus of the pentatonic
system. And according to their story they went on to find
out other notes by cutting a series of twelve such tubes, each
of which was either two-thirds of the next longer, or gave
the octave below the note obtained by that measurement. To
all appearance this gave them a complete series of semitones.
The tubes so cut were the sacred regulators of the national
scale, and were called the " lus." They were also held to be
the twelve moons, and also the twelve hours of the day, and
other strange things ; and the fact that they were all these
wonderful things at once made it indubitable that the scale
36 THE ART OF MUSIC
was perfect and not to be meddled with. But in fact nearly
all the intervals were out of tune. The fifth tube would
ostensibly give a note a third above the lowest tube — as, if
the lowest was C, the second would give G, the third D, the
lourth A, and the fifth E. But that note would really be too
high, and the intervals would go on getting more and more
out of tune till they arrived at the octave, which would be
the worst of all. But the matter was ordained so. The " lus "
were made in accordance with the sacred principles of nature ;
and therefore though the scale does not sound agreeable it is
right, and so it must remain. In order to keep the scale in
accordance with these sacred principles the " lus " were made
of such durable materials as copper and jade ; and though
it appears that the "lus" are no longer in use, the system
on which they were constructed still regulates the Chinese
scale.
But this must not be taken to imply that all these twelve
semitones were to be used in the same piece of music. Their
only service was to enable the characteristic pentatonic series
to be made to start from different pitches. Practically the
Chinese only use one mode at a time. In early times they
only used a series corresponding to the notes produced by the
first five " lu " pipes; that is, C, D, E, G, A, which is their
old pentatonic form. The modern series is theoretically that
which corresponds to C, D, F, G, A. The use of the semitones
is to enable the series to be transposed bodily, which does nc'.
alter the mode, except by varying the degree in which the
notes are out of tune. On great ceremonial occasions the
hymns have to be sung in the "lu," which is called after the
moon in which it is celebrated. So if in a ceremony which
took place in the first moon the pentatonic series began on
C f the hymn woidd be sung a semitone higher each successive
moon, till at a ceremony in the twelfth moon it would begin
on B, a seventh higher than the first ; and then at the next
performance the hymn would drop a whole major seventh,
and be sung in notes belonging to the scale of C again. To
be hedged in with such conditions as these cannot be expected
to be encouraging to art, and it is not to be wondered at that
8CALE8 37
the Chinese system is the most crudely backward and in-
capable of development of any of the great melodic systems.
But at the same time it must not be ignored that notwith-
standing such obstacles, and the fact that musicians are looked
ilown upon as an inferior caste in China, the Chinese do
manage to produce good and effective tunes ; and it cannot
be denied that the pure pentatonic system lends itself pecu-
liarly to characteristic effects, and to the production of impres-
sions which are more or less permanent Its very restrictions
give it an appearance of strangeness and definiteness which
attract notice, and with some people liking.
Nations which have not been so tied and bound by ordi-
nances and dogmatic regulations have managed to develop
pentatonic systems to a much higher degree of artistic elas-
ticity, and the result has naturally been in some cases to
minimise the characteristic pentatonic effect. The Japanese
were among the foremost to expand their system in every
practicable way. They have nominally as complete a series
of twelve semitones as European musicians, but, like all other
cultivators of melodic music, they only use them to select from.
Authorities may be confessed to differ, but their scale-system
seems to be pentatonic in origin, like that of the Chinese ;
though, unlike them, they distribute their intervals so as to
obtain twelve different modes of five notes each. For instance,
one mode of five notes, called Hiradioschi, corresponds to C,
D, E?, G, A> ; another, Kumoi, to C, Dfr, F,* G, A> ; another,
Iwato, to C, Lfr, F, G?, Bt ; from which it is to be observed
that they fully appreciate the artistic value of semitones ; which
again distinguishes them from the Chinese, who rarely use such
intervals. They are said to make use of the octave, the fifth,
and the fourth in tuning, and to tune their thirds and sixths
by guesswork, and not by any means scientifically. The
thirds are said to be often more like the " neutral thirds "
described in connection with Persian music, which are neithei
major nor minor, but between the two. A Japanese musician,
* Mr. Pigott give* a note equivalent to E.
f Mr. Pigott gives a note equivalent to Bt\
38 THE ART OF MUSIC
who seems fully competent to form an opinion, has expressed
doubts as to whether their scale was true pentatonic or not.
In face of the distinct grouping of five notes which is almost
invariable, this view seems rather paradoxical; but the frequent
occurrence of a fourth with a semitone above the lower note
is so like the early tetrachord of the Greeks, with a sensitive
downward-tending leading note (see p. 23), that the doubt
cannot be said to be without some appearance of justification
The mode Kumoi, quoted above, would in that sense represent
two tetrachords, C, D^, F — G, A7 C, like those of Olympos,
put one above another ; and the effect of them may be gauged
by the process suggested on p. 20.
There are two other important systems of melodic music
which are most probably true pentatonic, but quite different
from either Chinese or Japanese. The oldest of them is the
Javese. In this case there is no possibility of unravelling
the process of development of the scales ; we can only take
the results as examined by Mr. Ellis and Mr. Hipkins, whose
methods seem thoroughly trustworthy, and gather what we
can from the facts. The Javese have two plans of tuning,
one called Gamelan Salendro, and the other Gamelan Pelog,
which differ so much that they cannot be played together.
In the Gamelan Salendro scale there are five notes, which
are fairly equidistant from one another, and each of the
intervals exceeds a whole major tone, such as C and D, by
a considerable interval, To our European ideas such a scale
seems almost inconceivable. To compare it with our major
scale of C, the first degree would be from C to a note half-
way between D and E£>, the next degree would be between
E and F but nearer to F, the next would be a quarter of a
tone higher than G, and the next about half-way between A
and B^, and the next move would be to the octave C above
the starting-point. How such a scale could be tuned by ear
almost passes comprehension, and implies a very remarkable
artificial development of scale-sense in the musicians who use
it. The Gamelan Pelog is a very different mode, and almost
as singular. The first step would be from C to a note a
little higher than E, the second to a note a little below F,
8CALES 39
the third note would be just below G, the next a little below
B, and the remaining step would reach the octave C. Thia
is evidently a very elaborate artificial development of some
simpler pentatonic formula that has long passed out of record.
The Siamese system is almost as extraordinar}'. It is not
now pentatonic, though supposed to be derived originally from
the Javese system. The scale consists of seven notes, which
should by rights be exactly equidistant from one another ;
that is, each step is a little less than a semitone and three-
quarters. So that they have neither a perfect fourth nor a
true fifth in their system, and both their thirds and sixths
are between major and minor; and not a single note between
a starting note and its octave agrees with any of the notes
of the European scale. The difficulty of ascertaining the scale
used in practice lay in the fact that when the wooden har-
monicon, which seemed the most trustworthy basis of analysis,
was made out of tune, the Siamese set it right by putting
pieces of wax on the bars, which easily dropped off. Their
sense of the right relations of the notes of the scale is so
highly developed that their musicians can tell by ear directly
a note is not true to their singular theory. Moreover, with
this scale they have developed a kind of musical art in the
highest degree complicated and extensive.
This survey would not be complete without reference to
the scale of the Scotch bagpipe. This, again, is a highly
artificial product, and no historical materials seem available
to help the unravelling of its development. Though often
described as pentatonic, the scale comprises a whole diatonic
series of notes, from which modes may be selected. These notes
do not agree with our ordinary system, and their relations
are merely traditional, as they are tuned empirically by ear.
Taking A as a starting-point, tha next note is a little below
B ; the next is not C, but almost a neutral third (p. 29) from
A; the next very nearly a true fourth above A, that is, a
little below our D ; the next almost exactly a true fifth from
A, that is, very near E ; the next a neutral sixth from A
(p. 29), between E and F; and the remaining note a shade
below G. The type is more like the ancient Arabic than any
4
40 THE ART OF MUSIC
other, and not really the least like the Chinese, though the
impression conveyed by the absence of the leading note some-
times misleads people into supposing they are akin. Whether
it is really a pentatonic scale, as some have thought, is there-
fore extremely doubtful. Even if the modes were really of
five notes, that is not a proof that its constitution is of the
pentatonic order, as has been indicated in connection with the
Indian and Japanese system ; both the fifth and the fourth
are very nearly true, and as it seems based on the old Arabic
system, which was not pentatonic, the argument would tend
to class it with the Indo-European and Persian seven-note
systems.
The above summary is sufficient to show the marvellous
variety of the scales developed by different nations for purely
melodic purposes. The simple diatonic system of the Greeks,
the subtly ingenious mathematical subdivisions of the Persians
and Arabs, the excessive modal elaborations of the Hindus,
the narrow and constricted stiffness of the Chinese, the
ambiguous elasticity of the Japanese, and the truly marvellous
artificiality of the Javese and Siamese systems, are all the
products of human artistic ingenuity working instinctively for
artistic ends. Similarity of racial type seems to have caused
men to produce scales which are akin. They are all devised
as means to ends, and when the mental characteristics and
artistic feeling of the races who devised the scales have been
similar the result has been so too. The seven-note systems
are mostly characteristic of Caucasian races, and the five-note
scales of the somewhat mixed but probably kindred races of
Eastern Asia. And this does not so much indicate that they
borrowed from each other as that the same types of mind
working under artistic impulse produced similar results. One
important defect they have in common. Though in most of
them the relations of the notes are actually defined with the
utmost clearness, in none have they arrived at the artistic
completeness of maturity which is implied by classification.
This remained to be done under the influence of harmony.
It is quite clear that the early Christians adopted the prin.
oiples and some of the formulas of melody of the ancient
SCALES 41
Greek system — in the state to which it had arrived at about
the beginning of our era — for as much music as their simp.e
ritual required. But none of it was written down, and in
those centuries of general disorganisation in which the collapse
of the Roman Empire was going on, the traditions became
obscure and probably conflicting in different centres. To
remedy this state of things efforts were made, especially by
Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, and one of the many Popes named
Gregory, to establish uniformity by restoring the system of
the Greek modes and making the music they used conform to
it. Knowledge of every kind was at that time at a very low
ebb, and the authorities who moved in the matter had very
limited and indefinite ideas of what Greek music had been.
But between them they contrived to organise an intelligible
arrangement of various modes, and it was of no great conse-
quence that they got most of the names wrong. Ambrose
authorised four modes, the (1) Dorian, (2) Phrygian, (3)
Lydian, and (4) Mixolydian — corresponding more or less to
the ancient Greek (1) Phrygian, (2) Doric, (3) Syntono-Lydian,
and (4) Ionic. These were called the authentic modes. Gregory
nominally added four more, which were not really new modes,
but a shifting of the component notes of the modes of Ambrose;
for as by Ambrose's regulations musicians were only allowed
to use the scale of D between D and its octave, by Gregory's
arrangement they might use the notes a, b, c below the lower
D instead of in the higher part of the scale. And similarly
with the other three. Gregory's group were called plagal
modes. In later days four more modes were added : the mode
beginning on C, and that beginning on A and their plagals ;
and two hypothetical modes which were not supposed to be
used, namely, that beginning on B and its plagal. The total
Amounted therefore to fourteen modes, of which two were not
actually used. It was very soon after this organisation of
modes that attempts at harmony began to be made, either by
doubling an ecclesiastical tune at another pitch, such as the
fourth or the fifth, or by really trying to get two tunes to go
together. The idea of harmony in the modern sense did not
develop into clearness for centuries ; but musicians got mow
+ 2 THE ART OF MUSIC
. • a •„;„„ tr> make various melodies go
find more expert in contriving to make vano a
tLther without ugly combinations, and by degrees the mean-
^chords and their possible functions in a scheme , rf£
beL to dawn upon men's intelligence. Meanwhile artistic
instinct led composers to modify the ecclesiastical mode*
Even when they were only used melodically, certain imper-
feclons hid made themselves felt. The mediaeval musician.
hadTu te an intense detestation of the interval of the aug^
ten^d Wth, such as appears between F and B ; and sing rs
were allowed to take the note a semitone lower than B that
TbV wherever the notes forming the objectionable interval
^el close together in a passage of melody. £» i« -
Tfirst dictated by a feeling for the ugliness of ^ ar £°™
effect of the notes, but for that of their melodic effect, *w-
no till men's sense for harmony began to grow and expand
Sat the ugliness of the interval in b-monv b-ame equally
apparent. Then one modification led to another^ T1 f * d °P
tne plain song had been generally in the bass, and had been
*. change in the ^-^f^^^E
fpeline for the pure melodic side of music pr« ,
* Way JS, *W paX At first it »as customary to accompany
SCALES 43
as long as nothing else was added this did very well, though in
the favourite modes the accompanying part moved up a whol«
tone instead of a semitone. The aspect of things was changed
when men found out that it sounded well to accompany the
penultimate step of the plain song by the fifth below as well
as the third or sixth, as E and C by A, or A and F by D ;
&^
CSD
w
then the effect of the minor
third created by the system of most of the modes began to
appear objectionable ; because the artistic sense of musicians
made them long for definite finality at the conclusion of a
piece of music, and this was not produced by such a process
as the progression of the chord of A minor to the chord
of D minor, or of D minor to G. To obviate this a sharp
was added by musicians to the third of the penultimate chord,
as to C in example (a) above, and to F in example (b) } thus
creating the upward-tending leading note, and giving a better
effect of finality to the progression. The move was opposed
by ecclesiastical authority, but in vain; the artistic instinct
of musicians was too strong, and the major penultimate chord
with its sensitive leading note became an established fact
in music
It is not possible here to trace the gradual transformation
of the modes through every detail. Step by step, in analogous
ways to those described above, the modes were subjected to
further modifications by the addition of more sharps and flats.
Men's sense of the need for particular chords in particular
relations to one another drove them on in spite of themselves;
and the most humorous part of the story is, that after cen-
turies of gradual and cautious progress they ultimately com-
pleted a scale which they had known all along, but had
rather looked down upon as an inferior specimen of its kind.
This simply proves what is now quite obvious, that for melodic
purposes such modes as the Doric (beginning on D) and the
Phrygian (beginning on E) were infinitely preferable to the
Ionic (beginning on C), and that when they began to add
44 THE ART OF MUSIC
harmonies they had not the least notion whither their coursa
was going to lead them. They first attempted harmony in
connection with the melodic modes which they thought most
estimable, under the familiar misconception that what was
best in one system would be best in all, and only found out
that they were wrong by the gradual development of their
artistic sense for harmony in the course of many centuries
At last, in the seventeenth century, men began to have a dis-
tinct sense of an artistic classification of the notes of the
scale. The name note or tonic of a scale arrived finally at
its decisive position as the starting-point and the resting-place
of an artistic work. The establishment of the major chord
on the dominant note — the fifth above the tonic — gave that
note the position of being the centre of contrast to the tonic ;
and upon the principle of progress to contrast, and back to
the initial starting-point, the whole fabric of modern harmonic
music is built. The other notes fell into their places by
degrees. The mediant (as E in C) chiefly as the defining
note for major or minor mode ; the subdominant (as F in C)
as a subordinate centre of contrast in the harmonical system
of design, and as the sensitive downward-tending leading note
to the third in the final chord in the cadence. The leading
note (as B in the key of C) had a melodic function in
strengthening the cadence, and served as the major third of
the dominant chord ; the supertonic (as D in the key of C)
served as fifth of the dominant chord, and as the basis of the
harmony which stands in the same relation to the dominant
of the key as that stands to its tonic. And the remaining
diatonic note (the submediant, as A in C) appears chiefly as
the tonic of the relative minor mode, and otherwise as the
most indefinite note in the system. This does not of course
exhaust the functions of the various notes. To give them
all would require a treatise on modern composition. They
are always being expanded and identified with fresh mani-
pulations of the principles of design by able composers. The
fact is worth noting that the complete classification of the
functions of the various items of the scale puts the European
harmonic system of music — as a principle suited for th«
SCALES 45
highest artistic development — at least eight centuries ahead
of all melodic systems. For it took musicians fully that
time to arrive at it from the basis of the old melodic system
of the Church.
The last stage of refinement in the development of our scale
system was the assimilation of all the keys — as they are
called — to one another; that is, the tuning of the twelve
semitones so that exactly the same modes can be started from
any note as tonic. But it took men long to face this, and the
actual adoption of the principle necessitated a further modi-
fication of the scale.
As long as people could remain content with approximately
diatonic music, and a range of few keys, they did not become
painfully aware of the difficulties which acoustical facts throw
in the way of perfect tuning. Till the end of the sixteenth
century musicians did not want more accidentals than Bfr, Eb',
F$, Ctt, and G$. But as their sense for possibilities of har-
mony and modulation expanded they began to make Afr stand
for G£, and Dt? for C£, and ~Djk for E^, and endeavoured to
get new chords and new artistic effects thereby. When they
began to find out the artistic value of modulation as a means
of contrast and variety, by degrees they came to want to use
all the keys. But under the old system of tuning Bfr was by
no means the same thing as Att, and any one who played the
old GA 0, and E^ under the impression that it was the same
chord as C, E, and G transposed, was rudely undeceived by
an unpleasant discordance. The men whose instincts were
genuinely and energetically artistic insisted that our system
must accept a little imperfection in all the intervals for the
sake of being able to use all keys on equal terms. The
struggle was long, and various alternatives were proposed
by those who clung to the ideal of perfectly tuned chords —
such as splitting up the semitones as the Persians had done.
But in the end the partisans of the thoroughly practical and
serviceable system of equal temperament won the day. The
first important expression of faith was J. S. Bach's best-
known work, the two books of Preludes and Fugues in all
the key 8, called by him the " well-tempered clavier." An
46 THE ART OF MDSIC
ideally tuned scale is as much of a dream as the philosopher's
stone, and no one who clearly understands the meaning of
art wants it. The scale as we now have it is as perfect as
our system requires. It is completely organised for an in-
finite variety of contrast, both in the matter of direct ex-
pression — by discord and concord — and for the purposes of
formal design. The instincts of human creatures for thou-
sands of years have, as it were, sifted it and tested it till they
have got a thing which is most subtly adapted to the pur-
poses of artistic expression. It has afforded Bach, Beethoven,
Schubert, Wagner, and Brahms ample opportunities to pro-
duce works which in their respective lines are as wonderful
as it is conceivable for any artistic works to be. A scale
system may fairly be tested by what can be done with it It
will probably be a good many centuries before any new system
is justified by such a mass of great artistic works as the one
which the instincts and efforts of our ancestors have gradually
evolved for our advantage.
CHAPTER III
FOLK- MUSIC
The basis of all music and the very first steps in the long
story of musical development are to be found in the musical
utterances of the most undeveloped and unconscious types of
humanity ; such as unadulterated savages and inhabitants of
lonely isolated districts well removed from any of the influ-
ences of education and culture. Such savages are in the
same position in relation to music as the remote ancestors
of the race before the story of the artistic development of
music began ; and through study of the ways in which they
contrive their primitive fragments of tune and rhythm, and
of the principles upon which they string these together, the
first steps of musical development may be traced. True folk-
music begins a step higher, when these fragments of tune, as
nuclei, are strung together upon any principles which give an
appearance of orderliness and completeness ; but the power
to organise materials in such a manner does not come to
human creatures till a long way above the savage stage. In
6uch things a savage lacks the power to think consecutively,
or to hold the relations of different factors in his mind at
once. His phrases are necessarily very short, and the order
in which they are given is unsystematic. It would be quite
a feat for the aboriginal brain to keep enough factors under
control at once to get even two phrases to balance in an
orderly manner. The standard of completeness in design
depends upon the standard of intelligence of the makers of the
product; and it cannot therefore be expected to be definite
or systematic when it represents the intellectual standard of
savages. Nevertheless the crudest efforts of savages throw
light upon the true nature of musical design, and upon the
4 8
THE ART OF MUSIC
■ v.- >, fc„ m an beings endeavoured to grapple with
manner in which human beings . th mus ical
2 The very futility of the *T^T^J^ an d the
fig uraa in the tunes o ^^"Zt an inte.li-
gradual development .^«^ ^ ^ general
gible order i. f*"^ .T*™? kinds £ the human race,
development ^^SltLmSm o development are those
At the very bottom of the Foce J ^ in them
If them L^he European musical £~^£X*
D atives of Australia are ^"^^^"1 a full octave
^' W JitJ^S by an English
ILSTTSX S 22 thing. Every one who hnows
• • ^ +v,ot the stave notation cannot
anything about music - awarejat the * ^ soa]e of
in this case "present the «^ bQt very highly
correct semitones .s beyond the powers y ^
txained singers even - f'^^e Polynesian cannibals
men t. Another ravell £g%^ A J y to J devoured,
as gloating over their ^ hvin s ot rising quartet
and einpng grue-mely sugge tive P ^ S^ ^ ^
tones. I^ l8u0h ^ 8t n be ^ th0u t notes that were strictly
of the voice up or down, J^° ut n or to anv ge „eral
defined either m relation ta ones, o in every 8 ta g0
rreven^ne^ranlauctrand always implies direct
• „ th. toUowi.g Hawaiian tan. «or the same type ot
expression made into music :-
FOLK-MUSIC
49
human expression in the action, for it is obviously out of the
range of any scale. But in advanced stages of ait it is a
mere accessory which the performers use for expressive pur-
poses at their own discretion, and it is not often indicated in
the actual writing of the musical material of compositions.
With the savage it is pure human expression no further
advanced than the verge of formulation into musical terms.
The first step beyond this is the achievement of a single
musical figure which is reiterated over and over again. Of
this form the aborigines of Australia are recorded°to afford
the following example : —
This simple figure they are said to have gone on sinking
over and over again for hours. It seems to represent a
melancholy gliding of the voice downwards—the first artistic
articulation of the typical whine above described— and as far
as it represents any scale, it indicates the use of the down-
ward fourth as the essential characteristic interval, with a
downward-tending leading note (see page 23). A similar
example of the reiteration of a single figure is quoted by a
traveller from Tongataboo, which is also described as being
repeated endlessly over and over again :—
et cct
It is extremely difficult to make sure what intervals savages
intend to utter, as they are very uncertain about hitting
anything like exact notes* till they have advanced enough
to have mstruments with regular relations of notes more or
toss indicated upon them. But if the latter illustration can
be trusted, it represents the nucleus of the pentatonic system
• See note at the end of the volume.
THE ART OF MUSIC
als0 described by Mr. A. H. ^i^ iar and is0 , at6 d
continually repeats itself. of native8> the
«,ntrast of two melodic formoles, A end B.
And mod.
and, like children, to renera* the first ph ^ ^ ^^
!X2 SiS J3. — g oothin g so -nooh a.
FOLK-MCSIC
51
attempts at stories made by excitable children or people ol
weak intellect, who forget their point before they are half-
way through, and string incidents together which have in
reality nothing to do with one another.* There is a most
remarkable example of this kind of helplessness in a long
Trouvere song in an English manuscript of the thirteenth
century. It tells the story of Samson, and begins by reiter-
ating a very genial little fragment of tune,
p=3=^[^^-^ ^ae
S*m-son dux for-tis - si -me vio - tor po • ten-tis • ii - me.
which rambles on pleasantly for some time, and then — as if
there had been enough of it — is replaced by another phrase
of similar type, which in turn gives place to another, without
any attempt at system or balance or co-ordination of the
musical material. It is as if the singer went on with a little
phrase till he was tired of it, and then tried another till he
was tired of that, and so on as long as the words required.
A type of this sort, with a little more sense of system, is
quoted from Mozambique : —
f^P-\- j u jg
It must be confessed that this must either have been improved
* See note »t the end of the volume.
<2
THE ART OF MUSIC
upon in the recording, or else it is not pure native music.
But by reading between the lines it is easy to see that the
music had organisation enough to start from a high point
and end on the low point of repose, and that three different
types of fairly well-defined figures were successively alternated
without further attempt at balance than the repetition of the
first phrase
Reiteration interspersed among vague meandering indefinite
passages of song of a characteristic phrase which has taken the
fancy and laid hold of the mind seems to belong to the same
order of design as the familiar rondo. A remarkably clear
example is quoted from the music of the natives of British
Columbia : —
Solo.
Em
w=^-
^—-
Chorus.
P^ P5f
^
m
^U J|J ^ M ^ ^ggi^p
As the standard of human organisation improves, the capa-
city to balance things more regularly becomes evident ; and
the power to alternate simple figures more systematically im-
mediately produces a primitive type of more definite character
than the specimen of the rondo above quoted.
The following example of Feejee music illustrates the type
with very fair regularity : —
^UV. JU SJ ^ ^g^s^
i
J M ^-
S
T~» H ~'" g:
« UM - ^
ttcct
This type of design persists through the whole story of
musical art with different degrees of extension in the phrases
whicli are alternated. The familiar aria form of the middle
period of opera is merely an alternation of characteristic
material and contrasting keys, and the more highly organised
rondo of symphonic art is a constant alternation of one special
musical passage with others which contrast with it. In the
Feejee tune there are only two figures which are alternated.
As an extraordinarily compact example of reiteration with
different phrases alternating with the recurrences of the
principal figure, the following Russian tune is worth examina-
tion, and it certainly puts the type in almost the closest limits
conceivable : —
54 THE ART OF MUSIO
The tune is specially interesting because it reverses the
familiar order of the rondos, and puts the essential char-
acteristic figure second to the contrasting figures each time ;
and this rather emphasises the universality of the general
principle of knitting a whole movement together by the
reiteration of a characteristic feature. In this case the tor.al
form is obscure, for the tune begins on D and ends on C, so
the curious little figure indicated by the asterisk is apparently
the only thing that holds the tune together ; but the manage-
ment of the alternations shows a skill and subtlety which
enhances the effect of the whole. For the little figure is
approached first from D, next from C, next from A, and last
from E ; and in the last case the figure itself is neatly varied
by raising the pitch of its initial note.
The principle of constant reiteration of a figure or a rhythm
to unify a movement is of familiar occurrence. It is illustrated
in the reiteration of a figure of accompaniment to long passages
of free melody, as in the slow movement of Bach's Italian
concerto, and in the organ fantasia in C ; it is also illustrated
in the familiar form of the ground bass so often used by Lulli,
Purcell, Stradella, Bach, and others; which consists of the
incessant repetition of a short formula in the bass with the
utmost variety of melody, figure, harmony, and rhythm that
the composer can contrive in the upper parts. The device
of reiteration is also happily used to give a characteristic
expression to the whole of a movement, as in the first chorus
of Dvorak's " Spectre's Bride," and in the Nibelung music
in Wagner's " Ring ; " and carrying implication to the utmost,
the same principle is the basis of the " variations " form, which
is simply the reiteration of a recognisable formula of melody
or harmony in various disguises.
Of the ways in which such reiteration may be managed
there are many examples in folk-music. One that indicates a
certain advance in artistic perception is the reiteration of the
same phrase at different levels, which corresponds to the type
known in more advanced music as a sequence ; which indeed
ia one of the most important devices known to composers for
giving unity and intelligibility to progressions, and is used
FOLK- MUSIC 5 5
constantly by every composer of any mark from Lasso and
Palestrina to Wagner.
The two following tunes from different parts of the globe
will serve to illustrate the primitive type.
The first is a Russian peasant tune quoted in a book of the
last century : —
The second is English of the Eliiabethan era :
o m w-\*~r ' ' 1 ^ r j r-i 1 ^ 1 1 ~n
ffi*~& I 4 " T ^ r lLJ J ~ ir If J, IrJ H
This last represents a much higher standard of musical per-
ception, as unity is maintained without strict uniformity of
one principle of procedure. Indeed, there are a considerable
number of devices which imply design in this tune which
should not be overlooked. The closeness of the first half to
the central note C, and the wide iange of the second half,
give an excellent principle of contrast ; and the consistency
of the principle of contrast is maintained by making the levels
of the sequence close in the first half and wide in the second ;
further, the ends of each half are ingenious extensions of the
principal figure, and as each of them breaks the regularity of
the repetitions it throws the essential points of the structure
into relief ; and as the first half ends on C, and the second on
the tonic F, the principle of contrast ). curried out with com-
prehensive variety ; and, what is of highest importance in
5
56 THE ART OF MUSIC
puch a case, the tune is knit into complete unity by the
definite a ess of the tonality.
The principle of defining design by tonality marks a con-
siderable advance in musical intelligence, as it implies a
capacity to recognise special notes as of central importance in
the scheme, and others as subordinate. In the above example
the C at the end of the first half has the feeling of being a
point of rest, though not a final point ; but the F at the end
is an absolute point of repose, and is felt to round off the
design completely. If the last note had been G or E instead
of F, the whole thing would have sounded hazy and incom-
plete. This impression of finality is produced solely by the
feeling for the key, which is an outcome of long human expe-
rience of certain types of progression and melody. In this
individual instance the key is understood through the har-
monic implications of the melody ; for the end implies what is
called a regular dominant-tonic cadence, and would probably
not give the effect of finality at all to musicians only accus-
tomed to melodic music. Indeed, the melodic systems are not
well adapted to such forms, since they have none of them any
such strong definition of a tonic as is characteristic of har-
monic music. The modern European scheme of art rests
upon a systematisation of the scale which recognises certain
notes as being final, and all the other notes as having relative
degrees of importance, while all have their special functions
in determining design ; and this principle is perfectly invalu-
able for establishing the unity of a piece of music. But it is
purely the result of harmonic development, for in all melodic
systems the notes are more on an equality. Their functions
are not decisively fixed, and a tune can begin or end with any
note of the scale. This makes it much more difficult to estab-
lish the unity of a piece of music, and the possibilities of
variety in intelligible designs are thereby limited. Indeed,
long consistent development of a single movement is impos-
sible in pure melodic music; the resources of art are not
various enough to admit of it ; and even in short tunes, if
the music is to be fully intelligible in design, it has to be so
without the resource of a well-defined pair of contrasting
FOLK-MUSIO
57
points like tonic and dominant. But, on the other hand,
melodic systems admit of an arbitrary choice of any particular
note, which can oe emphasised so persistently that it takes
rank as a sort of tonic. The pentatonic systems are happy in
this respect, because the definiteness of difference in the rela-
tion between one pair of notes and another helps the mind to
fasten on special notes with ease, and to accept them as of
vital importance to the design.
The following Chinese tune will serve to illustrate this
device, as it is all threaded upon the single note D : —
It will also serve to illustrate again the same principles as
those illustrated by the Russian tune quoted on p. 53, as it is
practically little more than a series of variations on the figure
of the first two bars.
A similar use of a note like a tonic is to be observed in the
following Indian tune, which will also be useful as illustrating
at once a capacity for contriving a longer sweep of melody,
a higher sense for clear and decisive balancing of contrasting
phrases, and also the Oriental love of ornamentation : —
n """"^
&55F*
J 1 k
JP J J
tats^
33^
^t^
§r3
THE ART OF MUSIC
The Indians of the Orient contrive to make long passages
of melody ; but the order of the recurrence of the char-
acteristic figures is very frequently incoherent. The rondo
type is, however, fairly common. But it must be acknow-
ledged that many of the tunes are not true examples of folk-
music, but rather of a conventional art-music, which represents
the skill of more or less cultivated musicians. The ornamental
qualities are characteristic features of nearly all Oriental
music, and demand more than passing consideration.
With genuine Orientals the love of unmeaning decorative
ornamentation is excessive in every department of mental
activity, whether literature, art, or music. This is generally a
sign that the technical or manipulatory skill is far in excess of
th e e power of intellectual concentration. When mental develop-
ment and powers of intellect and perception are too backward
to grasp a design of any intricacy or a conception that is not
obvious and commonplace, the human creature who is blessed
with facility of execution expends his powers in profusior. of
superfluous'flourishes. In European countries the type is most
commonly met with among popular operatic singers; but it
is aim plentiful among showy pianists, violinists, and other
virtuosi, who rejoice the hearts of those members of the general
public who are as unintelligent as themselves. Indeed, the
truth is of wide application, and need not be confined merely
to music ; for it is noticeable that people who delight in excess
POLK-MUSIO 59
of ornament and decoration are almost always of inferior intel-
lectual power and organisation. Ornament is the part of any-
thing which makes for superficial effect. It may co-exist with
a great deal of force and fire, as in what is called Hungarian
music, which is really a gipsy development of Hungarian sub-
stance ; and it may be used as an additional means of expression,
as it is in some Scotch and Irish tunes ; but when it is purely a
matter of display, it generally implies either undeveloped mental
powers or great excess of dexterity. The Siamese are among
the most musical nations, and most skilful in performance;
but their mental development has only begun in comparatively
recent times, and the masses of the people are still child-like
in intellectual matters. A thoroughly competent observer
says that their vocal performances seem to be made of nothing
but trills and runs and shakes, and it is certainly much the
same with their instrumental music. The florid character of
Egyptian music is also notorious ; but the most curious example
of the kind is what is familiarly known as Hungarian music.
The original Hungarian music is extraordinarily characteristic
in rhythm and vigorous in melody, but devoid of ornament.
The recognised musicians of Hungary are gipsies, who are of
Oriental descent, and are well known for their taste for finery
and ornamentation all the world over; and in their hands
Hungarian music has become the most ornamental thing of
its kind that Europeans are acquainted with. The ornaments
are perfectly meaningless, except as implying singular dex-
terity of manipulation and an extraordinary aptitude for
purely superficial invention in the decorative direction. The
following is an example of parts of a Hungarian tune, and
of the version with the ornamentation added by the gipsy
performers. The beginning stands as follows : —
HongarUa
60 THE ART OF MUSIC
And the oloee >—
Hungarian.
Hungarian
Nearly all the music of South-Eastern Europe exhibits the
same traits. The Roumanian folk-music aud dance-music is
very vivid in neatness of phraseology ; full of little trills and
jerks, and characterised also by quaint and rather plaintive
intervals, such as are very familiar in many Eastern quarters.
The following fragment is unusually simple in part, but very
characteristic as a whole : —
Similar peculiarities, both of intervals and of ornaments,
are shown in the tunes of Smyrna and the islands of the
Hellespont. And even in Spain, in the southern districts,
and in the Balearic Islands, where traces of Oriental influence
are still to be met with in other Hues besides music, the
characteristic features of the tunes of Eastern Europe are met
with in combination with higher qualities of design.
Racial differences, which imply different degrees of emo
FOLK-MUSIC 6 1
tionalism and imaginativeness, and different degrees of the
power of self-control in relation to exciting influences, are
shown very strongly in the folk-music of different countries.
No people attempt folk-tunes mechanically without musical
impulse. The very fact of musical utterance implies a genuine
expression of the nature of the human being, and is, in vary-
ing degrees, a trustworthy revelation of the particular likings
and tastes and sensibilities of the being or group of beings
which gives vent to it. The natural music of a demonstrative
people is rhythmic and lively ; of a saturnine people, gloomy ;
of a melancholy and poetical people, pathetic ; of a matter-of-
fact people, simple, direct, and unelaborated ; of a savage
people, wild and fierce ; of a lively people, merry and light ; of
an earnest people, dignified and noble. It remains so through
all the history of art ; and though the interchange of national
products has more or less assimilated the arts of certain
countries, the nature of man still governs his predilections, as
is easily seen by the average differences of tastes in art in
such countries as Italy, France, and Germany.
Before discussing folk-music in general, certain circumstances
have to be taken into consideration. A large proportion of the
tunes came into existence in connection with poems and ballads
which told some story or tragic event of local interest, and each
tune was made to fit all the verses, whether they were cheerful
or tragical. Such a tune is likely to be little more than a mere
design, which might be very pleasant and complete as melodic
design in itself, but would leave it to the singer to put the
necessary expression corresponding to the varying sentiment of
the words, by giving to a rise in the melody the character of
exultant happiness or poignant anguish, and to a fall either re-
poseful satisfaction or hopeless despair. Any attempt to infuse
6trong expression into music maKes the systematic management
of design more difficult, because it is liable to break through the
limitations which make design possible, and to force the com-
poser into climaxes and crises at moments which are difficult to
adapt to the general conventional rules of orderliness. The
greater part of the history of music turns upon this very point ;
for composers have been constantly attempting to enlarge their
62 THE ART OF MUSIC
* v~ oWa to brin« more and more expression
..has been indicated in "^^/'^STi. „ e 1 off
the de*.gn ^/^J^J^nsic ; and the way in which
W * br °t'L th ^-^1 thorZea whose ostensibie
and an emotional ongm. inclme
^ ma ^: r C f 6 ltetype Nonation ia restricted entirely
SIsssEsaesss
\ Jncinles If design in all branches of folk-music. The
rid from "he Macnaia and Feejeee. A primitive but more
.nZafnl pattern ia the following Russian peasant a tune .-
1 * !
FOLK-MUSIC 63
Here are only two figures, as in the Macusi tune, but the
treatment implies an immense difference of artistic sense;
for four principles of design are combined to give the tune
variety and unity — rhythmic contrast, melodic contrast, and
contrast of pitch, all held together by unity of tonality. The
tune centres on A, starting from it and returning to it. The
first half emphasises the part of the scale which lies above
A, and the second half the part that lies below it. The
rhythmic system is consistent, but inverted in the two halves ;
so that the characteristic anapsest comes at the beginning of
the phrases in the first half, and at the end in the second.
It is also noteworthy as a very neat little subtlety that the
high note which completes the balance of the range of the
two contrasting halves of the scale is obtained by a slight
variation of the first principal figure.
To shorten the discussion of the principles upon which
such patterns are contrived, it will be of service to take the
letter A to represent the figure or complete phrase with
which the tune begins, and B to represent the second, and
if there is a third to call it C, and so on. The greater
portion of the folk-tunes of the world are simple patterns,
based upon all possible interchanges of strongly characteristic
figures similar to the possible combinations of A, B, or A, B,
C, in symmetrical order. It is truly extraordinary what an
amount of variety proves to be possible. The simplest type
of all is A, B, A, without disguise. And of this there are
literally thousands of examples, ranging from very short
phrases to long passages like the arias of the old Italian
operas. As types of the most compact kind with slight
variations the following will serve : —
Hungarian. A
frffgs-ir rfe iEpgEi
6 4
THE ART OF MU8I0
A
r^-pi-repf^
zmmm^^^mg
Welsh.
^^m
^^^^^^^m
From the mountains of Galicia in N.W. of Spain.
A
UjTW irrn^ ^
±=£z
Every possible order that can give the impression of
balance is adopted ; and special types of character are often
emphasised by the way in which particular figures are insisted
FOLK-MUSIC 65
upon. The plaintiveness of the following old Servian tune is
intensified by harping on the phrase that contains the curious
augmented interval, and by the ingenuity with which the
accent is shifted in different repetitions : —
I
ps^
3ty
i3£
a =
M3 ^^ j ^ ^^P^^
V
■^t-r
As the sense for design grows stronger, and skill in putting
things to effective issues improves, the repetitions are varied
to enhance the interest. The following for its size is very
comprehensive. It comes from Bas Quercy : —
Lento.
i
?^£
=££
TiT-fr-
fvf=t
5
m
-p — ^
^^B^g^ ll
Each clause ends on a different note except the first and
last, and this gives a very strong impression of variety in
unity.
The device of repeating two different phrases successively
(as A, A, B, B) is very familiar, and so is the alterna-
tion ending with the second phrase (A, B, A, B). Both of
these necessitate a feeling for tonality, as without it the
unity would not be complete. In other words, the tonality
supplies the impression of unity, and the successive alterna-
tions the contrast. When the tonality is not decisive the
66
THE ART OF MUSIC
affect is quaintly incoherent, as in the following Russia!
tune : —
*^*fi»
gg^^fp£=Bg
t^=*
3s*
~w=+=z
mgm*E^mms
Of the same A, A, B, B, with a little coda at the close to
strengthen the impression of unity, the old form of the tune
M In dulci jubilo" is a good instance: —
I
MS .)f A.D. 1305.
ft
-J-
T*
e3=
1=^
=£2=^
Coda.
&
33- ^ CJ
^— Us? ~^-
An illustration of A, B, A, B, with a variation of B to
strengthen the close, is the following Slavonic tune : —
z fflj^
In the more highly organised types the simplicity of such
methods of procedure is very much disguised. Very ofte»
FOLK-MUSIC 67
the figures are not repeated in their entirety, but only char-
acteristic portions of them, especially those portions which
occupy the most prominent positions, such as the first part
of the phrase or the figures of the ca lence.
In the most highly organised examples also the phrases
become much longer, and are subject to variations which
strengthen the design to a remarkable* degree. A fine in-
stance is the following Scotch tune: —
>v^tjrH-^nzq ^^
In this the effect of contrast between A and B is mainly
achieved by difference of position in the scale, as B is almost
entirely composed of fragments and variations of fragments
of A ; so that the whole tune is knit together with the
utmost closeness. Tonality, relation of pitch, rhythm, and
characteristic figures of melody are all used with remarkabU
68
THE ART OF MUSIC
skill to attain the end of variety of contrast within unity. A
tune of this sort indicates a great power of mental concen-
tration in the nation which produces it; but the elaborate
ingenuity with which it is knit together is by no means
rare. Nearly all strong and responsible races possess tunes
of this kind, which will bear a very careful analysis in every
detaiL
But by way of contrast it will be well to take a passing
glance at the tunes of advanced but less concentrated races.
In southern countries the impulse is neither towards concen-
tration of design nor often towards any degree of expression.
Very simple forms are met with, such as the Galician tune
on page 64. But in the more highly organised tunes there
is often but little consistency. The song is a sort of wild
utterance of impulse by the types of creatures who do not
criticise but only enjoy. The Basques have extraordinarily
long rambling tunes, which in a sort of vague way suggest dis-
position of materials like those above described (A, B, A, &c).
But there is no closeness of texture as in the Scotch tune, nor
is any concentration of mind shown by any feature of form
or idea. In some Spanish tunes there is a sort of luxury of
irregularity which may be illustrated in a small space in the
following example from the neighbourhood of Barcelona: —
T=t
35=t
m
m
-p-p-
4_*_g_
3^
&
IS
(', J j^ [
When analysed at close quarters there are some interesting
and subtle principles of cohesion even in this tune, but the
general effect produced is a sort of careless abandonment to
impulse. A characteristic feature of Spanish folk-tunes is &
curious jerk which commonly occurs at the end of phrases ;
and this not only ap pea rs in tunes from various districts of
Spain, but has crossed the seas, and continues to appear in
FOLK-MUSIO 69
places where the Spaniards were once masters, as in Sicily and
in South America. A very characteristic example of this very
feature comes from Vera Cruz in Mexico : —
■pfl- 1 * * *'^rW~*- M? } f f • +ttm f * r * *
(j * i ! — I I ' -J 1 4 I — ' > —J
There is very little of close-knit orderliness about this tune,
but it is a good illustration of an impulsive type, and the
sequence in the second half illustrates the same principle
of cohesion as the Russian and English tunes on page 55.
As an illustration of the Spanish jerk from Sicily a small
fragment will suffice : —
m
1 — r
^=*=£
^^
The Italians also possess this jerk ; possibly it remains as a
relic of former Spanish occupation. The indolent insouciance
of their tunes is familiar. They are sometimes cast on very
simple lines, and are melodically attractive, but are not often
highly organised or closely knit.
Passing on to more reserved and self-contained but highly
reflective races, folk-music is found to become more and more
simple and plain. There is an enormous quantity of genuine
early German folk-music; but it is quite singularly deficient
in vividness of any kind, and is devoid of marked characteris
70 THE ART OP MU8I0
tics in the way of eccentric intervals and striking rhythms.
Expression is sometimes aimed at, but always in a self-con-
tained manner ; that is, in such a manner that both the out-
line of the melody and the general distribution of its phrases
adapt themselves to closely coherent and intelligible principles
of design ; and the designs themselves are on an average of a
higher order and represent stronger instincts for organisation
than the tunes of other nations which in actual details of
material are more attractive. There are certain obvious features
in early German folk-tunes which show an inclination for co-
herence and completeness of design. In a very large majority
of tunes the first couple of phrases — making, as it were,
the first complete musical sentence — is repeated, thereby
giving a strong sense of structural stability. The middle
portion of the tune often provides contrast to the stability of
the first portion by being broken up into shorter lengths, or
by being poised upon different centres and notes of the scale ;
and the final portion is very frequently marked by a singular
melisma or dignified flourish in the final cadence, which serves
to give additional weight and firmness to the return to the
tonic of the song, which clinches the design into completeness.
This melismatic device is one of the most characteristic features
of old German songs, and is, of course, an ornamental process ;
but it is generally applied with great sense of expressive effect,
iind never gives the impression of being introduced for the
sake of display. A tune, which was printed at least as early
as 1535, will serve to illustrate most of these points: —
ABO
Wol - auff wol-aufl ma li.u - ter atiram, Thut uns der
War nooh bei iei - nem bu - len ligt, Dermach iioh
i
a -;:
*?— r=— Hi ■ . l~j rJ
t:
ter ting -en. Ih rfh ^
von hin-»*».
F0LK-MUS10 1 1
£
a
mor • gen - rtit, Wol durch die wolo
H IK
I
5=22
y^f"
Besides the points above mentioned, the tune indicates a
fine sense for knitting things together, by presenting a formula
of melody and rhythm successively in different phases. The
portion of the second phrase marked C is derived from B (by
imitating its diatonic upward motion); and in its turn it serves
as the basis for the whole of the middle part E and F, by ap-
pearing in successive repetitions in a rising sequence. Again,
the passage marked H, and the whole of the final cadence K,
are successive variations of the last bar but four, G, which is
in itself a kind of mixture of A and D. And it is most note-
worthy that in the course of the repetition the figure G grows
more like D, till at K it gives the impression of being a
perfect counterpart to the cadence of the first half of the
tune ; and the impression is enhanced by the introduction
of the little parenthesis I, which at the same time neatly
defers the last recurrence of the highest note of the song,
so that it shall not come three times running in the same
rhythmic position.
Other points which are characteristic of German folk-music
are the irregularity of the metre, in mixing up threes and
fours, the diatonic and serious nature of the tunes, and the
absence of any obvious sense of vivid rhythm. The impres-
sion produced by a large range of these tunes is far more in-
tellectual and responsible than is the case with southern tunes,
and they admit of closer analysis. This implies a race that
takes things more seriously, and instinctively makes for some-
thing that will stand the test of close and frequent scrutiny
and endure. The light-hearted neas and excitability of southern
72
THE ART OF MUSIC
races makes them care less for the element of permanence,
which is one of the essential objects of art (see p. 3), and they
place themselves in an attitude of receptivity to the pleasures
which appeal to them most quickly, and rather resent the
attitude of instinctive reserve which makes men hesitate to
abandon themselves to an impression before they have to a
certain extent tested its soundness.
Permanence in a work of art depends to a great extent on
its being able to stand the test of frequent scrutiny without
betraying serious flaws ; and this is only achieved by consider-
able concentration of faculty and self-restraint. Folk-music is
often most successful in abandonment to impulse, but the type
of human being which takes even its folk-songs seriously is
likely to succeed best in higher ranges of pure art work ; and
it may be confessed that the relative standards of later art
in various countries are the natural result of qualities which
betray themselves in genuine folk -music With regard to
principles of design in general, it may be said that Germans
rarely adopt the plan of consecutively reiterating short phrases,
either simply or with variations, in the manner shown in the
Russian and Oriental examples quoted. When they repeat
phrases it is either to re-establish a balance after contrast, as
in the rondo form, or to make essential parts of the structure
correspond, as in the tune above quoted. The close of the
whole often corresponds to the close of the first half, and
sometimes the first half is repeated in its entirety at the
conclusion of the tune ; and again at times the tune appears
to have very high qualities of design which defy anything
but a very close analysis. As an example of this type the
following especially beautiful tune is worth quoting :—
i
J j I II
5>
f
Von
art, auch rein
mnd
==at
rr~^-
1 r-
m
■art,
•in kron.
d«r iok mioh hon
FOLK- MUSIC
73
SET I fJ- ^^^3^^fe z= ^^ r^ ^
(y cn-Wn inr. t'laulj' mir fiir war Aa» hurt r in mir
I
i-ben gar, glaub' mir
fur war das herti in mir
r J-f*-^
-f^nP-ga:
2Z
e
_c?:
IZ2ZC2
±zztz|
I
krenkt sich nacb dir dar - umb iob gem auff all deiu er bilff
JEZZ^i
W
*r-n>—rz—^ -
*—+-
*=+
t=£
act
St
r, icb bab' nit troi
This is obviously a strong emotional utterance, and the
chief basis of form is the alternation of implied tonics —
alternately F and D — as if the keys were major and
relative minor; which is an alternation very often met
with in folk-music, specially amongst northern peoples, such
as the Scandinavians. Then there is the contrast of long
sweeping phrases and short broken ones ; the variety of the
closing notes of each phrase; the long sweep of the open-
ing and closing phrases, which are thereby made to match ;
and the subtle balance of the curves which constitute the
melody.
Characteristic formulas are rather rare in German folk-
music. The most noticeable in old folk-tunes is a curious
pathetic rise up to the minor seventh of the scale through
the fifth. Many tunes begin in this way, as —
i
2t
cJ CJ z J
And again J—
i
EE^
i=t
^m
74
THE ART OF MUSIC
The same interval occurs in Scandinavian tunes, M in th«
following from Upland : —
In more modern German folk-music the influence of harmony
becomes strongly apparent. Harmony represents the higher
standard of intellectuality in mankind, and the Germans
have always had more feeling for it than southern races.
In folk-music the harmonic basis is, of course, very simple and
obvious ; but it is sometimes very apparent, and shows itself
even in a strong inclination to construct melodies on the
basis of arpeggios. The Tyrolese adopt arpeggios for their
singular jodels, which are the most ornamental forms of vocal
music in Teutonic countries. In their case, however, the
excess of decoration does not so much imply low organisation
or superficial character, but rather the very exuberance and
joy of life in the echoing mountains ; and the physical effect
which mountain life has upon them is shown by the extra-
ordinarily wide compass of their songs. The arpeggio form
of melody was found out very early in pastoral districts of
Germany through the help of the horn. The following is
part of a "cow-horn" tune of the fourteenth century, from
Balzburg : —
gn^
ZZ
e
3
£Z
•a.
<^t
The folk-tunes of England present much the same features
as the German tunes. There is next to no superfluous
ornamentation about them, but a simple directness, such as
characterises most northern folk-tunes. As in the German
tunes, there is an absence both of eccentric intervals and of
striking and energetic rhythms. There are plenty of dance
tunes, but, like the German and Dutch and Scandinavian
tunes, they rather imply an equal flow of contented and
FOLK-MUSIC
75
joyous spirits, than the vehement gestures, the stamping, and
the concentration of muscular energy which are represented
by the dance tunes of many southern races and of savages.
In a very large proportion of the tunes there are clear
evidences of a liking for simple and definite design, which is
shown in the orderly arrangement of characteristic phrases.
The most familiar form is singularly like a form prevalent in
German tunes, which consists of the repetition of the first
phrase for balance and stability, then a contrasting phrase,
and finally a return to the first phrase, or a part of it, to
conclude with ; and this principle of design underlies many
tunes in which it is just shaded off so as to conceal its obvious-
ness. The following is a concise example to the point : —
m.
9
~S
-*—*-
r^r
&e
j j ;jm-^
t==i
|A
T==f
* *
&
*-£rH
JA
m
i i
^=^
r^
a d :
It is worth noting that the final repetition of A is effectively
varied by the interruption of the parenthesis C, just in the
same manner and in the same place that the recurrence of
the high note is deferred at I in the German tune on page
71. There are far more instances of reiteration of short
figures in English than in German tunes, and a single figure
varied or given at different positions in the scale sometimes
does duty for the whole tune. An extremely characteristic
76
THE ART OF MUSIC
example, in which there is a large quantity of such reiteration,
is the well-known " Carman's Whistle : " —
Features of these kinds make the tunes rather more human
than a large proportion of German tunes ; but, as might be
expected, there is very little of strong emotional expression
in English folk-music, except in such rare examples as "The
Poor Soul sat sighing," and " Willow willow." There is, how-
ever, a good deal of expression of a less powerful kind — gaiety,
humour, tenderness, and playfulness ; but pathos is rare, and
morbid or feverish passion is entirely absent. The more
genuinely English the folk-music, the more it breathes the
genuine love of country, of freedom, of action and heartiness.
From the wonderful early tune " Sumer is icumon in " to the
few uncontaminated examples of the present day the same
qualities of style are apparent — a style which gay nations
would call too plain and matter-of-fact, but infused with
much more character, and showing more genuine taste, fresh-
ness, and variety, than almost any folk-tunes but those of the
very highest standard.
So far the process of development is very easily followed.
The savage stage indicates a taste for design, but an incapacity
for making the designs consistent and logical ; in the lowest
intelligent stage the capacity for disposing short contrasting
figures in an orderly and intelligent way is shown; in the
Highest phase of the patlorn-type of folk-tune the instinct fo»
FOLK-MUSIC 77
knitting things closely together is shown to be very remark-
able ; and the organisation of the tunes becomes completely
consistent from every point of view. A still higher phase is
that in which the skill in distributing the figures in symmetrical
patterns is applied to the ends of emotional expression.
The tunes which imply an •©motional impulse indicate it
by the manner in which the rise to a high note is made the
conspicuous feature of the tune. The difference between high
and low organisation is shown in much the same way as in
pattern-tunes. In the low standards of pattern tunes there
are but few principles of cohesion ; in the highly organised
ones (such as the Scotch tune on page 67) there are many
interlaced. Similarly in emotional tunes of the lowest grade
there is only one climax, in the most highly organised tunes
*here are many, and in the best there is a steady gradation
of climaxes ; so that the higher points succeed one another
in such a way as to make the emotional expression of the
tune stronger at successive moments.
It is very common, even in tunes which have the general
character belonging to the pattern order, to make a special
rise to the highest point in the middle, or early in the latter
part of the tune (e.g., " Weel may the keel row "). Hungarian
tunes illustrate both types very happily; and the finest
tunes in the world combine the emotional aspect with the
finest adjustment of design. With the Hungarians both
the dance tunes and vocal tunes are so full of energetic
intervals and rhythms that even when there are no crises the
impression produced is often emotional. Many Scotch tunes
are in the same category. The latter branch of folk-music
affords many examples of fine emotional tunes. Indeed, for
the simple type of tune combining emotional crises with very
distinct and simple form, it would be difficult to find anything
better than the following : —
3F3
£
-n rare
occasions that eccentric outbursts of ecstatic fervour in any of
its professors find utterance in lively gesticulations or rhythmic
dance. From the very first the spirit of the religion was
most perfectly and completely reproduced in its music, and
even the various phases it passed through in many succeeding
centuries are exactly pictured in the art which most closely
presents the spiritual side of man.
In the early middle ages the warlike priest was not an
INCIPIENT HARMONY 83
unfamiliar object ; but nevertheless the spirit of the religion
and religious life was essentially devotional and contemplative ;
and it followed that all the music employed in church cere-
monies was vocal or choral, and almost totally devoid of any
rhythmic quality and of everything which represented gesti-
culatory expression. This state of things was eminently
favourable to the development of certain artistic features
which were a necessary preliminary to the ultimate building
up of the modern musical art. Dance music demands very
little in the way of harmony. The world could go on dancing
to the end of time without it ; and whatever harmony is added
to pure dance tunes, even in days of advanced art, is generally
of the simplest and most obvious description. But vague
melodic music, and vocal music which is sung by voices of
different pitch, seem to call imperatively for the help of
harmony; and unless the instinctive craving for choral har-
mony had led men to overcome its initial difficulties, the art
could never have developed that particular kind of regularity
in time which is independent of dance rhythm. It was the
necessity of regulating the amount of time which should be
allowed to particular notes when singers sang together, which
brought about the invention of the standards of relative
duration of notes, and the whole system of breves, semibreves,
minims, and crotchets; and also the invention of the time
signatures, which do not necessarily imply rhythm, but
supply the only means by which various performers can be
kept together, and irregular distribution of long and short
notes made orderly and coherent. It is perfectly easy to keep
instruments or voices together when the music is regulated
by a dance rhythm ; but in pure choral music, such as was
cultivated from the tenth century till the sixteenth, it is quite
another matter ; for the parts were so far from moving upon
any principle of accent, that one of the most beautiful effects,
which composers sought after most keenly, was the gliding
from harmony to harmony by steps which were so hidden
that the mind was willingly deceived into thinking that
they melted into one another. The mystery was effected
by making some of the voices which sang the harmony
84 THE ART OF MUSIC
move and make a new harmony, while the others held the
notes that belonged to the previous harmony ; so that the
continuity of the sound was maintained though the chords
changed. This would have been impossible without some
means of indicating the duration of the notes, and no
style could so soon have brought men to face the necessity
of solving the problem involved as the growing elaboration
of choral music, of that unrhythmic kind which was the
natural outcome of religious feeling of the Christian devo-
tional type.
It is very remarkable how soon after the first definite ap-
pearance of Christian Church music as a historical fact men
began to move in the direction of harmony. The harmonic
phase of music has been exactly coeval with the development
of that particular kind of intellectual disposition which con-
tinued to manifest itself more and more as modern Europe
slowly emerged from the chaos which followed the collapse of
the Roman Empira It is as if harmony — the higher in-
tellectual factor in music — began with the first glimmerings
of modern mental development, and grew more and more
elaborate and comprehensive, and more adapted to high
degrees of expression and design, simultaneously with the
growth of men's intellectual powers As long as the Church
reigned supreme, harmony remained more or less in the back-
ground, and made its appearance mainly as the result of the
combination of the separate melodies which various voices
lii&g at once. But towards the end of the sixteenth century
it began to assert itself as the basis of certain new principles
of design, and in the succeeding century, as secular life grew
more and more independent of ecclesiastical influences, it
became more and more the centre and basis upon which the
whole system of artistic musical design was founded ; and it
ultimately became not only the essence of the structure, but
a higher and richer means of immediate expression than was
possible by the subtlest and most perfect treatment of any
other kind of musical device.
But the first steps in this important development were
■lowly and laboriously achieved under the influence of the
}
INCIPIENT HAKMONY 85
ancient Church. There seems no reason to doubt that the
music used in the early Christian ritual was of Greek origin,
and that certain traditional formulas for different parts of
the service had been handed down from generation to genera
tion by ear. These were certainly quite unrhythmic and also
rather melodically indefinite ; but the circumstances under
which they were used were so favourable to their preserva-
tion that they possibly obviated the difficulty which such
vagueness puts in the way of accuracy of transmission. For
anything which is part of a ritual has a tendency to be very
carefully guarded, and in course of time to be strictly stereo-
typed ; because whatever people hear and see when they are
in the act of worship seems to share the sacredness of the
function, and ultimately becomes itself a sacred thing which
it is profanation to meddle with. But it was nevertheless
inevitable that after the lapse of a few centuries the practice
of different churches should have ceased to be quite uniform,
and the authorities of the Church endeavoured in the fourth
and sixth centuries to give special sanction to the traditions
which appeared to have the best credentials. It was then
that the connection of the music of the Church with the
ancient Greek system was definitely acknowledged (as de-
scribed on page 41) ; and though the regulations for systema-
tising the art did not quite agree with the Greek system,
owing to lack of opportunity to discover exactly what that
was, the slight discrepancies did not affect the artistic con-
sequences that followed. The Ambrosian and Gregorian
schemes included a number of vocal formulas, consisting of
traditional melodies, which became the basis of an extra-
ordinarily prolonged and comprehensive development. Ihey
were the few established facts of musical art then existing,
and upon them the fabric of modern music soon began to ha
built.
The immediate source of a most important new departure
seems to have been the simple fact that men's voices were of
different calibres; for as some were deep basses and some
high tenors, and some between the two, it was manifestly
inconvenient that they should all sing their plain song at
S6 THE ART OF MUSIC
the same pitch. Some could not sing it high, and some could
not sing it low. In extreme cases low basses and high tenors
could sing an octave apart, but as a rule that was too wide
for convenience ; so men had to find some other relation of
pitch at which it would be convenient to sing the plain
song or chants simultaneously. In such a case it is of
first importance to find a relation of pitch which shall sound
agreeable in itself, and also one which would not cause
certain notes of one part in the reduplicated melody to jar
with certain notes in the other part. It must be clearly
understood that such a process of doubling was not what is
called singing in thirds or sixths in modern times. When
people sing in that manner now, they do not each sing the
same melody. The upper voice takes the melody, and the
lower adds major or minor thirds, and sings tones or semi-
tones, according to the nature of the scale or key in which
the music is written. Thus if two voices 6ing the following
simple succession of notes together,
mm
it is not a reduplication of melodies, but a process of har-
monisation. The upper voice sings a semitone in the first step,
A, where the lower sings a whole tone ; and in the last step,
B, the upper voice sings a whole tone where the lower sings
a semitone. If the melodies were justly reduplicated at the
third, the result would be as follows,
PM^
Such a progression would have the tones and semitones in
the same places in both melodies, but the effect would be
hideous to modern ears, and would have been impossible to
early mediaeval musicians, because they had not developed their
scale sufficiently to supply such conflicting accidentals. And
the same difficulties present themselves with all the intervals
INCIPIENT HARMONY *$7
that they could have chosen, except two, which are the fifth
and the fourth. It also happens that the human mind is so
slow to develop any understanding of the effects of harmony,
that men only learned to endure even infinitesimally dissonant
chords by slow (.'egrees. The combination in which there is
the least element of discordance after the octave is the fifth,
^) g? and after that the fourth, £\) ^ ' And these
two were the first which men learned to endure with equa-
nimity. It took them centuries to settle down to the com-
fortable acceptance of such familiar combinations as thirds
and sixths, and it took fully a thousand years after their
sense of harmony had begun to dawn before they could accept
the simplest discords without some preliminary devices to
save the ear from being too roughly assailed by the sudden
jar. It is a pregnant fact that the process has gone on till
the present day, and that the combinations which human
ears accept without preliminary and without protest have
been largely added to in the present century. In later times
the progress has been more and more rapid, but in early times
it was most astonishingly slow. Men allowed some of our
most familiar combinations as notes of passage — purely sub-
ordinate details — and by their use in that manner they became
accustomed to the sound of them ; but they were very long in
coming to the state of musical intelligence which recognises
even a third as a stable and final combination. The test of
complete satisfactoriness for any interval is the possibility of
leaving off upon it without giving a sense of artistic incom-
pleteness and a desire in the mind for something further. In
modem times no chord is complete at the end of a composition
which does not contain a third ; but the mediaeval musicians
could not even put up with it in the final chord till the art
had undergone some five centuries of development. Its rela-
tive roughness had much the same effect that a discord has to
modern ears ; and so whereas in modern times a man feels that
he wants something more when he is without it, in mediaeval
7
If THE ART OF MUSIC
times he would .have wanted somethir ig more bamuM he had
got it.
These complicated circumstances produced the result that
when men first tried singing .anything but pure melody in one
line at a time, they doubled the melody at the fifth above or
the fourth below. This result seems hideous to modern ears,
since fifths have acquired a new rignifica.ice in the develop-
ment of harmonic music. But to people whose minds are
chiefly concerned with melodic effects it still seems a natural
procedure. Not only is it sometime^ adopted in modern
Europe by singers in the streets and by other people of low
musical intelligence, but a most trustworthy observer states
that the same phase of reduplication is beginning to be adopted
in Japan, and is the only thing approaching to harmony which
is used in genuine Japanese music. If Japanese music ia
spared the contamination of modern European popular music,
it will probably go through the same phases as early mediaeval
music, and the Japanese sense of harmony will develop in the
same manner as that of Europeans did long ago.
It is well to keep clearly in mind that this new departure
did not really amount to harmonisation, nor did it imply a
tense for harmony. In the beginning it was merely the
doubling of a melody, just like the familiar doubling at the
octave in modern times, but at intervals which were less
wide apart. Harmonisation implies the understanding of the
relations of different chords or combinations to one another.
Human creatures had to go through a long probationary
period, and to get accustomed to the sounds of chords in
themselves, before they could begin instinctively to classify
them in the manner in which they ultimately came to serve
as the basis of modern harmonic art.
Men began to move in the direction of real effects of
harmony when, instead of making their voices go in strict
parallels at some definite interval apart, they began to mix
up different intervals together. The way in which this was
at first effected was chiefly by interchanging fifths, fourths,
and octaves or unisons, and by the use of stationary notes
(such as are commonly described in modern times as pedals)
INCIPIENT HARMONY 89
as an accompaniment to plain-song. The following will illus-
trate their skill, about the tenth century, in varying the
monotony of consecutive fifths or fourths : —
r ' r " o g, ^ a 5 e a ^ E
S-r-c
Te hu-mi-le* fft-mu-li mo-du-Us ven-«r-an-do pi - i*.
i
g?£5 > <3 > g?£?g?g ' g >
^ 64444411
This passage as far as the asterisk is merely the plain chant
accompanied by a pedal (the same device as the drone which
has been familiar for ages), which does not constitute or
imply harmony. From that point there are only three inter-
vals which do not accord with the ancient and crude principle
of the " organum " — the one fifth, and the two unisons with
which the whole concludes. This, it may be confessed, is not
a very great advance in the direction of harmonisation, but it
shows how the feeling for intermingling a variety of harmonies
began to develop.
In the course of the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth
centuries, musicians found out how to introduce ornamental
notes, and learned to like the sound of the interval of the
third, especially at the last step before the final note of all
when the movement ended in unison. But their difficulties
were enhanced by their attitude towards harmonisation. The
basis of operations was always some given melody, such as a
passage of an old Church "hymn or chant ; and to this they
endeavoured to add another independent voice part by calcu-
lating what interval they would have to move at each step in
the part added to obtain satisfactory consonances in relation
to each step of the original melody. The theorists of those
days, who were surprisingly numerous, endeavoured to give
rules by which a musician should be able to fit a new part to
any given melody. A treatise of the thirteenth century says :
— " If the chant (that is, the lower part) ascends the interval
90 THE ART OF MUSIC
of a second, and the organ um (the part added) moves down
the interval of a third, they will make a fifth
•^
If the chant ascends a third, and the organum descends a
tone, they will be at the fifth :
If the chant
mounts a fifth, and the organum descends a fourth, they will
be together : gg
w
If the chant descends a second,
and the organum beginning at the fifth ascends a third, they
will make an octave : f\s~ ^ H And similar directions
were given for a great variety of contingencies in various
treatises, both earlier and later. The kind of result obtained
may be judged from a fragment of a thirteenth-century
hymn : —
' /«V fj.™' ^ • rj . ^ . rj . ■ f— F
\^s ^ —
E - men -da • toa noa com -men -da Tu - o ns •
to.
(£2; "■'^TOr^rwT* - «■*
15686 1 S 113 5
This is what was originally meant by counterpoint. It was
point set against point, or note against note ; and nearly
.ill the early music in which voices of different calibres were
(.unbilled was of this description. Composers found it quite
sufficiently difficult to carry out a simple scheme of this kind
without trying any further to enhance its effect, except by an
occasional ornament, such as the D and C in crotchets just
before the end in the example. They hardly seem to hav«
INCIPIENT HARMONY 9 1
thought of varying the monotony of the simultaneous pro-
gressions of the parts until they began to attempt something
more than mere two-part counterpoint ; and, moreover, com-
posers or singers who first endeavoured to improve upon such
homogeneity of the simultaneous motion of parts were ham-
pered by the fact that they had not the means to indicate it.
In the primitive melodic music of the Church there was neither
rhythm nor any need to regulate the values of the notes in
respect of their length. No doubt they had long notes and
short ones, but it was left to the taste and discretion of the
performer to decide how long and how short they should be ;
and the early forms of musical notation (which were merely
marks put over the syllables at varying heights to help the
memory of the singer) gave no indication of the length of time
that the notes were to last. Even when " organising " in fifths
and fourths and the simple kinds of note against note counter-
point came into practice, it was still possible to do without
rules of measurement so long as the singers moved from note
to note and from syllable to syllable simultaneously. But it is
to be inferred that after a time singers began to extemporise
improvements and ornaments to the descant, which- made the
keeping of the voices together somewhat difficult; and by
degrees the necessity of infusing order into the proceedings
drove musicians to invent signs which indicated the relative
lengths of time that the singers should hold the various notes.
The rules which were first devised were curiously complicated
and puzzling. There were no bars, and even the relative value
of notes varied in accordance with certain symbols which were
placed at the beginning of the music, and also with the forms
of certain obscure scrawls and contorted signs called ligatures,
which were allowed- to stand for several successive notes at a
time. The rules given for some of these signs are so obscure
that even at the present day they can hardly be oonsidi :■
decisively understood and settled, and the task of the singers
who had to read them seems almost superhuman. It can
only be supposed that they did things very much by ear, as
they had done for many previous centuries. But the devices
of notation enabled composers to treat their respective voices
92 THE ART OF MUSIC
with more independence, and to proceed to new kinds of
musical achievement.
"" But every new step they took brought them face to face
with new difficulties. The addition of two parts instead of
one to a "canto fermo " made the calculations necessary to
bring about agreeable consonances much more arduous; and
to add three, so as to make an ordinary piece of four-part
writing, was considered to be a feat of almost superhuman
concentration. The excessive difficulty which such things
presented in early days is sufficiently indicated by the nature
of the productions of the most celebrated composers, which
have the same sort of aspect as the artistic efforts of a baby
just out of its cradle, when it tries to represent mankind or
its favourite animals. It may have been the severity of these
difficulties which caused composers to adopt a less laborious
hut more hazardous way of arriving at the effect of harmoni-
sation ; which was none other than to take two or more tunes
and force them to go together by easing off the corners and
adapting the points where the cacophony was too intolerable
to be endured. This may seem a very surprising and even
laughable way of obtaining an artistic effect, but in reality the
actual practice of combining several tunes together is by no
means uncommon. Several savage and semi-civilised races
adopt the practice, as, for instance, the Bushmen at the
lower end of the human scale, and the Javese, Siamese,
Burmese, and Moors, about the middle. In these cases the
process usually consists of simultaneously singing or play-
ing short and simple musical figures, such as savages habi-
tually reiterate, with the addition in some cases of a long
sort of indefinite wailing tune which goes on independently
of all the rest of the performance. The Javese carry such
devices to extremes, producing a kind of reckless, incoherent
iisi rumental counterpoint, very much like a number of people
playing various tunes at once, with just sufficient feeling for
some defiuite central principle to accommodate the jarring
elements. The following is a portion of a phonographed
record of some Javese music performed by several instru-
mental performers. The directions of the stems up and down
INCIPIENT HARMONY 93
indicate the several instruments, and their respective tunes
or musical figures can be unravelled by strictly following the
notes which have the stems turned the same way.
+=**■
Of the same type is the combination of dancing and story
singing, which is illustrated in a practice met with among
the Portuguese lower classes, of playing a couple of simple
figures on the mandolin and repeating them ceaselessly with-
out any change, while a singer wails out a long poem in
extremely long notes which have very little to do with the
accompaniment.
This curious practice is more easily intelligible when the
element of rhythm comes in and makes it possible to base
the combination upon short figures, and to present the whole
in an instrumental form. Vocal melodies, which are neces-
sarily more wide in their range, require much more manipula-
tion ; for the constantly changing forms of melody present fresh
difficulties of assimilation at every step. But the practice of
combining tunes seems to have become universal quite sud-
denly, and it led very quickly to fresh developments. And it
is worth noting that one of these developments was precisely
the same in principle as that adopted by the Bushmen and
the Javese and other semi-savage experimenters in such things;
which was to accompany the main combination of two melodies
by a short musical figure which could be incessantly reiterated
as an accompaniment. In mediaeval music this was a sort of
nonsense part, and was sung to nonsense syllables, Buch as
"Balaam," or "Portare," or "Verbum," or " Angelus," or
any other single word which could easily be adapted to a sort
of pseudo-rhythmic group of notes, which would fit in wfafli
94
THE ART OF MUSIC
the other two or three voices got through their respective
tunes. When the word " Alleluia " was chosen for reiteration
it presents a rather more sensible appearance ; but this was
clearly an accident, as it happens to be used on one occasion
as an accompaniment to two tunes, one of which is concerning
love, and the other about the pleasures of good fellowship.
The practice was so well understood that the composer merely
wrote the word once at the beginning of the piece, and the
singers (generally those who took the lower part) fitted it
in as seemed to them good. A short fragment of such a
motet, combining Latin and French words with a nonsense
part, will be sufficient to show what a singular art-product
resulted : —
w^ w^^U
■ rgPvg. -gggg
t=±
1 L 3 I— P=H
&-
Povre ae-cors ai en - core re - co - vrd,
A ma dame que je avoieservi
&eU
^1^22
\=x
Gaude cborua om - ni - um fi - del - i
#£
s=2
sz
»
An - ga - lot, An • f • • 1
ge • Ins.
In such pieces as this it was generally rather a matter of
chance what combinations were produced. The composer
was for the most part at the mercy of the tunes he attempted!
to combine, and he was necessarily absolved from the rules
which theorists laid down for the adding of counterpoint to
a canto fermo. The main object seems to have been to get
the chief points, on which stress could be laid, to form con-
sonances, and to let passing notes clash as they would. And
it is very remarkable that the instinct of the composers even
in adapting tunes together worked in the direction of succes-
sions of fifths and fourths, like those which made up the early
form of the organum. The example quoted above is rather
an extreme case of independence, if not of recklessness ; but
INCIPIENT HARMONY
95
even in this case the old type of the organum is discernible
in the relations between the lower and the upper parts, which
move in fifths and octaves.
In other compositions by the mediaeval musicians it is
common to meet with a structure which consists almost
entirely of successions of fifths disguised by the ornamental
notes which are interspersed. The nature of such composi-
tions may be best judged from an example of the thirteenth
century by the Trouvere poet and musician, Adam de la
Hale:—
f
3=t:
mm
Tan
SS=£
■si ' &<
^
fZ
i
3*=*
r
&
rai
- rai
m
*^
m
The framework of this fragment consists of a succession of
octaves and fifths, which is almost as regular and unchanged
as the old diaphony of the ninth and tenth centuries ; but the
succession is disguised and made expressive by ornamental or
subsidiary notes introduced between the main blocks of octave*
9^ THE ART OF MUSIC
and fifths. The rest of the little song (which would take toa
much room to quote) is of exactly the same construction, and
so are many pieces of sacred and secular music of these early
centuries. As composers developed their skill in adapting
voice parts to one another, in course of time they even
managed to write in four parts with some facility, and this
necessarily made them more accustomed to the effect of the
less purely harmonious consonances ; for though they tried
hard to restrict themselves in the main to what they called
the perfect concords, such as octaves, fifths, and fourths, it was
imp sable to write in more than two parts without frequently
introducing a complete triad with third and fifth, and scarcely
less frequently the intervals of the sixth, major and minor.
It is not necessary to follow out the progress of these early
centuries in detail. It pursued its slow course on the same
lines. Composers found out artistic devices which facilitated
their labours, and enabled them to approximate to more
pleasing and artistic results. But the average quality of
their works of every kind is marvellously crude, harsh, and
incoherent. Almost every elementary rule of art which a
modern musician holds inviolable is broken incessantly, and
there are hardly any pieces of music, by the most learned or
the most intelligent musicians up to the fourteenth century,
which are not too rough and uncouth to be listened to by
even the most liberal-minded and intelligent musician without
such bewilderment as often ends in irrepressible laughter.
The little rondeau of Adam de la Hale, part of which is
quoted above, stands almost alone for genuine expressive-
ness, and even a certain attractiveness, amongst a great mass
of experiments which are simply chaotically clumsy and
homogeneous.
A still more rare and wonderful exception, which is im-
portant on other grounds besides its musical effectiveness, is
the famous English canon, "Sumer is icumen in," which is
probably of little earlier date. This is clearly a folk-tune
(and a very beautiful one) which lent itself easily to bein£
sung as a round by several voices in succession, with a sort
of drone bass. It is an almost unique example of its kind
INCIPIENT HARMONY 97
for the time when it was written; and it proves, in a mannei
which cannot be ignored, that composers had already at this
early date a very definite idea of the canonic form, which
was one of the earliest and simplest devices of contrapuntal
music, and almost the only one which was cultivated with
any success before the sixteenth century. The significant
point about this canonic form, in Telation to the evol
of musical art, is its singular homogeneousness. It afi
hardly any effect of artistic variety or contrast, and of itself
no special means of expression. In fact it is really no more
than a technical device — a sort of exercise of skill, like any
game which men play just for the amusement of overcoming
a difficulty. But in these early stages of development the
distinction between art and artifice had hardly arisen. Con-
sidering the state of the art at the time of its first appear-
ance, this form becomes a very important event in the story.
It was a very natural outcome of the improvement of pure
choral music that the different voices should sometimes be
made to sing the same words and phrases after one another
instead of simultaneously; and in later times, when men
had developed higher artistic sense, one of the most elastic
and comprehensive of musical forms was developed on that
principle. But in those early days, when musical intelligence
was so undeveloped, it was natural that composers should
endeavour to follow out a simple contrivance of the sort to
the bitter end, and should imagine that they had really
achieved an artistic result when they had manipulated the
flow of a voice part in such a way that another voice
beginning a little later should be able to sing the same
melody always a little way behind the leader. The d
undoubtedly took the fancy of early composers very stroi gly,
as was natural when so few devices of any kind were possible ;
and they expended so much energy upon it that in the
fifteenth century they developed quite an abnormal skill in
futile note-spinning and puzzle-making. It is not to he
denied that canons can be made not only very effective but
beautiful; the mistake which most of the early composer!
and many modern ones have made is to take the means for
98 THE ART OF MUSIC
an end, and assume that the device is worth doing for its
own sake. The canonic form is a further illustration of the
state of the art from another point of view, as it is purely
a combination of voice parts, and not a device of harmony
at all. The result is harmony of a sort, but in no sense a
phase of harmony which implies any feeling for system or
harmonic orde-. The harmonies are the accident and not
the essence of the device ; and the product was in the early
examples both rhythmically and structurally incoherent, and
so far homogeneous.
Another defect in the form which is characteristic of un-
developed artistic sense is that the voices go on all through
without material breaks. There is no relief or change in the
amount of sound which the ear receives, and therefore there
is a lack of variety. This feature is equally characteristic of
a large amount of the early choral music of other kinds.
Composers seem to have thought that it was an advantage
to keep the parts going; and when they gave any voice a
rest of long duration, it was generally less for the sake of
artistic effect than because they found it so difficult (in a
triplum or quadruplum) to keep all the parts in continual
activity. One part indeed was necessarily kept going. For
it was the almost universal practice that each movement was
developed upon some ready-made melody, such as a plain
chant, or even a secular tune put into long notes. This was
generally put in the tenor, and the other parts were added by
calculations such as those quoted on page 90. And if this
canto fermo stopped, there was nothing left to build upon.
Here again the product was homogeneous. The principle of
adding fresh voice parts to a given melody on contrapuntal
principles suggested of itself no contrasts except those of
pitch, nor any natural divisions or articulations of the artistic
organism, such as balanced phrases and periods. The music
flowed from end to end indefinitely, and the only indications
of completeness supplied were the definite point in the scale
from which the start was made, and the conventional close at
the end, sometimes, but by no means always, on the same ton*
as that from which the movement set out.
INCIPIENT HARMONY
99
A strong trace of the melodic system to which the old form
of art belonged is recognisable in the cadences. These were
not processes like a modern cadence, in which two blocks of
contrasted harmony succeed one another ; but progressions in
which the most important features were the descent of the
modal part — or canto fermo upon which the contrapuntal
structure was built — one step downwards upon the tonic of
the mode ; and its accompaniment in another part by a third
below or a sixth above in the penultimate step, passing finally
into the octave or the unison.
Modal part.
Accomp.
5=^1
-— <=*-
Accomp.
Modal part.
The whole aspect and texture of this old music is so dif-
ferent from the modern style, that it seems almost inconceiv-
able to most people, when they first come into contact with it,
that it could have had any musical effect at all, much less
that it could be the direct source of the elaborate modern
fabric. The most familiar rule that the tyro in the study of
harmony learns to his cost is to avoid consecutive fifths and
octaves ; but the rule of the mediaeval musicians was distinctly
and unquestionably to write more of them than of anything
else. As has been pointed out before, the basis and substruc-
ture of many compositions was a series of such fifths and
octaves disguised by ornamental notes and passing notes. In
other particulars also the difference from modern views ia
very marked; such as, for instance, in the use of discords
These early musicians used many discords, and very harsh
ones too, but hardly ever in any way like modern composers.
They were always purely accidental discords, and were in no
sense either used as means of contrast, nor to propel the
music on from point to point, as is their frequent function in
modern times. The melodic outline of one part jostled against
IOO T1IU ART OF MUSIC
that of .another voice part, and, as it were, disregarded what
its neighbour waa doing for a short while, till it landed upon
some note which brought it again into consonance with its
surroundings. The very idea of using chords of varying
degrees of harshness as a means of effect does not seem to
have dawned upon composers until after some centuries of
experience. Tin 1 early phase of the progress of harmony
from homogeneity to heterogeneity is distinctly traceable in
this respect In the first stage there is no variety at all ; all
are fifths or fourths consecutively. A slight variety appears
when fourths and fifths are mixed up with one another and
with octaves ; but it is very slight, as the difference between
one and the other in degree of consonance is scarcely marked
enough to afford a sense of contrast. When the force of
circumstances drove composers to use the less perfectly con-
sonant combinations of thirds and sixths, they enlarged the
scope of their resources, and their materials became more
systematically heterogeneous ; but it took them a long time
to realise the effects which could be made by using thirds as
contrasts to more perfect consonances. Ultimately the com-
posers with the higher instincts learnt to use the qualities of
the different consonances for relatively similar effects of con-
trast to such as are produced by the relations of concord and
discord in modern music ; and then going a step still further,
composers at last found out how to use real discords, such as
were not the result of jostling passing notes only, but syste-
matically introduced and under artistic control. They of
course only used one kind of discord, which was obtained by
one voice holding on a note which had been consonant in one
chord while the other voices went on to other positions which
made the combination into a discord. The appearance of this
device immensely enhanced the vitality of the music; and
though the moderation of composers in the use of it was
extreme, it brought a tone into the art which soon began t«
dispel the ancient traditions of successions of fifths and fourths
interspersed with discords which only came by chance and
fulfilled no artistic function. The curious makeshifts of
aiotets made up of several tunes twisted and hammered into
INCIPIENT HARMONY IOI
a dubious conformity by degrees ceasea to make tbeir appear-
ance. Composers still had to make their counterpoint upon
the basis of a canto fermo, or a canon, or some equally primi-
tive device, because without some kind of regulating principle
they wandered and were lost like children without guides
But a more musical spirit pervaded tlieir attempts, and tin j
found out how to dispose the progressions of their parts so as
to obtain contrasts of tone, and to make the voices flow at
once with more real independence and interdependence. The
influence of the old homogeneous organum ceased in time ; and
a real, though limited, heterogeneity took its place. And before
the end of the fifteenth century composers really understood
something of the delicate art of varying the amount and dis-
tribution of sound by sometimes having all the voices singing
full together, and sometimes letting some of them stop here and
there. And they even got so far as to understand how to make
the utterances of different voices coherent by making them take
up short fragments of melody or musical figures imitatively ;
and how to make the general texture of a movement uniform
by the pervading style and mood of the musical ideas.
But the musical ideas themselves were singularly vague and
indefinite. Even the tunes which composers borrowed were
put into such enormously long notes that whatever indi-
viduality there was in them inevitably disappeared. It is
quite impossible to recognise a tune when single notes are
prolonged to an extent equivalent to half-a-dozen bars in
slow time. And this extension was mercilessly practised by
the best mediaeval musicians in order to lengthen their move-
ments, and give more time for the spinning out of their
strange kinds of counterpoint. Spontaneity was of course
out of the question. The store of known technical resources
was too limited, and every musical work was the product of
arduous and laborious concentration, or of peculiar ingenuity.
Even expression of any kind was rare, for, strange as it
seems, in such immature products the chief pleasure lay in
arriving at a new experience through the overcoming of BOine
technical difficulty. Their minds were so fully occupied with
the difficulties they hadjfco overcome that they could think of
102 THE ART OF MUSIC
iittle els©. -And even up to the end of the fourteenth century
the effect produced by getting a certain number of voices to
go together at all seems to have been so new and attractive
that it was hardly necessary to go any further afield to strike
men with wonder at the achievement.
All this development naturally proceeded under the wing
of the Church. The system of the modes prescribed by
ecclesiastical authority, and such rules of counterpoint as
ecclesiastical theorists discovered, pervaded such secular music
as there was quite as much as the genuine Church music.
There were plenty of attempts made to compose secular motets,
and lively secular tunes with a sense of rhythm in them made
their appearance therein, but the contrapuntal procedure was
the same in all; and the same phases of progress are noticeable
in one as in the other. Even folk-tunes were influenced by
the modes which were taught by the Church ; and the more
highly organised songs of the Troubadours, little as their
authors wished it, had to submit to the universal influence.
The ecclesiastics were the only people who had devised any
system for recording music accurately, and therefore even if a
man wished to strike out an independent line, his musical
utterances were sure to be recorded in terms which only the
musicians trained in the school of the Church knew how to use.
The Troubadours indeed stand oufcide frbeAie of the direct
development of modern music, as their efforts seem to have
been purely melodic ; and though there are some beautiful
tunes still remaining which are attributed to them, they
represent a development of lyrical music which appears to
have had no immediate consequences. It was the fruit of
an isolated outburst of refined poetic feeling, and when its
natural home in the South of France was harried and ruined
by the Church the impulse dwindled and ceased.
But the crude efforts of the early contrapuntists, whether
secular or ecclesiastical, served as the immediate foundation
of one of the greatest eras in the history of musical art, and,
through that era, as the ultimate source of the characteristic
system of harmony which forms the distinguishing feature of
modern music.
CHAPTER V
THE ERA OF PURE CHORAL MUSIC
The early period from the ninth till the end of the fifteenth
century was, as it were, the babyhood of modern □ usic, when
ideas and modes of musical thought were indefinite, un-
systematised, and unpractical. The Church, like a careful
mother, watched over and regulated all that was done, and
the infantile efforts scarcely emerged at any time into definite-
ness either of form or expression.
The two centuries which followed, up to the beginning of the
seventeenth century, wore the period of the youth of modern
music — a period most pure, serene, and innocent — when man-
kind was yet too immature in things musical to express itself
in terms of passion or of force, but used forms and moods of
art which are like tranquil dreams and communings of man
with his inner self, before the sterner experiences of life have
quite awakened him to its multiform realities and vicissitudes.
The manner in which the inevitable homogeneity of an early
6tage of art presents itself is still discernible from every point
of view. The most comprehensive fact is that almost all the
music of these two centuries is purely choral — that is, either
j*written for aeveral voices in combination without independent
accompaniment, or devised upon methods which were invented
solely for that kind of performance. It followed from this
general fact that the methods of art were also homogeneous ;
for the proceases which are fit to be used by voices alone are
more limited in range and variety than those which can be
employed by instruments, owing to the greater difficulty of
taking awkward intervals and of sustaining the pitch, and to the
necessity of adapting the notes to words; and also to the fact
that the words often lessen the need of absolute principle*
104 THE ART OF MUSIC
of design, by supplying a meaning to the music in general,
when without them it would be incoherent.
The principal reason of this absorption of composers in the
cultivation of choral music is obvious. It is a well-ascertained
law of human nature, that men will not go out and labour
in the desert at haphazard when they are fully >ccupied in
extracting unlimited gold from a rich mine. Neither will
they (in a healthy state of existence) abandon an occupation
which is full of absorbing interest, and constantly presents
fresh problems most tempting to solve, for the mere chance
of amusement in some other direction. At the time when
the great era of pure choral music was beginning, musical
human beings, earnestly disposed, were just awakening to the
singular possibilities of beauty which the combinations of
many singing voices afforded. They were awakening to the
actual beauty of the sound of chords sung by voices — to the
beauty of delicate variety between one chord and another,
and between chords in different positions (partly owing to
the various qualities of the different registers of the voices) —
to the beauty of the actual human expression of the individual
voices, and to the beauty of the relations of the melodic
forms of the different parts to one another. To win the
delight of realising the various phases of these effects was
enough to keep them fully occupied on even severer labour
than the development of artistic technique; but the incite-
ment quickened their musical instinct marvellously, and in a
short time developed in them a delicacy of perception of
artistic means and a sense of style which is almost unique
in the history of the art. In later times composers are dis-
tracted by the varieties of style and taste which have been
developed, in the necessary course of musical evolution, for
different artistic purposes, such as the theatre and the concert-
room ; and they often introduce the formulas which belong to
one kind of art into another to which they are quite unsuited ;
but in the early days there were no such distractions. Men'i
minds were occupied by the conditions of choral performance
alone ; and the better they understood what they were trying
to do, the more refined and pure their artistic methods became
PURE CHORAL MUSIC 105
The turning-point from the helpless experimental crudity
which marks the infancy of the art, to the comparative cer-
tainty of aim and execution which indicates its healthily
maturing youth, was somewhere about the end of the fourteenth .
century. The state of transition is most strongly apparent/
in the works of the English composer Dunstabje^who in some
works still illustrates the bewilderingamorphousness of the
early stages of the art, and in others shows a fair mastery
of both design and general effect ; casting his vocaljnovemenis
in thoroughly intelligibl e design s, and disposing his voice
parts so as to obtain a really attractive quality of sound, not
for the casual moment only, but in passages which are suf-
ficiently long to be artistically effective. It marks no little
advance in skill and in the mastery of technique, when com-
posers were able to look beyond the mere overcoming of
incidental difficulties and to make use of their devices for
a purpose; and after Dunstable's time a definite purpose of,
some sort is more and more apparent in all they attempted.
It is probably common to all arts, that when the early stages
of wrestling with technical difficulties have been passed, the
aim of artists seems to be to produce effect s which are more
noteworthy for their beauty than for definiteness of expres-
sion and variety of characterisation. Distinctive definiteness
of expression was certainly not the aim of the composers of
the great choral period ; and if it had been, they could not
have succeeded -without launching out beyond the limits of
the art which they understood into that of experiment without
precedent and without standards of test. Indeed, they were
quite sufficiently occupied in applying the skill they had
developed to the simple purpose of making groups of various
voices produce effects of smooth and harmonious tone. In
the main, the music was singularly indefinite in almost every
respect. The style had grown up entirely under the influence
of the Church, and composers had learnt how to solve their
earliest artistic problems by using the old Church melodies
as a Jbasis^ whereon to add voice to voice and make a har-
monious combination ; and as the devotional sentiment of the
Christian religion belonged to that inward class of spiritual
106 THE ART OP MUSIC
'emotions which expressed themselves vocally rather than by
animated gestures, it followed that all this music was un-
rhythmic; and consequently it was also divested of all that
kind of regular orderliness of structure which seems so in-
dispensable in the maturer art of modern times.
It is true that composers had successfully elaborated
methods for regulating the lengths of the notes, but the
establishment of principles of relative duration tended rather
to obscure the rhythmic or metrical order of the music than
to define it at 6rst, owing to the manner in which they applied
them. The reason for this lay in the strong feeling musicians
had for the independence of the voice parts. Their artistic
instinct was specially attracted by the fascinating effect of
diverse movement controlled into the unity of a perfect flow
of harmony. To them it was still essential that each in-
dividual voice part should be pleasurable to sing, and the
more subtly the independence of each singer or voice part
was suggested, the more fascinating was the artistic effect.
The result was that in one phase of this kind of art composers
aimed chiefly at making the accents and climaxes of the
^various voice parts constantly alternate with one another.
One voice part rose when another fell, one held a note when
another moved, one came to its highest climax at one moment,
and then descended, while another, as it were overlapping,
moved up in its turn to another climax, and then in turn
gave way. And as the skill of composers in managing such
progressions improved, they found out how to distribute the
climaxes of the various voice parts so as to make them gain
in vital warmth by coming ever closer and closer; and the
hearer could in a moderate degree be excited by the sound
of successive crises in different qualities of tone, sometimes
tenor, sometimes treble, sometimes bass ; each of which seemed
successively to rise into prominence within the smooth texture
of the harmonious flow of sound, and then to be merged into
it again as another voice took its place.
The tendency of all such devices was to obscure the
rhythmic element of the music. But the necessity for
orderliness in the relative lengths of notes brought about
PURE CHORAL MUSIC 107
a clear recognition of underlying principles upon which the
strong and weak accents were grouped. The mere fact that
Borne particular long note had to be recognised as equal to
two, three, four, six or more shorter ones, necessitated the
development of a feeling for strong accents at the points
where the longer and the shorter notes started together; and/
for a proportionate absence of accent at the points where the
longer notes were holding, though the quicker notes were
moving. But it was rather a point of art with the choral
writers to avoid emphasising these mechanical accents, and
to make the voices have independent cross accents with one
another. In respect of pure contrapuntal skill, the beauty
of effect of such devices depended upon the manner in which
the composers managed to control them with the view to
keeping the harmonies complete, full in sound, and ever
subtly varying in quality. In early stages their control of
relative qualities of chords and their power to group them
effectively was very limited. Even their instinct for the
actual effect of chords had to be developed by long experience.
As has before been pointed out, in such devices as the old
motets, in which various tunes were forced to go together,
it was a matter of the purest chance what harmonies or
cacophonies succeeded each other. But as composers gained
experience they began to perceive the value of the effect of
contrast and variety which could be obtained by distributing
their chords with regard to their relative degrees of harshness.
And it obviously became a most fascinating study to find out
how to control the motions of the various voices so as to obtain
at once constant variety of accent, alternation of crisis, and
the particular effects of harmony of different degrees of ful-
ness or slightness which were required for the attainment of
satisfactory general effect.
The artistic problem was obviously by no means simple,
and though there was little to distract composers or divert
their energies into other lines of artistic speculation, very few
arrived at complete mastery of resource and complete percep-
tion of the various shades of chord effect which are as necessary
to the artistic result as the actual management of the strand*
Io8 THE ART OF MUSIC
of the counterpoint. But in one short period at the lattef
part of the sixteenth century a small group of composers
achieved a type of art which for subtlety and refinement in
the treatment of delicate shades of contrast has no parallel
in the history of musical art. The very absence of strong
emotional purpose or intention to characterise gave them a
peculiar opportunity. Their whole attention was concentrated
upon a limited field of effort, and the fruit of their labour was
a unique phase of a pure, and as it were ethereal beauty, too
delicate to satisfy mankind for long, and destined to be brought
to an end by a period of reactionary experiment which pro-
duced things almost as crude, ugly, and barbarous as those of
the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
But meanwhile, though the central aim of composers was
the development of skill in controlling the diverse voice parts
so as to produce these varying effects of harmonious sound,
yet there were many ways in which the tendency to branch
out into diversity was shown. Among the most noteworthy
of these was the adoption of a method of writing the voice
parts which served as a contrast to the elaborate contrapuntal
methods above described. In the most characteristic style of
choral writing of the old contrapuntal kind a note was but
rarely repeated for different syllables. The treatment of the
singing voice parts resembled in this the inflections of human
speech, in which mechanical reiteration of a note — which
implies subordination to some external rule of form or rhythm
— is rare. But the constant, ceaseless shifting of every voice
is liable to become a strain on the attention when it goes on
too long, and the mind begins to feel the need for some kind
of repose.
It was probably as a means of relieving this strain that
composers adopted a much simpler mode of procedure; in
which the effect was not obtained by the relations of the
melodic contours of the parts, but by successions of simple
harmonies in which the voices often moved in blocks of chords,
and also very often repeated (he same notes to different
syllables. This style is far more like the familiar modern
processes of harmonisation ; but there remains this marked
PURE CHORAL MUSIC 109
difference, that whereas in modern harmony the chords always
move in subordination to the principles of modern tonality —
as illustrating the antitheses of tonic and dominant and other
relatively contrasting centres — the old progressions of harmony
moved under the regulations of the modes, with much less of
definite system in their distribution, and also without the
melody in the upper part which is commonly the outward and
visible sign of the inward principle of design. The importance
of the occasional adoption of this kind of procedure was very
great, for it not only called men's attention more directly to
the actual effect of chords as chords, but also led them
inevitably to a more definitely rhythmic treatment of
the music. It became, as it were, the door through which
rhythm began to make its way into choral music of the
purest kind ; and though the finer artistic natures never
submitted wholly to its spell except on rare and well-chosen
occasions, the seduction it exercised was too great to be
resisted, and even before the great period of choral music
had arrived at its zenith its presence made itself subtly felt
here and there in all departments of art.
The most important result of the adoption of a simpler
method of harmonisation was that it awoke in men's minds a
new perception of the aspects of harmony pure and simple, and
a change of attitude towards design, which is betrayed by their
very helplessness in sustaining the interest in a long passage
which is harmonic rather than contrapuntal in its character.
The increased facility which men gained in the management of
their artistic resources led them to apply their skill to various
forms of both sacred and secular music. The best secular forms
were the m adrig als, which were written under the same artistic
conditions as the Church music, and aimed by similar treat-
ment of independent voice parts at obtaining beautiful effects
of melodic variety within the bounds of the controlling unity
of the harmony. The moods naturally became a little lighter
and more lively than in Church music, and the expression even
a little more definite and more varied. And it happened also
that the first collections of madrigals which won very marked
success — which were brought out by Axcadelt in the middle
IIO TIT K A UT OF MUSIC
decades of the sixteenth century — were singularly simple in
their hai*monic aspects, as the harmonies were allowed to
move very much in blocks and to present the simple rhythms
of the poems set, without the disguise of the familiar cross
accents and the subtleties of choral counterpoint. It was under
such circumstances that men began to feel the need of system
in the distribution of the harmonies; and as the modes under
whose restrictions they still worked hindered their finding any
satisfactory system of contrast between one group of har-
monies and another, they almost invariably lost themselves
in mazes of pointless obscurity in the middle of a composition
of any length. For though they could make a good beginning
and a good end with simple chords, art required a long period
of probation under quite new conditions before men found out
how to deal with the development of a long movement success-
fully on any lines but the contrapuntal ones with which they
were familiar. When Arcadelt and his contemporaries tried to
sustain the interest without the contrapuntal methods, their
skill soon failed them. But every effort in this direction
told ; and as men knew nothing better as yet in the way of
harmonic design, it cannot be supposed that they noticed the
defects of such early attempts as much as modern musicians
do. Undoubtedly the hearing of such works made them more
and more accustomed to tho possibilities of harmony of the
simpler kind, and in a great many smaller madrigals the
composers soon hit upon very definite and tuneful effects
which differ from modern works of a similar kind only in the
quaint and attractive peculiarities inevitable to harmonisa-
tion in the old ecclesiastical modes. In the madrigals of
the best time the finer contrapuntal methods were generally
adopted ; but men had so far progressed towards under-
standing the effect of harmonic design, that in many large
examples, especially in those of the English school, tonality
becomes sufficiently definite to admit occasionally of clear and
effective treatment of modulation of the modern kind ; which
implies a conception of art quite alien to the purely contra-
puntal and modal methods of the great choral composers,
A little consideration will show that the capacity to /eel
PUKE CHORAL MUSIC III
the artistic effect of a change of key implies the adoption of
a new attitude in relation to art which is of the first import,
ance. In melodic systems there is a wide range of possible
change of mode, but very little which amounts to change of
key. Differences of mode are differences in the relations of
various intervals to the most essential notes of the scale, such
as the initial or final of a tune, or any other notes on which
emphasis is especially laid. But differences of key are much
more subtle both in fact and effect. For they do not change
the order of the notes, but only the position of the centre
round which a uniform series is grouped ; and the beauty of
the effect is partly derived from the identity of order in rela-
tion to a changed centre, and partly from the fact that this
identity causes certain notes to appear in one key which do
not exist in the other. Now, the original conception of the
art of the choral epoch was purely melodic: the central
thread of orderliness was the modal part, as it was called,
which moved, according to certain rules, within a range of
sounds of which either C, D, E, F, G, or A was the most
essential note; and whatever parts were added were regulated
by their relation to this part, which was most frequently the
tenor. Sharps and flats were in no case introduced to give
the effect of change of key, but merely to avoid intervals
which were considered offensive and inartistic, or to make
the close of the movement satisfactory to the ear. The idea
of introducing an F# into a passage in order to make a modu-
lation from C to G, or a Bl? to pass from C to F, was alien to
the very heart of the modal system. When B!?- was intro-
duced it was because the interval of the tritone or augmented
fourth between F and B was disagreeable; and when men
found that the introduction of a flat to B produced the very
interval they wanted to avoid between Bfr and E, they evaded
the obnoxious interval again by adding a flat also to E when-
ever it was required by the circumstances. But the object
was not to suggest a change of tonality, or to obtain variety
of harmony, but to soften the effect of a melodic passage.
The sharps were introduced on grounds which were less purely
melodic, as the dissatisfaction in a cadence consisting of the
f I 2 THE ABT OP MUSIC
succession of the chords of D minor and G, which drov*
musicians to sharpen the F, implies quite as much sense of
the need for a penultimate major chord (which is a harmonic
consideration) as for the rise of the semitone to the final,
which is the melodic feeling. But, at any rate, it is quite clear
that when once these supplementary notes had been added
for one purpose, oomposers very soon made use of them for
other purposes. They soon saw that it gave them an addi-
tional means of effect, and without thinking of anything so
subtle or advanced as a change of key, they began to use them
to obtain the effect of a difference of quality in harmony in
the same position. They delighted in bringing passages close
together which contained chords with Fj{ and F& or Q* and
Cfl in them respectively. To people accustomed mainly to the
diatonic series the effect must have been subtly enchanting ;
and composers, in their eagerness to avail themselves of all
opportunities, occasionally overshot the mark, and made experi-
ments to which modern ears, though as a rule tougher than
ears of the sixteenth century, will not accord any appreciation.
But the use of these accidentals gave men the opportunity to
learn not only the important relations of tonic and dominant
chords, but also further to develop a new conception of the
nature of the musical scale. The truth is, that the frequent
use of these accidentals ultimately assimilated the modes to
such an extent, that little more than technical traditions,
differences of style, and forms of cadences distinguished the
music written in one mode from that written in another.
This might be counted as a loss if it were not remembered
that the old modal system was quite unfitted for the artistic
purposes of harmony, and that the assimilation of modes into
a system of keys was a necessary preliminary to the develop-
ment of true harmonic music of the modern kind, and of
those principles of harmonic design which are vital to it>
existence.
The masters of the great choral period never arrived at i
definite acceptance of the contrast between tonic and domi-
nant as a basis of design ; but they understood the principle
wall enough to use progressions of such chords effectively it
PURE CHORAL MUSIC I I 3
cadences of various kinds, and they arrived at a clear enough
feeling for tonality in the latest years of the period to use
passages which represent such contrasts of key as D minor
and B? major, E minor and G, D minor and F. But the
instinct of the higher class of composers for continuity in the
flow of sound militated against any systematic use of such
contrasts for purposes of design. Their movements started
from some initial point, and wandered ceaselessly through
unbroken mazes of counterpoint till the return to the starting-
point in the close. There was nothing of the systematic
modulation to a new key, and definite use of it as the principal
element of contrast in the design which is familiar in modern
music. But they soon found out the advantage of making
subordinate recommencements start from chords which con-
trasted with one another; and the growth of their feeling for
such contrasts grew with their freer use of accidentals, till the
relation in which whole passages stood to one another was
sufficiently clear and broad to give to a modern musician the
impression of a very effective modulation.
It was in compositions of a lower order that composers were
driven to experiment in rhythmical grouping of periods more
like modern harmonic forms ; for as in these they tried to set
their poems directly and simply, they had no choice but to
look for successions of chords which were effectively alternated
and balanced. The general diffusion of skill in the manage-
ment of voice parts brought into being a variety of popular
forms which went by the names of Canzonas, Frottolas, and
Villanellas, many of which were simple arrangements of
popular street tunes, such as, but for the universal influence
of the modes, would resemble modern part-songs; and bi
these there was a very large amount of dance music for voices
in parts, such as the Balletti, which were necessarily rhythmic
and definite in the distribution of phrases and periods, and
regularly grouped into bars. Many of these are remarkably
bright, sparkling, and skilfully contrived with great feeling
for vocal effect. The style of these works reacted upon the
higher types of art, such as the madrigals ; and in the latest
phase of that form of art, which is represented at its beat in
114 THE ART OF MUSIC
England during the latter part of Elizabeth's reign and in
the time of James I., the actual subjects and figures of melody
came to have a far more definite and distinct character, and
the aspect of the works in general became far more animated,
more pointed, and more rhythmic than it had been in earlier
generations. The balance of style was admirably sustained
by the great masters of the English school, Byrd, Wilbye,
Weelkee Benet, Morley, Gibbons, and others, though they
clearly aimed at more definite expression and more close
attention to the words than would have been consistent with
the artistic intentions of the early Netherland and Italian
masters. But the expansion of the style in these directions
bore with it the seeds of dissolution; and as soon as com-
posers endeavoured to enlarge the scope of choral music yet
further by imitating the methods of the early operas and
cantatas, the mediaeval type of choral art passed into mongrel
forms, and very shortly ceased altogether.
In connection with the dissolution of the early form of art,
it is impossible to overlook the fact that branches of art which
were completely in the background and were held of but small
consequence at the time when pure choral music was at its
highest perfection, had great influence in bringing the era
of its prosperity to an end. For even long before the days
of such unique masters of choral art as Palestrina, and
Lasso, and Gibbons, men had begun to divine that there were
possibilities of new effects, and a wide extension of artistic
resources to be got out of music for instruments. And even
while these great masters were busy enriching the world with
their masterly achievements, other men were busily making
crude experiments in instrumental music, which were among
the most potent influences in leading the world to prefer new
kinds of music to the choral masterpieces of the latter part
of the sixteenth century, and served to supply the sub-
stratum upon which the experimenting revolutionaries of the
next generation began to build. While men had so much of
their attention concentrated upon developing artistic methods
which were most suitable for human voices in combination;
instruments had naturally been considerably in the background,
PURE CHORAL MUSIC I I $
they had been very imperfect in construction, and had next
to nothing to do with really high-class art in any independent
form. But the early imperfect types of viols which had long
been in use were by degrees improved under the influence of
men's growing appreciation for beauty of tone and refinement
of feeling for execution, and before the end of the sixteenth
century, even when the great masters of choral music were
in the heyday of their artistic prosperity, the earliest repre-
sentatives of the unique and incomparable school of Italian
violin-makers were already busy with their inimitable work,
In kindred lines of workmanship men arrived at great per-
fection in the making of those troublesome but very fascinat-
ing domestic instruments, the lutes of all kinds ; and at the
same time the early types of keyed instruments, such as
harpsichords or virginals and clavichords and spinets, were
rapidly approaching a condition sufficiently practicable to be
worthy of the attention of genuine composers ; and organs
were passing out of the cumbrous and unmanageable state
in which there had to be almost as many bellows as notes,
and the notes had to be put down with the whole fist, into a
practicable condition which admitted of independent music
being performed upon them. But the music for instruments
was in a very backward state, because composers had no idea
what to aim at in writing for them. When they wanted
something of a superior artistic order for stringed instruments,
they simply played madrigals, or wrote music in imitation of
any of the varieties of choral music ; not realising that withoutl
the human tones and the varying degrees of effort and tension!
in the vocal chords, which gave expression to the rising and!
falling of the melodic material, the effect was pointless and flat/
No doubt the skilful treatment of contrapuntal resources made
these movements interesting to the performers to play ; but
apart from such personal considerations, all the early music of
this kind, produced before the rhythmic treatment appropriate
to instruments came into force, is altogether shadowy and
colourless, and has no independent artistic status.
The case was different with dance tunes, for in such
rhythmic ranges the instruments were in their proper sphere.
I 1 6 THE ART OF MUSIC
There is a very large quantity of such music for stringed in-
struments and harpsichords which represents the crude and
primitive types of later sonatas and suites. These little
works were written by composers of all countries, and an
occasional example is met with which has real vivacity and
effectiveness ; but for the most part they are singularly
clumsy and inartistic, and hardly ever present more than the
slightest trace of refined artistic intention in the composer.
They indicate a dim sense of abstract effect only in the alter-
nations of quick and slow dances, and of dances in rhythm of
three or four beats, and in attempts to regulate the structure
of the individual dance tunes into equal and balancing groups
of bars. The backward condition of the technique of perform-
ance on stringed instruments accounts for a good deal of the
crudity and absence of expression in the music written for
them ; for mankind developed their skill in performance quite
as slowly and laboriously as they developed the technique of
composition ; and the progress of both invention and execution
has been at all times to a great extent interdependent.
The standard of lute music was slightly better than that of
the music written for other stringed instruments. The instru-
ment was very popular in refined sections of society ; and the
fact that it required less mechanical ingenuity to bring it to
perfection, and that it was very portable and well adapted
to the conditions of domestic performance and to the social
arrangements of wealthy people, caused its technique to be
brought to a high pitch before that of any other modern
instrument. The sort of music written for it in the early
days was much like that written for stringed instruments;
and consisted mainly of dance tunes in sets, occasionally of
imitations of choral canzonas and madrigals, and occasionally
also of fanciful movements which weald correspond to free
preludes or fantasias in modern music. What gives these
works a higher importance in relation to later instrumental
music than the early viol music, is, that the element of
personal skill and expression is much more apparent in them,
and that the style is on the whole much more independent
and more distinctively instrumental. The development ot
PURE CHORAL MUSIC 117
the ornamental department of music had to be achieved in
the same fashion as that of all other features of the art; and
there can be no doubt that the early stages of the invention
of the rich and copious store of decorative material and of
decorative principles, which are so characteristic of modern
music, were achieved by the early composers for the lute.
Even quite early in the sixteenth century, when the great
choral style was by no means matured, lute music was already
much cultivated ; and though the forms of the movements,
such as Ricercare, Passamessos, Preambules, and Pavanas,
were at first crude and imperfect, and the ornaments childish
and tame, yet such works and groups of movements formed the
basis of a long and continuous improvement, ultimately finding
highly artistic expression in the Ordres of Couperin and the
Suites and Partitas of J. S. Bach.
The music for the harpsichord and its nearest relatives
attained but slight independence in the days of the great
choral composers. Arrangements were made of choral music,
and imitations of the same were attempted ; and a fair quantity
of dance tunes similar to those written for the violins or viols
was produced. Some lute music was adapted, and a certain
number of independent fantasias and preludes were contrived;
which were sometimes written in the choral style, and sometimes
consisted of simple passages of runs and arpeggios, A certain
amount of development of decorative material and of technique
was achieved; but, on the whole, this branch of instrumental
music was more backward than any other in those days.
On the other hand, organ music was relatively the most
advanced, and the nearest to complete emancipation and
independence. The requirements of ecclesiastical functions
must have made considerable demands on the powers of
organists from comparatively early times ; and though the
backward state of the mechanism of the instrument prevented
them from achieving much distinction by brilliant display,
they had ample occasion for experimenting in solo music, and
the results they attained to were as fruitful as they are
instructive. As in othor branches of instrumental music,
they frequently imitated the contrapuntal methods of choral
I I 8 THE ART OF MUSIC
music, and with more appropriate effect. But following th«
natural instincts of human kind, they endeavoured to adorn
these movements with flourishes and turns and all the avail-
able resources of ornamental variation. They also developed
a kind of performance which, without disrespect, may be
compared to very bad and unintelligent modern extempori-
sation. The systematisation of chord progressions had yet to
be achieved, and even the ablest composers were therefore,
through lack of opportunity, in much the same position as
any very inefficient modern organist is through lack of ability.
They had little or no conception of genuine musical ideas of
the kind which is adapted to instruments, and the need for
purely ornamental performance was the more imperative.
They therefore devised toccatas and fantasias, which consisted
of strings of gcale-passages, turns, and shakes, upon succes-
sions of chords which are for the most part completely in-
coherent. Few things could be more instructive, in respect
of the fact that our modern music is purely the fruit of
cumulative development of artistic devices, than the entire
absence of idea, point, and coherence in these early works,
which are often the productions of composers who were great
musicians and masters of all the resources of refined choral
effect. The movements were possibly effective in great
churches, from the wild career of the scale-passages in treble,
bass, or middle parts, which often rushed (no doubt in moderate
tempo) from one end of the instrument to the other. Almost
the only structural device which these early organists mastered
was the effect of alternating passages of simple imitation, like
those in choral music, as a contrast to the brilliant display of
the scales. Further than this in point of design they could
not go, except in so far as mere common-sense led them to
regulate their passages so as to obtain different degrees of
fulness in different parts of the movement, and to pile up the
effects of brilliant display and gather them all into one
sonorous roll of sound at the conclusion. Crude as these
works are in design, they were a definite departure in the
direction of independent instrumental music on a considerable
■oale, and were the direct prototypes of the magnificent organ
PURE CHORA L MUSIC 119
works of J. S. Bach. In fact, the branch of organ music has
always continued to be more nearly allied to the great style of
the choral epoch than any other instrumental form. The first
great representative organist, Frescobaldi, was born in tin-
palmy days of choral music, and made his fame while it was
still flourishing; and though the resources of harmonic music
were a necessary adjunct to bring this branch to maturity
in later days, their ultimate predominance did not obliterate
the traces of the earlier polyphonic style so completely as
was the case in violin and harpsichord music, nor did their
concomitants entirely obscure the time-honoured dignity of the
early contrapuntal traditions. In other branches of instru-
mental music harmonic conditions necessitated the develop-
ment of an absolutely new style and new methods of art. In
organ music the old methods and something of the anciejit
style were retained, and were only modified by the ne.w con-
ditions so far as was necessary to make the design of the
movements systematic and intelligible in general and in detail.
It remains to consider shortly the essential artistic methods
and principles of this great era of art The prevailing
influence which regulated all things in every department of
art was fitness for choral performance. There was practically
no solo singing, and, as has been pointed out above, the
feeling of musicians for instrumental effect was extremely
crude and undeveloped. Harmony was primarily the result
of voices singing melodious parts simultaneously; and the
highest skill was that which could weave good vocal parts
so as to obtain beautiful and interesting successions of chords.
In the conception then formed of good vocal parts only the
simplest diatonic intervals were admissible, and only the very
simplest chords. It was unnatural for voices to assume discord
ant relations with one another directly, so the only discordfi
allowed were such as were purely transitory, or such as wr< ri
obtained by the pretty device of holding one or more notes
of a harmonious combination while others moved to positions
in the scale which made the stationary ones discordant, till
they again resolved themselves into the unity of the harmony,
All such discords have a double function ; they supply contrast,
8
I 20 THE ART OF MUSIC
ti rid make that departure from unity which serves as impulse.
They impel the movement onward, because it is impossible to
rest upon discord, and the mind is nob satisfied till the source
of disquiet is intelligibly merged in a more reposeful combina-
tion. In a perfect work of musical art there is no absolute
point of repose between the outset and the close. To make an
entirely satisfying and complete close is to make what follows
superfluous. The perfect management of such things, even in
early stages of art, is much more subtle than it looks. A
really great master so adjusts the relative degrees of movement
and repose that each step has its perfect relation to the con-
text and to the whole. Every discord must have its resolution ;
but till the moment of complete repose which brings the work
to conclusion, each resolution is only so far complete as to
satisfy the mind partially. The problem is so complicated and
delicate that it is quite beyond the powers of mere calculation ;
and its difliculty — combined with hundreds of other artistic
problems of similar delicacy — accounts for the great length of
time that human instinct has taken to arrive at the status of
modern music. The difliculty also accounts for the variety of
standards which are presented at different periods in musical
history which are more or less mature in their way. The great
composers of choral music dealt in the very simplest and
slenderest materials. They reduced the prominence of their
points of repose to a minimum by using extremely few dis-
cords, even of the gentle kind above described ; and they
obtained variety by making use of the more delicate shades
of difference in the actual qualities of various concords, whose
resolutions were not so restricted ; and they evaded the feeling
of coming to an end in the wrong place, by keeping their voice
parts constantly on the move, and by avoiding the formulas of
their conventional cadences in those parts of the scale which
suggested complete finality.
It was natural that the representatives of typically different
races should adopt artistic methods which led to somewhat
different results. The Netherlander, who took the lead so
prominently in the fifteenth century, always had a taste for
ingenuities and for subtleties of artistic device. It was the
PURE CHORAL MUSIC 121
Netherland composers who carried the homogeneous form of
the canon to such extremes of futile ingenuity ; but it was
also their great composers who achieved all the most arduous
part of the early development of their craft, and handed it on
to the Italians to complete. In the end the work of the
Netherlanders is the most characteristic, but that of the
Italians most delicately beautiful; while the English school,
which followed both, is far more comprehensive in variety,
definiteness, and character, though never attaining to the
extraordinary finish and perfection which is met with in
Palestrina's work at its best. In the greatest triumphs of
Palestrina, Vittoria, and Marenzio, the smooth, easy, masterlv
flow of separate voice parts seems naturally to result in per-
fect combinations of sound ; in Lasso's work it is easy to see
the deliberate ingenuity which contrives some weird unex-
pected successions, and makes chords melt into one another
in ways which have a touch of magic in them; and Josquin
and Hobrecht, notwithstanding the disadvantages of a less
mature state of art, suggest the same attitude. With Byrd
and Gibbons there is a touch of English hardness and boldness ;
and in others of the same school, a bright and straightforward
freshness which is peculiarly characteristic. The English
school came to its best days so late as compared with foreign
schools that it is no wonder that its works show many traits of
a later order of musical art than do the purest Italian examples.
But the same premonitions of a great change are also plenti-
fully shown in the works of the adventurous composers of
Venice, especially those of the great Giovanni Gabrieli ; who,
besides producing many superb examples of the true old choral
style, endeavoured to introduce the element of direct expres-
sion both by harmony and figure, and tried effects of instru-
mental accompaniment which belong to a different order of art
from that of the pure choral era, and made many experiments
which were among the precursors of the great change which
brought the period of pure choral music to an end.
In a general survey of the aspects of this important period
of art, the condition of homogeneity and indefiniteness appears
to be universal. This is especially the case in respect of the
122 THE ART OP MUSIO
structure of musical movements. The only form in which a
definite principle of procedure was maintained from beginning
to end was the canon (which the old masters called Fuga), in
which different voices sang the same melody throughout the
movement a little after one another (see p. 97). The device
has occasionally been made interesting by clever treatment, in
fcpite of its drawbacks ; but this does not nullify the fact that
it is inherently mechanical and inartistic by reason of its
rigidity and monotony. Of definite principles of design beyond
this elementary device these early composers had but few.
Their treatment of musical figures and melodic material is
Fingularly vague. The familiar modern practice of using a
definite subject throughout a considerable portion of a move-
ment, or at certain definite points which have a structural
importance, is hardly to be met with at all. The voices which
entered one after another naturally commenced singing the
same words to phrases of melody which resembled each other.
But composers' ideas of identity of subject-matter were singu-
larly elastic, and even if the first half-dozen notes presented
similar contours in each voice part successively, the melodic
forms soon melted into something else, and from that point
the movement wandered on its devious way without further
1 • ference to its initial phrases. A few cases occur in which
composers use a well-defined figure throughout in constant
reiteration artistically disposed ; but such are accidents of the
composer's mood, and any system in such things was quite
foreign to their aims. The same is the case with all principles
of structure cither in general or in detail. Occasionally com-
p. Ben produced striking effects by sequences, and by giving
parallel passages to different groups of voices or balancing
choirs; but such devices were not of general application,
ionally also the beginning and end of a movement were
made to correspond; but that, too, was extremely rare. The
common modern practice of repeating phrases at long intervals
apart is an abstract musical conception, and its systematic
use in art is the result of the development of instrumental
form in later times.
In no respect is the universal absence of definiteness and
PURE CHORAL MUSIC I 23
variety more noticeable than in the actual musical material or
"subjects." Throughout the whole range of the old sacred
choral music these are almost without decisive significance.
It is true that composers adopted such innocent devices as a
I long descending scale-passage to express the descent into hell,
and a formula which might be traced into a cross for the
" crucifixus," and a slow passage of simple reiterated chords
to express the awe of the worshipper at the thought of the
incarnation, and so on in parallel cases; but the position
occupied by subject-matter and figure in their scheme of art
is altogether different from that which it occupies in the
modern scheme. The subject, indeed, barely stands out from
its context at all. It is as though the art was still in too
nebulous a state for the essential elements to have crystallised
into separate and definite entities. This is chiefly the result
of the absence of rhythm, without which every melodic contour
is to a certain extent wanting in complete definiteness and
force. In the matter of expression again the same absence of
definiteness and variety is noticeable, partly in consequence of
the limited and uniform nature of the scales. As each com-
plete piece of music was subject to the rule of some special
mode, all the sentiments contained in it were restricted by
the characteristics of the mode employed. If it was what a
modern musician would call minor in character, the musical
expression for the " Gloria " had to be got out of it as well as
that for the " Miserere." And though the use of accidentals
modified modal restrictions to a certain extent, the modifica-
tions were not sufficiently general to obviate the fact that in
detail a piece of music had to follow the rule and character of
the mode rather than the sentiment of the words. Indeed, this
is so far the rule that the attempt to introduce direct expres-
sion into the scheme at the expense of modal purity was
among the immediate causes of the rapid decay and collapM-
of the whole system of the old art.
In close connection with the limits of expression were the
limitations of the actual chord material or harmonies. No
great force of expression could be obtained without more
powerful dissonance than the scheme allowed. The scheme
I 24 THE ART OF MUSIC
was based on consonant harmonies ; and the discords, which
were mild in character and comparatively rare in use, were
no more than artificial modifications of the chain of concords.
The incisive striking upon a discord without preliminary was
a thing quite alien to the style ; and nothing is more decisive
as a sign of the approaching end of pure choral music than
the appearance of even the slightest and mildest discord with-
out artificial preparation.
In the general aspect of music of the choral time the same
homogeneousness prevails. Sacred music, by the end of the
period, was subdivided into mass muSic, motets, hymns, psalms,
and many other titles ; but as far as style was concerned the
distinctions were more nominal than real, for the difference
between one and the other was very slight indeed. The main
subdivision of the period was into sacred and secular music.
But the higher class of secular music was very much like
sacred music in methods, and not very different even in style ;
while the branches of lighter secular music, which differed
most from the highest artistic forms in their more rhythmical
character and harmonic structure, were as yet limited both
in range and development.
The chief points which were gained in this period were
a very fine and delicate perception of the qualities of chords
when sung by voices, and wonderful skill in manipulating
the melodic progressions of the separate voice parts so as to
obtain very subtle gradations of variety in the succession of
these chords. While they were achieving these matters, com-
posers unconsciously developed a feeling for the classification
of such chords in connection with certain tonal centres. The
almost universal practice of the "musica ficta" which entailed
the modification of the modes by accidentals, brought the effect
of tonality more and more into prominence, especially in the
cadences ; and by these processes the basis was formed for the
new departures which ensued; and with the help if the insigni-
ficant attempts at instrumental music, which were made even
while the art of unaccompanied choral music was at its highest
perfection, the materials which formed the groundwork and
footing of the structure of the latest modern art were supplied
J
CHAPTER VI
THE RISE OF SECULAR MUSIC
Without taking into consideration the many external causei
which influenced and modified the character of various arts
about the end of the sixteenth century, it might have been
foreseen that a new departure in music was inevitable on
internal and artistic grounds alone. The range of the art
had been extremely limited so far) and though its limitations
had conduced to the development of singularly perfect results,
such advantages could not prevent men from wearying of
apparent monotony, and becoming restive under restrictions
which seemed to be hindrances to the fullest expression of their
musical ideals. A reaction, such as in analogous situations
in ordinary life drives men accustomed to ease and refine-
ment of surroundings to court hardship, danger, and priva-
tion, drove men of the highest taste and refinement, and
such as were most thoroughly in touch with the spirit and
movement of roeir age, to cut themselves adrift from the
traditions of a perfectly mature art — to cast aside the
principles which the accumulated observations and efforts of
past generations had brought to an admirable practical issue
— and adopt a kind of music which was formless, crude,
and chaotic.
The higher type of conservative mind instinctively feels
that such wellbeing as society enjoys, and all the wealth of
artistic technique, and the skill by which men achieve all
they do well, are the fruits of the experiences and intelligent
efforts of previous generations. To a mind so constituted
a sweeping rejection of the judgment of ancestry is like
cutting away the very ground upon which things are built ;
126 THE ART OF MUSIC
and the immediate result of sweeping reforms generally
justifies conservative forecasts. To the conservative musician
of the early days of the seventeenth century the projects
of the enthusiasts who founded modern music must have
appeared, as radical reforms generally do, to be based on
misconceptions — an outrage against all the best grounded
principles of art, and the offspring of brains which were
childishly regardless of the most obvious consequences.
The reformers, with the hopefulness characteristic of en-
thusiasts, though^ they could dispense with all the fruits
of past experience, and develop a new art on the basis of
pure theoretic speculation. / They gase- up the subtleties of
polyphonic uniting and the devices which were natural to
choral music ; the beau^ul effects obtainable by skilful
combinations of voice pWts ; the traditions of a noble
style, and the restrictions which made it consistent and
mature ; and they thought to make a new heaven and a new
earth where secular expression should be free and eloquent
without reference to past artistic experiences!^ guide to the
artistic means. /
But they had to adopt unconsciously mucn that their pre-
decessors had built up for them. It was ? as often happens
in revolutions, when new constitutions have to be built out
of the wisdom of those whose heads have been cut off. Even
the earliest experiments were based upon a «ude application
of chord effects of which they could have hM no concepRon
without the development of choral polyphony which their
predecessors had laboriously achieved. Their first experiments
were essentially steps made in the dark ; and the first results
that they achieved had the usual aspects of such steps in
reform, and look purely infantile and absolutely ineffective
by the side of the artistic works which they were meant to
supersede. But nevertheless the event proved the reformers
to be perfectly right. For unless they had ventured as they
did, and had been as blind as reformers sometimes need to
be to immediate consequences, the ultimate building up of
the marvellously rich and complicated edifice of modern art
could never have been achieved. The conservatives wer*
THE RISE OF SECULAR MUSIC 12;
perfectly right in foreseeing that the methods of the new art
would immediately bring the old .jtrt to ruin. The reformers
were equally right in judging that it was necessary to make
that great sacrifice in order that art might obtain a new lease
of vitality.
The objects of the earliest reformers, such as Cavaliere,
Caccini, Galilei, and Peri, were very innocent. They had no
idea of making astonishing effects, or of attracting attention
by meretricious effrontery. Thex ainaed, with a sobriety
which was artistic at least in its reticence, at devising means
to combine music and poetry, so that tm two arts should
enhance one another. They tried to find some simple musical
way of declaiming sonnets, poems, and playsflfcth a single
voice, accompanied by such gentle instruments as lutes and
harpsichords. The idea was nowtotally new, for theatrical
representations with music and a kind of declamation had
been attempted before ; solo music of a kind had been prac-
tised by troubadours, trouveres, and various independent
secularists ; while instrumental music — which was such an
important element in their scheme — had long been cultivated
on a small scale, chiefly in short dance movements, but occa-
sionally also for crude experiments more of the nature of
abstract art. But nevertheless they had to begin almost from
the beginning, and find out. the requirements of their art as
they went on. At first they seem to have had no idea that
any kind of design or even musical figures were required.
They thought it sufficient for the solo voice to declaim the
poetry in musical sounds whose relations of pitch imitated
the inflections of the voice in ordinary declamation ; and they
were satisfied with an accompaniment which consisted of
nothing more than simple chords, such as they had grown
accustomed to hear in the music of the Church and in the
simple instrumental music of the early days. Though the com-
posers of some of the early dances had already suggested the
principle of design by grouping related and contrasted chords,
the intelligence of these speculative enthusiasts was at first
scarcely so far advanced as to lead them to imagine that a
similar practice was advisable in music associated with words.
f28 THE ART OF MUSIC
Each individual chord as a lump of harmony served to support
the voice for the moment ; and the utmost their dormant
sense of design seemed to demand in regulating the order of
the harmonies was that, in passages which were specially
unified by a complete verse of the poetry, the same chord
should appear at the beginning and at the end of the phrase.
The development of sense for chord relationship had pro-
gressed far enough in the days of the great choral music
to make men perfectly alive to the effect of the familiar
dominant and tonic cadence; and this the composers of the
new style used with great frequency, thereby conclusively
defining the actual ends of passages ; but the general struc-
ture of the p«feages themselves remained incoherent, because,
apart from the cadence, composers did not recognise the
essential importance of thi^apposition of the dominant and
tonic chords as a means of design. The very necessity of
a principle of contrast in the new scheme of art remained
to be found out by long experience. In an art so hedged
about with limitations as the pure choral art had been, such
a principle of contrast was not needed, and the peculiar
properties of the old ecclesiastical modes always acted as a
hindrance to its discovery. And the obstruction did not
cease even when the new music had begun, because the
habits and associations of all kinds of music, both secular
and sacred, had been formed under the influences of the
old modal systems ; and these had sunk so deep into men's
natures, and had so coloured their habits of thought, that
they could only shake themselves free and find their true
path by slow degrees. As long as men's minds were in-
fluenced by the conventions of the modes, they constantly
made the harmonies move in directions which rendered
nugatory the one chord which was necessary as the principal
centre of contrast : and definiteness of design of the harmonic
kind was thereby rendered impossible. The essence of design
in harmonic music of the modern kind is that groups of chords
and whole passages shall have a well-defined and intelligible
connection with certain tonal centres, and that the centres
round which the successive passages are grouped shall have
THE RISE OF SECULAR MUSIC I 29
definite and intelligible relations of contrast or affinity with
one another. The simplest dance tune or street song is
now constructed upon such principles no less than the
greatest masterpieces. But the early experimenters hail
no experience of such effects, and jumbled up their chords
together incoherently. They thought of littl< vary-
ing their order, and supplying a support to the declamation
of the voice. The result is that not only each portion of
music set to line and verse, but the whole plan of the
works, is indefinite in structure, and has next to do
principle of necessary cohesion beyond the occurrence of
cadences. The course of the early operas wanders on
through pages of monotonous recitative, varie'l only here
and there by little fragments of chorus or short dance tunes,
which are almost as innocent ofimelody or design as the
recitative itself.
This obvious condition of homogeneity appears not only in
the structure of these works, but also in the expression ; for
whether poignant anguish or exuberant joy is the tlieme,
there is hardly any variety in the style of the music, which
has therefore hardly any function beyond formalising the
declamation. In Rinuccini's little drama of Euridice the
familiar story is relieved of its poignancy, and a good deal
of its point, by the success of Orpheus in winning back his
lost love from the Shades. Consequently the composers
had to set both the expression of despair at receiving the
news of her death, and of joy at bringing her back to life;
and from the manner in which they addressed themselves
to this object much may be learnt. Two important set!
of the little drama exist, both of which saw the light in
1600. The best of the two is that by the enthusiastic
amateur Jacopo Peri, which was performed at I
grace the wedding festivities of Henry IV. of France and
Maria Medici. It was not the first work of its kind, but
it is the first of which enough remains in a complete
to afford safe inferences as to the aims and methods <>f the
new school; and the manner in which Peri treated the
two highly contrasted situations above alluded to is very
130
THE ART OF MUSIC
instructive. The following is the passage which was then
held adequate to express the poignancy of Orpheus' feelings
over his loss : —
Voice.
Aoootnp.
m
^
■#-gt-#-
b=t
^C=^
^^m
O mio core O mio speme, O pace O ri - ta
^
2*±?±
-s>-
~3~~&~V
\ h - b^S ^P
^=s^
i*-fc*-
■fe-ftg^-
Ohi - dm Cbi mi t'hatol - to Chimit'ha
feS: &
^
:p^
yp&r
fe j^M^^
et cet.
tol - to Ohi-me
to segi -
«o ^
a. *t£ i
The following is the music in which he expresses his joy at
bringing his lost bride back to the light of day : —
Vote*
S
:gt
^zr
33=3
te al canto mio
*=F
&
y=r
THE RISE OF SECULAR MUSIC
131
p:
^P^P^
£
■el • Te fron-do
Uio-i
m
p
H
' -f- ff^ -cr
^
fr
*=±=i
^==sz
S
col - U
J§L
d'ogni In - tor
m
r#
s
4=t
iE
:^-
3=i
3±
00 rim-bom
t^ u; ^ §
ss
bi dalle
1—
The texture of the two passages is obviously very similar ;
but it is well not to overlook the points which show some sense
of adaptation to the respective states of emotion. Both pas-
sages afford fair opportunity to a competent singer to infuse
expression into the ostensibly bald phrases. And, besides
this, they lend themselves very happily to the requirement*
of the situations, and show the justness of the composer's
instinct in those respects in which artistic technique is not
'ivy essential. For the phrases which express bereavement
and sorrow are tortuous, irregular, spasmodic — broken with
catching breath and wailing accent; whereas the expression
of joy is flowing, easy and continuous, and unusually well
defined and regular in form, approaching as nearly to the
types of modern harmonic art as was possible in those days.
Such general points as tnese can be effected by intelligent
beings without much training or experience ; but the detaili
U3
THE ART OF MUSIC
are carried out crudely and baldly, for the day was still far ofl
when men learnt how to make anything artistically appropriate
of the instrumental accompaniment.
There is very little in the works of the other representa-
tives of this new departure which indicates views or skill in
any special degree superior to Peri's. Caccini's setting oi the
same drama of Euridice is in general character very like Peri's.
It lias the same monotonous expanses of recitative with accom-
paniment of figured bass, and similar short fragments of chorus,
consisting of a few bars at a time, written with quite as obvious
a lack of sense for choral effect. Perhaps the most noteworthy
point is that, being one of the earliest solo singers of repute,
and the father of a famous cantatrice, he introduced roulades
and ornamental passages for the singers; thereby devising
some of the first formulas, and prefiguring even in those early
days the tasteless and senseless excesses of vain show which
disfigure certain types of modern opera. The following pas-
gage is from Caccini's Euridice : —
Voice
Aooomp.
m
Can
^
m
THE RISE OF SECULAR MUSIC I 33
It is noteworthy that these flourishes usually occur close to
the end of verses and phrases, just as simpler ones do in the
old German folk-songs. Caccini wrote a book about the
"Nuove Musiche," in which he described the objects of the
reformers ; and in this work he gave some examples of set-
tings of short poems for a solo voice, which serve as almost
the earliest examples of consciously contrived solo-songs with
instrumental accompaniment, as distinguished from folk-songs.
These also serve to emphasise the very slight sense which the
composers had of the need for design, or of the possibility of
obtaining such a thing by the distribution of the successions
of chords. What remains of Emilio Cavaliere's work is similar
in character, and shows almost as vague a sense of design. The
bass solo which serves as an introduction to his one Oratorio is
the finest piece of work left by this group of composers, and
is a very noble and impressive monument of the man, of
whom we know but little beyond the fact that the invention of
recitative is attributed to him by his fellow-composers. To
judge from this example, he must have been of larger calibre
than they were. Here and there he even shows some sense
of modulation as a means of effect, and of consistent use of
tonality ; but in texture and artistic treatment of detail he is
almost as backward as the rest of his contemporaries.
Though there were a few composers who held by the old
traditions, most of the men of marked powers and energy
were attracted by the new methods, and by the escape it
afforded them from the drudgery of musical education. They
soon became conscious of new requirements and possibilities
in their line of work, and the early homogeneous experiments
were by degrees improved upon. The most noteworthy of
all the representatives of the style was Monteverde, whose
adventurous genius found a congenial field in such a state of
art, and who gave the impress of his personality to a branch
of histrionic music which has maintained certain well-de6ned
characteristics from that day till this. It may well be doubted
if Monteverde would ever have succeeded in a line of art which
required concentration and logical coherence of musical design.
lie seems to have belonged to that familiar type of artist*
134 THE ART OF MUSIC
who regard expression as the one and only element of import*
ance. He had been educated in the learning of the ancients,
but had early shown his want of submission to the time
honoured restrictions by using chords and progressions which
were out of place in the old choral style. He.had endeavoured
to introduce effects of strong expression into an order of art
which could only retain its aspect of maturity by excluding
all 6uch direct forms of utterance. A decisive harshness
breaking upon the ear without preliminary was shortly to
become a necessity to musical mankind ; but to the old order
of things it was the omen of immediate dissolution. The'
methods of choral art did not provide for dramatic foice or
the utterance of passionate feeling ; and under such circum-
stances it was natural that Monteverde should misapply his
special gifts, which were all in the direction of dramatic ex-
pression. The new departure, when it came, was his oppor-
tunity." He was not ostensibly a sharer in the first steps of
the movement ; but directly he joined it he entirely eclipsed
all other composers in the field, and in a few years gave it
quite a new complexion^ 'For whereas the first composers had
not laid any great stress on. fty prp.s .sfon, and showed but little
gift for it, 1 * Monte verde's insti nct and aim was chiefly in
that direction ; and he often sought to emphasise his situations
a t~aIT costs' His harmonic progressions are for the most part
as incoherent as those of his predecessors, and, as might be
expected with his peculiar aptitudes, he did very little for
design. But he evidently had a very considerable instinct for
stage effect, and realised that mere monotonous reci tative _w as
not_£he final solution of the problem nor even the nucleus of
dramatic music. It is true he in troduces~a~ great quantity of
recitative ; but he varies it with instrumental interludes which
now and then have some real point and relevancy about them,
and with passages of solo music which have definite figures of
melody and apposite expression, and with choruses which are
more' skilfully contrived and to a certain degree more effective
than those of his predecessors. By this means he broke up
the homogeneous texture of the scenes into passages of well-
defined diversity, and interested his auditors with contrast,
THE RISE OF SECULAR MUSIC 135
variety, and conspicuously characteristic passages, which
heighten the impression of the situations, as all stage music
should. - ^AjL*
His ideas of instrumental music were v ery crud e, but
nevertheless invjaensely in advance of such as are indicated
by the works of his predecessors. Where they had been
satisfied with a siugle line and figures to indicate to the
lute players and cembalists the chords they were to use, he
brought together a large band of violins, viols, lutes, trumpets,
flutes, trombones, a harpsichord, and other instruments, and
in special parts of his works gave some of them definite parts
to play, and distributed them with some sense of effect and
relevancy. His experiments sometimes look childish, but in
several cases they are the types which only wanted more ex-
perienced handling to become permanent features of modern
orchestral music. His instinct led him to make his work
more definite and alive in detail than the earlier experiments
had been ; and though it was too early for the articulations
of the structure to become distinct, his style of work is a
very clear foreshadowing of the state which was bound to
ensue. He was especially conspicuous as the first composer
who aimed decisively at histrionic effect, and he originated
the tradition which passed through Cavalli and Lulli into
France and ultimately made that country its home; while
Italy fell under the spell of a different theory of art, and
became the special champion of design and beauty of melody.
The immediate source of this important change in the
course of musical development in Italy was a reaction from
the crude speculativeness of the new style in favour of a
revival of the old methods of choral art ; and its fruit was an
endeavour to adapt .what was applicable of those methods to
the new theories. The change which came over the new music
was bo rapid and complete, that it proves that humanity took
very little time to realise that something more was wanted
than mere moment-to-moment setting of the words ot a poem
or the scenes of a play. Men who were masters of the
technique of the ol<5 cnoral art, such as Giovanni Gabrieli at
Venice, tried to apply it in new ways in conformity with the
10
136 THE ART OF MUSIC
spirit of the new theories ; introducing singular experiment*
of a realistic character, and some remarkable experiments
in expression by harmony. This type of art wag carried by
his interesting pupil, Schutz, into Germany, and by him the
first advances were made in the direction of that peculiarly
earnest, artistic, and deeply emotional style which is the
glory of German music. Each of these and many other*
contributed their share to the progress of the movement ; but
circumstances combined to give peculiar prominence to Caris-
simi, whose experience and genuine feeling for the old artistic
methods gave him a good hold upon the artistic possibilities
of the new, and helped his judgment to distinguish between
what was mere experimental extravagance and what was
genuinely artistic expression. He had not the inventiveness
or the force and character of Monteverde ; but he had more
sense of beauty, both in respect of form and sound, and a
better artistic balance. This may have been owing to the fact
that he did not write for the stage, and was therefore less
tempted to trespass in the direction of crude expression. Hi*
most important works are in the line of oratorio, and can
hardly have been intended (as the earliest oratorios were) to
have been represented with scenery and action. In these
oratorios he shows a decided revival of the sense for choral
effect ; but at the same time it is noteworthy that the effect
produced by his choral writing is very different from the old
•tyle. The sense for harmonic design is conspicuously per-
oeptible, and it i* obvious that he tries to apply his skill in
part writing to the ends of expression. The choruses ar*
often constructed on bold and simple series of chords, and the
figures written for the voices strongly resemble passages which
are familiar in Handel's choruses — both florid and plain. In
his solo music Carissimi is much more refined and artistic
than Monteverde ; and though he falls behind him in strength
of emotional character, he reaches at times a very high degree
of pathos and tenderness, and has a good hold on many varieties
of human feeling. The greater part of his solo music is
recitative, but it is of a more regular and definite type than
that of his predecessors, and often approaches to clear melodic
THE RISE OF SECULAR MUSIC I 37
outlines ; while there are plenty of examples of solo music in
which the reiteration of a characteristic phrase in contrasting
and corresponding portions of the scale gives the effect of
completeness of design. Thus the art of choral music sprang
into new life through the impulse to express dramatic feeling
in terms of harmjyua_dfisjgn_as well as of counterpoint, while
solo music gained definition through the same impulse to
make it at once expressive and intelligible in form.
But instrumental music still hung fire. For that Carissimi
seemed to have but little instinct. "Possibly he concentrated
so much of his artistic impulse on choral music that his mind
was distracted from giving attention to the possibilities of
purely instrumental effect. By comparison with his skill in
vocal effect his instrumental experiments seem too often very
crude and tame, and even inferior to Monteverde's in point.
But it may be judged that the feeling for instrumental effect
was developing among musicians; for Cesti and Stradella
(who were younger contemporaries of Carissimi) both show
a very considerable skill for that time in writing string ac-
companiments to their solos and choruses, using the kind of
figures which are familiar to the world in Handel's works.
Both these composers, moreover, show a very great advance
in feeling for design in vocal mfllody. Cesti's little arias and
melodies from cantatas and operas are often as completely
modelled and as definite, both in contours and periods, as the
best of Handel's. They are not developed to the extent of
similar works of the later age : but as far as they go they
show a very keaa_ jpstinct for balancing ^ p hrases, distributing
sijadencjgs, do vetailing passages, presenting musical figures in
various aspects, and contriving good stretcher of thoroughly
vocal melody. Stradella's genius was of a different cast
from Cesti's, and found its natural expression in a different
type of sentiment He had a very remarkable instinct
for choral effect, and even for piling up progressions into a
climax; and his solo music, though apparently not so happy
in varieties of spontaneous melody as Cesti's, aims equally at
definiteness of structure. His work in the line of oratorio
is specially significant; as he stands comparatively alone in
138 THE ART OF MUSIC
cultivating all the natural resources of that form of art — on
the lines which Handel adopted later — at a time when hia
fellow-composers were falling in with the inclination of their
public for solo singing, and were giving up the grand oppor-
tunities of choral effect as superfluous. Indeed, the branch
of oratorio had to wait for representatives of more strenuous
nations for its ultimate development. But in other respects
Italy continued as much as ever to be the centre of musical
progress. The Thirty Years' War and its attendant miseries
crushed all musical energy out of Germany, and the Civil
War in England delayed the cultivation of the new methods
there, while in France the astute craft of Lulli obtained so
exclusive a monopoly of musical performances, that he ex-
tinguished her own composers in his lifetime, and left native
musical impulse paralysed at his death.
The career of this Italian Lulli illustrates very decisively
the manner in which artistic developments follow the lines of
least resistance, by the simple process of submitting to be
guided by the predilections of the public for whom the works
of art are devised. Lulli was transplanted into France and
into the service of the Court in early years ; and he had
ample time and opportunity for discovering what French
tastes were, and for applying his versatility to meet copious
demands which afforded excellent prospects of profuse re-
muneration. Lulli was undoubtedly made to perceive very
early that French taste ran ii f he direction of the theatre,
and more especially in favour of dancing and spectacular
effect in connection with it. He had to provide ballet airs
for the King and the Court to dance and masquerade to, and
plentiful practice developed in him a very notable skill in
knitting these dance tunes into compact and definite forms,
and varying their character so as to get the best effect when
they were grouped in sets. The necessity for meeting the
artificial requirements of these masquerades (which were like
the English Court masques) taught him how to plan scenes
with due sense of effect. It is even possible that he was put
in the way of the scheme he adopted by the French them-
selves; as Cambert, the native composer whom he extin-
THE RISK OF SECULAR MUSIC I 39
guished, had used the same plan in his operatic works which
Lulli afterwards stereotyped on a larger scale. In the vocal
solo part of his work Lulli had opportunity to study the
latest and most popular models when Monteverde's famoua
pupil Cavalli came to Paris to conduct some of his operas
for Court festivals. The Italians had not up to that time
given much attention to ballet music, so Cavalli had not been
called upon to develop his talents in that direction. But to
make his works acceptable to the French public ballet was
indispensable; so young Lulli was called upon to fit out
Cavalli's work with the necessary tunes, and through being
associated with him in this manner he gained the oppor-
tunity of studying his methods in respect of recitative, de-
clamation, and treatment of the vocal portions of his works.
Under these circumstances Lulli developed a scheme of
opera which was more mature and complete than any other
of his time. The texture of his work on the whole is
crude and bald, but the definition of the various items which
go to make up his operatic scheme is complete as far as it
goes, and he certainly made up his very astute mind as to
the character which each several portion and feature of his
work required to make it effective.
In the first place, the plan of his overture is thoroughly
distinct, and very happily conceived as an introduction to
what follows. It begins almost invariably with a broad and
massive slow movement, which serves as an excellent founda-
tion, and is followed by a quick energetic movement in a
loosely fugal style, prefiguring the type of Handel's overtures
to operas and oratorios. ^The play itself usually begins with
an introductory scene, often mythological, which comprises
choruses, dances, and such other features as obviously imply
spectacular display and much grouping of people on the stage,
and lend themselves to a good deal of musical sound and ani-
mation. The drama proper is interpreted mainly in accom-
panied recitative, interspersed with frequent snatches of
ballet and a few definite pieces for solo ; and most of the
acts end with choruses and massing of crowds on the stage
to give weight and impressiveness to the final climax.
r40 THE ART OF MUSIC
Lulli shows excellent sense of relief and proportion in the
general planning and laying out of the musical elements in the
scenes, and in regulating the relations of the respective acts and
scenes to one another ; and he is conspicuously successful for
his time in shaking himself free from the ecclesiastical associa-
tions of the modes, and adopting a thoroughly secular manner.
Where modern methods were wanting or undeveloped, as in
his overtures, he had to fall back on the methods of the old
choral art and write in fugal or contrapuntal style ; but it is
clear that he was not very solidly grounded in the traditional
" science " of music, and was therefore all the more free to
work out his scheme in the harmonic style and with more of
the spirit of modern tonality. His instinct for orderliness
and system in the laying out of his musical material was in
advance of his age ; but as the realisation of principles of
design was still very backward, he had to use such means
of definition as came in his way. He was among the first to
make a notable use of what is called the aria form, which
consists of three well-defined sections, the first and last corre-
sponding in key and musical material, and the central one
supplying contrasts in both these respects. It is essentially
the simplest form in music, and might well be called primary
form, but in connection with opera it has gained the title of
aria-form through its much too frequent and much too obvious
use. The conventions of opera were not sufficiently stereo-
typed in his time for Lulli to use it as persistently as his
successors did, and he fortunately experimented in other
forms which are more interesting and more elastic. One, of
which he makes frequent and very ingenious use, is the time-
honoured device of the ground bass. This is a procedure which
aims at unifying a whole movement or passage by repeating
the same formula of notes in the bass over and over again. It
is attractive to a composer of any real capacity ; for the
developing of contrast, diversity of sentiment, and variety
of harmony and melody upon the same framework requires
a good deal of musical aptitude. The reason why Lulli and
other composers of his time, such as Stradella and Purcell,
made such frequent use of it was that the principles of real
THE RISE OP SECULAR MUSIC 1 4 1
harmonic form of the modern order — based upon classification
of harmonies — were still unsettled, and they had to adopt
principles of design which, like canon and fugue, belonged
to homogeneous types, and did not in themselves imply an
inherent principle of contrast. But the fact that Lulli used
it, and other principles of like nature, shows how decisively
the human mind was waking up to the need of clear design
and coherence in art, which the early experimenters in opera
and cantata had regarded as superfluous.
Lulli's type of opera was an immense advance upon the
first experiments in plan, in definiteness of expression and
rhythm, and in variety of subdivision into component ballet
movements, choruses, instrumental interludes, arias, recitatives,
and so forth ; and though the plan of the drama was very
artificial, and was mechanically subservient to stage effect,
the character of the music followed the character of the
story from moment to moment very successfully, and there is
singularly little of superfluous ornament or of passages in-
troduced for the purpose of pure executive display. Indeed
the dignity and expressiveness of most of the declamatory
portions of these works are creditable alike to Lulli and to
his audiences. The operas are mainly defective in the very
limited sense of instrumental effect which they imply ; in the
monotony of the full accompaniments, the absence of artistic
refinement and skill of workmanship in detail, and in the
general stiffness of style. The nucleus of Lulli's band was a
set of strings ; probably violins at the top and a group of
viols for lower and inner parts, accompanied by a harpsichord,
which was played from figured bass. These instruments are
used in a very mechanical manner to supply dull harmonies,
without attempt at figuration or any process to lighten or
enliven the bass and filling in. The strings are supple-
mented occasionally by trumpets, flutes, hautboys, and other
familiar wind instruments to increase the mass of sound, and
to supply variety of colour on special occasions. But the
obviousness of these occasions shows that musicians had but
little craving or taste for variety of colour as yet. The haut-
boys serve to give local colour to rustic scenes, and tbs
142 THE ART OF MUSIC
trumpets and drums are called in to illustrate martial ones,
and so forth. But less obvious occasions call for no distinctive
use of instrumental colour, and there is no delicate adjustment
either of mass of sound or special tone for artistic ends. The
whole group of strings plays constantly together in a mono-
tonous and mechanical manner — extremely homogeneous —
in all movements which are " accompanied ; " and recitatives
and solo movements have only bass with figures, from which
the accompanist at the harpsichord supplied the details. It
is especially this weakness and ineffectiveness in instrumental
matters which would make even the best of Lulli's operas
unendurable to a modern audience. He was also necessarily
backward in feeling for the actual effects of modulation and
for its value as an element of form, for the principles of
modern tonality were still undeveloped ; but in many respects
his work is very noteworthy, and not only indicated principles
which great composers afterwards adopted as the bases of
further developments, but established a form of art which has
served as the groundwork for the later development of the
French grand opera; while his theatrical instinct gave an
impetus to the order of essentially histrionic music, and esta-
blished a type which has survived and sometimes even flashed
into brilliant conspicuousness in modern times.
Almost completely outside the direct course of musical
evolution stands the unique and highly individual genius of
PurcelL The sources of his artistic generalisations can be
traced, as is inevitable even with the most pre-eminently
"inspired" of composers; but isolation was entailed by the
peculiarly characteristic line he adopted, and the fact that
almost all the genuine vitality dropped straight out of English
art directly he died ; while none of his remarkably English
achievements penetrated so far afield as to have any sort of in-
fluence upon the course of musical progress on the Continent,
Purcell was imbued with the solid traditions of the music of
the English Church composers ; but he was equally in touch
with the methods of the most advanced composers of the new
style, especially in its French phase as illustrated by Lulli
He waa also saturated with the characteristic English tune*
THE RISE OF SECULAR MUSIC 1 43
of his day, and possessed an instinct for the true relation
between the accents of the language and the accents of musical
melody and declamatory recitative, which has never been sur-
passed by any composer of the same nationality. Applying
the views of art which were in the air in a typically English
way, he produced characteristic effects of harmony in both
choral and instrumental music, which were without parallel
till J. S. Bach began to enlarge the musical horizon in that
respect. In his solo music, he endeavoured to follow the
meaning of the words in declamatory passages with the
utmost closeness ; resorting with almost too much frequency to
obvious realistic devices. But the elaborate scenes and grandly
expanded movements for solo voices in his opera and theatre
music are so full of variety and force as to be still almost un-
surpassed in their particular line. The airs and songs which
he introduced into the same works have a specially tuneful
ring, which is much more pointed and individual than any-
thing to be found in similar productions by his contemporaries
on the Continent. The tunes of the foremost Italian Opera
composers of his time have a family likeness about them which
is rather conventional and monotonous, charming as some of
the tunes are; but Puree! l's songs are like so many strongly
diverse forms cut in clear crystal, each ringing with in-
dividuality. In much of his instrumental music, such as the
dance tunes in his theatre music, he shows much greater
skill and point and lightness of hand than Lulli, and a much
nearer approach to genuine instrumental style than almost
any composer of his time in any form of instrumental music
which was then cultivated. But England lay far from the
centres of musical activity, and the general course of musical
evolution went on in Europe with hardly any reference what-
ever to his remarkable artistic achievements.
It is important to realise how early national predispositions
show themselves in music. They are often more decisively
apparent in an early and imm.-iture state of art than at later
periods ; because the special success and prominence of any
one nation in things artistic causes other nations which are
more slow to develop to imitate their devices and methods in
1 44 THE ART OF MUSIO
the intermediate state of art, and thus to belie their own true
tastes for a time, till they have attained sufficient skill to
utter things consistent with their own natures, and shake off
the alien manner. As early as the seventeenth century both
Germany and England showed the tendencies which are
evidently engrained in their musical dispositions, and which
have been carried by the Germans to very extreme lengths.
The real bent of both nations is the same. In respect of
external beauty they are neither of them so keen in apprecia-
tion, or so apt in creative faculty, as Italians, and during
the period in which beauty was the principal aim of art they
had to follow the lead of the more precocious nation. But
though the resources of art were not adequate to the ends
of characteristic expression, the natural instinct of the
northern nations in that direction is shown in a great
number of instances. It appears mainly in two aspects. One
is the use of curious daring roughnesses and harshnesses in
chords and progressions, and the other the use of simple
realistic devices to identify the music with the spirit of the
words. Thus Heinrich Schtitz in his choral works frequently
contrived strange chords for the purpose of immediate expres-
sion. In his setting of the first Psalm the words, "in the
counsel of the ungodly," are expressed as follows : —
The late English phase of the madrigal period affords in-
structive illustrations of racial tendencies, for composers aimed
at characteristic expression of the words far oftener than the
great Italian masters had done ; and they often showed a
tendency towards the realistic expression which Purcell carried
to such an excess. Purcell was indeed the greatest musical
genius of his age, but his lines were cast in most unfortunate
places ; for the standards and models for the new style, and
the examples of what could and what could not be done.
THE RISE OF SECULAR MUSIC
145
io deficient that his judgment went not infrequently
astray ; and in trying to carry out his ideals according to the
principles of the " new music," he sometimes achieves a
marvellous stroke of real genius, but occasionally also falls
into the depths of bathos and childishness. The experiment*
which he made in expression, under the same impulse as
Schtitz in church choral music, are often quite astounding
in crudeness, and almost impossible to sing ; while in secular
solo music (where he is generally successful) he frequently
adopts realistic devices of a quaintly innocent kind, for lack of
•esources to utter otherwise his expressive intentions : —
Precisely in the same spirit Schiitz describes the angel
descending from heaven at the resurrection as follows : —
Der En - gal dea Her-ren ateig vom Him - mel
her -a?"
And when he rolls away the stone from the sepulchre he doe«
it in this wise —
Und wii
tet den Stain
In Italy, after Cavalli's time, the tastes of the nation soon
influenced the course of operatic development, and impelled it
I46 THE ART OF MUSIC
into a different path from that taken by French and English
ope ra. The tendency which is most apparent at this time is the
outcome of the growing feeling for simplicity and clearness of
form, and distinctness and amenity of melody. The Italians
gravitated away from strong direct dramatic expression, and
indeed from immediate expression of any kind, and endea-
voured merely to illustrate situations as they presented them-
selves by the general sentiment of an entire movement or an
entire passage of melody ; thus breaking away altogether from
the path which Monteverde had chosen, and leaving it for other
nations to follow up to important results. The mission of the
Italians at this time was undoubtedly to lay the foundations of
modern harmonic art, and to establish those primary relations
of harmonies which are the basis of the modern principles of
musical design. A certain native easy-going indolence seems
to have directed them into the road they chose, while the
development of melody of the operatic type (which in itself
is equivalent to linear design) sprang from the gift and in-
stinct of the nation for singing. As the century progressed
composers became more skilful in the management of their
instrumental accompaniments, and began to see more clearly
how to lay out the plan of their operas as wholes, organising
the acts into well-defined portions, consisting of instrumental
preludes (called either overtures or sinfonias), interludes,
recitatives, airs, and even fairly developed choruses. The
most important results obtained in these respects are summed
up in the works of Alessandro Scarlatti, who became the most
prominent composer of his time in secular vocal music and
church music, and no mean master of instrumental music of
the kind which was practised in those days. But the most
notable part of his contribution to the progress of his art is
in the department of opera; and by a singular fatality his
method of procedure, though excellent in itself, had a most
injurious outcome. For his cultivation of the form of the
aria caused him, though a man of real genius and of high
artistic responsibility of character, to do more than any
one to establish that prominence of the "prima donna" in
opera which has in after times been one of its most fatal
THE RISE OP SECULAR MUSIC 1 47
impediments. He, of course, had no idea of the evils to
which his practice would lead. The operatic form was still
young, and its field was not yet sufficiently explored to make
it clear in what directions danger lay ; and Scarlatti was led,
mainly by his instinct for musical design, to ignore obvious
inconsistency in the dramatic development of the plays which
he set, in order to obtain a complete musical result which
satisfied his own particular instinct and the tastes of his
Italian audiences; and he thereby opened a door of which
vanity and levity were not slow to take advantage.
The history of opera from first to last has been a constant
struggle between the musical and the dramatic elements ;
which has resulted in an alternate swaying to and fro, in
course of which at one time the musical material was forma-
lised and made artistically complete at the expense of dramatic
truth, and at another the music was made subservient to the
development of the play. Now that the methods and material
of art have developed to such a marvellous degree of richness
and variety, it is easy to see that nothing short of the utmost
profusion of artistic resources can provide for the adequate ad-
justment of the requirements of both the literary and musical
elements in such a combination. In the early days it was
inevitable that one of the two should give way, and owing to
the peculiarities of the Italian disposition, it was not on the
musical side that the concessions were made. Scarlatti aimed
at making the units of his operatic scheme musically complete,
and he succeeded so far that his independent solo movements,
called arias, are often beautiful works of art. But the drama,
under the conditions which he established, became merely the
excuse for stringing a number of solo pieces together, and for
distributing them so as to illustrate contrasting moods and
types of sentiment. The story of the drama may be dimly
felt in the background in such works, but it would be the last
thing about which the amateur of Italian opera would have
concerned himself much in those days. Apparently even the
spectacular effect was more considered, because it was less
likely to interfere with the composer's unaccommodating atti-
tude. It soon followed that the interests of the individual
148 THE ART OP MUSIC
singers became the most powerful influence in regulating the
scheme, and the type of art became thoroughly vicious and
one-sided. The public concentrated so much attention on the
soloists that opera became a mere entertainment in which
certain vocalists sang, as at an ordinary concert, a series of
arias which were carefully adapted to show off their particular
gifts. There was a great deal of management required, and
the skill of the composer was taxed to devise various types of
passages suitable to the several performers. He had to take
his soloists with their special gifts as so many settled quantities,
and work out a scheme which admitted of their appearing in
a certain order, as regulated by their popularity, money worth,
or personal vanity ; and out of these quantities, whose order
was thus mainly prearranged for him, he had to obtain an
effective distribution of types of sentiment and style. It was
like making patterns with counters of different shapes; and
though the process was a mechanical one, it was a field for
the expenditure of a good deal of ingenuity, and one not
unprofitable to the musical art, because it necessitated the
development of so many varieties of melodic figure and vocal
phrase.
Scarlatti fell in with the necessities of the situation so com-
pletely that he poured out opera after opera in which all the
solo pieces were in the same form, and that the simplest con-
ceivable. The principle of statement, contrast, and restate-
ment so completely answered his requirements that he did
not even take the trouble to write out the restatement; but
after writing out in full his first section, and the section which
established the principle of contrast, he directed the first
section to be repeated to make the aria complete, by the
simple words " da capo." These arias were interspersed with
passages of recitative, which, from the musical side of the
question, served as breathing spaces between one aria and
another, and prevented their jostling one another; while on
the dramatic side they served to carry on the plainer parts of
the dialogua It is noteworthy that both his recitative and
his instrumental ritornels are less characteristic than Monte-
verde's had been. Being a practical man, he realised that the
THE RISE OF SECULAR MUSIC 1 49
public did not care much about them, and he did not care to
expend effort where it was almost sure to be wasted. All the
Italian composers soon gave up attempting to put any expres-
sion into their recitatives, and made them as near as possible
mere formalised declamation — sometimes not even declama-
tion, but formalised talk. Moreover, the progressions of the
accompanying chords became as aimless and empty as the pro-
gressions of the voice, so that the effect depended solely upon
the skill of the singer in delivery ; and this retrograde ten-
dency produced as its natural result one of the most detest-
able conventions in all the range of art ; which has helped to
kill works which contain many grand and beautiful features,
because the amount of senseless rigmarole with which they are
mated is positively unendurable.
Scarlatti exerted himself occasionally in writing ensemble
movements, but the only department in which he made as
important a mark as in his arias was in his overtures. The
progress made in instrumental performance, and the attention
which music for violins was beginning to attract, gave him
the opportunity to improve the status of certain instrumental
portions of his work. Some of his overtures are bright,
definite, and genuinely instrumental in style. He generally
wrote them in three or four short movements, distributed in
the order which is familiar in modern symphonies. When he
used three movements, the first was a solid allegro, cor-
responding to the first movement of the average modern
sonata; the second was a short slow movement aiming at
expression ; and the third a lively allegro ; and this scheme
came to be universally adopted even till the time of Mozart,
who wrote his early opera overtures in this form. When four
movements were written the scheme was practically the same,
as the first was merely a slow introduction. These little
symphonies were generally scored, with a certain amount of
skill and elasticity, for a group of stringed instruments, with
the occasional addition of a few wind instruments, such as
trumpets. As the principles of harmonic form were still
undetermined, the style was necessarily rather contrapuntal;
but the feeling for tonality is always conspicuously present
I 50 THE ART OF MUSIC
in the general outline of the movements. There is nothing
in them of instrumentation of the modern kind, and the
movements are short and compact; but the nucleus, such
as it was, served as the foundation upon which the scheme
of modern symphony was based. In course of time these
opera overtures (which often went by the name of "sym-
phonies") were played apart from the operas to which
they belonged, and then similar works were written without
operas to follow them ; and as the feeling for instrumentation
and the understanding of principles of development and of
harmonic design improved, the scheme was widened and en-
riched and diversified till it appeared in its utmost perfection
in the great works of Beethoven.
In the pure instrumental line the works of the early Italian
violinists form a very important historical landmark. The
development of the art of violin-making to the unsurpassable
perfection attained by the great Italian violin-makers, such
as the Amatis, Guarnerius, Stradivari, and Bergonzi, naturally
coincided with a remarkable development of the technique of
violin-playing. The crude experiments of earlier generations
in dance movements, fantasias, variations, and movements
copied from types of choral music, were superseded by a
much more mature and artistic class of work, in which the
capabilities of the violin for expression and effect were
happily brought into play. The art gained immensely for
a time through composers being also performers, for they
understood better than any one what forms of figure and
melody were most easily made effective. They made a good
many experiments in diverse forms, and ultimately settled
down to the acceptance of certain definite groups of move-
ments whose order and arrangement approved themselves to
their instincts. The scheme is in the main always the same,
consisting of dignified animation to begin with, expressive
slow cantabile for the centre, and light gaiety to end with.
And it may be noted in passing that this is also in conformity
with that universal principle of design which it seems to
be the aim of all music to achieve; and almost all modern
works in which several movements are grouped together art
THE RISE OF SECULAR MUSIC I 5 1
mainly variations of it, or outcomes of the essential artistio
necessity of contrast and restatement. The names the violin
composers gave to their works were various. A Sonata da
Camera was mainly a group of dance movements, essentially
secular in style; a Sonata da Chiesa was a group of abstract
movements in more serious style, generally comprising a
fugue or some other contrapuntal movement, derived ulti-
mately from the old choral music. Concertos were variable
in their constituents, and were written for more instruments.
The modern sonata was jin outcpjn^^jCuL^lLthree, and of
the general development of instrumental expression and
technique, which also went on under the names of Suites,
Lessons, Ordres, Partitas, and many other titles. Corelli's
works stand at the head of all these types, and indeed of
all modern instrumental music, for hardly anything written
before his time appeals to the modern hearer as being suffi-
ciently mature to be tolerable; and though in point of
technique his range was rather limited, he managed to
produce works which in their way are complete, well-balanced,
and perfectly adapted to the requirements of instrumental
performance. The appearance of crude helplessness and un-
certainty which characterises the works of earlier composers
is no longer perceptible, and his compositions rest securely
upon their own basis. This was indeed an extremely important
step to have achieved, and can hardly be overrated as indicating
an epoch in art. All music whatever which was of any dimen-
sions, except rambling fantasias, organ toccatas, and contra-
puntal fugues, had hitherto been dependent on words for
its full intelligibility. Real artistic development, independent
of such connection, had not been possible till men changed
their point of view and developed their feeling for tonality
and for the classification of harmony.
Corelli's methods are ostensibly contrapuntal, but it is note-
worthy that his is not the old kind of counterpoint, but rather
an artistic treatment of part-writing, which is assimilated into
chords whose progressions are adapted to the principles of
modern tonality. He uses sequences for the purposes of
form, and modulations for purposes of contrast and balance,
11
152 THE ART OF MUSIC
and cadences to define periods and sections, and other char-
acteristic devices of modern art ; and though the traces of the
old church modes are occasionally apparent, they are felt to
be getting more and more slight. There is more of art than
of human feeling in his work, as is inevitable at such a stage
of development ; but his art as far as it goes is very good, and
the style of expression refined and pleasant.
There is no need to overrate the absolute value of Corelli's
works as music to establish their historic importance. The
fact that they are the earliest examples of pure instrumental
music which have maintained any hold upon lovers of the art
implies that men's instincts do not endorse the methods upon
which earlier works were constructed. His works therefore
mark the point where imperfect attempts are at last replaced
by achievement.
Corelli's contemporary, Vivaldi, who was a more brilliant
executant than Corelli himself, had even keener sense for
harmonic principles ; and though his work has not the sub-
stance, nor the uniform interest, nor the smoothness of part-
writing, nor, finally, the permanent popularity of Corelli's
work, it was extremely valuable at the moment for supplying
various types of instrumental passages and for helping to
establish the feeling for harmonic design. In his concertos
and sonatas the harmonic plan is clear even to obviousness,
and there is much less of contrapuntal and free inner
development than in Corelli's works ; but they are more char-
acteristically fitted out with typical figures of harmonic
accompaniment, brilliant fiorituri, and passages which show
a high instinct for instrumental effect. From Corelli and
Vivaldi sprang that wonderful school of Italian violinists and
composers who did more than any others to give the modern
harmonic system of design a solid foundation, and to esta-
blish those principles of development which have been refined
and elaborated by many generations of instrumental composer!
up to the present time.
Among other lines of progress later events made the de-
velopment of organ music of peculiar importance. As has
before been pointed out, organ music obtained an independent
THE RISE OF SECULAR MUSIC I 5 3
status sooner than any other branch of instrumental musics
probably because organists were afforded such frequent oppor-
tunities of experiment in solo-playing in connection with the
services of the Church. Many of the kinds of work in which
they experimented led to nothing particular, but their imita-
tion of choral works led to the development of fugue, which
is one of the most important and elastic of all forms of art.
The immediate source of the method of its construction was
the manner in which the voices in choral movements entered
one after another singing the same initial phrase at the
different pitches which best suited their calibre — the tenor
taking it a fourth or fifth above the bass, and the alto a
fourth or fifth above the tenor, and the treble at the same
distance above the alto, or vice versd. In the old choral musio
the initial phrases were usually rather indefinite, and but
rarely reappeared in the course of the movement. But when
the same process was adopted for instrumental music without
words, composers soon felt the advantage of making the
initial phrase characteristically definite, and common-sense
taught them the advantage of unifying the movement through-
out by making the initial phrase, as it were, the text of the
whole discourse. Then again common- sense equally taught
them that mere repetition of the initial phrases in the same
order and at the same pitch was wearisome ; and they soon
found the further advantage of associating the principal
phrase or subject with contrasting subordinate phrases, and of
making the order and pitch of subsequent reiterations of the
initial phrase afford contrast by varying from the first order
of statement. Then as their feeling for tonality grew
stronger, they realised the advantage of making the course
of the movement modulate into new keys, and of presenting
the initial phrases or subjects, and the subordinate figures
or counter-subjects, in relation to new tonics. Thus the
general aspect of the fugue came to resemble some of the
simpler forms of harmonic music, by beginning in one key,
passing to extraneous keys by way of contrast, and ending
by bringing the course of the progressions round to the
original key, and by recapitulating the initial phraMe or
154 THE ART OF MUSIC
subjects prominently to round the whole movement into
completeness.
The filial form had an advantage over pure harmonic forms
through its enabling composers to dispense with the cadences
which deflned the various sections, but broke up the con-
tinuity of the whole. But it was a disadvantage, on the
other hand, that the methods of using the subjects were
so inviting to musicians of an ingenious turn of mind that
the form became vitiated by sheer excess of artifice, in the
manipulation of subjects and counter-subjects, and inter-
weaving of strands into all manner of curious combinations ;
while the possibilities of pure contrapuntal device were dis-
cussed up and down to such an extent, that most composers
who used the form forgot that all this artifice was superfluous,
except as a means to express something over and beyond
their own ingenuity. In the end the elastic capabilities
which it possessed for variety of expression, and for effective
general development based upon the use of well-marked sub-
jects, attracted many of the greatest composers ; and not only
served for toccatas, movements of sonatas, and even dance
suites, but was readapted for choral purposes, and became
one of the most effective forms for choruses possible, and far
better adapted for genuine choral effect than the so-called
sonata forms. It was not indeed till the resources of music
were developed all round to the very highest pitch that any
better form for choral music was found ; and then finally the
old pure type of fugue gave way to forms of art which are
more elastic still. The early organists, from the two Gabrielis,
Swelinck, and Frescobaldi onwards, served the art nobly in
the fugal and kindred forms ; devising types of figure and
traits of style which were well suited to the instrument, and
contriving many schemes of design, which were worked out
in course of time, till they became noble types of complete
and expressive art.
Music for the harpsichord and clavichord rather lagged
behind for a time, as, for domestic purposes, neither was so
attractive as the violin ; and in the early part of the century
they still had a formidable rival in the lute. Works for thesa
THE RISE OF SECULAR MUSIC 15 5
instruments began to be produced very early in the century, but
of these all except rare and exceptional specimens by Orlando
Gibbons and Byrd are chiefly interesting on account of their
containing the crude foreshadowings of later developments of
technique. The first nation to make successful mark in this
line were the French, especially the famous Couperin, who
had a very lively sense of the style which was best suited to
the instrument, and developed a happy knack of writing tune-
ful and compact little movements which he grouped, with
great feeling for contrast and consistency, into sets called
Ordres, which are much the same as the groups more familiarly
known in later times as Suites. His prototypes were pro-
bably the sets of little movements for lutes, such as those of
Denis Gaultier. He was evidently a man of considerable
musical gifts of a high order, but he sacrificed more dignified
lines of art in concession to the French popular taste for
ballet tunes. He was one of the first to write tuneful little
movements of the kind which became so popular in later days ;
and it is noteworthy that he, as well as the earlier lutenists,
and his later compatriot, Rameau, foreshadowed the taste of
tlie French for illustrating definite ideas by music, and for
making what may be called picture-tunes, in preference to
developing the less obvious implications of pure self-dependent
music, in lines of concentrated and comprehensive art.
The progress of this somewhat immature period shows the
inev itable t endency of all_tliings_ fro m homogen eity towards
diversity and definiteness. In its widest aspects art is si en
to branch out into a variety of different forms. The difference
in style and matter between choral movements and instru-
mental works begins to be more definite and decisive. The
types of opera, oratorio, cantata, and of the various kinds of
church music become more distinct, and are even subdi
into different subordinate types, as was the case with Italian
and French opera. Instrumental music, from being mainly
either imitations of choral music, or vague toccatas and
fantasias, or short dance tunes, established a complete inde-
pendent existence, and began to branch out into the various
forms which have since become representative as sonatas and
156 THE ART OF MUSIC
symphonies. The treatment of instruments began to be
individually characteristic, and the style of expression and of
figure appropriate to different kinds began to be discerned.
In the works themselves the articulation of the component
parts attains more and more definiteness and clearness of
modelling, and methods were found out for making each
movement more logical and coherent. Among the most im-
portant achievements of the time is the final breaking away
from the influences of the old modes, which made the design
and texture of the older works so indefinite. The earliest
phases of the developing feeling for tonality of the modern
kind, which implies a classification of harmonies and an adop-
tion of systematic harmonic progressions, already gave the
new works an appearance of orderliness and stability which
marks the inauguration of a new era in art ; while the use of
definite principles of rhythm enabled musicians to make their
ideas infinitely more characteristic and, vivid, and caused the
periods and sections of the movements to gain a sense of
completeness and clearness which was impossible under tbu
old order of things.
CHAPTER VII
COMBINATION OF OLD METHODS AND NEW
PRINCIPLES
The development of principles of design in music must in-
evitably wait upon the development of technique. Very little
can be done with limited means of performance; and the
adequacy of such means is dependent on the previous perfect-
ing of various instruments, and on the discovery of the
particular types of expression and figure which are adapted
to them. One of the reasons why instrumental music lagged
behind other branches of art was, that men were slow in finding
out the arts of execution ; and even when the stock of figures
and phrases which were adapted to various instruments had
become plentiful, it took composers some time to assimilate
them sufficiently, so as to have them always ready at hand
to apply to the purposes of art when composing. It was this
which gave performers so great an advantage in the early
days, and accounts for the fact that all the great composers
of organ music in early days were famous organists, and all
the successful composers of violin music were brilliant public
performers. In modern times it is necessarily rather the
reverse, and some of the greatest of recent composers have
been famous for anything rather than for their powers as
executants.
But though form is so dependent upon technique of every
kind, the development of both went on in early days more
or less simultaneously. The management and disposition of
the materials and subjects used by the composer is all part
of the business of designing, and while the violinists and
organists were devising their types of figure they learnt to
fit them together in schemes which had the necessary general
1 5 8 THE ART OF MUSIC
good effect as well as the special telling effect in detail • and
all branches of art contributed something of their share
towards the sum total of advance in art generally. But the
various methods and resources of art were developed in con-
nection with the different departments in which they were
most immediately required. Composers found out what voices
could do and what they could not do in writing their church
music, oratorios, cantatas, and so forth. They studied the
forms of expression and melody best suited for solo voices in
operas and cantatas, and they studied the effects and forms
of figure which were best adapted to various instruments, and
found out by slow degrees the effects which could be produced
by various instruments in combination when they were trying
to write sonatas, suites, concertos, and overtures. Each
genuine composer then as now added his mite to the resources
of growing art when he managed to do something new. And
in those days, when the field had not been so over- cultivated,
it was easier to turn up new ground, and to add something
both effectual and wholesome to the sum of artistic products
than it became in later times.
It must not be overlooked that all branches of art became
more and more interdependent as musical development went
on. Opera and oratorio required instrumental music as weL
as solo and choral music, and instrumental music had to borrow
types of melody and expression as well as types of design from
choral and solo music. Hence it followed that each department
of music could only go ahead of others in those respects which
were absolutely within its own range ; and there were several
occasions in the history of art when a special branch came
to a standstill for a time because the development of other
branches upon which it had to draw for further advance was
in a backward state. This was mainly the reason why opera,
which was cultivated with such special activity in the seven-
teenth century, came practically to a standstill for some time
at the point illustrated by Scarlatti and Lulli. The actual
internal organisation of the component parts, such as the arias,
improved immensely in style and richness ajyl scope as men
gained better hold of principles of melodic development ; and
OLD METHODS AND NEW PRINCIPLES I 59
Handel and Hasse and Buononcini, and many others, im-
proved in that respect on the types of their predecessors. But
the general scheme of opera stood much where it was, and
the best operas produced in the next fifty years (even those
by Handel) are not in the least degree more capable of being
endured as wholes by a modern audience than those of Lulli
and Scarlatti.
As has before been pointed out, the early representatives
of the new style of music had been extremely inefficient in
choral writing, because they thought that the methods and
learning of the old school were superfluous for their purposes.
But in the course of about fifty years musicians found the
need of again studying and gathering the fruits of the ex-
perience of earlier generations, and something of the old
choral style was revived. However, by that time men's minds
were thoroughly well set in the direction of modern tonality
and harmonic form as distinct from the melodic modes and
essentially contrapuntal texture of the earlier art, and the
result was that the old contrapuntal methods were adapted
to new conditions when they came into use again ; and this
made them capable of serving for new kinds of expression and
effect. The old methods were resumed under the influence of
the new feeling for tonality. Composers began anew to write
free and characteristic parts for the several voices in choral
combinations, but they made the harmonies, which were the
sum of the combined counterpoints, move so as to illustrate
the principles of harmonic form, and thus gave to the hearer
the sense of orderliness and design, as well as the sense of
contrapuntal complexity. And it is not too much to say
that their attitude soon changed the principle of their work.
Where formerly they had simply adapted melody to melody,
they now often thought first of the progression of the harmony,
and made separate voice-parts run so as to gain points of
vantage in the successive chords. In the old state of things
counterpoint sometimes appeared, chiefly by accident, in the
guise of harmony ; in the new style simple harmonic succes-
sions were made deliberately to look like good counterpoint
This was partly the result of the peculiar disposition of the
1 60 THE ART OF MUSIC
Italians. They attained to very considerable skill in manipu*
lating voice-parts smoothly and vocally, but they were not
particularly ardent after technical artistic interest or charac-
teristic expression. Their sense of beauty shows itself in the
orderliness and fiaa»-of their harmonic progressions, and in
the excellent art with which general variety is obtained. But
as usual a certain native indolence and dislike of strenuous
concentration made them incline too much towards methodi
which lessened the demands upon the attention of audiences.
They preferred that the design of an enormous number of
movements should be exactly the same, and commonplace
and obvious as well, rather than that they should have any
difficulty in following and understanding what they listened
to. The result was favourable to the establishment of formal
principles in choral music, but it put a premium on careless-
ness in the carrying out of detail and in the choice of musical
material ; and the result, was that composers got their effects
as cheaply as they could, and too often fell into the habit of
writing mere successions of chords without either melody or
independent part-writing, trusting to the massive sound of
many voices in chorus for their effect. But, granting these
drawbacks, it may well be conceded that the Italians were
pioneers in this new style of choral writing, as they were in
most other things ; and both in the direction of harmonic
form in choral works and in the new style of counterpoint
they did invaluable service to art.
Another new feature of this phase of choral music was its
combination with instrumental music. In the old order of
things the instruments had sometimes doubled the voices, but
very little attempt had been made to use the* instrumental
forces as independent means of effect. The ne^vf mode of com-
bining voices and instruments made a very great difference to
the freedom with which the voices could be treated, and to
the effect of form and expression which could be obtained.
But at the same time it is important to note that the instru-
mental element was still very much in the background, and
did not in any sense divide the honours with the choral effects.
The instrumental forces were accessories or vassals, not equals.
OLD METHODS AND NEW PRINCIPLES I 6 I
Even the most responsible masters were forced by the back-
wardness of instrumental art to adopt a contrapuntal style
for their orchestral works, and to write for their several instru-
ments as if they were so many voice-parts; and when they
attempted variety of colour they used it in broad homogeneous
expanses, such as long solos for special wind instruments.
The sense for variety of colour was undoubtedly dawning, but
as yet composers had to produce their impression with very
moderate use of it.
The result was a paradoxical vindication of the inevitable
continuity of artistic as of all other kinds of human progress.
For although the first beginnings of the new movement were
prominently secular, and diverged from the traditions of
church music, the first really great and permanent achieve-
ments in the new style were on the lines of sacred and serious
art, because it was in that line alone that composers could
gain full advantage from the old traditions. And whereas the
early representatives of the new style had cast aside the study
of choral methods, it was in their choral aspects that these
oratorios were specially complete and mature. But it did
not fall to the Italians to bring these new experiments toi
full fruit.
It was indeed the first time that the Teutonic temper found
full expression in the art which now seems most congenial fco
the race. Through various causes German progress in music
had so far been hindered. While the Netherlands, England,
Italy, and even France, had each had important groups of
composers, Germany had as yet had but few and more or
less isolated representatives. But now that social conditio! -
had quieted down, and the spirit of the nation had better
opportunity to expand, her composers rose with extraordinary
rapidity to the foremost place, and in their hands compara-
tively neglected forms of art, such as the oratorio and church
cantata, reached the highest standard of which they have
proved capable. All the German composers undoubtedly
learned much of their business from Italian examples ; and
it is noteworthy that on this occasion, as on many others
the composers who were the most popularly successful adopted
1 62 THE ART OF MUSIO
altogether Italian principles, merely infusing into their work
the firmer grit and greater power of characterisation which
nomes of the stronger and more deliberate race. But by fai
the greatest and most important results were obtained where
the Teutonic impulse for characteristic treatment was given
fullest play ; and where the resources made available by the
combination of old contrapuntal principles and the principles
of the new kind of art were applied to the end of lofty and
noble expression.
The difference of result which is the outcome of difference
of method and disposition is illustrated to the fullest degree
in the familiar oratorios of Handel on the one hand, and in
Bach's " Passions " and the best of his church cantatas on the
other. The Italian development of oratorio had been stunted
and perverted through the lack of interest which audiences
took in the choral portions of such works ; which appears to
have caused composers of about Handel's time to give up
writing choruses of any importance in their oratorios, and to
lay stress mainly upon arias and solo music. The situation
affords a noteworthy instance of the influence of circum-
stances upon products. ' For in his first oratorios, which were
written in Italy for Italian audiences, Handel hardly wrote
any choruses at all, and those which he did write are of
the slightest description. But when, some years later, after
plentiful experience of English tastes, he began writing for
London audiences, he at once adopted the familiar scheme,
in which the most prominent and the most artistically impor-
tant features are the numerous grand choral movements.
But it so happened that the English of that time had lost
touch with their own native traditions of style, and had
become thoroughly Italianised ; it therefore naturally followed
that Handel adopted an Italian manner in his choral writing,
as he had done previously in his operatic works. This was
entirely consistent with all the previous part of his career,
fur ever since he had left Hamburg and his native country
in his youth, every new lino he took up showed invariably the
influence of Italian methods and Italian musical phraseology.
He was so saturated with musical 1 talianism" of~«tl kinds thai
OLD METHODS AND NEW PRINCIPLES 1 63
actual phrases of Corelli, Alessandro Scarlatti, Stradella,
CaiissimL, and others constantly make their appearance in
his works ; while the texture of his instrumental move-
ments — such as slow introductions and fugues — closely re-
sembles similar movements by Corelli and Scarlatti, and the
style of his choral music closely resembles the facile, smooth,
and eminently vocal style of the Italian masters, as exemplified
in various kinds of church music of the new kind. Where he
improved upon their work so immensely was in the use of
the resources of artistic technique for the purposes of expres-
sion, and in the greater vitality of contrapuntal texture. As
has been frequently pointed out, the Italians cared very little
for expression in the music itself, though they liked to have
it put in by the performers. Intrinsically it was sufficient for
them if the music was melodious and vocal in solos, and if
the counterpoint in the choruses conveyed a pleasant sense
of orderly form in the progressions of the harmonies. Now
both English and Teutons have always had a great feeling
for direct expression in the music itself; and when in im-
mature times they could not get it in any other way, their
composers tried to get it by obvious realistic means. Italians
had tried realistic expression now and again, but always in a
half-hearted and ineffectual manner; and they always ended
by dropping it. But to genuine Teutons and Knglish such
intrinsic expression is a necessity, and it is the force of their
instinct for it which has enabled the former to carry to their
highest perfection all the forms of the art which the Italians
initiated, but had not sufficiently high artistic ideals or suffi-
cient persistence of character to bring to maturity.
This it is which makes so great a difference between
Handel's choral work and Italian choral work ; and the same
is the case with his arias and other solo music. The fact is
so familiar that it hardly needs emphasising. \ He not oily
gives in his choruses the direct expression of the feelings of
human creatures, whose places the singers might be said to
take, in exultation, mourning, rage, devotion, or any other
phases of human feeling; but he makes most successful use
of them for descriptive purposes, and for conveying the im-
1 64 THE ART OF MUSIC
pression of tremendous situations and events. This lattei
feature in his work may have been somewhat owing to his
English surroundings, as the German bent is to use music
more for the expression of the inward emotion and sentiment
than for direct concrete illustration. But this descriptive
phase was a part of the development of the artistic material
of music which had to be achieved, and as it might not have
been done so thoroughly under the influence of any other
nation, it is fortunate that Handel did his part of the work
under English influences, for the thoroughly Teutonic part
of the work was assuredly as perfectly done as is conceivable
by J. S. Bach. 4-
Bach also was a close student of Italian art, as he was of
the methods of all skilful composers of whatever nation ; but
nevertheless his circumstances and constant Teutonic sur-
roundings made him take, in his most genuinely characteristic
works, a thoroughly Teutonic line. The circumstances of his
career were peculiar, as his life was divided definitely into
periods in which he specially studied different departments
of art. In his earliest days, at the period in man's life when
impressions most easily become permanent, he was most par-
ticularly occupied with organ music, with organ style, with the
technique and methods of all the greatest organists whose
performances he could contrive to hear, and the compositions
for the organ of various schools which he could find oppor-
tunity to study. Fortunately the organists of that day were
exceptionally worthy of their instrument. They did not try
either to make it gambol, or to mince trivial sentimentalities,
but to utter things that had dignity and noble simplicity, and
to produce those majestic effects of rolling sound which were
peculiarly suitable to the -great vaulted buildings which were
the natural homes of their art. Bach's musical organisation
became well steeped in organ effects, and the phraseology
which was most appropriate to the instrument became the
natural language for the expression of his musical ideas, and
remained so for the rest of his life, though tempered and
enlarged by the wide range of his sympathetic studies in every
branch of composition. Together with organ. music he heard
OLD METHODS AND NEW PRINCIPLES 1 65
and absorbed tbe church music of his country; and the peculiar
mystic sentiment, full of tender poetical imagery and personal
devotion, which was then characteristic of Teutonic Chris-
tianity, took firm hold of his disposition. Unlike Handel 7
he remained all his life in one small part of Germany, always
amid thoroughly Teutonic influences ; and the result was that
when in the latter part of his life he addressed himself more
particularly to the composition of great choral works, the
Italian influences are but rarely apparent; and all the details,
the manner, the methods, and the type of expression are
essentially Teutonic. Great as was his contrapuntal skill, it
was in no sense the contrapuntalism of the Italians ; for it
may be confessed that his voice-parts are by no means smooth,
facile, or even vocal The origin of the style of his vocal
part-writing was the kind of counterpoint that he had learnt
from studying and hearing organ works when young. He had
a marvellous instinct for choral effect of many kinds, in no
way inferior to Handel's, though so extraordinarily different in
texture. But where Handel aimed at the beauty of melodic
form, Bach strove for characteristic expression. Where
Handel used orderly progressions of simple harmony, Bach
aimed at contriving elaborate interweavings of subtly dis-
posed parts to give the effect of the subtlest shades of human
feeling. Where Handel used the most realistic means to
convey the hopping of frogs, or the rattling of hailstones, or
the rolling of the sea, or the buzzing of flies, Bach attempted
to express the inner feelings of human creatures under the
impress of any exciting causes. It must not be supposed
that either composer was restricted to these particular lines,
for Handel at times succeeded better than most composers
in uttering the inner spirit of man's emotions, and Bach at
times adopted realistic methods ; but the larger portion of
Handel's choral work tends in the one direction, and of Bach's
in the other. Nowhere is the difference of their attitude
better illustrated than in their use of recitative. Handel,
accepting the conventions of Italian art without hesitation,
ruined an enormous number of his works by the emptiest,
baldest, and most mechanical formulas; while Bach, dh>
1 66 THE ART OF MUSIC
satisfied with anything which had not significance, endeavoured
by the contours and intervals of his solo part, by the pro-
gressions and harmonies of his accompaniment, and by ever}
means that was available, to intensify from moment to moment
the expression of the words. Bach's recitative was conse-
quently extremely difficult to sing, but the intrinsic expression
of the music is as strong as it can be made in such a form.
Handel's recitative may be easy to sing, but, with rare and
noble exceptions, it means next to nothing, and the formulas
often suit one set of words as well as another.
Bach's feeling for melody was not so happy as Handel's.
His Teutonic attitude is shown again in the fact that he
sought for richer, deeper, and more copious expression than
can be achieved by conventional treatment of regular melody
with simple secondary accompaniment. Solo music indeed
was not the most congenial form for the expression of his
ideas, and faithfully as he tried to achieve a perfect scheme
and principle of procedure, he never made sure of a satis-
factory result. He aimed at something which is a little
beyond the capacity of a formal solo movement to express,
and the soloist is often sacrificed to the exigencies of artistic
development. He could not rest satisfied with the apparent
superficiality of Italian treatment of melody, and but rarely
even attempted to produce a suave or ear-catching tune.
When the mood he wished to illustrate lent itself to melodic
expression, he produced exquisitely touching or innocently
joyous fragments of tune, which lay hold of the mind all the
more firmly because of their characteristic sincerity, and the
absence of any pretence of making the thing pleasant and
agreeable at the expense of the truth of the sentiment. The
only respect in which he fell conspicuously under the spell of
convention was in following, without sufficient consideration,
the principle of repetition indicated by the too familiar direction
" da capo." It is as though, when he had carried out his artistic
scheme with all the technical richness and care in detail he
could master up to a certain point, he felt he had done what
art required of him, and wrote " da capo al fine," without
consideration of the length to which it would carry hi«
OLD METHODS AND NEW PRINCIPLES 1 6;
movement; and thereby impaired some of his happiest in-
spirations through want of the practical observation that even
a good audience is human. And it may be confessed that
though his artistic insight, power of self-criticism, and variety
of inventiveness were almost the highest ever possessed by
man, his fervently idealistic nature was just a little deficient
in practical common sense. He worked so much by himself,
and had so little opportunity of testing his greatest works by
the light of experience in performance, that he sometimes over-
looked their relation to other human beings, and wrote for
the sheer pleasure of mastering a problem or developing to its
full circuit a scheme which he had in his mind.
In instrumentation both of these giants among composers
were equally backward, though their aims and methods, and
the results they achieved, were very different. They were
necessarily restricted to the standard of their time at the
beginning of their careers, and Handel did as little as it is
possible for a great master to do in adding to the resources
of the instrumental side of music. He tried interesting
experiments, occasionally, even in his earliest works, but his
mind was not set on making much use of new resources, or on
using colour as an enhancement of expression. His mastery
of choral effect and gift of melody, and power of portrayal by
vocal means, were sufficient for his purposes ; and the instru-
ments served chiefly to strengthen and support the voices, and
to play introductory passages to the arias and choruses, and^
simple marches and dance tunes, which were written mainly S^
for stringed instruments in the contrapuntal manner. He Z
looked to the present, and finished up much as he began. 7
Bach, on the other hand, looking always forward, gives proofs S
of much more purpose in his use of instrumental resources.
He used a great variety of instruments of all kinds, both L
wind and strings, though not so much to increase the volume L
of tone in the mass as to give special quality and unity
of colour to various movements. The days when composite
colouring and constantly altering shades of various qualities
of tone are an ordinary feature of the art were yet very far
off j and he never seems to have thought of adopting any-
12
1 68 THE ART OF MUSIC
thing like such modern methods of variety. But as far as hii
unique principles go, they are at times singularly effective.
He realised the various expressive qualities of the tone and
style of hautboys, flutes, solo violins, horns, trumpets, viole da
gamba, and many other instruments ; and with the view of in-
tensifying the pathos, or the poignancy, or the joyousness, or
the sublimity of his words, he found suitable figures for them,
and wove them with the happiest effect throughout the whole
accompaniment of a movement. The device was not new, for
it was the first method that composers adopted in trying to
make use of variety of orchestral colour ; but Bach's use of it
for the purposes of expression was new, and was an important
/ step in the direction of effectual use of instrumental resources.
I To the object of obtaining great sonority from his instrumental
] forces Bach does not seem to have given much of his mind.
/ Both he and Handel relied so much upon the organ to fill in
S accompaniments and supply fulness of sound, that it does
nnot seem to have struck either of them as worth while to
/look for any degree of richness or volume from combinations
\of orchestral instruments. In loud passages neither of them
-attempt to dispose the various instruments in such a way as
to get the best tone out of them ; and when played in modern
times, under modern conditions, the wood wind instruments
are often totally drowned by the strings. The proportions
were very different in those times, but even if the old pro-
portions of wind and strings were restored, many contrapuntal
effects in which flutes or hautboys have to take essential
parts on equal terms with violins, would be quite ineffective.
Their scheme of oratorio and church music being what it
was, the backwardness of instrumental effect was but of small
consequence. The means they used for their effects were
essentially choral forces and solo voices, and these were amply
sufficient for the purposes they had in hand. Instrumental
music and the arts of instrumentation have, been developed
almost entirely under secular conditions: In such works as
Handel's and Bach's, which illustrated mainly religious aspects
of human feeling and character, the absence of subtle sensuous
excitements of colour was possibly rather an advantage thai)
OLD METHODS AND NEW PRINCIPLES 1 69
otherwise. Whatever lack of maturity is observable in both
is felt, not so much in the lack of instrumental effect, as in
the crude recitative of Handel and in the overdoing of contra-
puntal complexity in places where it is not essential in Bach.
Their works are mature without instrumentation, and even
the exquisite skill of Mozart's additional accompaniments to
Handel's work cannot disguise the fact that the phraseology
of modern instrumentation is out of touch with the style of
the older masterpieces.
In considering the aspects of their great sacred choral
works it is of importance to note the circumstances which
called them into existence. Both composers came to the
writing of such works quite at the end of their careers, when
their mastery of their art was most complete; and they
brought the fruits of their experience in all branches of art
to bear upon them. Moreover, the circumstances of their
respective careers had great influence upon the quality of the
products. Handel had all through been a practical public
man, constantly in touch with the public, and constantly
watching their likes and dislikes, and catering for his suj
porters accordingly. He began as a subordinate violin-player
in Reiser's Hamburg Opera-House, where his abilities soon
caused him to be promoted to the position of accompanist on
the harpsichord ; which was excellent training for an opera
composer, and taught him the ins and outs of that branch of
public entertainment. This short preliminary was soon suc-
ceeded by brilliant successes as a composer in Italy, and these
in turn led to his long and brilliant career as an opera com-
poser in England, which lasted some twenty-six years. Then,
finally, the accident of having an opera-house on his hands in
Lent, on days when opera performances were not allowed, led
to his trying the experiment of setting sacred dramas for
performance on the stage of his theatre. These differed from
the operas in their more serious and solid character, the
absence of action, and the introduction of grand choral move-
ments. But he began this experiment; purely as a business
manager, and did not attempt to write complete new works,
but merely patched together choruses and other numbers out
I 70 THE ART OP MUSIO
of earlier works, giving them new words and adding soma
new movements to make the whole pass muster, and calling
the patchwork by a scriptural name. The success of the
experiment encouraged him to proceed to compose or patch
together more works of the same kind ; and a strange illus-
tration of his attitude towards oratorio at first is afforded by
the fact that the grandest and most impressive of all his
works is actually a piece of patchwork ; for " Israel in Egypt"
contains a most surprising number of old movements which
may have been early compositions of his own, and also a very
large quantity of musical material which was unquestionably
by other composers. He transformed some of the borrowed
materials into extremely effective choruses, and wrote other
new choruses which are among his finest achievements ; and
the greatness of his own work has carried the second-rate
work along with it. But his procedure shows that he did not
treat the form of oratorio at first as a responsible conscientious
composer might be expected to do, but as a man who had to
supply the public with a fine entertainment. It cannot indeed
be doubted that though he was capable of rising to very
great achievements, and was capable of noble and sincere
expression, he thought a great deal of the tastes of a big
public, and not very intently of refinements of art, or origin-
ality of matter or of plan. His disposition was not so much
to work up to any exalted ideals of his own, as to feel sympa-
thetically what was the highest standard of taste of the £$
public for which he was constantly working, and to supply
what that demanded. This must not be taken to mean that
he habitually wrote down to a low standard of public taste.
Composers who persuade themselves to do that generally take
a very low view of their public, and write even worse than
they need. Handel had on the whole very good reason to
think well of his public, notwithstanding their unwillingness
to listen to " Israel in Egypt " without some sugar- plums in
the shape of opera airs to relieve its austere grandeur. They
thoroughly appreciated others of his works, and the reception
accorded to the * Messiah " was sufficient to encourage him to
put all his heart into .his later works of the oratorio order.
OLD METHODS AND NEW PRINCIPLES 17 I
Thinking so much of the big public may therefore have been
no great drawback to him ; and some of the thanks for the
lofty standard of his achievements are due to the good taste
and sense of the people for whom he altered. His position
made him practical, and helped him to that definite and
wholesomely direct style which was congenial to his English
audiences; and though they may be also answerable for a
certain amount of commonplace and complacency in his work,
they deserve credit for encouraging him in the line of choral
work, which resulted in the achievement of those effects of
genuine grandeur, simple dignity, and cosmic power which
mark his culmination as one of the great eras of art.
The circumstances which led to Bach's great choral works
were absolutely different, and account for a great deal of the
marked difference in the product. The contrast in the cir-
cumstances of the two composers is noticeable from their
earliest years. When Handel was absorbing the influences
of an opera-house, Bach was listening to the great organists of
his time. When Handel was practising Italianisms in every
branch of art, Bach was studying mainly the ways and tastes
of his own people. Moreover, the relation of a composer to his
surroundings is of supreme importance, and Bach's position in
relation to " the public " was most peculiar. By comparison
with the public nature of Handel's career Bach's life seems
like that of a reflective recluse. So far from catering for a
public, throughout the greater part of his life he hardly knew
what an audience was, and he had next to no opportunities
whatever to feel the public pulse. But in any case he could
hardly have brought himself to see his art through other
people's eyes; for it was his nature to judge solely for him-
self, and he laboured throughout his life with simplicity and
singleness of heart to come up to his own highest ideals in
all branches of art, and to satisfy his own critical judgment
without a thought of the effect his work would have upon
any but an ideal auditor. His principle of study is most
happily illustrative of the manner in which all musical prog-
ress is made. For lie early adopted the practice of studying
»nd copying out the works of composers who excelled in all
'
172 THE ART OF MUSIC
7the diffei ent branches of art, and of endeavouring to improve
^ upon their achievements. Sometimes he actually rewrote thp
y works of other composers, and oftentimes he deliberately
/ imitated them both for style and design ; and wherever he
( recognised an artistic principle of undoubted value and
vitality, he as it were absorbed and amalgamated it as part
of his own artistic procedure. He ranged far and wide, and
1 studied the methods of Italians, Frenchmen, Netherlander,
and Germans — writers of choral music and of organ music,
of violin music and of harpsichord music. And not only
that, but he always sedulously criticised himself, and recast,
remodelled, and rewrote everything which new experiences
or a happier mood made him feel capable of improving.
This would have been impossible in the busy public life of
Handel, and was not in that composer's line. Bach's was
a far more individual and personal position. He wanted
to express what he himself personally felt and approved.
Handel adapted himself to feel and approve what the public
approved.
It naturally followed that Bach's style became far more
individual and strongly marked, and that he went far beyond
the standard of the musical intelligence of his time ; and the
inevitable consequence was that his most ideally great and
genuine passages of human expression were merely regarded
by his contemporaries as ingenious feats of pedantic ingenuity.
A man could not well be more utterly alone or without sym-
pathy than he was. Even his sons and pupils but half under-
stood him. But we do not know that he suffered from it. We
can only see plainly that it drove him inwards upon himself,
and made him adopt that independent attitude which is capable
of producing the very highest results in men who have grit
enough to save them from extravagance and incoherence. He
wrote because it interested him to write, and with the natural
impulse of the perfectly sincere composer to bring out what
was in him in the best form that he could give to it ; and his
musical constitution being the purest and noblest and most
full of human feeling and emotion ever possessed by a com-
poser, the art of music is more indebted to him than to an;
OLD METHODS AND NEW PRINCIPLES 1 73
other composer who ever lived, especially for the extension
of the arts of expression.
The peculiar services he did in the branch of pure instru-
mental art must be discussed elsewhere. The services he did
to choral art, especially in his Passions, the B minor mass
and smaller masses, the great unaccompanied motets and the
various cantatas, are equal to Handel's, though on such
different lines. The effect of the isolation in which his work
was produced was no doubt to make it in some respects ex
perimental, but it ensured the highest development of the art
of expression and of the technique which serves to the ends of
expression. To the same end also served the Teutonic aspect
of his labours. The oratorios of other nations were not part
of religious exercises, nor the direct expression of devotional
leeling. They had merely been versions of lives of famous
scriptural heroes or events, set to music partly in narrative
and partly in dramatic form. But the Germans had fastened
with peculiar intensity of feeling on the story of the Passion,
and set it again and again in a musical form, as though
determined to give it the utmost significance that lay in their
power. The plan was to break up the story into its most
vivid situations and intersperse these with reflective choruses
(*nd solos, which helped the mind to dwell intently and lovingly
upon each step in the tragedy. It was essentially a devotional
function in which every one present took a personal share.
Even the audience, apart from the performers, took part in
the noble chorales — so characteristic of the Teutonic nature —
which were interspersed throughout. Many poets and many
composers tried their hands at this curious form of art, Bach
nimself several times ; and the crown was put on the whole
series finally by the famous Passion according to St. Matthew,
which Bach wrote and rewrote towards the end of his career
for performance at Leipzig.
It is not necessary to emphasise further the difforence
between Bach's treatment of great sacred choral works and
Handel's. The oratorios of the latter were nearly all dramatic
or epic, and the subjects were treated as nearly as possible
histrionically. There are portions of Bach's Paaaions which
I 74 THE ART OF MUSIC
treat the situations with great dramatic force, but in the main
they are the direct outcome of personal devotion, and in them
the mystic emotionalism of the Teutonic nature found its
purest expression. Thus in the works of the two great com-
posers the types of musical utterance which represent epic
and narrative treatment on the one hand, and inward im-
mediate feeling on the other, were completely' realised on the
largest scale that the art of that day allowed. Handel's direct
and practical way of enforcing the events and making his story
vivid by great musical means has given great pleasure to an
immense public, and as it were summed up the labours of his
predecessors into a grand and impressive result. Bach, with
higher ideals, produced work which was often experimental,
and even at times unpractical; but he used the sum of his
predecessors' work as his stepping-stone, and did much greater
service to his art. He appeals to a much smaller public than
Handel, and is totally unacceptable to shallow, worldly, or
unpoetical temperaments; but he has given much higher
pleasure to those whose mental and emotional organisation
is sufficiently high to be in touch with him, and there are
but few of the greatest composers of later times who have
not felt him to be their most inspiring example.
CHAPTER VIII
THE CLIMAX OP EARLY INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC •
Axthough the principles of design upon which modern self-
dependent instrumental music is based had hardly dawned
upon the minds of men till the eighteenth century was nearly
half spent, the latest instrumental music of the early period,
written almost entirely upon the same general principles as
choral music, is not only historically important, but has
more genuine vitality than a very large proportion of the
music which has come into existence since the cultivation
of pure harmonic music has so greatly enlarged the resources
of composers. The situation is parallel in many respects
to the earlier crisis of Palestrina and Marenzio. There is
less of the sense of immaturity in their work than in the
work of Lulli and Scarlatti of nearly a century later; and
there is far less of immaturity in the instrumental works of
Bach and Handel and their fellows than in the works of
Galuppi or Paradisi, or even in the early works of Haydn.
Maturity is a relative term altogether. If a man's ideas are
worth expressing, and are capable of being expressed com-
pletely within the limits of his resources, his productions may
be in a certain sense completely mature at almost any epoch
in the progress of artistic development. If Palestrina had
introduced discords more freely and treated them with less
reserve, and had aimed generally at a stronger type of expres-
sion, the balance of his work would have been destroyed ; he
would have gone beyond the limits which were then inevitable
for completely artistic work. Part of his greatness consisted
in his feeling exactly where the limitations of his kind of art
were, and achieving his aims within the field of which he was
complete master. The position of the composers in Bach's
l?6 THE ART OF MUSIO
time was much the same ; and part of his own particulai
greatness consisted in seeing within what particular range
the technical resources of art, which preceding development
had placed in his hands, were most fully available.
It is very necessary to keep in mind the fact that different
types of artistic procedure representing different epochs fre-
quently overlap. Just as in the arrangements of society a
monarchy may be thriving successfully in one country, while
its neighbour is trying experiments in democratic institutions ;
so in art it constantly happens that a new style has broken
into vigorous activity before the old style has produced its
greatest results. And there is a further parallel in the fact,
that as the theories and practices of the republican country
may filter into the country where the more conventional form
of government still prevails, so the new ideas which are
beginning to be realised in other departments of artistic energy
often creep into the heart of an old but still active sytem,
even before it has come to full maturity. Even the strictest
representatives of an ancient and well-developed style try
occasional experiments on revolutionary lines. The bounds
of the old order were transgressed before Palestrina's time,
and many men began to have clear ideas of harmonic form
of the sonata order long before John Sebastian Bach put the
crown on the old style of instrumental music. Bach himself
tried experiments in this line, and did his utmost to master
and gauge the value of the new style, by copying, rearranging,
rewriting, and imitating the works of prominent representa-
tives of the new school. But it is clear that he was not
satisBed with the results, and that the style was not congenial
to him. His peculiar gifts would not have found suffcient
means for employment on the simple lines of harmonic form
as then understood, and the necessity of submitting to uniform
distribution of the various parts of his design would have
hampered him in the experiments in modulation and harmoni-
sation which are among his greatest glories.
So it came about finally that he attempted but little of a
sonata order, but concentrated his powers on works of the
old style — the toccatas, canzonas, fantasias, fugues, suites
THE CLIMAX OF EARLY INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC I 77
partitas, and other varieties ; and his work in those lines
sums up the fruitful labours of all his predecessors, and pro-
vides the most perfect examples of all the older forms. The
essence of the being of the old instru in ejitaL forma was the
polyphon ic texture in which every J>ar t or voic e is on eq"al
terms with every_other one. There is no despotic tune with
subservient accompaniment, nor strict conventions as to the
distribution of chords according to their tonalities. The use
of chords as artistic entities had undoubtedly become quite
familiar, but it was not on any principle of their systematic
distribution that works were designed. They were of secondary
importance to polyphonic elaboration of musical figures ; by
the interweaving of which, like the strands of a ropa^he
works were made coherent and interesting.
"~Of all the forms of instrumental music which were charac-
teristic of this phase of art, the fugue is the most familiar and
the most perfectly organised. It was the form in which Bach
most delighted, and the one which gave him fullest variety of
scope and opportunity for expression. Its beginnings have
already been sketched. The earliest forms were obvious imita-
tions of choral music adapted for the organ or for sets of viola
The type of choral work which was imitated was extremely
indefinite as far as the musical ideas were concerned, and the
musical "subjects" were not necessarily reiterated in the
course of the movements. But when the form came to be
used independently of words, the barrenness of mere meander-
ing counterpoint soon became apparent, and characteristic
musical figures became more definitely noticeable, and were
frequently reiterated in the course of a work to give unity
to the whole. The early composers who speculated on these
lines called their works by all sorts of names — canzonaa,
ricercari, fantasias, and so forth ; and they were very un-
systematic in their ways of introducing their " subjects." But
experience led them by degrees to regulate things with due
attention to symmetry and better distribution of their
materials. By degrees the aspect of the form became suffi-
ciently distinctive for theorists to take note of it, and the
simplicity of the conditions of procedure led them to imagine
I J% THE ART OF MUSIC
that an artistic scheme might be very successfully devised bj
mere speculation, without regard to the existing facts of art ;
and they contrived such a multiplicity of directions to show
composers how to expend their superfluous inartistic ingenuity
according to the letter of their law, that men in general came
to think that the fugue form was invented for nothing else
but to enable pedants to show how clever they are. As a
matter of fact, the rules were devised without consideration
of the necessities of the case, and it naturally follows that
hardly any of the finest fugues in the whole range of the
musical art are strictly in accordance with the directions of
the teachers on the subject ; and if it had not been for Bach
and Handel this most elastic and invaluable form would have
become a mere dead formality.
The essence of the form in its mature state is simply that
the successive parts shall enter like several voices, one after
another, with a " subject " — which is a musical phrase of
sufficiently definite melody and rhythm to stand out from its
context and be identifiable — and that this subject shall give
the cue to the mood of the movement at the outset and re-
appear frequently throughout. Artistic interest and variety
of effect are maintained by the manner in which the voices or
parts sometimes sound all at once, and sometimes are reduced
to a minimum of one or two. Climaxes are obtained by making
them busier and busier with the subject ; making it appear at
one time in one part, and at another time in another, the
voices or parts catching one another up like people who are
60 eager in the discussion of their subject that they do not
wait for each other to finish their sentences. Subordinate
subjects are made to circle round the principal one, and the
various ideas are made to appear in different relations to one
another, sometimes high and sometimes low, sometimes quick
and at other times slow, but always maintaining a relevancy
in mood and style. And the course of the movement simul-
taneously makes a complete circuit by passing to subordinate
keys, which allow of constant change in the presentation of
the subject, and ultimately comes round to the first key again
and closes firmly therein. All sorts of devices had been con-
THE CLIMAX OF EARLY INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC I 79
trived for giving additional effect and interest to the scheme
and in Bach's time fugue became the highest representative
form of the period of art.
It had been first used for the organ — the association of the
instrument with choral music in church services ensured
that — and many of Bach's predecessors obtained more effective
results in this form than any other that they attempted.
Many attempts had been made before Bach's time to adapt
it also for harpsichord and for stringed instruments, so that
Bach had plenty of models to improve upon, according to his
wont, in each department of art.
It ought not to be overlooked, moreover, that his pre-
decessors in the line of organ music were an exceptionally
high-spirited group of composers. It is difficult to find a
6ner or more true-hearted set of men in the whole range of
the art than such as Frescobaldi, Froberger, Swelinck, Kerl,
Reinken, Buxtehude, Pachelbel, Kuhnau, John Michael Bach,
and many others of the same calling and similar musical
powers. Each one of them had contributed a considerable
number of items of their own both to the materials of art
and to the solution of the problems of their manipulation.
Bach's own work has thrown theirs into the shade, but the
world which has forgotten them is under great obligations
to them alL For though their work never reaches the
pitch of equal mastery which satisfies the fastidious judg-
ment of those who have enjoyed maturer things, it was
only through their devoted pioneering that the musical
revelation of the personality of Bach in instrumental music
became possible.
In the passionate eagerness to express his thoughts as well
as was conceivably possible, Bach studied the works of every
man who had distinguished himself in any branch of art.
And with the true instinct which is so like concentrated
common-sense, he took each department of art in turn, and
always at times when he had opportunities to test his own
experiments in similar lines. At one time he devoted himself
to organ music, at another to secular instrumental muic, at
another to choral music As has been pointed out elsewhere,
I 80 THE ART OF MUSIC
the organ period came first, and coloured his style for the
rest of his life.
The organ is obviously not an instrument which is capable
of much expression in detail, but it is undoubtedly capable of
exercising great emotional effect upon human beings, partly
through its long association with feelings which are most
deeply rooted in human nature, and partly through the
magnificent volume of continuous sound that it is capable
of producing. The latter quality supplies in a great measure
the guiding principle for its successful treatment by a jom-
poser ; and the effect of the most successful works written
for it, depends in great measure on the manner in which the
crises of voluminous sound are managed. The fugue form
happens to be the most perfect contrivance for the attainment
of these ends. For it completely isolates the text of the
discourse, which is the principal subject ; and the successive
entries of the parts necessarily make a gradual increase of
general sonority. Looking at fugue from the sensational
side, the human creature is made to go through successive
states of tension and relaxation ; and the perfection of a
great master's management lies in his power to adjust the
distribution of his successive climaxes of sonority and com-
plexity proportionately to the receptive capacities of human
creatures, beginning from different points, and rising suc-
cessively to different degrees of richness and fulness. The
difficulty of the operation lies in the necessity for building
up the successive effects of massive complexity out of the
musical ideas. A great master like Bach is instinctively
aware that appeals to sensation must be accompanied by
proportionate appeals to higher faculties. It is only in the
crudest phases of modern theatrical music that mere appeals
to sensation are dignified by the name of art. In modern
opera climaxes of sound are often piled up one after another
without doing anything but excite the animal side of man's
nature. The glory of Bach's management of such things
is that the intrinsic interest of the music itself is always in
proportion to the power and volume of the actual sound.
Indeed the volume of the sound is sometimes made to seen.
THE CLIMAX OF EARLY INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC l8l
tenfold greater than the mere notes sounding would warrant,
by reason of the extraordinary complexity and vitality of
the details out of which it is compounded. Moreover, Bach
has such a hold upon the resources of his art, that when
he has to reduce the number of notes sounding to a minimum,
the relation of the passage to its context prevents the interest
from flagging. It was in such circumstances that his pre-
decessors had often failed. They could often write several
pages of fine, rich, and noble music, but never held the
balance so perfectly but that at some time or other the
movement seems to fall to pieces. Bach at his best manipu-
lates all his resources so well that even his quietest moments
have some principle of interest which keeps the mind engaged,
and his final climax of sound and complicated polyphony
comes like the utmost possible exultation, taking complete
possession of the beings who hear with the understanding
as well as the senses, and raising them out of themselves into
a genuine rapture.
Of course Bach did not restrict himself to such types of
procedure. There are plenty of works which are mainly in-
tellectual from end to end, relying on the beauty of some
melodic phrase or the energy of some rhythmic figure to
supply what is necessary on the side of feeling. In such
works a characteristic subject is taken as a thesis, and pre-
sented in every possible light with byplay of subordinate
theses, like little commentaries, which are often beautifully ex-
pressive melodic figures, and are all welded together into a
complete whole by the endless resource and acute instinct of
the composer.
The style of the organ works is eminently serious at all
times, as befits the character of the instrument. But Bach
uses subjects with regular dance rhythms, as well as those
of the choral type ; and those which are most popular are
generally the rhythmic fugues. In the toccatas, fantasias,
and preludes he is but rarely rhythmic to any pronounced
extent. He finds figures which have a natural animation
without too much lilt, and welds them into great sequences,
which have a coherence of their own, from the point of view
1 82 THE ART OF MUSIC
of tonal design, without having anything of the sonata *,har>
acter about them. The sonata mood and type of form is
conspicuously absent, and most happily so. That grew up
under secular conditions, and the style represents totally
different habits of mind and manner from those which were
natural to the men who cultivated the old polyphonic forms.
Bach succeeded in finding forms for himself which in relation
to his polyphonic methods are completely satisfying to the
mind, and which admitted of wide range of modulation and
variety and system in the presentation of subjects without
foregoing the advantages of clearly recognisable part-writing.
He had complete mastery of all genuine organ devices
which tell in the hearing; — the effects of long sustained
notes accompanied by wonderful ramifications of rapid
passages; the effects of sequences of linked suspensions of
great powerful chords ; the contrast of whirling rapid notes
with slow and stately march of pedals and harmonica He
knew how the pearly clearness of certain stops lent itself to
pasages of intricate rhythmic counterpoint, and what charm,
lay in the perfect management of several simultaneous melodies
— especially when the accents came at different moments in
the different parts ; and he designed his movements so well
that he made all such and many other genuine organ effects
exert their fullest impression on the hearers. He rarely
allows himself to break into a dramatic vein, though he some-
times appeals to the mind in phases which are closely akin to
the dramatic — as in the great fantasia in G minor, the toccata
in D minor, the prelude in B minor. He Ov-casionally touches
on tender and pathetic strains, but for the most part rightly
adopts an attitude of grand dignity which is at once generous
in its warmth and vigour, and reserved in the matter of
sentiment.
His work in this line seems to comprise all the possibilities
of pure organ music. Everything that has been written since
is but the pale shadow of his splendid conceptions ; and
though the modern attempts to turn the organ into a sort
of second-rate orchestra by means of infinite variety of stops
ar« often very surprising (and very heterogeneous), they
THE CLIMAX OF EARLY INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC I 83
certainly cannot compare with his work for intrinsic quality
or genuine direct impressiveness. The organ is naturally
associated with types of thought and emotion which are
traditionally referred to a religious basis ; and the later
development of purely secular music has hardly touched its
true field.
In the line of orchestral music, such as orchestral suites and
concerti grossi, Bach's achievements are often supremely de-
lightful — vigorous, vivacious, and characteristic. But they are
not of any great historical importance. The backward state
of the arts of instrumentation tells against them, as does
Bach's natural inclination to treat all the members of his
•orchestra on equal terms as so many counterpoints. On the
other hand, his work for harpsichord and clavichord is of
supreme importance ; for in this line again he put the crown
on a special type of development, and made the final and most
perfect exposition of the varieties of the suite form, and of the
old instrumental fugue, as well as of all those varieties of types
of toccata and fantasia which were especially characteristic of
the polyphonic period.
In connection with these lesser keyed instruments his objects
were necessarily different from those which he had in view
in organ composition. No volume of sound nor sustainment
of tone for any length of time was possible. While the organ
had ancient associations and great echoing buildings to lend
enchantment to the performance, the lesser keyed instruments
were chiefly confined to the intimate familiarities of domestic
life. Bach's favourite instrument, the clavichord, admitted
of some tender expression and delicate phrasing; but the
harpsichord, with a certain noble roughness of tone, admitted
of hardly any expression and of no great variety of volume
Here indeed was a great temptation to subside into purdj
intellectual subtleties. But there was an amount of huinai
nature about Bach which prevented his wasting his time in
ingenious futilities. Considering how infinitely capable he was
of every kind of ingenuity, it is surprising how few examples
there are in his works of misuse of artistic resources. He was
incessantly trying experiments, and it was natural that h«
1?,
I 84 THE ART OF MUSIC
should test the effect of pure technical feats now and then,
but the proportion of things which are purely mechanical to
those which have a genuine musical basis is very small. He
exercised his supreme mastery of such resources very often, as
in the canons in the Goldberg Variations, but in most cases
the mere ingenuity is subordinate to higher and more generous
principles of effect. Exceptions like the Kunst der Fuge and
Husikalisches Opfer were deliberately contrived for definitely
technical purposes, and hardly come within the range of real
practical music.
Among the most important of his clavier works are the
■everal groups of suites and partitas. These are sets of dance
tunes grouped together in such a way as to make a composite
cycle out of well-contrasted units, all knit together in the
circuit of one key. The idea of grouping dance tunes together
was of very old standing; and composers had tried endless
varieties, from galliards and pavans to rigadoons and trumpet
tunes. But by degrees they settled down to a scheme which
was in principle exactly the same as that of the distribution
of sonata movements in later times — having the serious and
more highly organised movements at the beginning, the slow
dances in the middle, and the gay rhythmic dances at the
end. Many composers had succeeded admirably in this form,
especially Couperin, who generally fell in with the taste of
his French audiences by adding to the nucleus a long series
of lively picture-tunes which savoured of the theatrical ballet.
Bach took Couperin for one of his models, and paid attention
chiefly to the most artistic part of his work, and set himself
to improve upon it. The form in which he cast his move
ments is always on the same lines. They are divided into
two nearly equal halves, the first passing out from the principal
key to a point of contrast, and closing there to emphasise it ;
and the second starting from that point and returning to the
point from which the movement began. This is all that the
movements have of actual harmonic form, though they fre-
quently illustrate an early stage of typical sonata movements,
by the correspondence of the opening bars of each half, and
of the closing bars of each half. The texture of all the move-
THE CLIMAX OF EARLY INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC I 85
ments — even of the lightest — is polyphonic. The two first
movements of the suite are generally an allemande and a
courante, which are often very elaborate in intricacy of
independent counterpoint. The courante was also made
additionally intricate by curious cross rhythms. In these
movements Bach is more often purely technical than in any
other branch of his work; and though very dignified and
noble, they are occasionally rather dry. On the other hand,
the central movement (the sarabande) almost always repre-
sents his highest pitch of expressiveness and interest ; and it
is, moreover, the movement in which he is least contrapuntal.
There are sarabandes of all kinds. Some are purely melodic,
some superbly rich in harmonisation, some gravely rhythmic,
and some are treated with beautifully expressive counterpoint.
In almost all of them Bach strikes some vein of very concen-
trated expression, and maintains it with perfect consistency
from beginning to end. After the central expressive point of
the sarabande the light and gay movements naturally follow.
A suite was held to be complete which had but one of such
merry movements (a gigue) at the end. But as a sort of
concession to human weakness very light and rhythmic move-
ments were commonly admitted directly after the sarabande,
such as the bourrees, gavottes, minuets, and passepieds. In
such movements Bach was wonderfully at home. In perfect
neatness and finish of such rapid, sparkling little movements,
no one has ever surpassed him ; and he contrived them
throughout in the terms of perfect art. For they are not of
the modern type of dance tune with dummy accompaniment,
but works in which everything sounding has vitality, most
frequently in the form of busiest and merriest two-part
counterpoint. The final gigues also are nearly always contra-
puntal, and often almost fugal. But they are by no means
severe. Such examples as the gigue of the G major French
suite and the F major English suite are sufficient to prove
that uncompromisingly artistic methods are by no means in-
consistent with most vivacious gaiety.
By the side of Bach's suites may suitably be mentioned the
two sets of suites by Handel, though they are not of anything
(86 THE ART OF MUSIC
like equal artistic importance. The second set are indeed fc*
the most part so poor and inert that they have almost dropped
out of notice altogether. They were probably written just to
supply a demand engendered by the great success of the first set,
which are vastly superior in every respect, and have maintained
a lively popularity even till the present day. Both sets are,
however, very peculiar examples of the order of art to which
they profess to belong, which may by some people be regarded
as a merit. They comprise combinations and distributions of
movements, which are not frequently met with in suites, such
as long series of variations, and very effective fugues ; and they
are obviously better calculated to win popular favour than such
austere and conscientious types as those of J. S. Bach, but the
details are much plainer and the materials less concentrated
and interesting. The same qualities are noticeable in all
Handel's various ventures in the line of instrumental music ;
such as his effective and popular organ concertos, some very
attractive violin sonatas, the very unequal grand concertos,
and similar compositions and pasticcios for orchestral instru-
ments, and the long chaconnes for harpsichord alone. Handel
was too great a genius to be able to help breaking out occa-
sionally into something remarkably fine and attractive, even
when he was not putting his heart into what he was doing.
But the public nature of his career is indicated in this as in
other departments of his work, both in respect of its advan-
tages and its drawbacks. The artistic level is not consistently
as high as Bach's, and the influence of Italian ruodett of thought
has the effect, in this range of art especially, of making a great
part of his instrumental music more justly classifiable with
the works of the early harmonic style, to be considered in the
next chapter, than with the distinct group which represents
the "climax of early instrumental music."
Of all the works with which Bach enriched the world, the
one which is most cherished by musicians is the Collection
of Preludes and Fugues which is known in England as the
" Forty-eight," and in Germany as " Das wohltemperirte
Clavier" — which means "The clavichord tuned in equal
temperament." The very name of this work brings forward
THE CLIMAX OF EARLY INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC I 87
a point which is of great moment in the story of the art,
namely, the final settling of the particular scale which serves
for all our later music ; which has already been shortly sum-
marised in Chapter II.
In choral music wide diatonic intervals are so far preferable
to semitones that in the early days, when all music was choral,
composers found a very limited number of flats and sharps
sufficient for all their requirements. Modulations from one
key to another were not thought of in the way in which they
are now, for men were very slow in arriving at a clear under-
standing of the principle of tonality or definition of key. But
when instrumental music began to be cultivated, and men de-
veloped a sense for identity and variety of key, and began to use
modulations as a basis of design as well as a means of effect,
they were brought face to face with a perplexing problem. It
is a familiar paradox of acoustics that if a series of fifths are
tuned one on the top of another, the notes at which they arrive
soon begin to be different from notes at the same position in
the scale which are arrived at by other methods of tuning.
Thus, if starting from C, the notes G-, D, and E are suc-
cessively tuned as perfect fifths, the E is not the same E that
would be produced by tuning a true third and transposing it
by the necessary octaves. And the same happens if the fifths
are tuned one on the top of another till they appear to arrive
at the same note from which they started. B& according to
modern ideas, is the same as C, but if theoretically in tune it
would be practically out of tune, and many of the other
sharps and flats which coincide on the keyboard are in the
same category. This was of course no great obstacle as long
as composers only wanted to use Bt?, E^, C#, FJJ, and G*
The old methods of tuning made these possible without modi-
fying the essential intervals, such as the fifths and thirds.
No provision was made for the other accidentals, because they
were not required until music had gone a long way beyond the
limits of the ecclesiastical modes. But by Bach's time the
feeling for the modern system of keys and of major and
minor scales was quite mature. All composers perfectly
understood the status of the various notes in the scales, at
188 THE ART OF MUSIC
least instinctively, and modulation from one key to anothei
had become a vital essential of art. No music was possible
without it. But it still took some time for music to expand
so far as to make modulation to extraneous keys seem a
matter worth contending for. Cautious conservatives would
not be persuaded that any modification of the old system of
tuning was wanted ; but the more adventurous spirits would
not be gainsaid. They found that they required to assume
Afr to be the same as G#, and D^ as C#, and the fact that the
chords which resulted from their experiments were hideously
out of tune in the old method of tuning would not stop them.
It became more and more obvious that modulation must be
possible, for the purposes of the new kind of art, into every
key represented by a note in the system. Otherwise there
would be blanks in particular directions which would inevitably
make the system unequal and imperfect. In other words, it
was necessary that all the notes in the system should stand
on an equal footing in relation to one another. Bach fore-
saw this with such clearness that he tuned his own instrument
on the system of "equal temperament," and gave his opinion
to the world in a most practical form, which was this series
of preludes and fugues, major and minor, in every key repre-
sented by a note in the system. Till his time certain extreme
keys had hardly ever been used, and his action emphasises
the final crystallisation of the modern scale system, which
makes it as different from the system used by the musicians
of the Middle Ages as the heptatonic system of the Persians
is from the pentatonic system of the Chinese. In all cases
the scale is an artificial product contrived for particular
artistic ends. The old scale, with a limited number of avail-
able notes, was sufficient for the purposes of the old church
music, because the aims of the art were different. The growth
of modern instrumental music brought new aims into men'g
minds, and they had to contrive a new scale system to satisfy
them. The division of the octave into twelve equal intervals,
to which Bach in this objective way gave his full sanction,
is now a commonplace of every musical person's experience.
Some people imagine that it was always so. But in reality
THE CLIMAX OF EARLY INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC I 8§
the existing system is only a hundred and fifty years old, and
was resisted by some musicians even till the present century.
The two books of preludes and fugues represent an extra-
ordinary variety of artistic speculation on Bach's part. They
have much the same standing in his artistic scheme as tbe
concentrated lyrical pieces of Chopin and Schumann have in
modern times. The system of design upon which the modern
pieces are devised had yet to be developed, and the only well-
established and trustworthy form for concentrated expressiun
of abstract' ideas was the fugue. As the fugues in this col-
lection belong to various periods in Bach's life, they naturally
illustrate purely technical as well as expressive aims; but
there are very few that have only technical interest. Most
of them obviously illustrate such states of feeling and of mood
as music is especially fitted to express, and they do so in
terms of the most perfect and finished art. There are fugues
which express many shades of merriment and banter (C minor,
Cjf major, Bt> in first book ; F minor in second book). Strong
confident fugues (D major, first book; A minor, second book);
intensely sad fugues (Bl?" minor and B minor, first book) ;
serenely reposeful fugues (E major and B major, second book) ;
tenderly pathetic fugues (G# minor in both books). In every
case his subject gives him his cue, and the treatment of har-
monisation, modulation, counterpoint, design, and general
tone, follows consistently the mood which the subject indi-
cated. Bach's objects were absolutely different from those
of the theoretical writers on fugue. He aimed at designs
which are more akin to the devices of harmonic form, making
different parts of the work balance with one another in style,
by special characteristic runs, or special sequences— anything
which gives an additional value and interest to the mere
technicalities of the treatment of the subject. He never
makes the mistake of writing a fugue in sonata form, which
is little better than a forcing together of incompatible types
of style. From the point of view of polyphonic writing the
fugues are as pure as they can be made, but his frequent use
of sequences and similar devices gives an additional sense of
stability to the design without distracting the mind from the
I90 THE ART OF MUSIC
true objects of the form. The fugues have the reputation of
being the most important part of the work, but in reality the
preludes are fully as interesting, and even more unique. They
are very varied in character, and many are evident experi-
ments in compact little forms, the schemes of "srhich Bach
worked out for himself. Several of them exist in more than
one version ; which seems to imply that he gave them much
consideration, and revised them several times before he was
satisfied. No collection of equal interest and variety exists
in the whole range of music. Some of the preludes are of the
nature of very carefully considered extemporisations. The
art of preluding was very much practised in those days, and
consisted mainly of stringing together successions of chords in
the guise of arpeggios, or characteristic figures devised on the
frame of an arpeggio. Successions of harmonies had not as
yet got stale by conventional usage, so Bach employed his
gift for contriving beautiful and neat little arpeggio figures to
make complete movements out of chord successions, which
range through dreamy modulations without ever losing
coherence, or falling out of the rational order required to
make a complete and compact unity. A happy extension of
this typical prelude-device is to break off the arpeggios and
add a coda, which serves as a peculiarly apt contrast. Both
the preludes in C# major are happy in this respect, especially
the one in the second book. Another development of the
same type, but in a much more impulsive and expressive
style, is that in D minor in the first book, in which the char-
acteristic progressions of harmony are so directed as to arrive
at quite a passionate climax just before the end. Following
the same line again, the figures corresponding to the arpeggio
forms of the chords are sometimes made specially definite as
musical figures, and a whole movement is developed out of
various phases of the same compact musical idea (D major in
first book). In such ways device was built upon device to
make new types of movements. Of quite a different order it
the wonderful prelude in E^ minor in the first book, which is
a highly emotional kind of song, with a most remarkable
succession of interrupted cadences at the end, which exactly
THE CLIMAX OF EARLY INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC 19I
illustrate the longing mood of the principal idea. Of similar
type is the highly ornamental solo rhapsody in G minor in
the first hook, which might be a beautiful violin piece with a
compactly consistent polyphonic accompaniment. A few are
dance movements in disguise (Ai> in first book). One is
either an imitation or an arrangement of a typical orchestral
movement of the period with violin and trumpet passages
interchanging (D major in second book). A very few are on
the lines of a modern sonata movement, though the style is so
different from that of the sonatas of that century that the
relationship is barely recognisable (F minor in second book).
A few are studies based on short but beautifully expressive
figures which make the movement coherent by their constant
interchange (B minor in second book). The variety is so
extraordinary that it is impossible to give a full account of
them ; and every individual movement is a finished piece of
workmanship, perfect in design and full of refined expression ;
and few things in the range of art are so full of suggestions
of fresh possibilities on quite unconventional lines in the
treatment of harmonic expression, melody, and rhythm. The
preludes and fugues as a whole have been subjected to the
closest scrutiny by numberless musicians of the keenest in-
telligence for the greater part of a century, and they bear the
test so well that the better men know them the more they
resort to them ; and the collection is likely to remain the
sacred book of musicians who have any real musical sense as
long as the present system of music continues. In their par-
ticular phase of art, they appear to touch the highest point
imaginable.
Bach was fortunate in occupying a unique position at the
end of the purely polyphonic period, before the influence of the
Italian opera had gained force enough to spoil the fresh sin
verity of the style. The moment the balance swung over to the
harmonic side, and men thought more of the ease of the pro-
gression of the harmony than of the details of the polyphonic
texture, work on his lines became almost impossible. The change
is curiously illustrated by the difference between the ring of
Buch a work as his " Chromatische Fantasie," and of the experi
192 THE ART OF MUSIC
ments on the same lines by so true a composer as his son,
Philip EmmanueL The first is one of the greatest move-
ments ever written for a keyed instrument; the latter soon
reveal a mechanical emptiness, when the formulas and types
of phrase of an Italian pattern are given in ecstatic fragments,
which are utterly inconsistent with the formal Italian style.
It is perhaps possible, on the other hand, to write something
new on the lines of the toccata; but in his particular poly-
phonic treatment of the form Bach's work is so high and noble
that it entirely forbids all hope of advance beyond his
standard. People have very rarely attempted toccatas of his
kind again. The modern type is of a totally different order,
for some curious convention seems to have grown up that a
toccata is a movement in which rapid notes must go on from
beginning to end. Bach's works were founded on the types of
the old organists, and it was a very congenial style to him —
as he revelled in the grand successions of powerful harmonies,
and the contrasts of brilliant passages, and the varieties
of all possible imitative passages, and expressive counter-
point. Indeed he had a gift for rapid ornamental passages
almost unequalled by any other composer ; for with him they
never suggest mere emptiness and show, but have some
function in relation to the design, or some essential basis of
effect, or some ingenious principle of accent, or some inherent
principle of actual melodic beauty which puts them entirely
out of the category of things purely ornamental. Thus even
into the merest trifles he infused reality. The same genuine-
ness and sincerity look out from every corner of his work,
and — art having been happily at the right stage for his pur-
poses — give the world assurance of artistic possessions which
the passage of time and more intimate acquaintance only
render the more lovable.
CHAPTER IX
THE BEGINNINGS OF MODERN INSTRUMENTAL
MUSIC
Ii would have been an eminently pardonable mistake for any
intelligent musician to have fallen into, in the third quarter
of the eighteenth century, if he concluded that J. S. Bach's
career was a failure, and that his influence upon the progress
of his art amounted to the minimum conceivable. Indeed
the whole course of musical history in every branch went
straight out of the sphere of his activity for a long while;
his work ceased .to have-any significance to the genera-
tion which succeeded him, and his eloquence fell upon deaf
ears. A few of his pupils went on writing uiu>ie of bhe
same type as his in a half-hearted way, and his own most
distinguished son, Philip Emmanuel, adopted at least the
artistic manner of working up his details and making the
internal organisation of his works alive with figure and
rhythm. But even he, the sincerest composer of the follow-
ing generation, was infected by the complacent, polite super-
ficiality of his time; and he was forced, in accepting the
harmonic principle of working in its Italian phase, to take
with it some of the empty formulas and conventional tricks
of speech which had become part of its being, and which
sometimes seem to belie the genuineness of his utter
and put him somewhat out of touch with his whole-hearted
father.
The fact of J. S. Bach's isolation is so obvious that it is
often referred to and accounted for on the ground that he
was so far ahead of his time. It is true that his gift for
divining new possibilities of combination, new progroarioni
T94 THE ART OF MUSIC
of harmony, and new effects and procedures of modulation,
was so great that his contemporaries could not keep pace
with him. The very plenitude of his inventiveness ex-
hausted their faculties before they got to the point of
following his drift ; and succeeding generations plodded on
for a long time before they came up with him, and ulti-
mately grasped that he aimed not at pure technical in-
genuities as ends in themselves, but at infinite variety of
artistic devices as means to expression. This, however, is
not a complete explanation of the situation, but only an indi-
vidual example among the more widely acting causes which
governed the progress of art. The very loftiness of Bach's
character and artistic aims prevented his condescending to
do some of the work which had to be done before modern
music could be completely matured; and the supremacy of
Italian music, both operatic and otherwise, in the next genera-
tion, and the simultaneous lowering of standard and style, was
as inevitable as a reaction as it was necessary as a preliminary
to further progress.
Handel and Bach had carried the art of expressive counter-
point to the utmost extremes possible under the artistic con-
ditions of their time, which were limited to the combination of
polyphonic writing with the simplest kind of harmonh; form.
The harmonic element is still in the background in their work
because so much energy is expended upon the details of the
complex choral and contrapuntal expression. As long as com-
posers aimed chiefly at choral effect, they were impelled to indi-
vidualise the parts out of which the harmony was composed,
to make them worthy of the human voices ; aiming rather at
melodic than rhythmic treatment And though they submitted
to certain general principles of harmonic sequence, the prin-
ciple of systematic harmonic design was more or less a secondary
consideration. But after Handel and Bach there did not seem
much to be done in the line of polyphonic expression. Genuine
secular influences began to gain strength, and with them the
feeling for instrumental music; and men began to feel their way
towards a line of art which could be altogether complete with-
out the ingenuities of counterpoint or the words which formed
MODERN INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC
95
a necessary part of vocal utterance. As has been pointed out,
an instinctive desire for harmonic design and for clear definite
distribution of harmonies had been in the air for a long time.
It is as though there had been a wrestle for supremacy
between the two principles of treatment. Composers who be-
longed to the same class as Handel and Bach looked upon the
independent and equal freedom of motion of all parts (which
is called counterpoint) as the essence of good style ; and the
massing and distribution of the harmonies as secondary. The
two great masters carried their feeling for contrapuntal effect
into every department of art. Even in their arias the prin
ciple is often discernible. For though they generally only
wrote out the voice part and special instrumental parts, and
left the harmonies to be supplied from figures by the accom-
panist, yet in a large proportion of instances even the
I kiss part moves about quite as vivaciously as the melody;
as, for instance : —
Voice.
Violin.
S ffi-rjV+J ?
^T=K
mm
Ger - ne will ich mich be -que-meu
g^^=
ttg ^S^g psN
Na=3g=§ E£gE^ B ^
It is true that the use of harmony in the lump was early
attempted in solo arias and recitatives, and examples, such
as " Comfort ye," may be quoted to show that Handel could
ase harmonic methods of accompaniment with effect; but
by far the larger proportion of the solo movements in his
operas and oratorios have accompaniments which are contra-
puntally conceived ; and Bach's impulse was even more
strongly to make all parts of his scheme equally alive and
Vndividuah
But as soon as their work was done the index swung over.
196 THE ART OF MUSIC
and the balance went down on the harmonic side. Counter
point, aad interest in the subordinate parts of the music,
became of secondary importance (or even less), and clearness
and intelligibility of harmonic and melodic progressions be-
came the primary consideration. Composers made a show of
counterpoint now and then, but it was not the real thing. The
parts in ostensibly contrapuntal works of the time immediately
following Bach and Handel are not in the least interesting or
alive. They are mechanically contrived to have the appear-
ance of being busy, and serve for nothing more ; and it was
no great loss when such pinchbeck was undisguisedly replaced
by the conventional figures of accompaniment which became
so characteristic of the harmonic period even in the palmy
days of Mozart and Haydn. But such traits and contrivances
had to be found out like everything else, and in the time
at present under consideration they were not in common
use. Indeed as far as the Italian share of the work of
developing harmonic form goes, the early period con tern
poraneous with Handel and Bach is the purest and most
honourable. That most remarkable school of Italian violinists
and composers who began with Corelli and Vivaldi forms
as noble and sincere a group as any in music; and to them,
more than to any others, the credit of establishing the
principles of harmonic form on a firm basis for instru-
mental music is due.
The great Italian violin-makers had, in the course of the
seventeenth century, brought their skill up to the highest
perfection, and put into the hands of performers the most
ideally perfect instrument for expression that human ingenuity
seems capable of devising. Their achievement came just at
the right moment for artistic purposes, and Italian musicians
of the highest gifts took to the instrument with passionate
ardour. In the violin there is so little intervening mechanism
between the player and his means of utterance that it becomes
almost part of himself ; and is as near as possible to being an
additional voice with greater compass and elasticity than his
natural organ of song. To the Italian nature such an in-
strument was even specially suitable, and as the inartistic
MODERN INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC 1 97
sophisms, to which Italians have proved so lamentably prone
to succumb, had not yet darkened the musical horizon, theit
instinct for beauty of form and melody led them under its
influence to very notable achievements. Corelli's style wai
noble and healthy, but the range of his technique was
limited. In that respect his great successors — many of them
his pupils or their pupils in turn — progressed by leaps
and bounds. Men like Veracini, Tartini, Geminiani, Loca-
telli, lie Clair and Nardini, possessed with the passion to
attain some ideal joy that their instrument seemed to
promise in possibility, soon brought their department of art
to almost the highest pitch of perfection. The congenial
nature of their instrument seems to have inspired them to
find out with extraordinary rapidity the forms of melody and
figure, and the kinds of phrasing and expression that suited
it; and adding contrivance to contrivance, they soon learnt
the best way to overcome the mechanical difficulties of
stopping and bowing in such a way as to obtain the finest
tone, the purest intonation, and the greatest facility and
fluency of motion.
But what was still more notable and important was their
successful development of a scheme for musical works which
could be completely intelligible on its own account, without
either systematic dance rhythm or contrapuntal devices or
words to explain it. The speed with which they advanced
towards an intelligent grasp of the principles necessary for
such a purpose of design is very surprising. It was probably
due to the fact that they were all performers, and performers
on a solo instrument. The central idea in the violin soloist's
mind was to make his effect by melody, with subordinate
accompaniment; that is, melody supported by simple har-
monies, and not melody as only the upper part of a set ot
equal independent parts. The solo violin has been forced— an' 1
forced with success — to play contrapuntal movements ; but it
may be confessed, without disrespect to J. S. Bach, th.it
counterpoint is not its natural mode of expressing itself, and
that its resources of expression could not have led to th«
development of the typical Italian solo sonata if the accom
198 THE ART OF MUSIC
paniment had been on equal terms with the solo instru
ment. It is naturally a single-part instrument — a singing
instrument with great capacity for enlivening and adorning
its cantabile with brilliant passages. It was therefore im-
perative for the player-composers to find a form which
should not depend for its interest upon contrapuntal in-
genuities and devices — a form which should mainly depend
upon distribution of melodious passages, supported by syste-
matic and simple harmonic accompaniment. The oppor
tunities for testing their experiments being plentiful, they
soon found and established a solution of the problem ; and
their solution forms the groundwork of the development of
those principles of design which ultimately served Haydn,
Mozart, and Beethoven in all their greatest and most per
feet works.
The types which served these composers for models were the
Sonate da Chiesa and the Sonate da Camera of the Corellian
time. Their instinct impelled them to develop movements
which were not purely dance tunes, but of wider and freer
range ; which should admit of warm melodic expression with-
out degenerating into incoherent rambling ecstasy. They had
the sense to see from the first that mere formal continuous
melody is not the most suitable type for instrumental music.
For, as was pointed out in the first chapter, there is deep-rooted
in the nature of all instrumental music the need of some
rhythmic vitality, in consonance with the primal source of
instrumental expression. And for instrumental music, pure,
continuous, vocal melody, undefined by rhythm, is only tempo-
rarily or relatively endurable ; even with such an ideal melodic
instrument as the violin. These player-composers, then, set
themselves to devise a scheme in which to begin with the con-
tours of connected melodic phrases (supported and defined by
simple harmonic accompaniment), gave the impression of definite
tonality — that is, of being decisively in some particular key,
and giving an unmistakable indication of it Thev found
out how to proceed by giving the impression of leaving that
key and passing to another, without departing from the
characteristic spirit and mood of the music, as shown in tha
MODERN INSTRUMENTAL MUSIO 1 99
"subjects" and figures; and how to give the impression of
relative completeness by closing in a key which is in strong
contrast to the first ; and so round off one-half of the
design. But this point being in apposition to the starting-
point, leaves the mind dissatisfied and in expectation of fresh
disclosures. So they made the balance complete by re-
suming the subjects and melodic figures of the first half in
the extraneous key and working back to the starting-point ;
and they made their final close with the same figures as
were used to conclude the first half, but in the principal
key instead of the key of contrast. This was practically
the scheme adopted in dance movements of suites; but
the great violinists improved upon the suite type by much
clearer definition of the subjects ; and by giving them a
much wider range, and making them represent the key
more decisively. As time went on they extended the range
of each division of the movement, and made each balance
the other more completely. They also lengthened the
second half of the movement by introducing more extensive
modulations in the middle of it, and thus introduced a
new and important element of contrast. How this simple
type of form was extended and developed into the scheme
uniformly adopted in their best movements by the three great
masters of pure instrumental music must be considered in
its place.
This was the highest type of harmonic design used by the
early composers of sonatas. They also used simpler ones like
the primitive rondo, which is the least organised and coherent
of forms ; and the aria type, which is the same in principle
of structure as the familiar primitive minuet and trio. As
instrumental art was still in a very experimental stage the
character and order of the movements which they combined
to make a complete group or sonata varied considerably ; but
the general tendency was towards the familiar arrangement
of three movements: — I. A solid allegro; j. an expressive
slow movement ; 3. a lively finale — to which was often most
suitably appended a slow and dignified " introduction," to begin
the whole work. The reasons which made men gravitftt*
14
200 THE ART OF MUSIC
towards this grouping of movements appear to be obvioua.
The slow introduction was particularly suitable to the noble
qualities of the violin, and was the more needful in violin
sonatas, as it not infrequently happened that the first allegro
was in a loose fugal form, following the model of the canzonas
in Sonate da Chiesa ; and as that would necessitate beginning
with only a single part sounding at a time, it was not sufficient
to lay hold of the audience's attention at once. Whereas a
massive full-sounding introduction insists upon being heard.
Moreover, the instinct of the composers was right in adopting
a serious style to put the audience in proper mood for what
was to follow. It is a familiar experience that when people
are appealed to on trival and light grounds they can with
difficulty be brought to attend to anything serious after-
wards. The principal allegro movement which follows the
introduction always tends to be the most elaborately or-
ganised of all the movements, and to appeal to the intel-
lectual side of the audience. In this the composer puts
forth all his resources of development and mastery of
design. The intellectual tendency was illustrated in the
early days by the fugal form in which the movement wag
usually cast, as in the Sonate da Chiesa; and when in
harmonic form it was the one in which the design above
described was adopted. Sometimes it was an allemande, as
in the Sonate da Camera, and the suites and partitas and
ordres. The allemande was nominally a dance form, and
was distributed in regular groups of bars in accordance
with the requirements of the dance ; but it was always
the most solid and elaborate of all the movements in the
group in which it occurred (except sometimes the French
courante), and it often contained imitations and elaborate
counterpoint. The position of a movement of this char-
acter fits with the requirements of an audience, for people
are more capable of entering into and enjoying serious
matters and subtleties of intellectual skill when their attention
is fresh and unwearied.
After the intellectual came the emotional The slow
movement which follows, not only serves as a marked con-
MODERN INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC 201
trast, but appeals to the opposite side of men's natures.
The intellectual faculties are, comparatively speaking, allowed
to rest, and all the appeal is made to sensibilities by
expression. Strange as it may seem, it was in this move-
ment that the Italian violin-composers most frequently failed ;
and the same is the case with Haydn and Mozart and the
whole school of harpsichord-composers ; and the full perfec-
tion of the slow emotional movement was not attained till
Beethoven's time. The reason is that music had to wait
for the development of the technique of expression much
longer than for the technique of mere design. And it
may be noted in passing that nothing marks the dif-
ference between extreme modern music and the earlier phases
than the different degree and quality of passionate emo-
tion it expresses. But at least these performer-composers
aimed at expression in this movement ; and when they
were at fault and found nothing sympathetic to say, they
took refuge — like opera singers and people in ordinary
circumstances in life — in ornamental flourishes and such
superfluities as disguise the barrenness of invention and
feeling under the show of dexterity.
The function of the lively last movement is equally intel-
ligible. It is usually in dance rhythm of some kind, and
was always more direct and free from intellectual subtleties
than the other movements. It was gay — spontaneous —
headlong. At once an antidote and a tonic. Restoring
the balance after the excitement of too much sensibility,
and calling into play the healthy human faculties which
are associated with muscular activity. As though the com-
poser, after putting his auditors under a spell of enchantment,
called them back to the realities of life by setting their limbs
going.
In short, the sum of the scheme is —
1. The preliminary summons to attention, attuning the
mind to what is to follow.
2. The appeal to intelligence ; and to appreciation of artiitio
•ubtleties and refinement^ of design.
3. The appeal to emotional sensibilities.
202 THE ART OF MUSIC
4. The re-establishment of healthy brightness of tone —
a recall to the realities of life.
This is the natural outline of the scheme, which in the
main has persisted from the beginnings of genuine instru-
mental music till the present day. It has of course been
varied by the ingenuity and insight of really capable com-
posers, as well as by the fatuity of musical malaprops.
Nearly all the violin sonatas of the Italian type were written
by violin players, with the exception of a few by John
Sebastian Bach, Handel and Hasse, and such comprehensive
composers. The quality of these works is, on the whole,
far higher than that of the examples of other forms of
instrumental music of the early time, but very important
results were also obtained by composers of harpsichord
sonatas.
Keyed instruments did not find so much favour at this time
with Italians. The superior capabilities of the violin for
cantabile purposes attracted the best of their efforts, and met
with most sympathy from the public. It remained for
Germans, with their great sense of the higher resources of
harmony and polyphony, to cultivate the instruments which
offered excellent opportunities in those directions, but were
decidedly defective for the utterance of melody. Nevertheless
Italians contributed an extremely important share to the early
establishment of this department of art ; and even before the
violin sonata had been cultivated with so much success, the
singular genius of Domenico Scarlatti had not only laid the
foundations of modern music for keyed instruments, but con-
tributed some very permanent items to the edifice. His
instinct for the requirements of his instrument was so marvel-
lous, and his development of technique so wide and rich, that
he seems to spring full armed into the view of history. That
he had models and types to work upon is certain, but his style
is so unlike the familiar old suites and fugues and fantasias
and ricercare, and other harpsichord music of the early times,
that it seems likely that the work of his prototypes has been
lost. His musical character makes it probable that he studied
play ere rather than composers ; for the quality that is most
; MODERN INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC 203
conspicuous in his work is his thorough command of the
situatioffas a performer. His work, at its best, gives the
impression that he played upon his audience as much as he
did on his harpsichord. He knows well the things that will
tell, and how to awake interest in a new mood when the
effects of any particular line are exhausted. Considering how
little attention had been given to technique before his time,
his feats of agility are really marvellous. The variety an 1
incisiveness of his rhythms, the peculiarities of his harmony,
his wild whirling rapid passages, his rattling shakes, his leaps
from end to end of the keyboard, all indicate a preternaturally
vivacious temperament ; and unlike many later virtuosos, he
is thoroughly alive to the meaning of music as an art, and
does not make his feats of dexterity his principal object.
They serve as the means to convey his singularly characteristic
ideas in forms as abstract as modern sonatas. The definite-
ness of his musical ideas is one of the most surprising things
about him. For when the development of any branch of art
is in its infancy, it generally taxes all a man's powers to
master the mere mechanical problems of technique and style.
But Scarlatti steps out with a sort of diabolic masterfulness,
and gives utterance with perfect ease to things which are
unmistakable images of his characteristic personality. In
spirit and intention his works prefigure one of the latest of
modern musical developments, the scherzo. For vivacity, wit,
irony, mischief, mockery, and all the category of human traits
which Beethoven's scherzo served so brilliantly to express, the
world had to wait for a full century to see Scarlatti's equal
again. He left behind him a most copious legacy to man-
kind, but his successors were very slow to avail themselves
cf it. The majority of harpsichord composers immediately
after his time were more inclined to follow a path tha*
was redolent of the saponaceous influences of opera, and
made their works but slightly distinct as forms of instru-
mental art. His influence is traceable here and there, but
it did not bear full frijit till the development of genuine
pianoforte playing began.
His sense of design was not so strong as his ideas or hi*
204 THE ART OF MUSIC
feeling for effect. His works consist of single movements
which are almost invariably in the same form ae the earliei
movements of suites, such as the allemandes and courantes ;
only considerably extended after the manner of the violin
sonatas, and singularly free from systematic dance rhythm.
He rarely wrote fugues, and when he did they were not
particularly good ones, either technically or intrinsically.
He was too much of a performer to care much about the con-
ventional ingenuities of fugue, and too much of a free lance to
put his thoughts in so elaborate a form ; though he often
makes a beginning as if he was going to write a serious fugue,
and then goes on in a different manner. The harmonic
principle of design came to him most naturally, and, as far as
they go in that respect, his movements are singularly lucid
and definite. But they are not operatic They are genuine
representatives of a distinct branch of art ; and the expres-
sion of ideas in terms exactly adapted to the instrument by
means of which they are to be made perceptible to the human
mind.
Of the other Italians who did service in the line of harpsi-
chord music the most deserving of mention is Pa radi si. His
technique is nothing like so extended as Scarlatti's, and the
style is much less incisive; but he shows a very excellent
instinct for his instrument, and a singularly just and intelli-
gent feeling for harmonic design. The hest of his sonatas
(which are most frequently in two movements without a slow
movement) show considerable skill in modelling ideas into the
forms necessary for defining the key. The design of his best
movements is the same as that of the great violin composers ;
but even more structurally definite. He deserves credit also
for devising true sonata subjects, and escaping the tempta-
tion of writing fragments of operatic tunes with dummy
accompaniments — a rock upon which the Italians, and
even some very wise Germans in later times, were very
liable to split.
The true centre of progress in the line of the harpsichord
Bonata soon proved to be in Germany. As has been before
remarked, many of Germany's most distinguished composer*
MODERN INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC 20 5
6uch as Graun, Hasse, and John Christian Bach, adopted
Italian manners to suit the tastes of the fashionable classes ;
but there were a few here and there who did not bow the
knee to Baal ; and noteworthiest of these was Philip
Emmanuel Bach. Though gifted with little of the poetical
qualities or the noble loftiness of idea and expression of his
father, he was in a position to do considerable service to his
art. He adopted without reserve the Italian harmonic prin-
ciple of design which had become universal by his time, and
adapted to it a method of treating details, and harmonisation,
and rhythmic and figurative interest, which was essentially
Teutonic. The high intellectual qualities come out both ia
his scope of harmony, and in the richness and ingenious
subtlety with which he manipulates his sentences and phrases.
He did so much to give the harpsichord sonata a definite
status of its own that he is sometimes spoken of as its
inventor. This he obviously was not, but he was for some
time its most prominent representative. He owed a good
deal to his father's training and example, though more in
respect of detail and texture than in style or design. His
father had made some experiments in the harmonic style,
but on the whole he was rather shy of it, and rarely
achieved anything first-rate in it. But his son, taking to
it at a time when it had become more familiar and more
malleable, was the first to treat it with Teutonic thorough-
ness. Italian influence is sometimes apparent, but happily
it is not often the influence of the opera. Instrumental
music had developed far enough for him to express his
ideas in a genuinely instrumental style — frequently in figures
as compact and incisive as Beethoven's — to make his
modulations as deliberately and clearly as Mozart, and to
define his contrasting key with perfect clearness, and to
dispose all the various ingredients of his structure with
unmistakable skill and certitude. His sonstas are usually
in three movements — the central one slow and express v.-,
and the first and last quick. It is characteristic of his
Teutonic disposition that he is a little shy of adopting the
traditional lightness and gaiety as the mood of his last
i06 THE ART OF MUSIO
movement. But he finds an excellent alternative in forcibla
rigour and brilliancy.
There is yet another branch of instrumental music which
was very slow in developing, but has come in latex days to
form one of the most conspicuous features of the art.
As has before been pointed out, all the composers of the
early part of the eighteenth century, even the giants, had been
specially backward in feeling for orchestral effect. They used
instruments of most diverse tone-quality in a purely contra-
puntal manner, just as they would have used voices, or the
independent parts of an organ composition. Those methods
of using colour which enhance the telling power of ideas, and
exert such moving glamour upon the sensibilities of modern
human creatures, were quite out of their range. The adoption
of harmonic principles of treatment was as essential to the
development of modern orchestration as to the development
of forms of the sonata order. As long as composers were
writing accompaniments to contrapuntal choral works they
disposed their instruments also contrapuntally ; and it was
not till they had to write independent instrumental movements
that the requirements of instrumentation began to dawn upon
them.
The first occasions which induced composers to attempt
independent orchestral movements of the harmonic kind were
for the symphonies or overtures of operas. These had been
written at first, as by Scarlatti and Lulli, for stringed instru-
ments only, with the occasional addition of trumpet solos.
Composers insensibly got into the habit of enhancing the
effect of their strings by a few other wind instruments;
and before long the group of instruments was stereotyped
(as every other department of opera was) into a set of strings
and two pairs of wind instruments, such as two hautboys, or
two flutes and two horns. The conventional opera writers had no
very great inducement to make their overtures either finished
works of art, or subtly expressive, or in any way interesting,
for they felt that very little attention was paid to them.
They appear to have produced them in a most perfunctory
manner, to make a sort of introductory clatter while the
MODERN INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC 20"J
fashionable operatic audiences were settling into their places,
and exchanging the customary greetings and small talk which
are inevitable in such gatherings of light-minded folk. The
musical clatter was distributed into three movements, in the
same order as the movements of violin sonatas, and in
thoroughly harmonic style of the very cheapest description.
There inevitably were some composers who could not help
putting tolerably artistic touches and lively points into their
*ork, and in course of time the symphonies came to be con-
siderably in request on their own merits, apart from their
connection with the operas ; and enormous numbers were
written both for people to listen to, and also for them to talk
and eat to. Composers for the most part saved themselves all
the trouble they could. They used musical material of such
slight definiteness that it is often hardly to be dignified by the
name of ideas ; and they also spared themselves the labour of
writing in the parts for the various instruments whenever
possible. They made the second violins play with the first
violins, and directed the violas to play with the basses — which
must have caused the viola players to spend a good deal of
their time in not playing at all, or otherwise in producing
extremely disagreeable effects, when the bass part went
below their compass. Moreover, the wind instruments that
were sufficiently agile were generally directed to double the
violins, or to hold notes and chords while the violins ran
about in scales or figures. There was little or no idea of
differentiating the various parts to suit the respective in-
struments, and equally little attempt to use their various
qualities of tone as means of effect. The horn parts had
4 he most individuality through the mere accident that they
were not agile enough to play violin or viola parts ; and
composers being driven to give long notes to these instru-
ments, by degrees found out their great value as a means
of holding things together and supplying a sort of back-
ground of soft steady tone while the other instruments
were moving about.
When these " symphonies " or " overtures " came to b«
played more often apart from the operas, both composers and
208 THE ART OF MUSIO
performers began to realise that they were wasting oppor
tunities by slovenliness. The process of coming round to
more sensible and refined ways is very interesting to
watch in the successive publications of these very numerous
symphonies. It is like the gradual return of a human being
to intelligence and right-mindedness after being temporarily
submerged in levity. At first the style of the works was
empty and conventional in detail, and it can be guessed that
the players hacked through the performances in a careless
style, which was quite as much as the music and the audience
deserved. There were hardly any indications given for the
most ordinary refinements of performance — such as phrasing,
bowing, or jrianos or fortes; and gradations of more delicate
nature are implied to have been entirely ignored. But as
time went on the directions for expression and refinements
of performance became more numerous ; and composers even
began to use mutes to vary the effect, and to see that
hautboys are capable of better uses than mere pointless
doubling of string parts, or playing irrelevant holding notes.
Little by little things crept into a better state of artistic
finish and nicety; the varieties of instruments in the group
were more carefully considered, and their qualities of tone
were used to better purpose; and the style of the passages
was better suited to the capabilities of the instruments. Com-
posers began to grow more aware of the sensuous effect of
colour, and to realise that two colours which are beautiful
when pure may be coarse and disagreeable when mixed. And
so, by degrees, a totally new and extremely subtle branch
of art is seen to be emerging from the chaotic products of
indifference and carelessness. The refinements of modern
orchestration, and those subtleties of sensuous colour-effect
which are among the most marvellous and almost un-
analysable developments of human instinct, took a very
considerable period to mature, and many generations of men
had a share in developing them. But the inherent difference
of nature between the old and new is perceptible even in the
course of one generation. For even in a symphony of John
Christian Bach's there is a roundness and smoothness in the
MODERN INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC 209
sound of the harmony, as conveyed by the different instru-
mental timbres, which is quite different from the unassimilated
counterpoint of his great father's instrumental style. In the
instrumentation of the great masters of the earlier generation
the tone-qualities seem to be divided from one another by
innate repulsion; but in the harmonic style they seem to
melt into one another insensibly, and to become part of a
composite mass of harmony whose shades are constantly
shifting and varying.
Amongst the men who had an important share in the
early development of orchestral music, a Bohemian violinist,
named Stamitz, seems to have been most noteworthy. He
was leader and conductor of the band at the little German
court of Mannheim, and seems to have been fortunate in
his opportunities of carrying out reforms. He set his
face to organise his band thoroughly, to make his violins
play with refinement and careful attention to phrasing, and
x> obtain various shades of piano and forte, and all the
advantages which can be secured by good balance of tone.
He succeeded in developing the best orchestra in Europe,
and established a tradition which lasted long after he had
passed away, even till Mozart came through Mannheim on
his way to Paris, and had an opportunity of hearing what
refined orchestral playing was like — probably for the first
time in his life — with important results to the world in
general.
A similar line was pursued by the Belgian Gossec in Paris,
who tried to stir up the Parisians to realise the possibilities
of instrumental effect. He in his smaller way followed some-
thing of the same bine as Berlioz, laying very great, even
superfluous, stress on the importance of elaborate directions
to the performers.
The position of Philip Emmanuel Bach in this line of art
was important, though not quite in conformity with the
tendencies of his age. In his best symphonies he adopted a
line of his own ; similar in principle to the ways of his father
in his orchestral suites and concerti grossi. They have an
underlying basis of harmonic form, but yet they are quit*
210 THE ART OF MUSIO
different in design and style from the symphonies of th«
Italian order above discussed ; and though remarkably vigo-
rous, animated and original in conception, they have not led to
any further developments on the same lines. His manage-
ment of the various instruments shows considerable skill and
clear perception of the effective uses to which they can be
put ; and he treats them with thorough independence and
variety. His feeling for orchestration is even more strik-
ingly illustrated in his oratorios, "The Israelites in the
Wilderness" and "The Resurrection." In these he makes
experiments in orchestral effects which sound curiously like
late modern products, and he tries to enforce the sentiment
of his situations with a daring and insight which is very far
ahead of his time. But in these, as in many other note-
worthy attempts, he was considerably isolated, and out of
touch with the easy-going spirit of his day. His works,
apart from the sonatas, seem to have taken no hold upon
his contemporaries, and serve chiefly to illustrate the rapi-
dity with which change of view, and the new conditions of
art, helped men to discover the possibilities of orchestral
effect. The application of instrumental effect to the oratorio
was destined ultimately to ygive that form a new lease of
life, and to lead to new ulterior developments, but Philip
Emmanuel's attempt was at that time, as far as public taste
was concerned, premature.
The enormous number of symphonies which were produced
and published in those days, by composers whose very names
are forgotten, proves that public taste was gravitating strongly
towards orchestral music; and it is pleasant to reflect that
the more composers improved the quality of their art, the
more prominently they came into the light of day. When
they escaped out of the Slough of Indifference they made
progress very fast; and considering how complete is the
change of attitude between Bach and Mozart, it is very credit-
able to the energy and sincerity of musical humanity that this
new phase of orchestral art was so well organised in the space
of about half a century. But it must be remembered that it
was the outcome of a separate movement which began before
MODERN INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC 211
the time of Handel and Bach, and was going on, though on
different lines from those they followed, during their lifetime.
Their line of work branched out from the direct line of har-
monic music into a special province of its own. The purely
harmonic style was not sufficiently matured to allow of their
expressing themselves fully in it; had it been otherwise a
development like Beethoven's would have come nearly a
hundred years sooner. It was the possibility of combining
the polyphonic principles of the old choral art — painfully
worked out in the ages before harmonic music began — with
the simplest principles of the new harmonic music, which
afforded them the opportunity they used so magnificently.
And while they were busy with their great achievements, it
was left to smaller men to get through the preliminaries of
such forms as the sonata and the symphony — for even such
insignificant business as the devising of an " Alberti bass,"
and of similar forms of conventional accompaniment, had to
be done by somebody. But by the multitude of workers the
requirements of art were brought up to the penultimate stage
ready for the use of the three great representatives of instru-
mental music.
( The main points so far achieved may be here gummed up. J
The Italians initiated an enthusiastic culture of the violin,
and in a very short time developed the resources of its
technique and the style of music adapted to it. The same
was done simultaneously for the harpsichord by other groups
of composers in Italy, Germany, France, and England. To
supply these typical solo instruments with intelligible music,
composers laboured with excellent success to devise schemes
of design and methods of development, which without the help
of words became sufficient reason of existence and principle
of coherence. At the same time, the growth of feeling for
the effect of massed harmonies placed composers in a position
to develop the possibilities of effect of orchestral instrument*
in combination ; and before long the growing perception of
the adaptability of various kinds of technique and of the
relations of different qualities of tone to one another, and
of the possible functions of the different instruments in th«
212
THE ART OF MUSIC
scheme of orchestral composition, put things in the right
direction to move on towards the accomplishment of the
highest and richest achievement in the story of music — the
employment of the complicated resources of an immense
aggregate °f different instruments for the purpose* of vivid
and infinitely variable expression.
CHAPTER X
THE MIDDLE STAGE OF MODERN OPERA
Every form of art has a variety of sides and aspects which
appeal to different men in different degrees. A work may
entrance one man through the beauty of its colour, while
another finds it insupportable for its weakness of design.
One man cares only for melody, when another is satisfied with
grand harmony j one wants artistic 6kill, when another cares
only tor expression. This is true even of symphonies and
sonatas, and such pure examples of human artistic contrivance ;
but in opera the complication and variety of constituent
means of effect intensify the difficulties of the situation tenfold,
and the chances of satisfying all tastes are necessarily ex-
tremely remote, for the elements that have to be combined seem
to be almost incompatible. Scenic effect has to be considered
as well as the development of the dramatic situations, and the
dialogue, and the music. The action and the scenery distract
the attention from the music, and the dialogue naturally goes
too fast for it. Jfclugic, being mainly the expression of states
of mind and feeling, takes time to convey its meaning; and
in all but the most advanced stages of art the types of design
which seem indispensable to make it intelligible require the
repetition of definite passages of melody, and submission to
rules of procedure which seem to be completely at variance
with dramatic effect. If the action halts or hangs fire, the
dramatic effect is paralysed ; but if a phase of human pasMon
which has once been passed has to be re-enacted to meet the
supposed requirements of music, the situation becomes little
less than ridiculous. So, in early days it seemed as if people
had to take their choice, and either accept the music as the
2 14 THE ART OF MUSIC
essential, and let the words and scenic appurtenances cease ta
have any dramatic significance ; or to fasten their attention
on the action and dialogue, and allow the music to be merely
an indefinite rambling background of tone, which was hardly
fit to be called music at all. The Italians, who enjoyed the
distinction of developing the first stages of the operatic form,
were much more impressionable on the musical than on the
dramatic side, and as soon as the new secular type of music
began to take shape, they gave their verdict absolutely in
favour of the former ; and the drama rapidly receded farther
and farther into the background. The scheme was well
devised up to a certain point ; but as soon as the typical form
of movement known as the aria had been fairly established,
the ingenious artifices which had seemed to settle the plan
of operations degenerated into mere conventions, and even
musical progress in general came to a dead standstill It was
impossible for the music to grow or develop, for there was
nothing in the occasion to call for any human expression or
human interest. The sole purpose of existence of the opera
was to show off a few celebrated Italian singers, who required
to be accommodated according to fixed rules of precedence,
which precluded any kind of freedom of dramatic action.
The only glimpse of life which was apparent for some time
was in the little humorous operas which began to come into
notice about the beginning of the eighteenth century. The
regular singer's opera was a most solemn and sedate function,
and hardly admitted of anything so incongruous as humour.
Humorous scenes had been attempted, even by Alessandro
Scarlatti ; but apparently they were considered out of place,
and humour in general was relegated to the little musical
comedies called intermezzos, or "opera buffa," which were
performed in between the acts of the opera seria. From one
point of view this made the situation even more absurd. It
was like performing " King Lear" and the " School for Scandal "
in alternate acts. But the ultimate result was eminently
beneficial to opera in general. The composers who took the
opera buffa in hand developed a special style for the purpose
— merry, bright, vivacious, and pointed, and in its way very
THE MIDDLE STAGE OF MODERN OPERA 2 I 5
characteristic. In the music of the opera seria no attempt
was made to follow the action in the music, because action in
such situations could have amounted to nothing more than
stilted gesticulation. But the composers of the intermezzi
tried to keep the scene in their minds, and to accentuate
gestures by sforzandos and queer surprising progressions,
in accordance with the meaning of the actions, and so to
bring all the resources of effect into the closest union.
And this is a point of more importance than might
appear without paying a little attention to it. As has
before been pointed out, music mainly implies vocal ex-
pression in melody, and expressive gesture in rhythm
and accent ; and in the condition into which Italian
opera had degenerated, the rhythmic element had for
the most part retired into the background. Under the
circumstances, the rhythmic animation and gaiety which
was adapted to humorous purposes was the very thing that
was wanted to reinfuse a little humanity into the formal
torpor of opera seria.
The importance of the new departure may be judged by its
fruits. A direct result of considerable importance was the
French light comic opera, which started into existence after
a visit of an Italian opera troupe to Paris in 1752, who per-
formed Italian intermezzi, and aroused much controversy and
opposition, mainly on the ground that Italians were not
Frenchmen. But the style took root and was cultivated by
French composers, who developed on its basis a typo of light
opera of the neatest and most artistic kind. But of still more
importance was its actual influence on opera in general. The
style inaugurated by the Italians in intermezzi is the source
of the sparkling gaiety of Mozart's light and merry scenes
in "Seraglio," "Nozze di Figaro," and "Don Giovanni."
Osmin's famous song in the "Seraglio" is a direct descendant
of the style which Pergolese so admirably illustrated in " La
Serva Padrona;" and so is all Leporello's and Figaro's
music. The style indeed was so congenial to Mozart's dis-
position that it coloured his work throughout ; and traces
of it peep out in symphonies, quartettes and sonatas, as well
16
2l6 THE ART OF MUSIC
»s in his operas. And even Beethoven sometimes gives eleai
indications that he knew such ways of expressing lighter
moods.*
The powerful influence which such a slight and rather trivial
style exerted upon music in general at that time is clearly
owing to the fact that it was the only line of operatic art
which had any real life in it. When serious art drifts into
formality, and composers and artists show that their efforts
are concentrated upon the utterance of mere barren conven-
tionalities, light music, and even vulgar and trivial music,
which gives people a strong impression of being genuinely
human, is bound to succeed best of the two. The audiences
of the comic opera were at least allowed to take some genuine
interest, and to get a genuine laugh out of the human per-
plexities and comic situations, and to feel that there was a
reality about them which the heroic complacencies of the opera
seria did not possess. As far as solid reforms of the opera
seria itself are concerned, the public might have allowed things
to go on in the same perfunctory way till the present time.
The courtly fashionable people neither wanted nor deserved
anything better; and the general reforms had to be forced on
the notice of an indifferent world by the irrepressible energy
of a personal conviction.
Gluck deserves great homage as a man of the rarest genius.
But he deserves fully as much again for the splendid sincerity
with which he refused to put up with the shams which the
rest of the world found quite good enough to amuse them, and
made men wake up to realise that opera was worth reforming.
He brought about the first crisis in the history of this form
of art, by calling attention to the fact that a work of art is
always worth making as good as possible, and that opera itself
would be more enjoyable and more worthy of intelligent beings
if the dramatic side of the matter received more considera-
tion. He was premature, as it happened, for the resources of
his art were not yet fully equal to such undertakings as he
* Quartett in B[>, Op. 1 8, No. 6, at beginning. Opening tcene on
Fidelia Violin sonata in minor, last movement
THE MIDDLE STAGE OF MODERN OPERA 2\J
proposed ; but at least he succeeded in dispelling a good deal
of apathy, and in persuading people that real dramatic musio
was a possibility.
He himself received his operatic education in the school
of Italian opera, and wrote a good many operas on the usual
lines, which had good and characteristic music in them,
but did not make any great impression on the world in
general. The conviction that reforms were necessary was
forced upon him by degrees ; and he was encouraged by the
similar views held by prominent people who were connected
with operatic matters, such as even the famous librettist,
Metastasio himself. He made several isolated attempts
to re-establish the lost element of dramatic effect in opera
from 1762 onwards. In 1767 "Alceste" was brought out in
Vienna ; and to the published edition he appended a preface,
which so well expressed his view of the situation that a
few of its sentences must necessarily be quoted. He pro-
claimed his object to be "to avoid all those abuses which
had crept into Italian opera through the mistaken vanity
of singers and the unwise compliance of composers," and
proceeded : —
" I endeavoured to restrict the music to its proper function,
that of seconding the poetry by enforcing the expression of the
sentiment and the interest of the situations without interrupt-
ing the action or weakening it by superfluous ornament . . .
I have been very careful never to interrupt a singer in the
heat of the dialogue in order to introduce a tedious ritornelle,
nor to stop him in the middle of a word for the purpose of
displaying the flexibility of his voice on some favourable
vowel. ... I have not thought it right to hurry through the
second part of a song, if the words happened to be the most
important of the whole, in order to repeat the first part four
times over; or to finish the air where the sense does not end
in order to allow the singer to exhibit his power of varying
the passage at pleasure.
" My idea was that the Sinfonia ought to indicate the sub-
ject, and prepare the spectators for the character of the piece
they are about to see ; that the instruments ought to be intrc-
£ I 8 THE ART OF MUSIC
duced in proportion to the degree of interest and passion in
the words; and that it was necessary, above all, to avoid
making too great a disparity between the recitative and the
air in the dialogue, so as not to break the sense of a period
or awkwardly interrupt the movement and animation of a
scene," &c.
The Viennese were not so much moved by these considera-
tions, or by his practical exposition of them in the shape of
opera, as he had naturally hoped; and ultimately he had to
transfer the scene of action to Paris, where conditions were on
the whole likely to be more favourable. The French in their
national opera had always managed to keep the dramatic side
of things more steadily in view than the Italians. Lulli had
established the type before described, and his operas held the
stage, to the exclusion of nearly all others, for some time after
he had departed out of the world. Ultimately Rameau, one of
the greatest of all French composers, improved very materially
upon Lulli's work by a better handling of his instrumental
resources, more lightness and variety and geniality in the
music, and a better artistic standard of work all around. He
was a man of musically sincere character, with more grasp of
harmonic expression than is usual with Frenchmen, and with
far more genuinely dramatic perception of the theatrical kind
than any other man of his time — for it is noteworthy that he was
born two years before Handel. It is highly probable that
he had considerable influence upon Gluck ; for that composer
passed through Paris in 1746, and heard and was impressed
by Eameau's work, which was conspicuously different from
the average Italian product to which he was accustomed.
And though Gluck's own work went ultimately far beyond
Rameau's in every respect, whether artistic or expressive,
there is a touch of the spirit of Rameau even in his mature
and most characteristic works.
Paris then was the most hopeful place for him to get his
views on dramatic matters attended to; and though it is
obvious that the real evils which lie attacked were in the
Italian form of opera, and that the natural form of Fiench
opera was not so amenable to his criticisms, yet it was better
THE MIDDLE STAGE OF MODERN OPERA 219
to promulgate them in a place where people might pay a
little attention than to address the worse than deafness of
indifference.
The summary of his Parisian campaign is that he began
by enlisting able literary men on his side, and rousing public
curiosity by getting his theories discussed. He then brought
out the first practical illustration of his theories in a version
of Racine's " Iphigenie en Aulide," in 1 774 ; and followed it up
with a revised version of his earlier " Orfeo " under the name
of " Orphee et Eurydice," and a revised version of " Alceste " in
1776, and "Armide" in 1777. After this a very estimable
Italian composer, Piccini, was brought over from Italy by
Gluck's opponents in the hopes of defeating him in a down-
right contest ; and for a while the fervours of the rival parti-
sans divided Paris. Gluck brought out his final manifesto,
"Iphigenie en Tauride," in 1781, with great success. Piccini's
setting of the same subject was acknowledged to be inferior,
and the Gluckists remained masters of the field.
The point which is of highest importance in Gluck's victoiy,
as far as the development of the art is concerned, is the
restoration of the element of genuine human expression to
its place in the scheme of art. Gluck, like every one else,
was forced to accept the work of his predecessors as the basis
of his own, and even to retain some of the most conspicuous
features of the scheme which he aimed at destroying. He
had to write arias on the old lines, for they were the only
definite types of design then understood ; and Gluck was far
too wise to think he could dispense with definite design. He
had also to accept the ballet, for it was too vital a part of
the Franch operatic scheme to be discarded without almost
certainty of failure. But, in the case of the arias, he did his
be.^t to make them as characteristic of the situations as the
backward state of the art allowed ; and he often replaced
them by short movements of very complete and simple form —
more like the type of folk-songs — into which he oouoentrated
a great deal of genuine expression. For the ballets he bad
the justification of the ancients; and he undoubtedly applied
them in many cases extremely well. Wherever it v,u
2 20 THE ART OF MUSIO
possible they were made part of the action, and became a
very effective part of it. As, for instance, the dance and
chorus of furies at the threshold of the infernal regions in
"Orfeo," and the chorus and ballets of Scythians in " Iphigenie
en Tauride." For his treatment of recitative he had the
earlier examples of Lulli and Rarueau, who had both adopted a
free style of expressive declamation with definite accompani-
ment; often with very successful results. Since their time
music had very much enlarged its resources of expression
and had become more elastic; and Gluck, while working on
the same lines, improved immensely upon their standard in
respect of refinement and artistic finish. Moreover, the ex-
pressive qualities of his admirable recitatives are very much
enhanced by his way of dealing with the accompaniment.
He neglected no opportunity to make use of the qualities of
his orchestral instruments — as far as in him lay — to enforce
and accentuate the situations, and even to intensify the pass-
ing moment of feeling implied by the dialogue. Composers
were successfully developing the sense of the functions and
resources of instrumentation. Even Gluck's rival, Piccini,
made some very appropriate effects by using his instruments
consistently with the spirit of the situations. But Gluck ap-
plied himself to the matter with far more intensity, and far
more genuine perception of the characters of the instruments.
Indeed it would hardly be an exaggeration to say, that he
was the first composer in the world who had any genuine
understanding of this very modern phase of the art. Mozart
was the first to show real natural gift and genuine feeling
for beautiful disposition of tone, but Gluck anticipated modern
procedure in adapting his colours exactly to the mood of the/
situation. A good deal hail been attempted already in a sort
of half-hearted and formal manner, but he was the first to
seize firmly on the right principles and to carry out his
objects with any mastery of resources
The texture of his work is such as might bo expected from
his training. He shows very little feeling for polyphony, or
for the effects which are produced by those kinds of chords
which become possible oidy through the independent treat-
THE MIDDLE STAGE OF MODERN OPERA 22 1
ment of parts. In this respect he was the very opposite of
Bach. His early experiences of choral writing had been in a
bad school ; and his choruses, except when animated by some
powerful dramatic impulse, are poor and badly managed, both
for vocal tone and general effect. But his orchestration is
as much more mature than Bach's and Handel's as his choral
writing is inferior. There is no attempt to treat his instru-
ments like voices or counterpoints, nor to use them solely
because artistic effect, apart from dramatic effect, makes it
advisable. The treatment is in every respect harmonic, not
contrapuntal ; and his harmonies are extremely simple and
limited in range. But he uses them with such an excellent
sense of proportion that the general result is, even harmoni-
cally, more impressive than the work of modern composers
who have a more copious supply to draw from, but less dis-
cretion and discrimination. It may be confessed that in his
efforts to infuse expression into every possible moment he
very much overdoes the use of appogiaturas, till the device
becomes at times a somewhat pointless mannerism ; but the
greatness of his genius is emphasised by the fact that he con-
trived to attain a very high pitch of genuine expression, and
to sustain the general musical character of extensive works, in
conformity with the nature of the situations, at a time when
the resources of expression, especially in the dramatic line,
were very limited. It must also be remembered that the
development of modern instrumental forms of art had only
just begun, and Gluck lacked models of orchestral style as
well as of design. It so happened that the first of Mozart's
■ymphonies which is really notable from the point of view of
gtyle and design was first performed in Paris in the middle
of the war of the Gluckists and Piccinists. But no great
symphony had been written before, and when Gluck was
formulating his theories and speculating on the possibilities
of musical expression, the art of modern instrumentation
was still in its infancy. Moreover, Gluck had no such natural
gift for the management of general effect as Mozart. Ilia
powers as a composer were developed mainly under the in-
fluence of his strong feeling for things dramatic and poetical,
22 2 THE ART OF MUSIC
and it was the intensity with which lie felt the situation!
which gave him musical utterance. His orchestration has
none of the roundness or balance or maturity of Mozart's.
It is unequal and uncertain, and requires humouring in per-
formance to make it produce the effect which is intended.
But, like the rest of his work, it is essentially sincere, and
its very crudity is sometimes apt to the situations that he
required it to illustrate.
His influence upon the history of art in certain directions
was great, but not such as might be expected. Upon Italian
opera seria he had scarcely any influence at all. It went
on its absurdly illogical and undramatic way unmoved. The
kind of people who patronised it did not want anything good ;
they only wanted to be amused. Italian composers were not
troubled with convictions as Gluck was, and they have too
often liked bad music quite as much as their audiences. Upon
French opera the influence of Gluck was more permanent,
and his schemes were developed by later composers to gran-
diose proportions, sometimes with excellent results, sometimes
with an unfortunate tendency to emphasise histrionic dis-
play, which certainly does not chime with Gluck's refined
intentions.
His system was too ideal for the world of his time, and the
niche which he occupies is singularly isolated, through the
inadequacy of musical means to meet his requirements. His?
singular energy and clearness of dramatic insight forced a
special path for himself out of the direct course of musical
progress. It was as though he pushed for himself a special
short cut up a very arduous ascent where other men could not
follow him. And it was not until music in general had gone
by a more circuitous route, which avoided the rocks and
precipices, that it finally arrived at a position which made his
ideals attainable. No one in his time could pursue the path
he had marked out, for no one but himself had sufficient
mastery of dramatic expression even to equal his work in that
respect, much less to improve upon it.
Though the genuine opera seria of the Italians was no!
destined to be lifted out of the ruts into which it had fallen
THE MIDDLE STAGE OF MODERN OPERA 223
for a long while, the scheme which their composers had
inaugurated served as the basis upon which composers of the
more enduring Teutonic race gradually developed the resources
necessary for the achievement of the operatic ideal. Germans
had been for some time dominated by Italian influences in
every department of art as badly as the Italians themselves ;
and when Mozart came upon the scene, it is probable that he
heard next to nothing in his earlier years which was Teutonic
either in style or in name. Italian music reigned supreme
in Vienna and Salzburg; and throughout his most impres-
sionable years he constantly imbibed the phraseology, the
principles of design, and the artistic methods of Italian
composers and their German imitators. He was no reformer
by nature, and the immense services he did to art were
in no sense either speculative or theoretic, but merely a
sort of natural growth ; amounting to a general improve-
ment of the texture of things rather than to a marked change
either in principles or details. He was gifted with an extra-
ordinarily keen sense of beauty, and with the most astound-
ing natural facility in all things artistic which ever was the
lot of man. The inevitable consequence was that he began
to see how to improve upon the work of his predecessors
in every direction very early; and he was afforded ample
opportunities.
Before he was ten years old he had made a triumphal
progress through the most important cities in Europe, and
had tried his hand at most of the branches of composition ;
and by the age of twelve he was writing operas for the
Italians themselves, and had surpassed most living composers
in all departments of artistic workmanship. All his earlier
operas were on the usual Italian lines ; and though they show
his unusual powers in finished modelling of melody, and skilful
management of accompaniment, they do not need any
consideration. The first really important mark he made was
an indirect result of his visit to Mannheim on the way to
Paris in 1777. The town was, and had been for some time,
the centre of the best musical activity in Germany; and it
was here that Mozart first heard refined and careful orchestral
224 THE ART OF MUSIC
playing, and came into contact with patriotic schemes for
developing national art and national opera. The experiences
he enjoyed during a rather prolonged stay thoroughly roused
him to give his full attention to the possibilities of orchestral
effect ; and the enthusiasm for thoroughness in all depart-
ments of art, which possessed the people of Mannheim,
undoubtedly led him to treat the operatic form of art with
more consideration for fitness and dramatic effect than it
would have occurred to him to do if he had remained entirely
under Italian or Viennese influence. The first important fruit
in the line of opera was " Idomeneo," which he produced three
years later (1781) for the Carnival in Munich, where he had
every inducement to exert himself to the utmost, as the taste
of the public was better there than in Vienna, and the
resources of the orchestra and chorus were very large. His
libretto was modelled on an old Italian one which had been
used nearly seventy years before ; but this did not affect the
quality of his work, which is go very much richer and better
than any earlier opera of its class that it makes a point of
signal importance in the story of the art. To begin with, lie
used an unusually large orchestra, and he used it in a way
which was quite new to the world. He did not aim at
characterisation so much as Gluck had done, for in that
respect Gluck was speculatively too much ahead of his time.
But his method shows far more spontaneous skill, through
his keen feeling for beauty and variety of tone ; and his perfect
use of each several instrument in the way best suited to its
special idiosyncrasies gives the effect of security and com-
pleteness. Nothing is wasted. No player of a wind instru-
ment merely blows into his pipe to make a sound to fill up a
gap, nor do the violin players now and then merely draw out
an isolated sound to make a chord complete. Everything is
articulate, finished, full of life ; and that without adopting a
contrapuntal manner, or obtrusively introducing figures that
are not wanted and merely distract the attention. Mozart
at this early stage shows himself a completely mature master
of all the practical resources of orchestration ; and in almost
every department and every aspect of the work a like fin«j
THE MIDDLE STAGE OF MODERN OPERA 225
artistic sense is shown. The earlier composers had to concen-
trate their attention and almost all their skill on the solo
singer's voice part; and the care which they bestowed on
the rest of their work was mainly to keep it in the back-
ground. Mozart's spontaneous instinct for artistic fitness
brought things to their proper level, and simultancou.-lv raised
the standard of interest in every respect. Even in the matter
of singing and acting the soloist has in this case to share the
honours with the chorus ; which is now brought forward not
only to give the requisite mass of tone and scenic animation
to the ends of acts, but to take an important part in the action
throughout. The chorus becomes a living portion of the
scheme, and is wielded by the composer in a way which shows
that he tried to feel what real people would do in the situa-
tions in which he had to put them, and not what mere
theatrical chorus singers would be doing among the wings
and stage properties. The same story has repeated itself again
and again. When any scheme like the presentation of a
stage play has been contrived, and there arises a large demand
for new works, men who supply them get into the habit of
thinking of nothing but the artifices of the stage. They put
the machinery in motion, and all they succeed in presenting
is a property shipwreck, or a stage murder, or the pussion of
a prima donna in full sight of an audience. Mozart showed
a superiority to that weakness of the imagination, most
notably in his comic scenes in the later operas. But it is easy
to see that in "Idomeneo" too he tried to keep in mind the
reality of the human circumstances of which the Btage
machinery is but the symboL Mozart never ti
through laying too much stress on expression. It was
necessarily rather the reverse, for he belonged to a formal
period; in which the machinery of art claimed s
deal of attention. But within the limits of formal ity lie
often succeeded in infusing true and sincere human exp
sion, and he used his resources of colour, rhythm, and
melody with perfect relevancy to the situations. In I
respects the distance between his work and that of the
Italian composers of his time is really enormous. But
2 26 THE ART OF MUSIC
there are still a great deal too many of those formalities
which are inevitably brought in to hide the gaps made by
unsolved problems. The arias are too rigid in form, and
the various complete pieces are crudely introduced. The
divisions do not assimilate into a well-moulded whole, but
are separate items, like the old singers' arias, though so
immensely superior to them in intrinsic qualities, and so
much more varied in general character. And, moreover, a
great deal of the dialogue is set in the insupportable make-
shift manner of the middle-period Italian recitative ; which
makes an almost insuperable blot in any serious work in
which it occurs. It passes muster in comic works, because
it can be accepted together with other confessions of human
weakness as conceivably humorous. But in a work of
serious interest it breaks the continuity of things worse
than even ordinary speech; for its chaotic inanity is such
a perversion of the purpose of music that it becomes far
more noticeable than dialogue, which pretends to be nothing
more than it is.
Apart from these recitatives, Mozart probably carried expres-
sion as far as was then possible within the limits by which he was
bound. His instinct for design was too cautious to allow him
to venture upon untried methods which might fit more closely
to the dialogue and to the progress of the action. He had to
repeat his passages, and to take his "tonic and dominant"
quite regularly, according to the laws of form as then under-
stood, and to write set melodies on familiar lines. He had
hardly any experience of methods of immediate concentrated
expression, such as Bach's mastery of harmony and counter-
point enabled him to use. And even if he had known how to
achieve such things, the types of procedure would not have
fitted into his scheme of art; for they would have betrayed
their incongruity, and thrown the balance of style out of
gear. Art had to go a long way before such amalgamation
was possible. Even Mozart himself was as yet far from the
standard of his greatest symphonies; and, far as "Idomeneo"
is beyond the standard of any previous Italian operas, and
interesting and rich in artistic power and resource, its forma-
THE MIDDLE STAGE OF MODERN OPKRA 227
lity and inadequacy as a solution of the operatic problem is
indicated by the fact that it is almost totally unknown to the
musical public.
The national desire for genuine Teutonic opera was spread-
ing and growing more eager in Mozart's time ; and the
Emperor of Austria took up the cause, and invited him to
write a regular German opera. The principal obstacle was
that a national opera, like anything else in art, had to be
built \ip by slow degrees; and there was a conspicuous lack
of models for style and plan, and treatment of things dramatic
in a German manner. Keiser's attempts lay too far away in
the past, and were too crude to have much bearing in Mozut's
time ; and the only form which had succeeded at all in later
times was the Singspiel, which was little more than a play
with incidental music and songs, very similar to the type
in vogue in England about Purcell's time. These plays had
generally been very slight, and sometimes farcical, so there
was very little in them to serve as a basis for work of a solid
kind. But such as it was, Mozart accepted the form as the
type to follow in his " Entfiihrung aus dem Serail." In the
event very little came of it that was characteristically Teu-
tonic. The music itself is admirable, and every artistic ac-
cessory and detail is managed as only Mozart could manage
such things at that time. But the light scenes were in the
Italian buffo style, and the harmonisation and instrumenta-
tion and phraseology are all in the style Mozart usually
employed in Italian opera. Every one who understands
anything about art will know that this was inevitable; for
a man can only work on the lines and in the terms he
is master of. The most that Mozart could do was to im-
part a more genuinely warm and expressive feeling to a
few of the airs, and in no other respect is any Teutonic
flavour discernible. Mozart for the moment elevated the
form of the Singspiel into the regions of loftiest art; but
that was not what a Singspiel audience wanted, and his
work was not characteristically Teutonic enough, either in
subject or style, to enlist the national sympathies ; and
though on the whole it succeeded very well, its success wai
2 28 THE ART OF MUSIO
on the old grounds, and not on the grounds of its being
a satisfactory or complete solution of the problem of national
opera. Further action in the same direction was postponed,
and Mozart resumed the composition of Italian operas.
His next effort was the brilliant " Nozze di Figaro," founded
on Beaumarchais' play. It came out in 1786, and "Don
Giovanni" followed in 1787. These are not on such a
grand scale as "Idomeneo," but they have the superior
attraction of a great deal of real fun, which is essentially
a human element. The stories of both Figaro and Don
Giovanni are cynically humorous, and seem scarcely fit to
be taken seriously; but it is easy to follow and to be
amused by all the escapades and scrapes of the Don and
Leporello, and by Figaro and Cherubino and the rest of
the merry throng. They are just as much realities as
Mozart's merry tunes ; and the necessary stage conventions
do not jar so noticeably as they would do if the works had
often touched upon deeper chords and portrayed stronger
and more vital emotions. It is just in those situations
where, owing to the exigencies of his story, the composer has
to deal with a tragic moment, that the formality necessarily
becomes prominent. Real tragic intensity of feeling would
be quite out of place in such surroundings ; and such
sorrows as Elvira's are not in any case capable of being
adequately expressed in the old-fashioned form of the aria,
with its complacent orderly melody, and mechanical repetition
of the same words of sorrow. It is in such situations that
the utter inadequacy of the old operatic scheme becomes too
conspicuously glaring.
The process of development in the right direction is shown
by the way in which Mozart often knits together a number
of movements into a continuous series, especially at the end of
an act. This was the way in which complete assimilation
of the musical factors into a composite whole was gradually
approached. In some cases, as in the finales in Figaro, he
contrives to make the interchange of dialogue between the
characters very rapid for a long time at a stretch, producing
an extremely animated effect But it illustrates th« imma-
THE MIDDLE STAGE OP MODERN OPERA 2 25
turity of the operatic form that he still felt it necessary
to repeat his musical phrases again and again to make them
lay hold of the minds of the audience. The lightness of the
subjects he dealt with necessitated his carrying out every
feature of his scheme very simply and spontaneously, and thi.-
device of phrase repetition he used without the least disguise.
lie probably borrowed it from the Italian composers of opera
buffa, and it became so much a part of his system that he
employs it in every class of work, in symphonies and sonatas
as well as in operas. The result is that the works become
very easy to follow; but the practice cannot be said to be
a characteristic of an advanced state of art. On the other
hand, Mozart undoubtedly brought his music into very close
connection with the action, especially in comic scenes. It
sometimes fits so perfectly that it seems as though he had
the whole scene before him, and followed all the by-play and
gestures in his mind while writing. This also was probably
a development of the methods of the composers of opera
buffa.
Of Mozart's two last Italian operas little need be said.
" Cosi fan tutte " is a comic opera which was written by
order of the Emperor of Austria to an unsatisfactory libretto,
which made the success, which the real brightness of the
music might have otherwise obtained, completely impos-
sible. " La Clemenza di Tito " was an opera seria of the
old kind written for a coronation at Prague to an old
libretto by Metastasio, which had been set by most of the
earlier stock composers before it came to Mozart's turn,
and did not contain any elements which could inspire him
to fresh achievements.
His last operatic work was far more important, for one*
again it made him the representative of the German aspira
tion to have a national opera. On the previous occasion the
experiment had been made under the auspices of the Austiian
Emperor and his court; the new one was made for an essen-
tially popular audience. The invitation came from the actor-
manager Schikaneder, who had been catering for the Viennew
public for some time with fair success. He conceived the
2 30 THE ART OF MUSIC
idea that the German public would be attracted by a magia
opera; and to judge from the surprising number of magic
operas which have since appeared in Germany, he gauged
the Teutonic disposition in that respect very acutely. The
play, which Schikaneder himself prepared and called " Die
Zauberflbte," is almost unintelligible ; but it contained
some good opportunities for musical effect, and as the
interest of the play was supposed to centre round some
mystic secrets of Freemasonry, which at that time were
especially interesting to the German mind, it was not alto-
gether inappropriate that it should be unintelligible to the
general and the feminine public. Mozart's setting was
again mainly Italian in style, but he infused a degree of
dignified and noble (sentiment into certain parts of the work
which was quite unlike what was to be met with in Italian
operas ; and in the end, between his music and the mystery
of the play, the work became a spontaneous success of a
pronounced description, and was taken up very eagerly all
over Germany.
It can hardly be said, however, that it quite satisfied the
aspirations after a national opera, though it was decidedly a
step of some importance in that direction. The actual solution
of the problem depended on conditions which at that time were
unattainable, for the national style for operatic purposes had
yet to be found. What little there was of distinctly Teutonic
style had not been applied in such a manner ; neither had the
accessories, such as the appropriate type of harmonisation and
of accompaniment, been cultivated sufficiently to be available
on such a large scale as opera. German melodic ideas would
not fit to the conventional types of harmonic accompaniment
used for Italian melody, any more than a Gothic roof and
steeple would fit on to an Ionic building. The racial musical
instincts of Teutons and Italians were different. The instinct
of Italians was all in favour of beauty and simplicity. They
cared little for intensely vivid expression of any kind, and
their most natural method of utterance was melody, associated
with the forms of accompaniment which support a solo voice
in the very simplest manner. They were perfectly content to
THE MIDDLE STAGE OF MODERN OPERA 23 I
hear the same formulas again and again. For instance, the
same formulas of harmony, and even of melody, were used for
the last few bars before the cadence in endless different arias
and scenas ; and the same successions of chords Berved for the
song of the lady bewailing her murdered father and for that
of the gentleman rejoicing over the success of a love suit
The bent of Germans, on the other hand, was not so much
towards beauty as towards expression and character. Their
very type of beauty was different from that of the Italians.
The Italians looked for beauty of externals, and the Germans
for beauty of thought. The instinct for beauty of thought
comes out analogously in their artists' work. To the eye
there is not much beauty of externals in Albert Diirer and
Holbein, but of expression and thought there is ample to
engage the mind and the sensibilities again and again. So
it was in music from the earliest time, in Schiitz's work as in
Bach's and in Brahms' And though melody was a factor in
the German scheme, characteristic harmony became one also
very early. And a? harmony has more power of immediate
expression than melody, the Teutonic nature was drawn
towards it more and more. And as polyphonic treatment
enhances the capacity of harmony for expression, and gives
vitality to its inner details, the Teutonic mind was also drawn
in that direction. Polyphony is melody multiplied, and repre-
sents the composite nature of man's character and man's
moods and motives of action in a way that mere single melody
can never do. The Germans having the feeling and instinct
for these higher things, it was clearly impossible for their
ideals of operatic art to be satisfied with such immature con-
ditions as are represented in Mozart's operas, admirable
though the works themselves are as representing the Italian
conception of art. But though Mozart, owing to his circum-
stances, and the state of art at that time, could not satisfy
the full aspirations of the Germans in tluir own field, he
raised Italian opera to its highest point. His more earnest
German surroundings, and his experiences at Mannheim, led
his impressionable disposition to the full development of his
marvellous aptitude for orchestration ; to a higher, richer, and
16
232 THE ART OF MUSIC
more characteristic standard of melody ; to a wider range of
harmony, and more perfect modelling and management of
design, than had ever been attained by Italians. In all these
things he enriched the art to an enormous extent, and left it
more highly organised in nearly all its various department*
than when he took it up.
CHAPTER XI
THE MIDDLE STAGE OF "SONATA" FORM
rHE principles upon which self-dependent instrumental music
was being developed during the greater part of the eighteenth
century were quite new to mankind. Before men developed
the capacity for understanding the classification of harmonies
in connection with certain tonal centres, such principles
were altogether inconceivable. But when once the idea of
harmonic centralisation was well established, progress in
readiness to grasp the artistic purpose of the composer in
disposing his groups of harmony, so as to convey the im-
pression of design, was extraordinarily rapid ; as may be
judged by the difference in obviousness between a concerto
of Vivaldi's and a symphony of Mozart's.
It may be admitted, parenthetically, that there was a
considerable falling off of style in instrumental music when
it came more decisively under operatic influences. The
standard of Tartini and his fellow-violinists is much higher
than that of most of their successors; who infused the
fashionable style of opera music into their instrumental
works, to gratify the feeble taste of their fashionable pupils.
But the development of the great branch of instrumental
music did not follow in a straight line from Corelli and Tartini
and such masters, but was the result of a process of filtration
through the minds of all sorts and conditions of composers.
Haydn and Mozart, and Beethoven in his turn, were in their
younger days influenced by the flood of all sorts of music
which came under their notice. And though their higher
sense of style and expression rejected the more trivial ind
•superficial things that they heard, their own work became a
2 34 THE ART OF MUSIC
Bort of instinctive generalisation, which was based on th«
general average of all that attracted their attention. Every-
thing has its degree and proportion in such matters, but great
work is always the sum of an immense range of influences,
and not the product of the impressions produced by a few
isolated pieces of perfection. Thus in painting, if a man
study only the manner in which some single master over-
comes some special difficulty, his own treatment will probably
be only a reflection of that master's work. But if he studies
the methods of several, and finds the particular excellences
of each, and grasps their principles of application, he has
enlarged his own resources ; and then he will not merely
reproduce the external aspects of the works of one man, but
will find out how to express his own individuality in terms
which are the fruit of wider understanding of technique.
The special department in which the sum of all sorts of
experiments was leading to a satisfactory establishment of
principles, in the early part of the eighteenth century, was
the extremely important one of harmonic design. Musical
instinct was leading men to give the best of their powers
to the development of the types of design now familiar in
sonatas, and out of a multiplicity of experiments Mozart and
Haydn, and their lesser contemporaries, gave their verdict
very decisively in favour of a type of movement which looks
at first most peculiar and enigmatical ; but which not only
proved to be most elastic and satisfying in practice, but
becomes amply intelligible when the course of its history is
taken into consideration.
The aim of composers was first to establish a point of de-
parture ; and when that had been sufficiently insisted upon, to
set out from it and find an orderly series of contrasts of as
many and various kinds as the art allowed ; and to dispose them
in such a way as to make each step lead onwards, till a circuit
was completed by returning to and re-establishing the original
starting-point. The first form in which this principle of design
is perceptible is the type of ordinary dance tune, which pro
ceeded from a given point to a contrasting point, and after
laying sufficient stress upon that point to emphasise the con-
THE MIDDLE STAGE OF "SONATA FORM 2J5
trast, worked back again and re-established the initial posi-
tion. When this type arrived at any degree of definite
organisation, the most noticeable feature was the division into
two fairly equal halves, with a close in the key of contrast
at the end of the first half. Composers aimed at distributing
their materials in such a framework so as to give the strongest
emphasis to the most essential points, and to make the ideas
lay hold of the mind. The requirements of average human
beings were best consulted by making the beginning of the
first half coincide in musical material with the beginning of
the second half, and the end of the first half coincide with
the end of the second half; since the beginnings and ends
of phrases are always most easily retained by the mind. The
portions between the beginnings and the endings were
generally rather vague and indefinite, though composers who
had any artistic sense tried to keep the style strictly relevant
throughout, and to maintain any rhythm which had presented
itself definitely at the outset. The plan of a considerable
majority of movements remained on these lines until the end
of the polyphonic period of instrumental music; and the
movements in the most artistic suites and partitas have very
little more in the way of design.
When harmonic principles came to be cultivated in sonatas,
the same order of distribution of materials was adopted ; but
in accordance with harmonic requirements, the passages which
coincided in musical material were lengthened, and made more
definite, both in respect of melody and rhythm. And at
length the passage in the contrasting key, which had originally
been little more than a cadence, was expanded to a length
fully equal to the passage in the principal key ; and [(
frequently marked by a second subject or new idea, which
became the distinguishing feature of the key of contrast. The
ideas presented in the principal keys were repeated in the
second half of the movement in positions corresponding to the
arrangement of the earlier form ; the first idea ooming in
the key of contrast at the beginning of the second half, and the
•econd in the home key at the end. The portion between the
two subjects in the second half began to expand very early ;
2^6 THE ART OF MUSIC
both to widen the scope of the modulations, and because com.
posers' instincts told them that there still was a lack of con-
trast through the exact regularity and definiteness of the main
divisions. They felt that a contrast to this excess of definiteness
was wanted, and they found it in the process of breaking up the
subjects into their constituent figures and distributing them in
progressions which had an appearance of being unsystematic.
By the time the movement had expanded to such propoi-
tions, the mere re-statement of the second subject at the end
was barely sufficient to give a comfortable reassurance of
being safe home in the original key. And, moreover, as the
progress of music in general was tending to a much more
decisive recognition of the musical subjects and ideas them-
selves as the aim and end of things, it seemed strange that the
musical idea, which occupied such prominence by reason of its
appearing at the outset, should be so neglected in the latter
part of the movement. So it became customary to repeat the
first subject as well as the second at the end of all things in
the principal key. Then it appeared that there was too much
of this first subject, so its formal repetition at the beginning
of the second half was dropped, though it still often appears
in its old place even in modern works of the sonata order.
The whole process of development may be seen at a glance
in a mechanical scheme. Taking the letters to represent the
musical material, and the numerals to represent the principal
keys, and the double bar to represent the point where the
movement is divided into two portions, the process was mainly
as follows: —
ist form . a 1 , transition ending in b* || a*, transition ending in b 1 ,
2nd form . A 1 B* | A 8 modulations B 1 .
jrdform . A 1 B 2 || A s modulations A 1 B l .
A , , ai x>« o modulation and A1 t>.
4 th form . A» B» | developmenfc A* B*.
THE MIDDLE STAGE OF " SONATA " FORM 237
In the early sonatas both halves of the movement were
played twice. As artistic feeling developed, the repetition of
the second half was frequently dispensed with, but the repeti-
tion of the first half was maintained, mainly to help the mind
to grasp firmly the principle of contrast between the two keys.
In modern times the repetition of the first half is also com-
monly dispensed with, because the musical instinct has become
so quick to grasp any indication of design that it no longer
requires to have such things insisted on ; and also because
the progress of music towards a more passionately emotional
phase makes it noticeably anomalous to go through the same
exciting crises twice over. Beethoven's practice illustrates
this point very happily ; for in the less directly emotional
sonatas in which design is particularly emphasised, he gives
the usual direction for the repetition of the first half ; as in
the early sonatas, when the possibility of dispensing with such
conventions had not dawned upon him, and in the first move-
ments of such later sonatas as the Waldstein (Opus 53) and
the one in FJJ (Opus 78). In movements which are so deci-
sively emotional and expressive as the first movements of the
Appassionata (F minor, Opus 57), of the E minor (Opus 90),
of the A major (Opus 101), and the E major (Opus 109), the
repetition is dispensed with, and the movements are made as
continuous as possible from end to end, so as to hide the
formal element and guard against the mind's being distracted
by it
The prominence which Italian operatic taste gave to
melody and to superficial views of art led people to regard the
principle of design as consisting of the exposition of a first
tune in one key and of a second tune in a contrasting key,
and certain developments based on them to follow and com-
plete the scheme. But in fact the musical subject is one thing
and the design is another. The " subject," as it is called, had
to have a form of its own to begin with; and though some
composers, working under operatic influences, did often write
two long continuous passages of melody which successively
represent the principal key and the key of contrast, the
acuter instinct of true instrumental composers generally aimed
238 THE ART OF MUSIC
at short and incisive figures for their musical ideas, which
indicated the spirit and mood of their work in a manner
more suited to pure instrumental music, and made them lay
hold of the mind quickly; and they completed the musical
sentences, which represented each essential key, by repeating
the most characteristic figures in different positions in the
scale, or with ingenious variations of detail which gave thea
extra interest.
The necessity for making the essential keys clear led to
various interesting and probably unconscious devices. The
trick of alternating the characteristic harmonies of tonic and
dominant in the subject is so familiar that it requires no
discussion. More singular is the profusion of examples of
different epochs, in which the principal musical idea is con-
veyed in terms of the tonic chord of the movement, which is
the essential point from which the outset is made. A few
examples may be noted in the following works. Scarlatti's
Sonata in G major —
the principal allegro movement of Tartini's Sonata in Q minor
(Didone Abandonnata) —
Paradisi's Sonata in D major, Mozart's well-known Sonata in
C minor, Beethoven's Sonata in F minor (No. 1), the last
movement of his Sonata in C# minor ; the first of his Sonata
Appassionata, his overture Leonora (No. 3), and Weber's
Sonata in A7. The instinctive object of the composer in all
cases is to make the whereabouts of his starting-point very
definitely understood. Nearly all the finest subjects in exist-
ence have some such principle inherent in their structure
THE MIDDLE STAGE OF " SONATA FORM 239
But the subject itself is not the form, nor until it is repeated
is it a necessary factor in the scheme of a design in the
abstract. It is the idea or musical fact of melody, or
rhythm, or harmony, which conveys the mood or thought
which the composer wishes to express. The mould in which
the idea is cast is a different thing. The idea may be ex-
pressed in terms of the tonic chord, but the tonic chord is not
the idea. On the other hand, the tonic chord is a part, and a
very essential part, of the scheme of design j and upon its
being understood in that sense, the feeling for the design of
the movement as a whole depends; but the chord is not an
idea till it is vitalise I by rhythm or melody. Similarly, the
design in a picture does not consist of the subject, but of the
manner in which the factors which indicate the subject are dis-
tributed. The design in music of the sonata order consists of
the distribution of the keys and tonal centres and subcentres,
rather than of the so-called subjects, or the order in which they
are presented. This point requires to be emphasised, because
it is not possible to understand what Beethoven did for art, or
the meaning of all that came after his time, without realising
the distinction between subject and design.
As a matter of fact, there often are a great number of
subjects or typical musical ideas in each of the divisions which
are generally spoken of as the first or the second subject ; and
in the most mature form of sonata movement there is almost
always a special third subject whose function and character is
go strongly illustrative of the harmonic principle of design as
employed in sonatas, as to call for special notice. The first
key is always easily indicated, because it comes fresh to the
mind ; but the second or contrasting key requires more
management and more decisive confirmation, because the
impression of the first has to be obliterated. For that reason
the second principal idea is generally put into irery definite
and clear terms of tonality, and is often followed by nnmeroni
accessory passages obviously indicative of the key ; and finally,
when the period which represents the contrasting key comes
to an end, the wisest composers confirmed that k*>y strongly
by introducing a short new subject of specially attractive
240 THE ART OF MUSIO
character, which is entirely modelled upon a group of chords
forming a complete cadence. The function of this subject is
essentially to call attention to the particular point in the
design where the division representing the contrasting key
comes to an end; and the harmonic formula on which it is
founded is always peculiarly simple.
The whole scheme of this type of movement, which was
fairly established by the time Haydn and Mozart began their
work, implies the following general intention. The first part
of the movement aims at definiteness in every respect — dofinite-
ness of subject, definiteness of contrast of key, definiteness of
regular balancing groups of bars and rhythms, definiteness of
progressions. By the time this first division is over the mind
has had enough of such definiteness, and wants a change. The
second division, therefore, represents the breaking up of the
subjects into their constituent elements of figure and rhythm,
tbe obliteration of the sense of regularity by grouping the bars
irregularly ; and aims, by moving constantly from key to key,
to give the sense of artistic confusion ; which, however, is
always regulated by some inner but disguised principle of
order. When the mind has gone through enough of the
pleasing sense of bewilderment — the sense that has made
riddles attractive to the human creature from time immemorial
— the scheme is completed by resuming the orderly methods
of the first division, and firmly re-establishing the principal key,
which has been carefully avoided since the commencement.
From the point of view of design every moment and every
step from beginning to end should have its own inherent justi-
fication and reason for existence. Each concord must have its
due relation to its immediate context, each discord must have
its resolution, each statement its counter-statement. From the
point of view of the subject or idea persistent interest is given
to every moment by the distribution and coherent relevancy
of the melodies and rhythms employed, by the variety of the
situations and the lights in which the musical figures are
placed, and by the development of such climaxes as are in-
herent in the very principle of their structure. In the most
perfect movements there can be no moment when the prin-
THE MIDDLE STAGE OF " SONATA " FORM 24 1
ciple of design is lost sight of, or the ideas cease to he articu-
late. But it must be confessed that there have been only
two or three composers in the history of the world who hav«
had such complete hold of their resources as to produce move-
ments which are entirely perfect from end to end from every
point of view ; and even these rarest geniuses sometimes nod.
The opportunities which this peculiar form has offered to
composers are so extraordinarily rich that it has been uni-
formly adopted for sonatas, symphonies, overtures, quartetts,
and all forms of chamber music, and sometimes for .small
lyrical pieces. The development of self-dependent instru-
mental music almost centres round it, and it gives special
character to the long period of art stretching from the second
quarter of the eighteenth century till the advent of Schumann
and Chopin, and the expressive romanticists of the latter days.
It is especially the type of design used for the first movements
of sonatas and symphonies ; as it is peculiarly suitable for the
intellectual and more highly organised kinds of music. It has
sometimes been used also for the emotional slow movements,
but it was more usual to adopt a simpler type of form in them
— something similar to the old type of aria, or to the rondo
form. And this same rondo form was also found suitahle for
last movements, as it lends itself happily to light and gay
moods; and the constant alternation of definite tunes gives
easy animation to the general effect. As a rule, the rondo
form is not very suitable to the expression of a very high
order of music; but the artistic ingenuity of composers
managed to make the form interesting by throwing the vari-
ous sections into groups, and by distributing the subject-11
so as to give enhanced interest to the rather primitive type of
struct ire.
By the time that Haydn and Mozart arrived upon the scene
this scheme of instrumental music was fairly established, but
It had been used by most composers before their time crudely,
obviously, and mechanically. While the form was new it was
enjoyable as a novelty, and as a mere piece of mechanical in-
genuity, and the perverting influence of the predominating
operatic taste prevented composers from applying any faculties
242 THE ART OF MUSIC
fchey might have possessed to the improvement of the detail*
It was the superior artistic instinct of Mozart and Haydn
which led them to give attention to such things, and to develop
and organise the system of design to a very high degree of
perfection.
The circumstances which impelled the two great composers
into their respective courses were simple and fortunate.
Though both were Southern Germans and Roman Catholics
in religion, their circumstances and early associations were
widely different. Mozart being the child of a professional
musician of considerable attainments and musical culture,
was surrounded by artistic conditions from his babyhood ; and
most of the music with which he came into contact was of
an artistically organised kind from the first, while his studies
were always wisely directed by his very sensible parent. But
the circumstances were not favourable to the development
of personal character, and, as far as his art was concerned, he
was almost entirely relieved of the individual struggle to
ascertain things and make up his mind about them for himself,
which has such important results in developing the indi-
viduality of the artistic worker. Haydn, on the other hand,
was the son of a rustic wheelwright, a real son of the people
— whose first musical influences were folk-tunes, whose ex-
perience of artistic music came late, and who had, like Bacn
and Beethoven, and many others of the great ones, to work
out his own musical salvation. And, to emphasise the diffe-
rence between the two men, where Mozart had been entirely
subject to Italian influences from the first, and found hia
most congenial model in such a type as John Christian Bach
— the Italian Bach — Haydn by good fortune or happy instinct
took for his model Philip Emmanuel Bach, the only promi-
nent composer in Europe who retained any touch of the old
traditions of Northern Germany, and some of the sincere and
noble spirit of his father, which spared not to make every
detail as characteristic and full of vitality as circumstances
allowed. The result is that Haydn is throughout as Teutonio
in spirit and manner as it was possible to be in those times,
and that most of his work has a high degree of personal char-
THE MIDDLE STAGE OF " SONATA " FORM 243
acteristic vitality; while Mozart, with more delicate artistic
perception, more sense of beauty, a much higher gift of tech-
nique and more general facility, is comparatively deficient
in individuality, and hardly shows any trace of Teutonism
in style from first to last.
The careers of the two composers interlaced very peculiarly,
and at different times they exerted influence upon one another.
Haydn is commonly held to have exerted some influence upon
Mozart at first, and when the latter had progressed rapidly
to his highest achievements and had passed away, his work
undoubtedly influenced Haydn. Though Haydn was twenty-
four years older than Mozart, he did not get well into his
work much before the younger composer; for the circum-
stances of his life necessarily delayed him. He appears to
have begun writing symphonies at the age of twenty-seven,
in 1759, whereas Mozart began at the age of eight, in 1764 ;
so their musical periods really coincide more nearly than the
differences of their ages might seem to make probable.
After the severe trials of his youth, Haydn's circumstances
changed, and he thereafter enjoyed advantages such as have
hardly fallen to the lot of any other composer. After a short
engagement to a Bohemian Count Morzin, for whom he wrote
his first symphony, he was engaged for many years as Capell-
meister by successive princes of the wealthy and ardently
musical family of Esterhazy. In their establishment he not
only nad every encouragement to write the best music he
could produce in every form suitable to instrumental effect,
but he also had a complete band always ready to play new
symphonies whenever wanted, and an opera-house and an
opera company for which he might (and did) write operas.
Such favourable circumstances account for the wonderful
number of symphonies which he wrote. But it is more to
the purpose to note the wonderful growth of his musical
powers, and even of the standard of his ideas from youth
onwards. His progress is a little epitome of the history of
musical evolution. His early quartetts were of the slight est
description ; short, undeveloped, and not very interesting in
detail. His early symphonies were exactly of the standard
344 THE ART OF MUSIC
adopted by the average composer of such things all over the
musical world at that time; and not notably better in the
matter of scoring than John Christian Bach's. There is char-
acter and force in them, but the management of the orchestral
resources is stiff, and the treatment of the wind instruments
mechanical. His development was quite gradual, and he did
not arrive at anything particularly notable till after Mozart
had achieved his greatest work, and had become in his turn
the older man's leader.
Mozart, as above indicated, began writing symphonies as
well as operas at the age of eight, and some of his early work
is skilful, neat, and artistic. But it was not till after his
experiences at Mannheim in 1777 and 1778, so often alluded
to, that his full powers in the line of instrumental music
were called into play. The musical traditions at Mannheim
were at that time probably the best in Europe, and their
effect upon Mozart was immediate and salutary. For when
he moved on to Paris in 1778, in company with some of the
Mannheim instrumentalists, he wrote, for performance there,
the first of his symphonies which occupies an important place
in musical history. For artistic delicacy in detail, general
interest, skilful use of orchestral resources, variety in quality
and force of tone, no symphony had ever yet appeared which
in any way approached to its standard. But even this by no
means represents his highest achievement in the symphonic
line. The symphony written for Prague in 1786 is a still
further advance, and throws the Parisian one into the
shade in every respect. The general quality of the musical
thoughts is finer, richer, and more interesting; while the
purely orchestral effects, especially in the slow movement, are
among the most successful things of the kind he ever achieved.
And finally the three great symphonies which he wrote in
Vienna in 1788 represent the highest level in idea and style
and in every distinguished quality of art he ever attained to.
They are the crown of his life's work ; for in them he more
nearly escapes the traditional formulas of the Italian opera
than in any other form of instrumental art except the
quartette ; and their general standard of treatment and thought
THE MIDDLE STAGE OF " SONATA " FORM 245
is nobler and more genuinely vigorous than that of any other
of his works except the Requiem. In management of or-
chestral effect these latter symphonies must have been a
revelation compared with the standard of the works of his
contemporaries and predecessors. His treatment of design
had also become much more free and interesting. The intro-
duction of short subtle excursions out of his principal keys
in unexpected directions; the variations introduced into his
subjects on repetition, by altering the scoring and the actual
melodic and harmonic details, and many other devices which
infuse new interest into the obviousness of familiar procedure,
show a much greater concentration of artistic faculty than
had been usual with him. The general treatment is har-
monic, but of more expressive character than in his operas ;
and though the designs are often helped out by conventional
formulas which were the common property of all composers
in those days, the general mastery of design is almost perfect.
Haydn commonly receives the credit of establishing the sym-
phony form on a secure basis ; and no doubt he did a great
deal for it. But the first symphonies which appeared in
the world which still justly keep a hold on the affections of
average musical people, as well as highly educated musicians,
are those of Mozart. Next in importance after his sym-
phonies come his quartetts. In this form Haydn again was
the pioneer, but it fell to Mozart to produce the first really
great and perfect examples. This most refined and delicate
form of art had come into prominence rather suddenly. It
was cultivated with some success by other composers besides
Mozart and Haydn, such as Boccherini and Dittersdorf.
But the quartetts which Mozart produced in 1782 and de-
dicated to Haydn are still among the select few of highest
value in existence. In a form in which the actual possibili-
ties are so limited, and in which the responsibilities of each
individual solo instrument are so great, where the handling
requires to be so delicate and so neatly adjusted in every
detail, Mozart's artistic skill stood him in good stead. The
great difficulty was the exact ascertainment of the kind of
treatment best suited to the group of four solo instruments.
24 6 THE ART OF MUSIC
It was easy to write contrapuntal movements of the old kind
for them, but in the new harmonic style and in form of a
sonata order it was extremely difficult to adjust the balance
between one instrument and another, so that subordination
should not subside into blank dulness, nor independence of
inner parts become obtrusive. Mozart among his many gifts
had a great sense of fitness, and he adapted himself completely
to the necessities of the situation ; without adopting a poly-
phonic manner, and without sacrificing the independence of
his instruments.
Instrumental music was at this time branching out into sc
many forms that it is not possible to follow his treatment
of all kinds of different work. The least important are his
pianoforte works, such as sonatas and variations, most of
which were evidently written without his putting his heart
into them, probably for amateur pupils. There are, of course,
very important exceptions, and some interesting experiments,
which clearly indicate a genuinely earnest humour, such as
the two remarkable fantasias in C minor.
Haydn in his turn, without being dependent on Mozart
or copying his manner, only came to his finest achievements
after Mozart's career was over. Then in the year 1791 began
the wonderful series of symphonies which he wrote at the
invitation of the violinist and concert-manager Salomon for
performance in London. These are as much the crown of his
fame as the Prague and Vienna symphonies are of Mozart's.
The crudity of his earlier orchestral writing has entirely dis-
appeared ; and though he never succeeds in getting such a
perfectly mellow equal tone as Mozart's, he treats all his
instruments with absolute freedom and fitness. The old tradi-
tions sometimes peep out again in rather long solos for wind
instruments, and long passages for small groups of instru-
ments in contrast to the "tuttis;" but everything is highly
characteristic, clear, definite, and mature. On the whole,
the treatment inclines to be a little more polyphonic than
Mozart's; which accounts for the sound of the instruments
not assimilating in the mass of tone quite so well. It was
more natural for Mozart to think of the harmonies whicb
THE MIDDLE STAGE OF " SONATA FORM 247
supported the melodies in terms of neatly contrived figures of
accompaniment, where Haydn, with Teutonic impulse, would
incline to think of his mass of tone as divided into various
melodic lines. But the shades of difference are so delicate,
and each composer is so far alternately harmonic and contra-
puntal in turn, that it would be unwise to lay too much stress
on this point. Mozart achieves a degree of beauty in his slow
movements to which Haydn does not attain; but in the solid
allegros Haydn is more genuinely vigorous than Mozart In
the minuet movements — which fori*, an important addition to
their scheme — it is difficult to award the palm. Mozart's are
certainly the most popular, but Haydn's dance tunes have
some of the ring that comes of his lineage ; which indeed is
apparent through almost all his work. Even to the last there
is a flavour of rusticity about it. His humour and his merri-
ment are those of the simple honest peasant, while Mozart's
is the wit of a man of the world.
The artistic crisis which Mozart and Haydn represent is
so important that the nature of musical advance made by
them in the instrumental line may here be fitly summed up.
Before their time, the only two branches in which first-rate
and mature work of the harmonic kind had been done were
the violin sonatas written chiefly by the great Italian violinists
and their pupils in other countries, and the clavier sonatas.
The scope of movements was small and without much develop-
ment, and the ideas even in the best examples were rather
indefinite. By the end of their time instrumental art had
branched out into a very large number of distinct and com-
plete forms; such as symphonies, concertos, quartet ts, b
and sonatas for violin and clavier. The style appropriate
to each had been more or less ascertained, and the schemes
of design had beeii perfectly organised for all self-dependent
instrumental music. Both Haydn and Mozart immensely
improved upon their predecessors in the power of finding
characteristic subjects, and in deriding the type of subject
which is best fitted for instrumental music. The difference
in that respect between their early and later work.-, is very
marked. They improved the range of the symphonic cycle
17
248 THE ART OF MUSIC
of movements by adding the minuet and trio to the old
group of three movements ; thereby introducing definite and
undisguised dance movements to follow and contrast with
the central cantabile slow movement. Between them they had
completely transformed the treatment of the orchestra. They
not only enlarged it and gave it greater capacity of tone and
variety, but they also laid the solid foundations of those
methods of art which have become the most characteristic
and effective features in the system of modern music. Even
in detail the character of music is altered in their hands ;
all phraseology is made articulate and definite ; and the
minutiae which lend themselves to refined and artistic per-
formance are carefully considered, without in any way
diminishing the breadth and freedom of the general effect.
There is hardly any branch or department of art which does
not seem to have been brought to high technical perfection
by them ; and if the world could be satisfied with the ideal
of perfectly organised simplicity, without any great force of
expression, instrumental art might well have stopped at the
point to which they brought it
CHAPTER XII
THE PERFECT BALANCE OF EXPRESSION
AND DESIGN
The style and intrinsic qualities of music so faithfully reflect
the state of human affairs of the time at which it is produced,
that it becomes a sort of symbol of the spirit of the world.
At the end of the eighteenth century, in things quite inde-
pendent of art, society in general had arrived at a crisis in
secular affairs which inspired men with a fervour of spirit
analogous to the fervour of religious enthusiasm which had
sprung up at the time of the Reformation. In certain senses
the new ardour was akin to the old* For it was the same
protest against the conventions and formalities by which the
true spirit of things was hidden, and the development of
man's nature and aspirations checked and thwarted. The
spirit of the old uprising was illustrated in its highest
aspect by the sincerity, depth, and nobility of sentiment of
J. S. Bach, and by the best utterances of Handel ; and the
spirit of the modern uprising found its first adequate musical
expression in the work of Beethoven.
As has often been pointed out, a period of art in which
rich and powerful expression is manifested must necessarily
be preceded by a long period in which the resources of design
and the methods of artistic treatment are developed. Artistic
matters are on no different footing in that respect from the
ordinary work of everyday life. Inspiration without methods
and means at its disposal will no more enable a man to write a
symphony than to build a ship or a cathedral. No doubt a
primeval savage might be inspired with feelings very much
like those of some modern composers ; but the means and the
2 50 THE ART OF MUSIC
knowledge how to express these feelings in terras of art would
be lacking. All artistic effort which is worth anything tends
to enlarge such means . and the whole history of the arts is
mainly a continuous effort of artistically-minded human crea-
tures to make the means and the methods for the expression
of the inner impulses richer and more perfect. It is a puro
accident that when the means become plentiful and the methods
very well understood, many men arise who have a great gift for
using these means and methods without any of that personal
impulse of inner feeling to express themselves which is the
primal justification for their employment. The mere manage-
ment of design is much easier than the management of
expressive utterance. Indeed the fact is familiar that the
men who have most to say that is worth saying find the
greatest difficulty in saying anything at all. A man who has
a genuine impulse to say something beyond common thought
has generally to enlarge the phraseology of the art or lan-
guage in which he speaks ; and those who cannot wait for
the development of the phraseology required by the nature
of their thoughts, must inevitably remain at least partially
unintelligible to their fellow-creatures.
In music the case is very clearly illustrated by the results
of the many attempts to achieve ideal expression before the
means were adequately developed. Human nature is liable
to be impatient of the slow development of resources, and
often breaks out into resentment at having to wait so many
centuries for the consummation of obvious aims. Monteverde,
Purcell, and Gluck are types of those eager spirits who are
impatient of the slow march of things, and want to find a
short cut to their artistic ideals — just as impatient political
enthusiasts long to establish a millennium befoi-e they have
organised their human beings into a fit state to live in it.
Such ardent and genuine composers as they were saw rightly
that art is not an end but a means, and having much more
natural feeling for expression than for the purely artistic side
of things, they tried to make sluggish time move faster, and
to attain their ideal artistic region without the preliminary
of following the long road that led there. The world never-
BALANCE OF EXPRESSION AND DESIGN 2$ 1
theless owes them great thanks ; for though men may be
deceived in hoping too much and attempting the impossible,
progress would be even slower than it is if no one were
capable of heroic mistakes. Gluck pointed out the danger of
accepting conventions as solutions of artistic problems, and
he kept the vital artistic questions alive. But the slow
laws of development had to go on all the same, and in
reality it was just as fortunate that Mozart was by gifts,
training, and circumstances a follower of the old methods,
as that Gluck was consumed with a passionate ardour to
have done with them. At that particular moment in the
history of art the man who was most urgently needed was
not one with a strong personality or marked individuality
of style and feeling, but one who could look at art mainly
from the artistic point of view, and with the highest sense
of beauty of effect devote himself to the special development
of technique.
Mozart, in this case, represents the type of man who is con-
tented with the average progress of things, and finds no neces-
sity to aim at anything more novel than the doing of what
comes to him to be done in the very best manner he can. His
best manner was the best of its kind, but it was not final.
Even without Gluck and Haydn by his side the necessary
preliminaries would not have been fully completed. They did
for characteristic style what he did mainly for the organisa-
tion of melody, colour, and design. And when those various
phases of art which they represented had been put into prac-
tical shape, the resources of the composer who was to come
were enormously enlarged.
Tne superiority of Beethoven's point of vantage to Mozart's
is equal to the sum of all the differences between the state of
art when Mozart took up his work at the age of eight, and the
state at which it had arrived at the end of his career. Be
the difference in opportunities, there were immense diflen
in the type of the man and his circumstances. Beethoven
came of the more tenacious Northern stock, partly Dutch and
partly German ; and he had the good fortune to be obliged to
cultivate self-dependence very early, and to make acquaintance
252 THE ART OP MUSIC
with J. S. Bach's works at a time when he was sufficiently
impressionable to profit by them. His youthful experiences
in Bonn were by no means of the smoothest and plea-
6antest. He had a good deal to endure in his home life
that was harsh and unlovely, and he had to endure a good
deal of second-rate music while playing in the local opera
band. By the former his character was formed ; by the
latter the most obvious principles of design were strongly
impressed into his organisation. Like most artists whose
spur is more in themselves than in natural artistic facilities,
he was very slow to come to any artistic achievement. It
is almost a law of things that men whose artistic personality
is very strong, and who touch the world by the greatness
and the power of their expression, come to maturity com-
paratively late, and sometimes grow greater all through
their lives — so it was with Bach, Gluck, Beethoven, and
Wagner — while men whose aims are more purely artistic,
and whose main spur is facility of diction, come to the point
of production early, and do not grow much afterwards. Such
composers as Mozart and Mendelssohn succeeded in express-
ing themselves brilliantly at a very early age; but their
technical facility was out of proportion to their individuality
and force of human nature, and therefore there is no such
surprising difference between the work of their later years
and the work of their childhood as there is in the case of
Beethoven and Wagner.
In Beethoven's -nature there was an extraordinarily keen
sense for design, but there was also a very powerful impulse
towards expression, in his earliest days he seems to waver
from one point of view to another. Most of his early works
follow the lines which had become familiar, and sh.ow little
change from the artistic attitude of Mozart or Haydn. But
every now and then, even in the early days at Bonn, the
spirit of adventure possesses him, and then some surprising
feat, prefiguring the achievements of his best days, makes its
appearance; such a stroke as the end of the Coda of the
Righini variations, which presents a device which he carried
out more effectually and for more expressive purposes much
BALANCE OF EXPRESSION AND DESIQN 253
later in the Coriolan Overture. But these sudden revelations
of the spirit that was within him are at first only spasmodic,
and he subsides again after an outbreak of genius into the
grave deportment of the formal period. But from many
indications it can be, judged that mere composition as a
purely artistic operation did not come easily to him. Haydn 'a
want of sympathy with him, and the well-known verdict of
the theorist Albrechtsberger, alike point to the fact that he
was not born to write without an emotional or intellectual
spur. The moment in the history of music appears to have
been reached, when its great resources were ready to be used
for expressive ends of a new type, and Schubert and Weber
were soon due to illustrate the wide spread of new impulses
in other phases ; but it was allotted to Beethoven to lead the
van ; and unlike them, he was to do his work within the
limits of the old designs of the sonata type, by grasping the
innermost nature of their principles, and expanding them to
the utmost that they would bear.
It is indeed a most characteristic feature of Beethoven's
work that the greater part, and the best of it all, is cast
in the form of the sonata, which Haydn and Mozart had
organised to so high a degree of perfection as pure design.
Beethoven could not have expressed himself adequately within
the conditions of perfect design — which his instincts truly
told him was an absolute necessity of art — without making
use of a form whose principles were fully understood. It was
his good fortune that the sonata form had been so perfectly
organised, and that the musical public had been made so
perfectly familiar with it, that they were ready to follow
every suggestion and indication of the principle of design ;
and even to grasp what he aimed at when he purposely pre-
sumed upon their familiarity with it, to build fresh subtleties
and new devices upon the well-known lines; and sometimes
even to emphasise vital points by making progressions in direc-
tions which seemed deliberately to avoid them. Beethoven
had a great gift for extemporisation ; and there are many
Bubtle devices in his work that look as if he had tested
the power of his audiences to follow his points by actual
254 THE ART OF MUSIC
observation. like Scarlatti, he often seems to play upon
his audience, and to anticipate the processes that will be going
on in their minds; and so well to forecast the very things
that they will expect to happen, that he can make sure of
having the pleasure of puzzling them by doing something else.
But in order to put into practice all the multitudinous possi-
bilities he could foresee, he had to take a form which his
audience would thoroughly understand. And this is one of
the many reasons for the preponderance of the sonata type
in his works.
This preponderance is most marked in the early part of
his career. His first period, as it is sometimes called, extends
to about Opus 50, and to about the thirty-fourth year of his
life. His first thirty-one works were all of the sonata order,
and the majority of them actually solo pianoforte sonatas.
He did not attempt orchestral work till he wrote the concertos
in C and B? which stand as Opus 15 and 19, but of which the
latter was the earliest. The famous septuor, which is a large
combination of solo instruments, and implies use of orchestral
colour, is Opus 20 ; and the first symphony was Opus 21, and
was not written till he was twenty-nine. In this early period
there are some very notable outbreaks of the genuine char-
acteristic Beethoven, as before mentioned, and they grow
more frequent as his powers grow more mature. The Kreutzer
Sonata for violin and pianoforte has all the traits of the
completely great Beethoven. Its introduction is one of the
things that no one else has approached in its way for both
subtlety of design and expression; and the splendid energy
and passion of the allegro, and the extraordinary beauty of
the theme and variations, are fully up to his best standard of
work. After Opus 50 there comes a sudden flood of works
which are among the greatest treasures of musical art. The
brilliant Waldstein Sonata is Opus 53 ; close upon it cornea
the first symphony which is genuinely great in all aspects,
the Eroica, completed in 1804 ; then one of the most impul-
sive and passionate of the sonatas, that in F minor, Opus 5 7 ;
then the delicate G major Concerto, with the extraordinary
slow movement, instinct with the dramatic spirit of the very
BALANCE OF EXPRESSION AND DKSION 255
beet moments of Gluck ; the Rasoumoffski Quartette, Opus 59;
~tire Bi? Symphony; the Violin Concerto; the rugged Overture
to Coriolan ; the C minor Symphony, which is the concentrated
essence of the individual Beethoven of that time; the Pastoral
Symphony, which breathes most faithfully his ardent love of
nature and woods and all things health-giving to the human
mind ; his one opera, "Fidelio; " the noble Concerto in Efr, justly
called the Emperor ; the Quartett in E?; the romantic Seventh
Symphony, and the playful Eighth Symphony, which he called
his little one ; and the Trio in B7, Opus 97. But as his Opus
numbers pass into the nineties a change begins to be discer-
nible in his style, especially in the Quartett in F minor, Opus
95. The warmth of expression, and the spontaneous flow of
energetic thought which mark the middle period, begin to
give way before the influx of moods that are at once sadder,
more concentrated, and more reflective. By that time — about
his fortieth year — troubles of many kinds were beginning to
tell upon Beethoven's sensitive disposition. The iron had
entered into his soul, and it made him dive deeper into human
problems and emotions. Some of the most divinely and
serenely beautiful of all his conceptions belong to this third
period, but they are attended by moods which reveal hia
suffering and his determination to endure. There is more
thought and more experience of life in this period ; and if lesi
of geniality than in his middle life, an infinitely wider range
of feeling, characteristic expression, and style. It seems aa
if his art had widened out from being the mere expression of
his own wonderful personality, and had become the interpreter
of the innermo> * joys and sorrows of all human creatures. In
order to find expression for all that he had in his mind, ha
had to expand his resources of design and expression even
further than in his middle period, and the result was that
very little of his later music was understood by his contem-
poraries. Most of it was considered impoesihle to play. But
this was in reality not because it was more technically diffi-
cult than the works of his middle period, but because it
was so much more difficult to interpret. And as Beethoven
was by this time almost totally deaf, he could not show
256 THE ART OF MUSIO
people how to perform it rightly ; and very few people had
enough musical intelligence to find out for themselves. la
later times the traditions of what is necessary for the
adequate interpretation of these works have been so care-
fully and minutely described, that even people of no in-
telligence sometimes contrive not to make great artistic
conceptions sound like nonsense ; and works once thought
impracticable are among the most familiar features of every-
day concerts.
It is a palpable fact to every one that Beethoven's workt
sound fuller and richer than those of any composers since Bach.
This is partly owing to the warmth and human interest of his
ideas, but it is also due to the actual treatment of the instru-
ments he employs. In pianoforte works it is partly owing to
the development of genuine pianoforte playing. The manner
of playing the harpsichord and clavichord had been to creep
and glide over the keys with flat hands and inactive arms. The
early pianofortes had but slight fall in the keys, and conse-
quently the traditions of harpsichord playing were transferred
to them without much unfitness. But when the keys were
deepened to get more tone, new methods became necessary, and
the more powerful muscles of wrists and arms were brought
into exercise ; and though typical conservative minds regarded
any effort to change their habits as a species of heresy, the
stronger and more practical musicians soon cultivated such
heresies with much success. Clementi especially gave much
attention to the proper way of dealing with an instrument in
which the sound was produced by the blows of little hammers ;
and Beethoven followed in the same direction. He instantly
dissipated the absurd tradition which implied that what was
right for the harpsichord was right for the pianoforte. The
instrument suited his passionate, vigorous temperament; it
lent itself to rich harmonisation, to rhythmic variety ; and by
the aid of the pedal he managed to produce the floods of tone
in which his soul delighted. His contrivances in the latter
direction were especially important, as he not only widened
the capacities of the keyed instrument, but gave the first im-
pulse to the characteristic softening and clouding of outline*
BALANCE OF EXPRESSION AND DESIGN 25;
which is so familiar in the no-called "'romantic" style of
recent times. In the orchestral branches of art the enrich-
ment of tone by the gradual increase of varieties of inel
ments had been going on ever since Alessandro Scarlatti'.-
time. The nucleus of strings with two pairs of wind instru-
ments, and a harpsichord to fill in the harmonies, whicl
was usually employed for the small symphonies in the early
part of the eighteenth century, was increased by the end
of it to strings, flutes, hautboys, bassoons, two horns, two
trumpets, and drums. Haydn and Mozart used clarinets
sometimes, but not often ; it was not till recent times that
the mechanism of the instrument was sufficiently perfect to
make it available, and the tone of the old clarinets was
probably thinner and shriller than that of modern ones.
Beethoven used them from the first in all his symphonies;
in the third symphony (the Eroica) he added a third horn ; in
the massive C minor symphony he added three trombones and
a double bassoon ; and in the last, No. 9, he added a fourth
horn as well. His object was not so much to add to the noise
as to increase the opportunities for variety; and to organise
the actual and relative possibilities of instrumental tone to
the utmost.
The constitution of the orchestra has remained as he estab-
lished it ever since. The aspirations of modern sensational
composers have not managed to improve upon the actual order
of the instruments, though they have often increased the
numbers; and the wood wind being now somewhat over-
balanced by the great number of stringed instruments used
for large concert-rooms, the only balance of sonority in " forte "
passages is between strings and brass instruments. And this,
combined with the growing ta.-te for brilliancy of colour, has led
to a slight increase in the latter ilepartment. Beethoven en-
joyed the advantage, over Haydn and Mozart, that the actual
powers and technical efficiency of performers on orchestral
instruments had greatly improved. He could afford to R
more difficult passages, and to use a wider range of sounds.
Even in his first two symphonies he advanced beyond the
earlier masters in variety of effect and in a certain solemn
258 THE ART OF MUSIC
depth which is very characteristic of some of his moods ; and
he uses his instruments with more and more distinctness of
purpose as he goes on. He knows exactly where the bright
sparkling tone of the flute will serve his turn, and where the
pathetic tenderness of the hautboy ; the liquid fulness of the
clarinet has a place in his scheme, and the extraordinary
varieties of the bassoon's tones are most familiar to him,
in all its grotesque, humorous, plaintive, and even pathetic
aspects. The curious human-like uncertainty and myntery cf
the horns, and their powers of enriching the softer harmonies,
are most especially congenial to him. He knows the majestic
force of the trombones in the loud passages, and their im-
pressive solemnity in soft passages ; and, unlike many later
writers, he never makes them odious with vulgar brutish
blatancy. He sees all the varieties in their true light. For
the tone qualities of the various instruments in his music serve
not only for contrast, but, like colours, to excite sensibilities.
Mozart occasionally used special instruments to enforce situa-
tions, as in the wonderful accompaniment of soft swelling
trombones and horns to the voice of the oracle in " Idomeneo;"
and in the familiar passages for the brass instruments in " Don
Giovanni " and " Zauberflbte." But a large majority of his
special effects are for the mere purpose of pure beauty or con-
trast ; and his variety is not very great. For there is a great
family likeness in his frequent uses of thirds in double octaves
for bassoons and flutes or hautboys, though the effect is quite
beautiful enough to be borne very often. Beethoven's use of
his resources in this respect is very much more full of variety,
and in a very large number of cases it is so absolutely to
the purpose, that it seems to be the necessary outcome of the
mood which his particular melody, rhythm, or harmony, or
the sum of all three of them, conveys at the particular
moment.
But, in truth, design, colour, and expression are so closely
wedded in his best work that it is difficult to disintegrate
them. The expression is great because it comes exactly in
the true place in the scheme of design to tell. The colour
exerta its full influence, mainly because the expression and th«
BALANCE OF EXPRESSION AND DESIGN 25^
design put the inind exactly in the receptive condition to be
fully impressed by it. Even the most limited of instruments
can be made to produce an astounding effect through its
relation to its context. The whole of the scherzo of the
C minor symphony is as near being miraculous as human
work can be; but one of its most absorbing moments is
the part where for fifteen bars there is nothing going on
but an insignificant chord continuously held by low strings,
and a pianissimo rhythmic beat of the drum. Taken out
of its context it would be perfectly meaningless. As
Beethoven has used it, it is infinitely more impressive than
the greatest noise Meyerbeer and his fellows ever succeeded
in making.
Beethoven's attitude in relation to art and expression
naturally led him by degrees to modify the average scheme of
the design of instrumental works in accordance with the ideas
which he felt he could artistically express. This was one of
the features in his works which indicated the direction in
which art was destined to travel after his time. But the
changes he made were mainly in respect of the general order
and grouping of the movements, and not often in the disposal
or ordering of their contents. The form of the principal
movement (which is commonly known by the name of
" binary * ") is so wonderfully elastic that he found little
* The term "binary" is undoubtedly unhappy if too much stress is
laid on the relation of the plan of the modern type of movement to the
btrict meaning of the classical terms from which it is derived. The U »nn
ha.- changed so much that it presents an aspect more like a threefold
unity than a scheme consisting of two balanced divisions. Hut the word
still indicates the undoubted lineage of the type, and there are so many
qualities of style and distribution which distinguish it decisively from
the primary or simple three-limbed structure, which is its most frequent
antithesis, that any attempt to re-name or re-cla-sify the type is to b«
deprecated, as only tending to add fresh oonfosion to a subject already
obscured by superfluous variety of terminology. There are many words
In the English language which have changed their meaning, and do not
suggest what was originally meant by the syllables from which they
are derived ; yet every one understands them well enough. And the
language would hardly be a gainer if any one attempted to reconstruct
it, in order to restore the primitive meanings of familiar word*.
260 THE ART OF MUSIC
occasion to alter it except by strengthening the main pillars
of the structure, and widening its general scope, wherever
possible — as in the Codas. His early solo sonatas were on
the usual plan, but increased to four movements, like Mozart's
and Haydn's symphonies. But in later times, when he had
attained a more comprehensive view of the situation, he varied
the number and order of the movements in all classes of in-
strumental works, sometimes increasing to five, and sometimes
reducing to two. Sometimes beginning with a slow move-
ment, sometimes omitting it altogether. His most important
alteration in the general scheme was the introduction of the
scherzo in place of the old minuet. The virtue of introducing
the minuet after the slow movement lay in the decisive con-
trast which the rhythmic principle of the dance afforded to the
cantabile character of the slow movement. But the choice
was was not really a happy one, because the minuet was not
naturally a vigorous rhythmic dance, but graceful, flowing,
and rather slow and sedate. Mozart and Haydn were both
led correctly by their instincts to give their minuets a far
more animated and vigorous character than the actual dance
motions warranted; and composers ultimately gave up all
attempts to pay any attention to the relation of the music to
hypothetical dance motions, and took the movement presto,
and called it by a new name, the scherzo.
The fact that the scherzo had been known long before does
not lessen the importance of Beethoven's systematic adoption
of it, which gave it its place in modern music. Both by
implication and in itself it is one of the most important of the
musical features which made their appearance in the early
part of this century. That it made such a much better contrast
to the slow movement than the minuet is really of secondary
importance, though from the purely artistic point of view the
improvement is considerable. Very much more important is
the meaning of the change in respect of expression. Many
people have unfortunately got into the habit of taking "ex-
pression " to mean only sentimental expression ; and conven-
tion has deprived the language of a comprehensive word in
order to give it a special bearing. In reference to music, it
BALANCE OF EXPRESSION AND DESIGN 26 1
must be taken in its widest sense ; and at this moment it i«
particularly important to take note of the fact; as. the essence
of musical progress from Beethoven onwards lies in the
development of infinite varieties of expression. Beethoven's
adoption of the scherzo was like a manifesto on that point.
The scherzo has become one of the most valuable types for
the conveyance of all those kinds of expression which are
not sentimental ; and require to be described in terms of
action rather than terms of vocal utterance. In this its
primal dance origin confirms the gesticulatory meaning of the
rhythmic element in music. With Beethoven the scherzo
became the most free of all the movements in the sonata
group. He did not restrict it to the characteristic triple
time of the minuet, but took any time that the situation
required ; and so far dispensed with the systematic orderliness
which usually characterised works designed upon harmonic prin-
ciples, that the plan of such a movement is often as difficult to
unravel as that of any of Bach's merriest and lightest fugues.
In ranging wide and free among human characteristics and
moods this apparent independence of uniformity and rule was
just perfectly apposite ; and it is interesting to note that
Mendelssohn's keen insight divined this fact, and that he
struck out an equally informal line in his scherzos with much
success; for the genuine "scherzo" impulse had a very happy
and wholesome effect upon his disposition. But of course he
cannot be compared with Beethoven either for variety or
scope ; for nowhere is the subtlety of Beethoven's imagination
or the keenness of his insight more conspicuous ; and no form
shows more clearly or variously the character of the man.
His deep interest in everything that concerned the human
creature, without respect of persons or classes, comes out
Other movements supplied him with the opportunities for
uttering graver sentiments and emotions; here he dealt with
mischief, rxillery, humour, fun of every description, in terms
that are like the healthy honest spirits of a child. Indeed
the analogies are generally most likely to be found in
the spontaneous merriment of children, for the veneer of
respectability and responsibility in people of mature yean
2 62 THE ART OF MUSIC
buries most of the natural expansion in such directions out
of sight.
The resources of the pianoforte were hardly adequate to
his purposes in this line ; and though he wrote some
very successful and graphic examples for the instrument,
his most brilliant achievements are in the symphonies,
quartetts, and trios, where either variety of colour or the
crystalline clearness of violin tone afforded him better
opportunities.
The element of design is of such pre-eminent importance in
his works that it must inevitably be discussed in some detail ;
since the effect they produce depends so much upon his mar-
vellous concentration and self-control in that respect. Very few
people realise the paramount importance of systematic design,
and the extent to which it can be carried ; for though they
cannot fail to see how important it is in small things, they do
not follow out their observation to its logical consequences,
and see that it is equally important in great. Even people
of little intelligence can perceive that when one chord or
figure has been going on for a long while, it is a relief to
have it changed ; and it does not take any great powers of
mind to realise that there is a right place and a wrong for
the change to come. But even when that much is seen, and
it is realised that the proper management of the successions
of chords and keys is the basis of modern instrumental design,
people still seem to forget that what applies to one little part
applies to the whole ; and that in a highly organised work of
art there is a right place and a wrong for every change of
harmony, and for every rise and fall of the melody through-
out a long piece of music. The full effect of every great
stroke of art in such cases depends upon the perfect control
of the motion, direction, and even the colour of every suc-
cessive moment in the work. Beethoven often makes a
stroke which is only intelligible by its relation to some
other passage that is some hundreds of bars away in another
part of the movement ; but he manages it so perfectly that
an auditor over whom he has cast his spell can instantly
seize his drift. The extraordinary degree of concentration
BALANCE OF EXPRESSION AND DESIGN
26 3
in this respect is such as no other composer has ever ap-
proached. With all Mozart's skill in design, his work is
often very loose in texture compared with that of his suc-
cessor. A short discussion of an obvious parallel may help
to make this clearer. It 60 happens that both Beethoven
and Mozart used the same root idea — the former in his first
sonata, and the latter in the last movement of his G minor
symphony. The gist of the idea is an energetic upward
leap through a rhythmic arpeggio to a 6trongly emotional
high note.
Mozart.
_ Bkkthovdt. fo)^_
The high note, as the crisis, naturally requires something to
round it off. Mozart makes the emphatic point subside into
a sentimental harmony ; Beethoven cuts it off sharply by an
emphatic turn.
Moiabt.
£
§£E
Bkthovkn.
i
#
~tm±z=
rt
Mozart then simply breaks off and continues the proceedings
by a new phrase, which has no striking significance, but is
sufficient in relation to the style of the rest of the movement
to complete the sentence appropriately.
Beethoven, on the contrary, keeps firm hold of his text ; and
18
264 THE ART OF MUSIC
enforces it by repeating it in another position in the scale,
which makes his emotional point rise a step higher.
Then taking his emotional point and its characteristic
appendage, he drives it home by repeating it with
strong accent, rising higher each time to give it extra
intensity. 11
And only when the highest point of the crisis is reached
does he relax the tension, and a softer and more yielding
version of the turn is moulded on to the cadence which
concludes his sentence; which therefore stands in its
entirety: —
Thus the whole of Beethoven's first sentence is knit together
in the closest bonds by insistence upon his emotional point.
Mozart, having given his root idea and its counter idea to
balance it, repeats them in the same order, but with the ordei
Compare «h« Iriah folk-tone on page 79 for the
BALANCE OF EXPRESSION AND DESIGN 265
of the harmony reversed, taking dominant first and tonio to
answer it, and 60 concludes : —
ih ^f^^^ iM^
^itfl
^fe£,gafe33
Beethoven, over and above the close consistency with which
he uses his idea, unifies the whole passage of eight bars by the
skilful use of his bass, which marches up step by step from the
leading note next below the tonic starting-point to the dominant
above it ; thereby helping the mind to grasp the principle of
design and to feel the close unity of the whole sentence. In
Mozart's passage the alternation of tonic and dominant is easily
grasped, and is the means whereby the tonality of the passage
is made clear. In Beethoven's passage the alternation of tonic
and dominant is equally present and equally regular, but the
motion of bass happily disguises it, while it also serves as an
additional indication of the structure of the passage. To show
the whole artistic purpose and skill of the first twelve bars
would require a chapter to itself, for with Beethoven nearly
every progression has several aspects. All that can be
attempted here is to show how the process is carried on, in
such a manner that each step becomes the necessary outcome
of the impulse which is expressed at the moment of starting.
The end of the first sentence above quoted in full leaves the
hearer in the air, as it were ; for it ends only on a relatively
final chord, the dominant. Further proceedings are therefore
necessarily expected ; and Beethoven resumes his subject in
the bass by way of contrast, and in a position of the scale
which for the moment is purposely obscure. He does not
wish to reveal his intentions all at once ; so the key seems to
be C minor, though it is intended to lead to At>. When
the emotional point in the resumed subject-figure is reached,
it is immediately pushed on, together with the turn which
266 THE ART OF MUSIC
makes it identifiable, by an unexpected discord. This of
course requires its resolution, which is made in such a
way as to produce another discord; and so by the neces-
sities of each resolution the music is pushed on step by
step till the dominant of the new and contrasting key is
reached, and the circuit of this first division of the movement
is completed. The root idea has never for a moment been
lost sight of; so from both points of view — idea and design
alike — no step is without its significance and its bearing.
And all the rest of the movement is carried out on the same
principles.
To avoid misconception, it is as well to point out that
Mozart, in the parallel case above quoted, also uses his mate-
rials very consistently, and develops them into new phases ;
though not with the close concentration even of Beethoven's
earliest work.*
Of the almost endless devices and subtleties Beethoven uses
to make his design intelligible, the most familiar is a steady
progress of the bass by tones or semitones up or down
in accordance with the spirit which the moment requires.
Where subsidence from a crisis is wanted, it goes down,
where extra animation is wanted it rises ; and always so as
to direct the mind towards the point which it is essential to
recognise. One of the most remarkable instances is in the
middle of the first movement of the great Appassionata
Sonata. The course of events has brought about a point
of repose in the key of D^ ; and for the purposes of design
it is necessary to modulate back to the principal key, F
minor, and to concentrate attention upon the chord imme-
diately preceding the step which finally announces that
* It may also be well to point out that the object of this detailed com-
parison is not to emphasise Beethoven's greatness at the expense of
Mozart, but to show the general tendencies of evolution. In this parti-
cular case Beethoven's treatment of his subject-matter admits of closet
scrutiny than Mozart's. But there are other cases in which Mozart un-
doubtedly has the advantape ; as in the parallel cases of " Batti batti,"
and the slow movement oi Beethoven'i quintett in E? for pianoforte and
wind -h'rtrvmiTinti.
BALANCE OF EXPRESSION AND DESIGN 267
the rambling and voyaging division of the movement is
over, and the principal key reached again. To do this Beeth
oven makes his bass rise slowly step by step for fifteen bars
— from the D^ below the bass stave to the D5 next under the
treble stave. The whole mass of the harmony rises with it,
with increasing excitement, so that the crisis of the emo-
tional aspect of the progression exactly coincides with the
point which it is most essential that the mind should grasp
firmly in anticipation of one of the most important points
in the scheme — the return to the original key and sub-
ject. And, by way of contrast to the long-continued
motion, the penultimate chord, when arrived at, continues
unchanged for eleven bars, the mind being fully occupied
with the rattling brilliancy of figured arpeggios. The
same kind of sequence transferred to the treble part is
to be found in the development portion of the first move-
ment of the sonata in At), Opus no, where the progression
drops down step by step for a whole octave; thereby com-
pletely unifying the whole of the "development" portion of
the movement.
Another device of the same kind is that which makes the
whole mass of the harmony move upon a bass constantly
shifting by steps of thirds. The most remarkable instance
is the introductory movement to the fugue in the sonata in
Bl?, Opus 106, where the dropping steps of the thirds continue
through the whole movement without intermission ; supplying
an underlying principle of order to all the varieties of mood
and expression which occur in it. Another very remarkable
instance of the same device is in the middle of the first
movement of the sonata in E minor, Opus 90. Some such
sequence or principle of order, either on a small or a wide
ranging basis, gives coherence and sense of orderliness
even tc his most elaborately contrived effects of harmonic
motion.
His ways of insisting upon his key, without letting it be
seen that he is doing so, are many and various. As has been
pointed out, he often casts his leading idea in terms of the
tonio chord. But he is very fond of suggesting and bewilder
268 THE ART OF MUSIC
ing at the same time. Thus the principal part of the Eroica
■ubject is made out of the tonic chord of E^,
fe fe^ =j L^ = J E^Egg
but then the whole aspect of things becomes perplexing for
m moment by its passing straight out of the key with
^
tst
and the mind is for a moment in
doubt of its whereabouts. And then Beethoven slips back
into his key again as quickly as he went out, as if he made
light of his own device. But in reality he has no intention
of making light of it. For when the same passage comes
back some five minutes later, he knows quite well that his
audience will remember it, and thereupon he turns the pro-
gression inside out; leaving them even more perplexed and
interested than before. Similarly he sometimes begins quite
out of the key in order to make the safe arrival at the true
gtarting-point the more striking. Again he sometimes casts
even his first subject in the form of a sequence, which leads
out of the key immediately, as in the sonata in E minor,
Opus 90 ; but in this case the progressions move by such
a logical process that when the circuit is complete the im-
pression of the key is a great deal stronger and more
vital than if he had contented himself with alternating
tonic and dominant all the while. Both Brahms and
Wagner have followed him in this device. Brahms in the
Second Rhapsody, and Wagner in the Vorspiel to Tristan.
Another way of insisting on the key is the obvious one of
emphasising in succession all the principal chords which
represent it — tonic, dominant, subdominant, supertonic, &c.
Of this there are two exactly parallel cases in works as dif-
ferent as the little G major sonata, Opus 14, No. 2, and
the first movement of the Waldstein ; where they occur
exactly in analogous positions, in the section representing
the second or contrasting key.
BALANCE OF EXPRESSION AND DESIGN
269
His subjects themselves very often have some wide principle
of general effect besides the mere interest of the details. It
may be a systematic rise of a characteristic figure, as in the
subject of the A^ sonata, Opus no; or the persistence of a
rhythmic nucleus which underlies a more general melodic
outline — as in the first sentence of the C minor symphony,
or it may be the recurrence of some very striking feature,
such as the two fierce blows at the end of the rushing arpeggio
in the last movement of the C# minor sonata (commonly
called Moonlight). And when there are phases like this he
generally extends them, in the development of the subjects,
into new situations and aspects. A happy instance of this is
the treatment of the second subject in the last movement of
the same C# minor sonata : —
£fc
3K
«-**-*-*— 1±
Here at the asterisks the accented note successively rises and
gains in warmth ; and thus it becomes the most striking
feature of the subject. So at the end of the movement
Beethoven enhances the passion of it (with great effect also
for the purpose of design) by extending the rise and pressing
the emotional points closer : —
His power of presenting the same subject in different aspects
has a very important bearing on the nature of recent progress
of the art. In his case it is particularly valuable in the
development of a movement, as it enabled him to keep true
27 O THE ART OF MUSIC
to his initial idea without sameness or mer« obvious repetition^
and at the same time to add to its interest. He showed this
faculty in the highest degree in his variations, a form of which
he was quite the greatest master. His treatment indeed
makes it one of the most interesting forms of art, while in
the hands of composers of less power it is one of the most
detestable. With him the theme is a sort of chameleon
thought which is capable of undergoing all kinds of myste-
rious changes ; and of being expressed sometimes gaily, some-
times sadly, sometimes fiercely. He groups variations together
in accordance with their affinities, and distributes the different
moods so as to illustrate one another, and to make a complete
composite design.
The texture of his work as a whole is far more polyphonic
than that of his predecessors, and illustrates the tendency
of the time to revert to the methods of Bach, in the free
motion of the bass and the internal organisation of the
harmony — adapting the methods at the same time to the
system of harmonic form. The case is parallel to the rever-
sion to the methods of the old ecclesiastical music after the
speculative revolution of Peri and Monteverde, described in
Chapter VII. But the counterpoint is by no means that of Bach;
it is less ostensible, and the various inner parts and figures
that move are kept in relative subordination in accordance
with their relative degrees of importance. Music by this means
regained an immensely enhanced power of expression of the
highest kind. The harmony not only became more interesting
and rich, but very much more powerful at the moments when
powerful and characteristic discord was required ; while at
the same time it afforded much more delicate gradations of
degrees of harshness.
The tendency to use the art for expression naturally led
Beethoven to identify his work occasionally with some definite
idea or subject. As in the Eroica Symphony, which was
intended for his ideal of Napoleon (so soon shattered) ; the
Pastoral Symphony, which embodied his feelings about the
fields, and brooks, and woods, and birds he loved so well;
the "Lebewohl" Sonata, which embodied his ideal musical
BALANCE OF EXl'RKSSION AND DESIGN 27 I
sense of friemls parting, of absence, and of the joyous coming
together again. But with him, for almost the first time, the
true principle of programme music is found, and he indicates
it with absolute insight into the situation in his remark on
the Pastoral Symphony. That it was " mehr Ausdruck der
Empfindung, als Mulerei" — "More the expression of inner
feeling than picturing." The most common failing of minds
less keen than Beethoven's is to try to make people see with
their ears. Beethoven goes to the root of the matter. For,
as pointed out in the first chapter, it is not the business
of music to depict the external, but to convey the inner im-
pressions which are the result of the external. And music
is true in spiritual design only when it is consistent in the
use of the resources of expression with the possible workings
of the mind in special moods or under the influence of
special external impressions. "With Beethoven and Bach the
consistency of the harmonic, melodic, and rhythmic elements
of expression is so perfect, that with all the infinity of change,
and the variety that is necessary for design's sake, the pos-
sible working of a mind affected by some special exciting
cause is consistently represented by the kind of treatment
that is used. That people often can feel this for them-
selves is shown by the general adoption of such a name as
" the Appassionata," which was not given by Beethoven, but
which is eminently justified in every particular by the contents
of that wonderful sonata.
Beethoven's opportunity lay in the comprehensive develop-
ment of the resources of art, and in the fact that the princi-
ples of a singularly malleable type of design were ready to
his hand when he came upon the scene. His imagina-
tion and his powers of concentration were equal to his
responsibilities. The resources of effect were as yet not so
great as to tempt him to extravagance. Indeed he himself
had to collect and develop and systematise much of them,
and he enlarged them more than any other man except
Bach. The sonata form, moreover, was new enough to
afford him scope without forcing him either to risk common-
place, or to resort to hyper-intellectual devices to hide its
272 THE ART OF MUSIC
familiarities. In his hands alone the forces of design and
of expression were completely controlled. Self-dependent
instrumental art on the grandest and broadest lines found
its first perfect revelation in his hands, not in a formal
sense alone, but in the highest phase of true and noble
characteristic expression.
CHAPTER Xm
MODERN TENDENCIES
Beethoven stands just at the turning-point of the ways oi
modern art, and combines the sum of past human effort in
the direction of musical design with the first ripe utterance
of the modern impulse — made possible by the great accumu-
lation of artistic resources — in the direction of human ex-
pression. After him the course of things naturally changed.
In the art of the century before him formality was prominent
and expression very restrained ; in the times after him the
conditions were reversed, and the instinct of man was im-
pelled to resent the conventions of form which seemed to
fetter his imagination, and began his wanderings and experi-
ments anew in the irrepressible conviction that every road
must lead somewhere. A new artistic crisis had been passed,
similar to the crisis of Palestrina and Bach, but implying a
6till greater organisation and a richer accumulation of actual
resources than was available for either of the earlier masters.
All three crises represent a relatively perfect formulation of /
human feeling. Palestrina without emotion embodies the
most perfect presentation of contemplative religious devotion.
Bach, more touched by the secular spirit, and fully capable
of strong emotion, formulates a more comprehensive and
energetic type of religious sentiment, and foreshadows, by
his new combination of rhythm and polyphony, the musical
expression of every kind of human feeling. Beethoven ex- ,
presses the complete emancipation of human emotion and
mind, and attempts to give expression to every kind of mood
and of inner sensibility which is capable and worthy of being
brought into the circuit of an artistic scheme of design.
2 74 THE ART OF MUSIO
/ But only at particular moments in the history of art are
such crises possible. For it needs not only the grandeur of
a man's nature to think of things worthy of being grandly
said, but it requires a condition of mankind which shall be
as appreciative of artistic considerations as of expression.
There may be nobility, truth, and greatness in art at all
times ; but the perfect adjustment of things which is neces-
sary to make a grand scheme of art, and to render possible
examples of it which are nearly perfect from every point of
view, is ouly to be found at rare moments in the history of
human effort. The love of art for art's sake is generally a
mere love of orderliness in things which require a great deal
of ingenuity to get them into order; at best it is a love of
beauty for itself. At one stage in art's history an excessive
delight in design and abstract beauty of form is inevitable,
but humanity as it grows older instinctively feels that the
adoration of mere beauty is sometimes childish and sometimes
thoroughly unwholesome ; and then men are liable to doubt
whether human energies are not sapped by art instead of
being fostered by it. After a period in which men have gone
through experiences such as these, a condition of art naturally
follows in which the worshippers of abstract beauty and the
worshippers of expression both find satisfaction ; but inas-
much as the momentum generated is in a direction away
from things purely artistic, a period is liable to follow in
which things tend to leave the grand lines which imply a
steadfast reverence for the highest phase of abstract beauty,
and men seek a new field wherein to develop effects of strong
characterisation. Art comes down from its lofty region and
beconn 8 the handmaid of everyday life. It seems to be so
in most of the arts ; for they each have their time of special
glory, and are then turned to the more practical purposes
of illustration. The greater portion of the arts of painting
and drawing in modern times is devoted to illustration of the
most definite kind ; and even the pictures which aim at
Bpecial artistic value, and are exhibited in important galleries,
are of infinite variety of range in subject, and endeavour to
realise within the conditions of artistic presentation almost
MODERN TENDENCIES 275
any subject which has impressed an artist as worthy of per-
manent record. The instinct for beauty and the feeling for
design may still have plenty of scope in accordance with the
disposition of the artist, but they are by no means so
prominent and necessary a part of art as they were; and
many pictures have had immense fame which have been
nothing but the baldest presentations of totally uninteresting
everyday occurrences, without a trace of anything that shows
a sense of either beauty or design.
It is much the same in literature. Nothing is more con-
spicuously characteristic of the present age than the immense
increase of short illustrative stories which make vividly alive
for all men the varieties of human circumstances and dis-
positions, from the remotest districts of India and the steppes
of Russia, to the islands of Galway Bay and the backwoods
of Australia. The few men that still have the instincts of
great art cling to the great traditions and deal as much as
they can with great subjects, but the preponderant tendency
in all arts is towards variety and closeness of characterisation.
As has before been pointed out, the premonitions of this
tendency are already discernible in Beethoven ; and many
other external facts in his time and soon after show in what
direction the mind of man was moving. A characteristic
feature which illustrates this is the much more frequent
adoption by composers of names for their works; which
evidently implies taking a definite idea and endeavouring to
make the music express it. No one emphasises this fact
more than Spohr. By natural musical organisation and
habit of mind he was the last composer of whom one might
expect unslassical procedure. Mozart was his model, and
Beethoven was barely intelligible to him except in his least
characteristic moods. But Spohr set himself in a very marked
way to emphasise illustration. To many of his symphonies
he gave definite names, and made it his endeavour to carry
out his programme consistently. The well-known " Weihe
der Tone" is a case in point. He meant originally to set a
poem of that title by Pfeiiler as a cantata, but finding it uc
suitable he wrote the symphony as an illustration of the poem,
27^ THE ART OF MUSIC
and directed that the poem was to be read whenever the
symphony was performed. Moreover, he endeavoured to
widen the scope and design of tins symphony to carry out
his scheme, with eminently unsatisfactory results, as far as all
the latter part of the work is concerned. His " Historical
Symphony " has a similarly definite object, though not so close
an application; as it was merely a very strange attempt to
imitate the styles of Bach and Handel, Mozart and Beethoven
in successive movements. More decisively to the point is his
symphony called "The Worldly and Heavenly Influences in
the Life of Man," in which the heavenly influences are repre-
sented by a solo orchestra, and the worldly by an ordinary
full orchestra. The general idea is very carefully carried out,
and the heavenly influences are made particularly prominent
iu the early part, and apparently succumb to the power of the
worldly orchestra towards the end. Another symphony of
Spohi-'s is called "The Seasons," which is a very favourite
subject, and also a very suitable one, for true musical treat-
ment. Weber was naturally on the same side, both on ac-
count of his romantic disposition and the deficiencies of his
artistic education. His one successful instrumental work,
on a large scale, the Concertstuck for pianoforte and
orchestra, deliberately represents a story of a knight and a
lady in crusading times. The inference suggested is even
stronger in the case of Mendelssohn, who was ultra-classical
by nature, but gave names and indicated a purpose or a reason
for the particular character of all his best symphonies — Tli6
Reformation, the Italian, and the Scotch. Even the sym-
phony to the " Lobgesang " has a very definite and intelligible
relation to the cantata which follows; while as far as musical
characterisation is concerned, the overture and scherzo in the
"Midsummer's Night's Dream "music are among the vivid
things of modern times.
To all appearance the line which Berlioz took is even more
decisive. But important as it fe, the fact of his being a
Frenchman reduces its significance a little. The French hav6
never shown any talent for self-dependent instrumental music
From the first their musical utterance required to be put in
MODERN TENDENCIES 277
motion by some definite idea external to music The great
Parisian lute-players wrote most of their neat little pieces to
a definite subject ; Couperin developed considerable skill in
contriving little picture-tunes, and Rameau followed in the
same line later. The kernel of the Gallic view of things is,
moreover, persistently theatrical, and all the music in which
they have been successful has had either direct or secondary
connection with the stage. Berlioz was so typical a Frenchman
in this respect that he could hardly see even the events of his
own life as they actually were ; but generally in the light of
a sort of fevered frenzy, which made everything — both ups
and downs — look several times larger than the reality. Some
of his most exciting experiences as related by himself are con-
ceived in the spirit of melodrama, and could hardly have
happened as he tells them except on the stage. This was not
the type of human creature of whom self-dependent instru-
mental music could be expected ; and it is no wonder that
when he took to experimenting in that line of art he made it
even more theatrical than ordinary theatrical music; because
he had to supply the effect of the stage and the footlights and
all the machinery, as well as the evolutions and gesticulations
of the performers, by the music alone. His enormous skill
and mastery of resource, brilliant intelligence, and fiery energy
were all concentrated in the endeavour to make people see in
their minds the histrionic presentation of such fit histrionio
subjects as dances of sylphs, processions of pilgrims, and orgies
of brigands. Even the colossal dimensions of his orchestra,
with its many square yards of drum surface, and its crowds
of shining yellow brass instruments, is mainly the product of
his insatiable theatrical thirst. It imposes upon the composer
himself as much as it imposes upon his audience, by looking
so very big and bristling to the eye of the imagination. But
though it makes a great noise, and works on the raw impres-
sionable side of human creatures, and excites them to an
abnormal degree, the effect his music produces is not really
so imposing as that of things which make much less show —
for instance, the opening of Beethoven's Bt^ Symphony, which
requires only seven different instruments to play it, and if
278 THE ART OF MUSIC
all pianissimo. The means are in excess of the requirements j
or rather what should be means become requirements, because
the effect is made by the actual sound of the instruments, and
often not at all by the music which they are the means of
expressing. And this aspect of Berlioz's work is even more
noteworthy in relation to modern musical development than
the fact that he uniformly adopted a programme for his in-
strumental works. He was a man of unusually excitable
sensibility, and the tone of instruments appealed to him more
than any other feature in music. He was also a man of
literary tastes, and had no inconsiderable gifts in that line,
and was more excited by the notion of what music might be
brought to express than by the music itself. The result of
such influences and predispositions was to impel him to
endeavour to express literary or theatrical ideas in terms
of colour and rhythm., J He was the first composer who
emphasised the element of instrumental tone quality or
colour to such an extent; and so strong was his predis-
position in this direction, that it can easily be seen that he
often speculated in original effects of colour, and afterwards
evolved or worked up -musical ideas to fit into them, just
as a painter might cover his canvas with the strangest tints
he could devise, and work them up into a subject -picture or a
landscape afterwards. But quite independent of these very
marked peculiarities in his character, his genius and originality
are incontestable. When the spirit of a situation like the
opening scene of "Faust" or Margaret's meditation in the
prison inspired him wholesomely, he was capable of rising to
very high and genuinely musical conceptions.
The sum total of his work is one of the wonders of the art
— unique in its weirdness and picturesqueness ; and notable
for the intense care with which every detail that ministers to
effect is thought out. Not only are the scores very compli-
cated in respect of the figures and rhythms of the actual
music; but they are full of minute directions as to the
manner of performance; extending to the putting of wind
instruments in bags, and playing drums with sticks with
sponge at the end, and many other original contrivances
MODERN TENDENCIES 279
The tendency to exaggeration is all of a piece with the high
tension of his nervous organisation ; but inasmuch as the
whole object is to intensify characteristic expression in every
conceivable manner, his work is very noteworthy as an illustra-
tion of the general tendencies of modern art since Beethoven.
His methods have not found any very conspicuous imitators,
though some very successful French composers have learnt a
great deal from him in many ways. Indeed the modern
French have more natural gift for colour, and a greater love
for it, than for any other department of art. It appears to
express most exactly their peculiarly lively sensibility ; and
their passion for it, and for what they call chic, has enabled
them to develop in recent times a style of orchestration
which is quite their own, and is generally very neat, graceful,
finished, and telling, especially for lighter kinds of music and
for opera.
Even that very serious and reserved branch of art, the
oratorio, was influenced by such tendencies of modern art,
and gained a new lease of life through the development of
richer means of effective expression. The oratorio had almost
collapsed after the time of Handel and Bach, for the universal
domination of Italian operatic style affected it more vitally
than any other branch of art. The growth of the singularly
perverted taste for having church music in the same style as
opera, with set arias for " prima donnas " at what might be
expected to be extremely solemn moments, and the emptiest
and baldest commonplace harmonisation in place of the old
polyphonic choral music, affected oratorio almost fatally. For
though oratorio was not necessarily a part of any ecclesiastical
function, its associations were of a religious order, and the
style was closely assimilated to that of the various works
written for church use. But it could not afford to be as
empty as either church music or opera, for it stands mainly
on its own footing; and if the music is not interesting in
itself, there is neither scenic effect, nor action, nor the glamour
of an ancient ceremonial to help it out. Other conditions told
in the same direction ; for it is probable that people did not
use performances of oratorios quite so much as operas for
19
28o THE ART OP MUSIC
fashionable gatherings and gossip ; and if the music was
tiresome they were bound to become aware of it. Hence the
formality of the arias which were introduced, and the graceful
futility of the Italian style in general, had full effect, and
oratorios fell completely into the background. People would
not listen to things in the lofty style of Bach's Passions, and
bo composers were driven to write things that were not worth
listening to at all. Composers like Philip Emmanuel Bach,
who tried to put good work into their oratorios, wasted their
efforts ; for even they had to put in some of the usual arias
as a sop to the public, and the conventional stiffness of that
form ultimately counterbalanced the parts of their works
which were of superior quality.
It was not until operatic art had had the benefit of Gluck's
reforms and Mozart's improvements, and the arts of orchestra-
tion had been substantially founded upon definitely modern
lines, that a revival became possible. Quite at the end of
the eighteenth century the appearance of Haydn's " Creation "
serves as a sort of landmark of the new departure. It is full
of obvious traces of operatic influence in the forms of the
movements and the style. But the sincere peasant-nature of
the great composer gave a special flavour even to the florid
and conventional airs, which distinguishes them from the
ordinary types, and gives them a characteristic ring which
the world was not slow to recognise. Moreover, his ex-
perience of Handel's choral work while in London inspired
him to treat his choruses in a more animated style than usual,
and his great skill and experience in orchestration enabled
him to make the most of that important element of effect ;
and so, after a long period of coma, the oratorio form was felt
to have come to life again. The traces of operatic style are
strongly apparent in Beethoven's " Engedi," but the dramatic
character and picturesqueness of some of the c'otails quite
distinguish it from earlier works, though it is by no means
among the great master's most happy productions. The
emancipation from Italian operatic influence becomes more
complete in Spohr's works of this kind. Being a Protestant,
he escaped the influence of the Italianised music of the Roman
MODERN TENDENCIES 28 I
Church, and learned to see things in the same sort of light
as J. S. Bach. His treatment of the choral portions of his
oratorios is much more like what such work ought to be; and
there was just sufficient dramatic sense and sentiment in his
disposition to enable him to deal with his subjects char-
acteristically and consistently ; while his very exceptional
gifts as a master of orchestral effect placed in his hands one
at least of the most prominent of the new resources which
brought about the revival of this form of art. The impulse
to cultivate oratorio took special hold of Protestant countries,
and those which were the homes of the higher orders of in-
strumental music — such as the symphony and various forms
of chamber music; and the first important crisis in the
modern story of oratorio is undoubtedly centred in the work
of Mendelssohn in that department. He was one of the
earliest of modern musicians to become intimate with J. S.
Bach's work, and to a certain extent to understand it. His
insight was keen enough to see the wonderful interest of
the Passion-music type, and the possibility of adapting it
to modern conditions ; while Bach's intensely earnest style
served him as an inspiring example. His critical feeling
waa subtle enough to hit the true standard of style, just
poised half-way between the strict clearness and reserve of
instrumental music and the loose texture of the dramatic
style ; and hie scheme proved so generally successful that it
has served most composers as a model ever since the appear-
ance of " Elijah" and "St. Paul." The works are so well known
that it is hardly necessary to point out the degree in which
they make for expression rather than for mere technical
effect. To many people they have long formed the ideal of
what such expression ought to be. Mendelssohn undoubtedly
emphasised melody, but by no means to the exclusion of other
means of expression. He waa one of the few composers to
whom, in his best moments, all the resources of art were
equally available. His choral writing was on the whole the
most praf'acal and most fluent that had been seen since Handel
and Bach, and for mastery of orchestral effect he had no real
superior in his time. His harmony is full of variety and
282 THE ART OF MUSIC
sufficiently forcible; and his facility in melody quite un.
limited. He applied his resources almost to the highest
degree of which he was capable in this line of art, and it
naturally followed that his solution of the problem of oratorio
has satisfied the constant and exacting scrutiny of most
musicians ever since.
To make this the better understood it will be as well to con-
sider shortly what are the conditions which govern the style
and scheme of oratorio. The essence of the situation is the
intention to present a dramatic story in a musical setting with-
out action. The absence of scenic accessories, and of all such
things as are conveyed to the mind and feelings through the
eyes, has drawn the form in the same direction as abstract
instrumental music ; for people are more critical about details
when their whole attention is concentrated on the music than
when it is distracted by other elements of effect. So that
oratorio has been found to require more definite and clear
forms and more distinct articulation in minutiae than opera.
In opera slovenly workmanship has generally been preferred
by the public to artistic finish which bores and distracts them
from the play. In oratorio slovenly workmanship or faulty
designing cannot long pass without being resented. And
moreover, the conditions are more favourable for careful and
scrupulous artistic work. The absence of action reduces the
stringency of the need to keep the music continuously going.
In opera the action is impeded and weakened by breaking up
the music into disconnected pieces, however finished and beau-
tiful they may be in detail ; but in oratorio it is a distinct
advantage to have breaks that rest the mind and even to em-
phasise points in the movements themselves by occasional and
discreet repetition. So that it is not only necessary to make
design clear and artistic workmanship thorough, but the situa-
tion actually gains by the use of set forms which render such
treatment possible. On the other hand, in point of style and
dramatic force oratorio is much more limited than opera.
Even positively vulgar music is sometimes defensible in con-
nection with the stage when a character is presented in tha
drama who would not be completely represented in the musi«
MODERN TENDENCIES 283
associated with him without some suggestion of his vulgar side.
And a much more undisguised use of frank appeals to the
unsophisticated animal side in man has always been tolerated,
even generally welcomed, in operatic matters. But in oratorio
such things would soon betray their artistic falseness. The
ignoble has very often to be dealt with on the stage, but in
the music of the concert-room the responsibilities of a great
and serious form like oratorio cut composers off from every-
thing that is not in a high sense dignified and elevated. But
as a compensation the resources of oratorio are much more
elastic. In opera the attention is centred upon the individual
singers and their stage fortunes ; and the chorus, who cannot
learn anything at all complicated by heart, are little better
than lay figures. But in oratorio the prominence of the soloists
is immensely toned down, and is more on a level with the
other elements of effect ; and the form of art is in no respect
more strongly distinguished from all other branches of music
than by the inevitable prominence of that democratic element,
the chorus.*
In the oratorio of the eighteenth century the chorus
generally had but a very perfunctory share. They had to
sing things which were intended to be inspiring, but were
in reality quite mechanical — such things as formal theorists'
fugues, and movements consisting of mere successions of
chords, with a great deal of dull note-repetition to fit the
syllables, and no individuality in the parts at all — such as
the passage " Jam plebis devote canentis una est vox, exaudi
precantes exaudi," &c, in Mozart's " Splendente te." The
comprehensive change of the whole aspect of the chorus is
one of the most significant features of modern art ; and
Dothing emphasises more signally the change from the formal
to the spiritual. Composers did not always take a perfunc-
tory view of the possibilities of chorus in the formal a.
Mozart's splendid conception of "Rex tremendffl majestati> "
• It is perhaps worth while to remark in passing that the element ol
the ohoras haa always thriven best in societies and branches of socif harmonic design and
colour which have become part of modern musical life. Later
composers have aimed at supplying a * 1 1 varieties of tastes with
pianoforte music which is for home consumption; and inas-
much as this implies dealing with characteristics at close
quarters, and addressing themselves to an infinite variety of
small groups of individuals, the circumstances have produced
a wider range of characteristics in pianoforte music than in
any other branch of the art. What people like to have at
home is the true test of their standard of refinement. The
diversity is obviously immense; ranging from Bach and
Beethoven to mere arrangements of popular items from the
latest Italian opera, or the buffoonery of nigger minstrels.
And this happily illustrates the process of constant differen-
tiation which is characteristic of evolution ; for indeed the
growth of diversity of character in such tilings has become
so extensive that in these days nearly every taste can be
satisfied.
To come finally to the working of the influences which have
made modern pianoforte music what it is under these circum-
stances. In Beethoven's work the world felt that the high
water mark of well-balanced art and expression in sonata form
had been reached. Certain expansions of it were, no doubt,
possible; and in such branches as quartetts, trios, and other
forms of pianoforte chamber music which are cast in "sonata
forms," there still is vitality. But in essentially pianoforte
music it was not worth while to do again what had been
as well as seems humanly possible. Moreover, oomposeri have
become conscious that the sonata form is spread rather wide,
and is best suited for rather special 1 and further,
that it is not quite perfectly suited to many modern tyj
thought which are quite fit to be treated musically, though
not at such great length. And so there has grown up a common
20
296 THE ART OF MUSIC
consensus of opinion to explore new possibilities of design
and expression. And here men of various types have neces-
sarily taken various lines. There were all sorts of ways in
which new departures might be made. Some men delight in
neatness of design, some in ardent expression, some in inge-
nuity, and some in display. All types found their exponents.
Schubert left many beautiful little movements in very character-
istic style ; Field made an important mark with his nocturnes ;
even studies were made to have a poetical aspect in the hands
of J. B. Cramer ; while Mendelssohn came very prominently
before the world in a similarly independent line with his
" Lieder ohne Worte," which rightly took a very comprehen-
sive hold upon the artistic public through their thoroughly
refined character and the finished qualities of their art. It is
patent to all the world that even these last are totally different
in form as well as expression from sonatas. Their title admir-
ably expresses them, and the more so if it be remembered that
" Song " has come to mean something quite different from
the old conception ; and implies a work of art in which all
the factors — melody, harmony, figure, rhythm — are combined
to the common end. Under such conditions, when the name
" Song " had become almost inappropriate, a " Song without
words " is not such an anomaly as it would have been in
less developed stages of art. Mendelssohn, however, as was
natural in his days, rather emphasised the melody which is
the counterpart of the absent voice, and thereby somewhat
restricted his resources of expression ; so his work may be
said to lean in the formal direction more than many later
productions.
Of conspicuously different type were the wild theories of a
certain group of enthusiasts, whose eagerness to solve artistic
problems was in excess of their hold upon the possibilities and
resources of art. They emphasised unduly the expressive aims
of Beethoven, and thought it possible to follow him in that
respect without regard to his principles of design ; and sought
to develop a new line of art by the use of clearly marked musical
figures, which were to be presented in an endless variety of
guises in accordance with some supposed programme. Tha
MODERN TKNDRNCIE8 297
aspiring innovators recognised the expressive possibilities of
music to the fullest possible extent, and their efforts might have
«ome to a more successful issue but for two circumstances.
One of these was that through taking the superficial theorists'
view of sonata form to represent all the facts, they entirely
overlooked the deeper principles, and rejected those deeper
principles along with some of the superficial conventions of
the theorists. And this rendered the failure of their scheme
inevitable until they arrived at a better understanding of the
situation. The second circumstance was the accident that
they were closely connected with the most advanced school
of technicians ; indeed, one of the foremost representatives of
their views was the greatest pianoforte virtuoso of modern
times; and the outcome of this connection was that their
reforming efforts were completely drowned and extinguished
by the flood of ornamental rhetoric to which the abnormal
development of pure technical facility in performance gave risa
Nearly all the energy of composers of this section of humanity
was expended in finding ways to make scales and arpeggios
sound more astonishing than they used to do when they were
played in the old-fashioned ways ; and further, of finding oppor-
tunities for showing off such futile dexterities. It so happens
that their root theory of working up figures and fragments
of tune into programme movements adapts itself well to the
requirements of display. It is only people of inferior organisa-
tion who are taken in by such empty extravagance of barren
ornament ; and for people of that type tunes out of operas
which they already know, or familiar popular tunes, are the
most intelligible forms of musical material So, when a com-
poser of this school addressed himself to his task of showing
off the new kinds of scales and arpeggios, he had only to
collect a few familiar tunes and intersperse them with all
the ornamental resources of which he was master, and the
scheme was complete. Curiously enough, though works of such
kind are totally worthless intrinsically, the skill which the
composers developed in technique materially widened the re-
sources of effect which thereby became available for better
composers to use. In that sense the development of technique,
298 THE ART OF MUSIC
and of the effect which comes of it, is of great historical
importance ; and his achievements in that direction give
Liszt a noteworthy position quite apart from the actual
quality of his musical effusions. He, indeed, summed up a
great period of brilliant development of pianoforte technique,
and put the crown on that branch of music.
However, the result of technical development has not been
all gain. It has been carried to such an excessive extent
that pianoforte music has been rather overburdened than
benefited by it. A faulty tradition has got into the very
marrow of this branch of art, and a composer has to address
himself so much to technical effect that there is little energy
left over for genuine expression.
But by the side of the school of virtuosi, and in touch with
it, the spirit of Chopin has laid a spell upon musical people
all the world over, and has coloured a singularly wide range
of musical activity in all countries. His circumstances were
specially suited to the necessities of the moment. The Poles
are peculiarly different from the more happily regulated races
of the western part of Europe ; and the fact of having been
unfortunate in their relations with their most powerful neigh-
bours has intensified nationalist feeling. Such feeling, when
repressed, generally bursts into song, and very often into very
expressive song; and in Chopin's time everything combined
to enhance the vividness and individuality of Polish music.
Chopin, with Polish blood in his veins, and brought up in
pure Polish surroundings, absorbed the national influences
from his early years. Under such circumstances a national
dance becomes a vital reality of more than ordinary calibre
A mazurka was a rhythmic expression of the national
fervour. A polonaise symbolised the exaggerated glories
of the Polish chivalric aristocracy. Music which was so
vivid and direct, and had such a touch of savage fervour,
was not of the kind to go satisfactorily into sonatas. There
needed to be very little intellectuality about it, but a great
deal of the rhythmic element and of poetic feeling, and these
things Chopin was eminently fitted to supply. On the other
hand, his sensitiveness was acute even to morbidity; and being
MODERN TENDENCIES 299
less gifted with force and energy than with excitability, he
applied himself instinctively to the more delicate possibilities
of his instrument. With him ornamental profusion was a
necessity ; but, more than with any other composer except
Bach, it formed a part of his poetical thought. With most of
the player-composers who cultivate virtuoso effects the brilliant
passages are purely mechanical, and have little relation to the
musical matter in hand. With Chopin the very idea is often
stated in terms of most graceful and finished ornamentation,
such as is mo6t peculiarly suited to the genius of the instru-
ment. Beethoven had grown more and more conscious of the
suitableness of very rapid notes to the pianoforte as his experi-
ence and understanding of the instrument increased, and he
had tried (in a different manner from Chopin) to achieve the
same ends. But the reserve and grandeur of his style did not
admit of the sort of ornaments that Chopin used ; for these
are made peculiarly vivid by profuse use of semitones and
accessory notes of all kinds, which do not form part either
of the harmony or the diatonic scale in which the pas
occur. It gives a peculiarly dazzling, oriental flavour to the
whole, which, joined with a certain luxurious indolence, a
dreaminess of sentiment, and a subtlety of tone, makes
Chopin's the ideal music for the drawing-rooms of fairly re-
fined and prosperous people. But there is enough of genuine
humanity and dramatic feeling to make his works appeal to
a larger public than mere frequenters of drawing-rooms.
There are even passages of savagery, such as those in the
polonaises in A^ and F£ minor, which sound like some echo
from a distant country, and ring of the proud fervour of patriotic
enthusiasm. The "Ballades" and so-called Sonatas and Scherzos
convey a rich variety of moods and effects on a considerable
scale, while the nocturnes, and some of the preludes and
mazurkas, exactly hit the sensuous perceptions which are so
highly developed in modern life. Fortunately, with Chopin the
general departure from sonata lines was no result of theory,
but the spontaneous action of his nature. His music was the
spontaneous utterance of a poetic and sensitive disposition,
in the terms ideally suited to the instrument whose inner
300 THE ART OF MUSIC
most capacities he understood more thoroughly than any ona
else in the world. Design of a classical kind was compara-
tively unimportant to him. He did not know much about it.
But he most frequently cast his thoughts in simple forme,
such as that of the nocturne — which Field had brought suc-
cessfully into vogue just before his time — or the ordinary
forms of the dance. When he struck out a form for him-
self, as in some of the best preludes and studies, it was like
a poem on new lines. But the methods by which they were
unified were much the same as those employed by J. S. Bach
in his Preludes. Only in respect of their much more vivid
colour, and intensity of feeling for modern expression, do they
differ from the far more austere master. Of the degree
in which expression is emphasised rather than form there
can hardly be a question. But when the form is original it
is extraordinarily well adapted to the style of the expression ;
as, for instance, in the preludes in E minor and D minor,
where the form and expression are as closely wedded as in
the most skilful and condensed poetical lyric. But such types
of thought could not be expanded into great schemes of design.
His largest works in original forms are the Ballades, and
these are as unlike sonatas as any. The whole collection of his
works is an illustration of the wide spread of possible variety
which the new departure in the direction of expression, after
the formal age, made inevitable.
Utterly different as was the nature of Schumann, his work
in general tends in the same direction ; and, as it were, fills
up the other half of the circle which Chopin left comparatively
vacant. Schumann was a typical Teuton in his introspective
disposition, his mystic imaginings, his depth of earnestness.
The rhythmic side of music did not appeal to him with any-
thing like the elastic, nervous intensity with which it excited
a Pole, but rather with the solemnity and orderliness of a
German waltz. His natural sphere was rather the type of
music which belongs to the reflective mind ; and the types of
thought, both emotional and noble, which appeal to a culti-
vated intellectualist. As it was not intended to make music
his life's occupation, his education in his art was not as com*
MODERN TENDENCIES 301
plete and thorough as that of many other composers ; but it
brought him into closer contact with the expression of human
feeling in poetic forms and in general literature, and forced
him to take an unconventional view of his art. He saw from
the first that something different from sonatas was wanted ;
and though he did write a few sonatas, the one that is most
like the old sonatas, though brilliant in effect, is rather weak
in design ; while the sonata in Fit minor is a deliberate attempt
to distribute the ideas in a manner totally different from the
old sonata order. In forms which afforded some fresh oppor-
tunities for treatment and effect, as in the quintett and quar-
tett in Eb, he is very much more successful in contriving
something like the old sonata forms ; but in the main his
works for the pianoforte are attempts to open up a new path,
and to increase the variety of types of form and expression in
music. To a great many of his epigrammatic musical poems
he affixes names — such as the familiar " Warum," "Traumes-
wirren," "Grillen"; the numbers of Carnival figures, the
beautifully finished and neatly expressive Kinderscenen ; in
some cases he gives no names to individual numbers, but
makes it very clearly felt that he has a decided poetic pur-
pose, as in the Kreisleriana and the Davids- biindler. More-
over, the general names he gave to these sets supply the
clues to those who know his particular lines of reading, and
his special enthusiasms at particular times in his life, and
indicate what he meant to express by them. In other cases
he gives general names, such as Novelletten, to imply new
experiments in form without so much of an acknowledged
poetic purpose. In the case of the fantasia in C, he tried to
develop a work on a scale fully equal to sonatas, but totally
different in character and principle of design. In most of
these works his idea seems to be to give the full sense of de-
sign by the juxtaposition of ideas which illustrate one another
in a poetical sense, and to contrive their connection by means
which are in consonance with the spirit of the ideas, or by
making some characteristic musical figure into a sort of text
which pervades the tissue of the whole. The experiments
art so far novel that it is almost too much to expect of them
302 THE ART OF MUSIC
to be always entirely successful. But at least in the last
movement of the fantasia, the novel principle of design and
the development of the whole scheme is as successful as the
ideas themselves are beautiful and poetical.
Schumann, like Beethoven, revels in a mass of sound. But
his sound is far more sensuous and chromatic. He loved to
use all the pedal that was possible, and had but little objection to
hearing all the notes of the scale sounding at once. He is said to
have liked dreaming to himself, by rambling through all sorts
of harmonies with the pedal down ; and the glamour of cross-
ing rhythms and the sounding of clashing and antagonistic
notes was most thoroughly adapted to his nature. A certain
confusion of many factors, a luxury of conflicting elements
which somehow make a unity in the end, serves admirably to
express the complicated nature of the feelings and sensibilities
and thoughts of highly-organised beings in modern times.
Chopin's style has coloured almost all pianoforte music since
his time, in respect of the manner and treatment of the in-
strument ; and many successful composers are content merely
to reproduce his individualities in a diluted form. But Schu-
mann has exerted more influence in respect of matter and
treatment of design. With him the substance is of much
greater significance, and he reaches to much greater depths of
genuine feeling. There must necessarily be varieties of music
to suit all sorts of different types of mind and organisation,
and Chopin and Schumann are both better adapted to culti-
vated and poetic natures than to simple unsophisticated dis-
positions. That is one of the necessities of differentiation ;
and music which is concentrated in some especial direction can
only meet with response from those who possess the sensitive
chord that the music is intended to touch. There are natures
copious enough to have full sympathy with the dreamers as
well as the workers ; but as a rule the world is divided be-
tween the two. People who love much imagery and luxury of
sensation do not want to listen to Cherubini's best counter-
point, and those who only love energy and vital force do not
want to listen to the love scenes in the Walkiire. But ai
illustrating the profusion of sensations, the poetic sensibility,
MODERN TENDENCIES 303
and even the luxury and intellectuality, the passion and the
eagerness of modern life, Chopin and Schumann between them
cover the ground more completely than all the rest of modern
pianoforte composers put together.
For greatness of expression and novelty of treatment Jo-
hannes Brahms stands out absolutely alone since their time.
Disdaining the ornamental aspects of pianoforte music, he has
had to find out a special technique of his own ; and in order
to find means to express the very original and powerful
thoughts that are in him, he resorts to devices which tax the
resources of the most capable pianists to the utmost More-
over, he taxes the power of the interpreter also ; which is a
thing a great many virtuosi pianists are not prepared for.
There is something austerely noble about his methods, which
makes thought and manner perfectly consistent ; and though
it cannot be said that his line of work is so easily identifiable
with the general tendency towards independence of design, he
has produced many works that are decidedly not on the line
of sonatas — such as his Rhapsodies and Clavier-Stiicke and
Intermezzi ; all instinct with the definiteness and decisive-
ness of individuality which mark him as an outlying repre-
sentative of the great family of Teutonic musical giants.
The aspect of pianoforte music in general seems to indicate
that composers are agreed that the day for writing sonatas is
past, and that forms of instrumental music must be more closely
identified with the thoughts or moods which are expressed in
them. The resources of harmonic and polyphonic effect, com-
bined with rhythm and melody, are much richer than the
resources of simple accompanied melody; and the growth of
fresh resources is by no means at an end. There is plenty of
room for characteristic work. Composers have begun to im-
port national traits into their pianoforte compositions with
perfect success; and the identifying of a nation's essential
character with its music can be aptly and very considerably
extended in pianoforte music as in other branches of art. The
neld of characteristic musical expression is certainly not ex-
hausted ; and composers who have any gift for devising con-
sisifcot and compact forms which are perfectly adapted to th«
304 THE ART OF MUSIC
mood of their ideas, have still room to achieve something ne\*
in the most interesting modern phases of art. The sonata
type was no doubt adapted to the highest and noblest kind of
musical expression ; and it is not likely that anything so noble
and so perfect in design as Beethoven's work will be seen in
the world for a long while. But even if illustrations have not
so elevated a dignity as the works of a great artistic period,
they may serve excellent purposes, and be in every way admi-
rable, and permanently interesting and enjoyable, if they are
carried out with fair understanding of the true necessities of
the situation, and with the sincerity of the true artistic spirit.
One of the most obvious features of the modern condition
of music is the extraordinary diversity of forms which have
become perfectly distinct, from symphony, symphonic poem,
and opera, down to the sentimental ballad of the drawing-
rooms. And in all of them it is not only the type of design
which has become distinctive, but the style as well. For
instance, one of the branches of music which is still most
vigorously alive is chamber music, which consists mainly of
combinations of varieties of solo stringed or wind instruments,
with pianoforte, in works written on the lines of sonatas. Its
present activity is partly owing to the fact that it has rather
changed its status from being real chamber music, and is
becoming essentially concert music. The instruments are
treated with less delicacy of detail than they were by
Beethoven, with a view to obtain the sonority suitable to
large rooms. The style has therefore necessarily changed to
a great extent ; but nevertheless it is still as closely differen-
tiated from the style of all other branches of art as ever. A
touch of the operatic manner instantly betrays itself as in-
consistent, and so do the devices of symphonic orchestraticn.
Even the national tunes, and the original subjects which belong
to that type, which are such a welcome and characteristic
feature in Dvorak's works of this order, are so transformed
and translated by the subtle genius of the composer into terms
which are apt to the style of this highly specialised branch of
art, that the remoteness and diversity of the branch of art from
which they spring is almost forgotten. In other lines the same
MODERN TENDENCIES 305
law holds good. The features of brilliant and vivacious fanei
which adorn the orchestral works of the Bohemian master —
probably the greatest living master of orchestral effi
like manner translated into the terms suited to the particular
branch of art he is dealing with. And even the wil.l axperi
ments of younger aspirants after a poetical reputation and
picturesquely astonishing novelty unconsciously fall into line
with the limitations of style and diction which are charac-
teristic of their branch of musical utterance.
Thus there is an average mood aud style of idea which
composers have instinctively adopted for each branch of art,
so that the examples of different orders are distinct not only
in technical details but in spirit. And moreover, even in the
highest branches of art, represented by the noble symphonies
of Brahms, which illustrate the loftiest standard of style of
the day, the significant change from the old ideals in respect
of subject-matter is noticeable. For the aim in his works on
the grandest scale is but rarely after what, is equivalent to
external beauty in music. What beauty is aimed at La ■
of thought, the beauty of nobleness, aud high musical intelli-
gence. Even beauty of colour is but rarely present ; but the
colours are always characteristic, and confirm the reality of
the powerful and expressive ideas. So the rule holds
even in the most austere lines, that the latest phase of art is
characterisation
CHAPTER XIV
MODERN PHASES OF OPERA
Gluck's theories of reform had strangely little effect upon the
course of opera for a long while. The resources of art were
not sufficiently developed to make them fully practicable, and
even if they had been, it is quite clear that in many quarters
they would not have been adopted. The problem to be solved
in fitting intelligible music to intelligible drama is one of the
most complicated and delicate ever undertaken by man ; and
the solution is made all the more difficult through the fact
that the kind of public who frequent operas do not in the least
care to have it solved. Operatic audiences have always had
the lowest standard of taste of any section of human beings
calling themselves musical. They generally have a gross
appetite for anything, so long as it is not intrinsically good.
If the music is good they have to be forced to accept it by
various forms of persuasion j and a composer who attempts
any kind of artistic thoroughness has to look forward either
to failure, or to the disagreeable task of insisting on being
heard. It follows that progress towards any ideal assimilation
of the various factors of operatic effect has to be achieved in
spite of the taste of the audiences, and by the will and deter-
mination which is the outcome of a composer's conviction.
Nations vary very much in their capacity to take sensible
views of things, as they do in their capacity for enjoying
shams and taking base metal for gold ; so a composer'** oppor-
tunities of emancipating himself from convention, *n<* of
solving the problems he sees to be worth solving, ar*» nrnch
better in one country than another. It is conspicuously Wue
in operatic matters that the public decide what they will h»ve,
MODERN PHASES OP OPERA 307
unless a man is strong enough to force them to listen to what
they have at first no mind for ; and even then the public have,
as it were, a casting vote.
It cannot be pretended that all the causes of the different
aspects of opera in different countries can be conclusively
shown ; but the general and familiar facts are strangely in
accordance with the general traits of national character which
are commonly observed. The Italians appear to have been
the most spontaneously gifted with artistic capabilities of anv
nation in Europe. In painting they occupy almost the whole
field of the greatest and most perfect art; especially of the
art produced in the times when simple beauty of form and
colour was the main object of artists. In music too they
started every form of modern art. Opera, oratorio, cantata,
symphony, organ music, violin music, all sprang into life under
their auspices. But in every branch they stopped half-way,
when the possibilities of art were but half explored, and left it
to other nations to gather the fruit of the tree which they had
planted. Numbers of causes combine to make this invariable
result. One of the most prominent is curiously illustrated by
the history of opera. The Italians are generally reputed to
be on the average very receptive and quickly excitable. The
eagerness of composers for sympathetic response is found
in the same quarters as quick receptiveness of audiences
to the music that suits them. The impressions which
are quickly produced do not always spring from the most
artistic qualities. But the Italian composer cannot take note
of that ; he is passionately eager for sympathy and applause,
and is impelled to use all the most obvious incitements to
obtain them, without consideration of their fitness. The
way in which Italian opera composers resort to the most
direct means to excite their audiences is a commonplace
of everyday observation. The type of opera aria, which was
polished and made more and more perfectly adapted to the
requirements of the singer from Scarlatti's time to Mozart's,
was ultimately degraded, under the influence of this eager-
ness for applause, into the obvious, catchy opera tunes which
are the most familiar features of the works of the early
308 THE ART OF MUSIC
part of this century. The good artistic work which used
to be put into the accompaniment, and was often written
in a contrapuntal form by the composers of the best time,
degenerated into worthless jigging formulas, like the accom-
paniments to dance tunes, which have neither artistic purpose
nor characteristic relevancy to the situation. The blustering
and raging of brass instruments when there is no excuse for
it in the dramatic situation, and such tricks as the whirling
Rossinian crescendo (which is like a dance of dervishes all
about nothing), produce physical excitement without any
simultaneous exaltation of higher faculties. These and many
more features of the same calibre are the fruits of the exces-
sive eagerness in the composer for immediate sympathetic
response from his audience. He has no power to be self-
dependent, or to take his own view of what is worthy of
art or what is not, or of what represents his own identity.
The thirst for the passionate joy of a popular triumph must
have its satisfaction. What men constantly set themselves
to obtain they generally succeed in obtaining; and the
objects of Italian opera composers have been abundantly
achieved. The furore of Italian operatic triumphs, such
as the Rossini fever after Tancredi, surpasses anything re-
corded or conceivable in connection with any other branch
of art. The opera tunes of Bellini, Donizetti, and the early
works of Verdi have appealed to the largest public ever
addressed by a musician ; and that was till recently the
sum of their contribution towards the modern development
of their art. In respect of the details of workmanship of
which their public were not likely to take much notice,
such as the orchestration, they were careless and coarse ;
and the advance made from the standard of Mozart all round
until recent times was made backwards.
The Italians emphasised the musical means of appealing
to their audiences from the first; the French, on the other
hand, always had more feeling for the drama, and stage effect,
and ballet. Though the stories of Roland, Armide, Phaeton,
and the other subjects Lulli used are somewhat formal in their
method of presentation, they are made quite intelligible, and
MODERN PHASES OF OPERA 309
the sitoations are often very good, and very well treated. In
that sense, indeed, Lulli's work is more genuine than Sc&rlattft,
The same aspect of things continues throughout the history of
French opera. French audiences seem to have been capable of
being impressed by the pathos, tragedy, and human interest
and beauty of the situations Their minds seem to have been
projected more towards the subject than the music. Clink's
dramatic purpose found a response in Paris that he failed
to find even in Vienna, where Italian traditions prevailed.
Things would seem to have bid fair in the end for French
opera. When Italians came under French influence they did
good work. French influence helped Cherubini to achieve his
great operatic successes. Perhaps the enigmatical relation
between his reputed character and his actual work may have
been 6omewhat owing to Parisian influence. Personally he
appeared to be endowed with all the pride, reserve, and
narrowness of a pedant, yet his Overture to Anacreon is as
genial as the ancient poet himself may be assumed to have
been, and expresses all the fragrance and sparkle of the wine
of which he sang with such enthusiasm. He was cold and
hard and devoid of sympathetic human nature, but never-
theless he devised the tragic intensity of his opera Medea
with unquestionable success.
In later days the influence exerted by French taste upon
Rossini is even more notable and pregnant with meaning,
After his wild triumphs in Italy he came into contact with the
French operatic traditions, and they at once brought out what-
ever there was of real dramatic sincerity in his constitution.
"William Tell," the one work which he wrote for a Parisian
audience, puts him in quite a new light; for under the influ-
ence of a more genuinely dramatic impulse even his artistic
work improved ; the orchestration becomes quite interesting,
the type of musical ideas is better, and they are better ex-
pressed, and the general feeling of the whole is more sine re
and rich in feeling.
In light comic operettas and operatic comedies the acute
sympathy of the French with the stage produced the happiest
results of alL In this line the French took their cue from the
310 THE ART OF MUSIC
Italian opera buffa, which had been introduced a little before
Gluck'8 time, and became very noticeable by reason of the
ferment of controversy that it produced. Once rooted in the
soil and cultivated by French composers, it was found to be
even more at home than in Italy. The quick wit, and the
sense of finish — even the element of the superficial Tchich the
French cultivate with so much interest and care — all told to
make the product peculiarly happy. A special style was de-
veloped, which in the hands of many composers was singularly
refined, neat, and perfectly artistic. The music is merry, and
attains the true comedy vein without descending to buffoonery ;
carelessly gay, without being inartistic in detail. In the early
days no doubt the resources of art were not very carefully
used ; and however excellent the spirit and wit of Gre"try, it
cannot be pretended that he attempted to deal with the inner
and less obvious phases of his work with any artistic complete-
ness. He professedly contemned musicianship, and in a sense
he was right. The typical pedant never shows more truly the
inherent stupidity of his nature than when he obtrudes con-
scious artistic contrivance into light subjects. But the perfect
mastery of artistic resource does not obtrude its artistic con-
trivances. It uses them so well that they are perfectly
merged in the general effect. The fact that Bach was the
most perfect master of artistic contrivance did not prevent
his writing perfectly gay dance tunes ; and Mozart's careful
education in the mysteries of his craft enabled him to write
his comic scenes in a fully artistic manner, without putting
up sign-posts to tell people when to look out for a piece of
artistic skill. In that respect Gretry was wrong, and his
successors much wiser. For men like Auber and Bizet and
Gounod, and other still living representatives of this branch
of art, use the resources of their orchestra with most consum-
mate skill at the lightest moments ; just hitting the balance
of art and gaiety to a nicety ; while the rounding and articu-
lation of their phraseology, the variety and clearness of their
ideas, and the excellence of their design, up to the point re-
quired in such work, is truly admirable. In no other branch
of music Lb the French genius so completely at home and
MODERN PHASES OF OPERA 3 I I
happy. Even in the coarser types of the same family ol
operetta, which have become rather popular in recent times,
the composers who set the licentious and unwholesomely sug-
gestive dialogue at least caught something of the spirit of their
more refined brethren, and showed a skill of instrumental re-
source and a neatness of musical expression and treatment
which are surprising in relation to such subjects. Whenever
the play aims at real human interest, and the capacity of the
composer for looking at it as human interest is equal to the
demand, French effort, even in the more serious branch of
opera, produces eminently sincere and artistic results. But
in the more serious subjects it has been generally happiest in
very reserved phases like those illustrated by Cherubini and
M6hul. The dangerous susceptibility of the French nature to
specious show and mere external effect seems peculiarly liable
to mislead them when it comes to great or imposing occasions.
The French are so devoted to "style" that they omit to notice
that it is a thing which may be very successfully cultivated to
disguise inherent depravity and falseness. It seems to be
chiefly owing to this weakness that the result of their enthu-
siasm for musical drama does not come nearer to the complete
solution of the problem of opera. At all events, the most
imposing result obtained in the direction of French opera is
strictly in accordance with those characteristics of the nation
which have persisted so long that they were even noticed by
the conquering Romans.
The influence is apparent even in Lulli's and Rameau's
work. The spectacular side is carefully attended to, and
forms a conspicuous element in the sum -total. Gluck had to
submit, and to satisfy the taste to a certain extent ; and its
effect is even more noticeable in the works of his successor,
Spontini. In many ways, however, French influence had an
excellent effect upon the latter composer. His operas are
singularly full of true dramatic expression ; the details of
orchestral effect are worked out with marvellous care, and are
extremely rich and full of variety for the time when he =vrote.
The scores are marked almost as fully and carefully as Wag
ner's, and the inner and outer phrases are thoroughly articu
21
312 THE ART OF MUSIC
late, and well suited to the instruments used. He wielded all
his resources with power and skill — chorus, soloists, and
orchestra alike. He saw his dramatic points clearly, and
often rose to a degree of real warmth and nobility of expres-
sion. But with all these excellences his tendency to the
pomp and circumstance of display is unmistakable. The situa-
tions are often really fine, but many of them are rather
weakened by being overdone. The coruscations of the long
ballets, the processions, the crowds of various nationalities,
and even the very tone and style of much of the music, show
clearly which way things are tending. The same specious ele-
ment of show peeps out now and then in the works of other
composers, such as Halevy ; and when ultimately the type of
man arrived who knew how to play upon the weak side of
French society's susceptibility to display, the true portent
arose ; and the crown which was put upon the long develop-
ment of French grand opera, and embodied most of the results
of French operatic aspiration, proved to be very imposing, but
not of the most perfect metal.
Meyerbeer was of the brilliantly clever type of humanity.
His gifts were various, and of a very high order. At first he
was known as a brilliant pianist, and was famous for his
quickness in reading from score. Then, a pianist's career
not appearing imposing enough for his aspirations, he con-
ceived the notion of becoming an opera composer. He tried
several styles in succession. First he wrote German operas,
without success. Then he went to Italy, and wrote operas
in the Italian style, and met with a good deal of success.
But as even this did not satisfy his aspirations, he in-
spected the situation in Paris, and seems to have made up
his mind that the audience there was just suited for him.
Indeed, the Oriental love of display which is so frequently
found still subsisting in people of Jewish descent marked
out Meyerbeer as essentially the man for the occasion. H«
is said to have studied things French with minute care —
both history and manners — and he made his first experiment
upon the Parisians in 1831 with "Robert le Diable," and
achieved full measure of success. At long intervals he fol-
MODERN PHASES OF OPERA 3 I 3
lowed it up with further experiments — " The Huguenots " in
1836, " Le Prophete " in 1849, and so on — till he had built
himself a monument so large that if size were any guarantee of
durability he would be as secure of perennial honour as Horace
himself.
The fact which is conspicuously emphasised by these works
is the gigantic development and variety of the resources of
effect in modern times. Meyerbeer thoroughly understood
the theatre, and he took infinite pains to carry out every
detail which served for theatrical effect. He tried and tested
his orchestral experiments again and again with tireless
patience. He had " L'Africaine " by him for at least twenty
years, and never got it up to the point of satisfying him,
and finally died before it was performed. He was so pain-
fully anxious that his effects should tell, that his existence at
the time when any new work was in preparation for perform-
ance is described as a perfect martyrdom. Beethoven, too, took
infinite pains, and wrote and rewrote constantly. But his
object was to get his ideas themselves as fine and as far from
commonplace expression as possible, and to get the balance
and design as perfect as his own critical instinct demanded.
Meyerbeer's object was to make the mere externals tell. He
did not care in the least whether his details were common-
place or not. His scores look elaborate and full of work, but
the details are the commonest arpeggios, familiar and hack-
neyed types of figurei of accompaniment, scales, and obvious
rhythms. Musically it is a huge pile of commonplaces, infi-
nitely ingenious, and barren. There is but little cohesion
between the scenes, and no attempt at consistency to the situa-
tions in style and expression. No doubt Meyerbeer had a
great sense of general effect. The music glitters and roars
and warbles in well-disposed contrasts, but the inner life is
wanting. It is the same with his treatment of his characters.
They metaphorically strut and pose and gesticulate, but
express next to nothing ; they get into frenzies, but are for
the most part incapable of human passion. The element of
wholesome musical sincerity is wanting in him, but the power
of astonishing and bewildering is almost unlimited. His
3 1 4 THE ART OF MUSIC
cleverness is equal to any emergency. For instance, when
a situation requires something impressive, and he has nothing
musical to supply, he takes refuge in a cadenza for a clarinet
or some other instrument, and the attention of the public
is engaged by their interest in the skill of the performer,
and forgets to notice that it has no possible relation to the
significance of the situation. The scenes are collections of
the most elaborate artifices carefully contrived and eminently
effective from the baldest theatrical point of view. But for
continuity, development, real feeling, nobility of expression,
greatness of thought, anything that may be truly honoured in
the observance, there is but the rarest trace. He studied his
audience carefully, developed his machinery with infinite pains,
carried out his aims, and succeeded in the way he desired.
No doubt his works are worth the amusement of getting up,
and of seeing and hearing also, because of the extraordinary
dexterity with which the immense resources are wielded ; but
it cannot be said that he attempted to face the problem of
musical drama at all. In that respect "Faust " and "Carmen "
are much nearer the mark. In both of these the types of
expression are infinitely more sincere, there is more artistic
work in the details, more genuine sense of characterisation, and
a much higher gift both of harmony and melody. Even the
feeling for instrumental effect is really much finer ; for there
is more of real beauty of sound and more indication of ability
to use colour to intensify situations. But in the end, neither
of these approaches the complete solution of the problem
The traditional formulas of cheap accompaniment, the laxness
in the treatment of inner minutiae, the set forms of arias, and
the detachable items that only hang together and are not
intrinsically continuous, and many other features of conven-
tion and habit, prevent their being acceptable as completely
satisfactory types of musical drama from the highest stand-
point.
Germans were much slower than other nations in finding
a national type of opera. They learnt very early how to
succeed in writing operas for other nations, and surpassed the
Italians in their own lines when it was worth doing it. But
MODERN PHASES OF OrERA 3 I 5
the discovery of the style and method suited to their more
critical aspirations took many centuries. Mozart had done
something for the cause in Seraglio and the Zauberflote. Then
there was a pause of many years, till Beethoven at last found
a subject which he thought worthy of musical treatment,
and gave the world Fidelio. In the interval musical art had
advanced a good deal, chiefly through Beethoven's own efforts.
He had written his first three symphonies, and got to the end
of his "first period"; which implies a considerable develop
ment of the resources of real expression. As is natural,
it is in the scenes where human circumstances become
deeply interesting, and deep emotions are brought into
play, that Beethoven is at his best. In the lighter scenes
between Marcellina and Jacquino, in Rocco's song, he is less
like himself ; and even Pizarro's fierce song rings a little
hollow. Beethoven could hardly bring such things within the
range of his particular methods of thought and utterance.
But for the more truly emotional situations, especially in the
prison scene, he wrote the finest and truest music that exists
in the whole range of opera. In fact, the whole work is too
reserved and lofty to be fit for any but extremely musical
audiences, and it has never been a genuine success with the
public. Moreover, though the language of the play was
German, and the serious spirit in which the music was
written is worthy of the great German's attitude towards
music, it was not essentially a German subject, and traces
of old Italian influence through Mozart are still appa-
rent. It was reserved for a man of far less personality to
satisfy the aspirations of the race after true Teutonic music
drama.
The chief advantages of Weber's early years were the
opportunities he obtained for getting into touch with the
theatre, through his father's eagerness to possess an opera-
producing prodigy after the Mozart pattern. He was not
especially identified with national sentiments till after Napo-
leon's failure in the expedition to Moscow. Ti.en, in common
with many patriotic enthusiasts, the hope for independence
inspired him, and he became the mouthpiece of national
3l6 THE ART OF MUSIC
feeling in his superb settings of patriotic songs by Kbrner.
These gave him a position which was emphasised by his being
appointed successively at Prague and Dresden to organise a
genuine German operatic establishment. Dresden had long
been under the domination of the Italians, headed by the
conductor Morlacchi, and the constant plotting and opposition
which went on even after Weber's appointment only served
to intensify his patriotic feeling. This at last found its full
expression in "Der Freischiitz," which was brought out at
Berlin in 182 1, and was immediately taken by the Germans
to their hearts. It was indeed the first successful fruit
of their aspirations, and its out-and-out German character
iD every respect gives it a great prominence in the history
of the art The style is consistently German almost through-
out; the tunes are the quintessence of German national
tunes and folk songs ; the story is full of the mystery and
romance which the Germans love, and is about real German
people with thoroughly German habits and German charac-
ters. Apart from that, the musical material and the actual
workmanship are Teutonically admirable. Weber's sense
of instrumental effect was always very great, but in this
work he rose to a higher point than usual. The tones and
characteristics of the various instruments are used with
unerring certainty to strengthen the emotional impression.
The score is alive in all its parts, not full of dummy for-
mulas and fragments of scales and arpeggios that have
no relation to the situation. The various characters are
also perfectly identified with the music that they have to
sing. Kaspar, the reckless meddler in dangerous magic,
was easily drawn ; but the heroine Agathe, and the lighter-
spirited Aennchen, both also keep their musical identity
quite well, even when they are singing together. The scenes
are separate, but the final transition to the continuous
music of later times is happily illustrated in such a case
as Agathe's famous scena, in which a great variety of moods
and changes of rhythm and speed and melody are all
closely welded into a perfectly complete and well-designed
unity.
MODERN PHASKS OF OPERA 3 I 7
In Freischutz the German tradition of spoken dialogue is
still maintained ; the music being reserved for the intenser
moments. In Euryanthe, Weber set the whole of the dia-
logue, and thereby approached nearer to the ideal which the
first originators of the form had conceived. The work in
other respects keeps the same consistently German style, and
possibly contains finer individual passages than its forerunner;
but the desperate foolishness of the libretto makes the whole
almost unendurable, except to people who have the capacity to
attend to the music alone and to ignore what is going on on
the stage. Weber had a curious inclination for stories of a
romantic and chivalric cast, as well as delight in the super-
natural, which is probably to be explained by the instinct of
a composer for finding things out of the hackneyed range of
common everyday experienca For light and comic music the
familiar dress of everyday life answers perfectly well. It may
even accentuate the funniness of things. But when there are
highly emotional, serious, heartfelt things to be dealt with,
the association of the familiarities of everyday life with dia-
logue passionately sung, becomes too conspicuously anomalous.
Thoughts that have any genuine greatness about them do not
fit easily into commonplace terms. At any rate, Weber tried
to escape from such familiarities in his librettos, and had the
ill luck to fall into extremes of childish unreality which pre-
vent his two later works being acceptable in more matter-of-
fact times. But the excellence of the musical material, the
freedom and breadth with which the scenes are developed
without the requirements of musical design interfering in the
least with the action, the complete achievement of a genuinely
Teutonic theatrical style, quite different from the style of
classical quartetts and symphonies and such self-dependent
music, give Weber a position among the great representatives
of musical art. Wagner fitly characterised him as most Ger-
man of the Germans; and he himself was not a little indebted
to him for mastering one of the last points of vantage neces-
sary for the full attainment of the ideal of pure dramatic
music.
Weher'ft stjle powerfully influenced hie successors, even in
3 1 8 THE ART OF MUSIC
domains outside opera ; his supernatural line was followed In
something of the same style by Marschner and others, while
Spohr plodded on by the side of them writing operas with very
little dramatic style about them, but with good feeling for
artistic finish and refined effect. But Germans are slow-
moving as well as tenacious, and act as if they meant to do
great things, and knew that great things took time to mature.
It was many years before another great stroke for essentially
German opera was achieved. German energy was not en-
tirely relaxed, but it was concentrated in the person of Meyer-
beer, who was busy writing French grand operas, and was best
fitted for that occupation. Wagner, though born in "Weber's
lifetime, did not begin to put his singular powers to any defi-
nite use till nearly twenty years after Weber had passed out
of the world. Born of a family of actors, brought up in con-
stant contact with the stage, inspired with dramatic fervour
from early years, and passionately devoted to Beethoven and
Weber, he had sufficient to impel him to the career of an opera
composer. But at first he struck out at random. The im-
pulse in him was mainly dramatic, and only experience could
reveal to him what line and style of composition would serve
best for his purposes. His musical education was extremely
defective, and his first experiments in opera contained things
that were at once feeble and feebly expressed. Many were
his changes of position. First he was chorus-master at a
theatre at Wurzburg, then conductor at various places; he
wrote several works which were inevitable failures ; and finally,
with the ardent conviction of his mission, characteristic of his
curious personality, he made up his mind to take by storm
the central home of the art in the Grand Opera in Paris.
Meyerbeer was then in the full plenitude of his glory, and the
need of propitiating Meyerbeer's own particular audience
probably prompted him to write his grand opera "Rienzi" in
Meyerbeer's style, with all the glitter, blaze of brass, and
scenic splendour he could think of. But as far as Paris
was concerned, his journey was a failure. His importunities
were in vain, and after many weary months he returned to
Germany. But meanwhile he had been busy with a new work,
MODERN PHASES OF OPERA 3 19
"Der fliegende Hollander," which, when completed, marked
the definite commencement of his real career. The essence of
the situation is that Wagner is throughout as much dramatist
and master of theatrical requirements as musician. In fact,
at first the spontaneous musical gift was comparatively small ;
but the intensity of his dramatic and poetic feeling produced
musical figures and musical moods in his mind which he found
out by degrees how to express in more and more powerful and
artistic musical terms. The vitality of the Flying Dutchman
lies more in the superbly dramatic story than in the music.
But at the same time there are scenes and passages in which
the music rises to an extraordinary pitch of vivid picturesqur-
ness and expressiveness. The whole of the overture is as
masterly a musical expression of omens and the wild hurly-
burly of the elements as possible, and carries out Gluck's
conception of an overture completely ; Senta's ballad is one
of the most characteristic things of its kind in existence,
and hits the mood of the situation in a way that only a
man born with high dramatic faculty could achieve ; and
the duet between Senta and the Hollander is as full of
life and as fine in respect of the exact expression of the
moods of the situation, and as broad in melody, as could
well be desired. " Rienzi " looks back to. the past of Meyer-
beer, and is comparatively worthless ; " Der fliegende Hol-
lander " looks forward along the way in which Wagner is
beginning to travel, and already embodies traits of molody
and characteristic devices of modulation and colour which
become conspicuous, with more experienced treatment, in his
maturer works.
His progress from this point was steady and steadfast in
direction. Having struck on the vein of old-world myths,
and found their suitableness fur musical treatment, he soon
naw the further advantage of using stories which were essen-
tially Teutonic in their source and interest. He wisely chose
Fuch as symbolised a great deal more than the mere stories
convey, and so have a deeper root in human nature and a
wider 6cope than mere typical stage dramas. The story of
Tannhauser and the hill of VenuB, and of Lohengrin ths
320 THE ART OP MUSIO
knight of the Holy Grail, each in their way show the growth
of his powers of musical resource. Lohengrin is not so
vigorous as its predecessor, but there are fewer crudities and
formalities in it, and fewer traces of an unwholesome influ-
ence which made some parts of Tannhauser run very near to
vulgarity — splendid as the whole work is. A long time inter-
vened between the production of Lohengrin and Rheingold, the
preface to the great mythic cycle — and the step in point of style
and artistic management is as wide as the interval of time.
He seems to have thought out his scheme more thoroughly.
Indeed, it may well be doubted if he had any scheme or method
at all in the earlier works. In the Flying Dutchman the
traces of the old operatic traditions are extremely common.
The complete set movements merely holding together by their
ends, the musical isolation of scene from scene, the discon-
nection of the overture from the opening of the drama, and
many other points, show that he had as yet by no means
made up his mind to break away from the conventional tra-
ditions. In Tannhauser and Lohengrin he made the musical
texture of the scenes much more continuous, but the long
operatic tunes still make their appearance together with many
other familiar signs of the old genealogy. The use of the
same characteristic musical figures in various parts of the
works wherever some special personality or characteristic
thought or situation recurs, is frequently met with ; but the
figures are not used with the systematic persistence that is so
conspicuous in the later works. It seems extremely probable
that it was reflection upon the earlier works, and writing
about his artistic theories at the time of his exile, that led
him to the uncompromising attitude of the later ones. The
impulse which led to the new features in his earlier works
was simply his dramatic feeling. He had no theoretic idea
of replacing the principles of the old operatic formulas of
design by " Leit motive." They were the result of the
accident that he was trying to illustrate a dramatic subject
in musical terms ; and when any one so essential to the
story as the Hollander or Lohengrin or Elsa came promi-
nently forward, it was natural to repeat a figure which best
MODERN PHASES OF OPERA 32 1
expressed their character. It conduced to unity as well aa
to characterisation. But it was done unsystematically in the
earlier works ; and " Leit motive " only began to pervade the
whole texture of his musical material at last in the cycle of
" Der Ring des Nibelungen."
The change from the earlier works even to Rheingold,
the first drama of " The Ring," is as great as the change
from Beethoven's earliest symphonies to his minor; and
apart from style and materials, the changes are the same
in principle. In the Symphony in D No. 2, the mannei
of expressing the ideas is often very much like that of the
earlier generation. Even in the presentation of the first
idea there is a certain stiffness and formality, which is not
quite like the full-grown Beethoven. It seems to express
the same kind of complacent attitude as is implied in the
work of John Christian Bach or Galuppi. But in the
C minor the first four notes are r^, £_
quite enough to give the mind -#-^
the impression that music has
passed into a different region
from that of the formal politeness of the previous century.
Analogously in Tannhauser there are many passages which
have the flavour of Italian opera about them — many that
even suggest the influence of Meyerbeer and the Grand Opera ;
— long passages of melody of the formal type, and frequent
traces of things like the relics of rudimentary organs, that
have not perfectly merged into the rest of the organism. But
the first dozen bars of Rheingold give indication of quite a
different spirit. His object clearly is to express the situation
at the beginning of the first act. The depths of the Rhine
are there, the swaying waters, darkness. The music is the
exact equivalent of the central idea of the situation ; and at
the same time it supplies a principle of design without haviug
to fall back on familiar formulas to make that design appre-
ciable. The dramatic conception is formed first, and is then
expressed in terms of art which follow every phase and change
of mood without having to stop to make the music intelligible
apart from the drama. The principle of treatment is the same
322 THE ART OF MUSIC
as in Schubert's great songs, the " Junge Nonne," or " Doppel-
ganger," or the " Erl Kbnig"; only the scale is larger and the
style different. Wagner wrote his own dramas, always with
a clear feeling of what was fit to be expressed musically j
and as he grew more experienced, he was able to hold all the
forces he had to use for dramatic ends more surely in hand,
and to control their relations to one another with more cer-
tainty. While writing the poems be probably had a general
feeling of what the actual music was going to be, just as
a dramatist keeps in his mind a fairly clear idea of the scene
and the action of the play he is writing ; and as certain general
principles of design are quite indispensable in musical works
of this kind, he evidently controlled the development of his
stories so as to admit of due spreading of groundwork and
of variety of mood ; and devised situations that admitted of
plain and more or less diatonic treatment, and crises which
would demand the use of energetic modulation, and so
forth. But in reality this requires less restriction than
might be imagined ; for the working and changing of
moods in a good poem is almost identical with the working
and developing and changing of moods adapted for good
music. They both spring from the same emotional source,
only they are different ways of expressing the ideas. As
poetry and music approach nearer to one another, it be-
comes more apparent that the sequence of moods which
makes a good design in poetry will also make a good design
in music.
One thing which strikes the attention at once from the very
commencement of " The Ring" is the difference in the treat-
ment of the musical material from the earlier works. As has
been pointed out before, there is a constant tendency in music
to make the details more distinct and de6nite. The instinc-
tive aim of the most highly gifted composers is to arrive at
that articulation of minutiae which makes every part of the
organism alive. The type of vague meandering melodies which
formed the arias of Hasse and Porpora became far more
definite in organisation in Mozart's hands ; the contrast is
even greater between their treatment of orchestral materia]
MODERN PHASES OF OPERA 323
and Mozart'*. The very look of the score of Idomeneo in
busier than any earlier score ; and moreover, Mozart made
his own details more finished and more definite as his view
of instrumental music matured. In the next generation the
process of defining details progressed very fast in Beethoven's
hands. Even in his first sonata the tendency to concentrate
his thoughts into concise and emphatic figures is noticeable,
and the habit grew more decisive with him as his mastery
of his resources improved. The same tendency is shown in
almost every department of art. Schubert's accompaniments
to songs are often made up of little nuclei which express in the
closest terms the spirit of the situation, and the way in which
he knits them together is a perfect counterpart, in little, of
Wagner's ultimate method. The advantages of the plan are
obvious. It not only lays hold of the mind more decisively,
but it enables the musical movement to be knit into closer
unity by the reiteration of the figures. Wagner, in his earlier
works, appears to have realised the advantage of condensing
the thought into an emphatic figure, as every one knows
who has heard the overture to the " Fliegende Hollander,"
though he did not make much use of such figures in the
actual texture of the earlier music. But from the beginning
of the Rheingold he seems to have clearly made up his mind
not only to condense his representative musical ideas into
the forms which serve to fix them in the mind, but to weave
them throughout into the texture of the music itself, to dis-
pense with the old formulas of accompaniment, and to use
next to nothing except what was consistent and definite.
The result is that in the main the texture of the music is
something of the same nature as a fugue of Bach. Wagner
often uses harmony as a special meaus of effect, but in a
great measure the harmony is the result of polyphony, often
of several distinct subjects going on at once, as they used to
do in the ancient fugues. This immensely enlarges the range
of direct expressic n, as it is possible by making such familiar
devices as accented passing notes and grace notes occur simul-
taneously in different parts, to produce transient artificial
chords of the most extraordinary description; such a* are
324
THE ART OF MUSIC
heard in the following passage from the first act of
Parsifal :—
Wagner notoriously rejected the conventional rules ot the
theorists about resolving chords and keeping strictly within
the lines of keys, and many other familiar phases of orthodox
doctrine. He tried to get to the root of things, instead of
abiding by the rules that are given to help people to spell
and to frame sentences intelligibly. But he by no means
adopts purely licentious methods in treatment of chords,
nor does he forego the use of tonality — the sense of key
which is the basis of modern music — as a source of effect.
He did not attempt to define his design by the means re-
quired in sonatas and symphonies, because the situation did
not warrant it ; neither would he submit to the conven-
tions which forbade his using certain progressions which he
thought the situation required because they happen to mix
up tonalities. Many of the progressions which Beethoven
used outraged the tender feelings of theorists of his day
who did not understand them, and thought he was violat-
ing the orthodox principles of tonality. Yet Beethoven's
whole system was founded on his very acute feeling for it
He expanded the range of the key as much as he could,
and Wagner went further in the same direction. But he
is so far from abandoning tonality as an element of design
and effect, that he uses it with quite remarkable skill and
perception of its functions. When he wants to give the
■ense of solid foundation to a scene, he often keeps to the
same key. even to the same harmony, for a very long tima
MODERN PHASES OP OPEBA 325
Fhe introductions to Rheingold and Siegfried are parallels
in this respect, the first almost all on one chord, the second
almost all in one key ; and the principle of design is the same
in both cases ; consisting in laying a solid foundation to the
whole work by rising from the lowest pitch, and gradually
bringing the full range of sounds into operation. In the
accompaniment of the ordinary dialogue he is often very
obscure in tonality, just as J. 8. Bach is in recitative ; some
instinct prompting them both to avoid the conditions which
make the music that approaches nearest to ordinary speech
seem too definite in regular design. When he wants to express
something very straightforward and direct, like the character
of Siegfried, he uses the most simple diatonic figures; but
when he wants to express something specially mysterious,
he literally takes advantage of the fact that human creatures
understand modern music through their feeling for tonality,
to obtain a weird and supernatural effect by making it
almost unrecognisable. For in that case he almost invariably
makes his musical idea combine chords which belong to two or
more unassimilable tonalities, on purpose to create the sense
of bewilderment, and a kind of dizziness and helplessness,
which exactly meets the requirements of the case. If people's
sense of tonality were not by this time so highly developed,
such passages would be merely hideous gibberish ; and they
often seem so at first. It is just on a parallel with language.
A man may often say a thing that is most copiously true
which his audience does not see at once, and everybody has
experienced the puzzled, displeased look that the audience
gives — till, as the meaning dawns upon them, a cloud seems
to pass away, and the look of pleasure is all the brighter
for the transition from bewilderment to understanding.
Wagner's device stands in the same relation to the musical
organisation of the present day as Beethoven's employment
of enharmonic transition did to that of his time. Men judge
such things instinctively in relation to the context. The
transition from the first key to the second in Beethoven's
great Leonora Overture produces the same sort of feeling of
momentary dizziness, in relation to the simpler diatonic style
326 THE ART OP MUSIC
of the rest of the music, that Wagner's subtle obscurities do in
relation to his far more chromatic and highly -coloured style.
It need not be supposed that he deliberately adopted such
a device. True composers very rarely work up to a theory
consciously, in the act of production ; but they may after-
wards try to justify anything very much out of the common on
some broad principles in which they believe. It is much more
likely to have been the impulse of highly developed instinct
that caused Wagner to adopt the same procedure so invari-
ably. A familiar example is the musical expression of that
really marvellous poetic conception, the magic kiss of the god
which expels the godhead from the Valkyrie and makes her
mortal.
jo. (fed.
Even more conspicuous is the figure associated with the
" Tarnhelm," the helm of invisibility. But in that case
the effect often depends a good deal upon the way in which
the figure is taken in relation to a context in an obscurely
related key. The motive of the magic ring* is condensed
very closely, and is much to the point
MODERN PHASES OF OPERA 327
The death-figure in Tristan is constructed on similar
principles, but curiously enough the figure used for the magio
love-potion, which pervades the whole musical material of that
drama, is not of mixed tonality, but only made to seem so by
the use of chromatic accessory notes. The opening passage
of Tristan is, indeed, peculiarly interesting in respect of clear-
ness of tonality, for Wagner uses the same device of sequence
(which is the repetition of an identical phrase at different
levels) which is familiar in ancient folk-song (pp. 55 and 69),
in the opening movements of several of Corelli's Sonatas
(in just the same position in the scheme of design), at the
beginning of Beethoven's E minor Sonata (Opus 91), and in
Brahms' Rhapsody, No. 2, where the device is carried to even
greater lengths in the matter of distantly related tonalities
than by Wagner. The subject of the love-potion is necessarily
puzzling to the mind ; but the use of the sequence gives a
sense of orderliness and stability which is clearly essential
at the beginning of a great work. The sequence is perfectly
familiar in its order, and turns on nearly related keys — first,
A minor, then its relative major C ; then, taking the same
step of a third as the cue, E major, which is the dominant
of A, and therefore completes the circuit. And the process
keeps things in the right place too, for despite the very close
involutions of subordinate secondary tonalities, the system of
design in that wonderful Vorspiel is mainly centralised on the
relationships of A minor and C, and its general scheme is the
same as that of the introductions to Rheingold, Siegfried,
and Parsifal ; and in Parsifal, moreover, he uses precisely the
same device of sequence at the beginning, only developing it
on a very much wider scale, as suits the solemnity of the
subject. It may be concluded, therefore, that Wagner is
very far from ignoring tonality. His use of it is different
from that of composers of sonatas and symphonies, but he
shows a very clear understanding of the various opportu:
that it affords for the purposes of effect and design.
In the use of the effects of tone producible by various instru-
ments (which people for want of a better word seem to have
agreed to call colour) he is clearly the most comprehensive
328 THE ART OF MUSIC
of masters. Instinctively he adopted the true view for his
particular work. In old days colours were disposed in rela-
tion to one another principally in order to look beautiful.
Some of the greatest early Italian painters and Mozart seem
much alike in that respect. Gluck used the moderate variety
of colours at his disposal to add to the vividness of his situa-
tions. Beethoven used colour to the extreme of conceivable
perfection ; and all to the ends of expression, as far as the
conditions of abstract self-dependent instrumental music ad-
mitted.
Wagner took the uncompromising position of using every
colour, whether pure or composite, to emphasise and intensify
each dramatic moment, and to complete the measure of expres-
sion which is only half conveyed by the outline and rhythmic
movement of the musical ideas themselves. The great develop-
ment of instrumental resources gave him enormous advantages
over earlier composers. The improvement of instruments, the
general improvement in the skill and intelligence of players,
both served his turn. From the first his excitable nature was
particularly susceptible to colour; but the more his powers
matured, the better he used his colours with absolute apt-
ness to the end in view. The composite vividness of the 'cellos,
hautboys, corno inglese, horns, and bassoons at the beginning
of the Vorspiel of Tristan, is not more absolutely to the point
than the wonderful quietude and depth of solemnity of the
tone of the strings alone at the opening of the third act.
The magic sound of the horns in the music of the Tarnhelm
is not more nor less suggestive than the merry cackle of the
wood-wind in the music of the apprentices in " Die Meister-
singer," or the vivid combination of various arpeggios for
strings, with the solemn brass below, and the tinkling of the
Glockenspiel at the top, which represent the rising of Logo's
flames that shut out Brunnhilde from the world. Even with
regard to the honourable old-world devices which have not much
place in opera, the requirements of the situations brought out
the requisite skilL The art of combining many subjects to-
gether, of which theoretic composers make so much, is carried
by Wagner to a truly marvellous extent. The texture of the
MODERN PHASES OF OPERA 329
music is often made of nothing but a network of the various
melodies and figures which are called " Leit motive," each
associated with some definite idea in the drama. The extent
to which this subtle elaboration is carried on escapes the
hearer, because it is done so skilfully that it passes unper
ceived. But it is one of those respects in which the work
of art bears constant close scrutiny, as a work of art should,
without ceasing to be wonderful. It makes most of the dif-
ference between the earlier types of such departments of art,
when the figures of accompaniment had been only so many
tiresome formulas, and the later work in which everything
means something, and yet is not obtrusive. The elaboration
of all the detail is still subordinate to the general design and
the general effect. When a work is faulty in such respects
it is because the composer tries to produce all his effect
by the multiplicity and ingenuity of his details alone. The
importunity of minutia soon makes works on a large scale
insupportable. But Wagner's minutiae are not importunate,
because the effect in general is proportionately great. The
wide sweeps of his sequences, the long and intricate growth
towards some supreme climax, the width and clearness of the
main contrasts, the immense sweep of his basses, the true
grandeur of many of his poetic conceptions, keep the mind
occupied enough with the larger aspects of the matter. And
though, as in human life, all the little moments are realities,
their prominence is merged in the greater events which form
the sum of them.
Wagner's use of the voice part illustrates musical tendencies
in the same way as every other part of his work. The tradi-
tions of solo singing which still persist in some quarters imply
that the human voice is to be used for effects of beauty only.
The old Italian masters subordinated everything to pure
vocal effect ; they made the utmost of pure singing, and singing
only. Occasional reactions against so limited a view, and in
favour of using the human voice for human expression, came
up at various points in history. Purcell is often a pure
embodiment of ill-regulated instinct for expression. John
Sebastian Bach's recitatives and ariosoe are still stronger iu
33° THE ART OF MUSIC
that respect. The Italian reaction that followed him was all
in favour of beautiful vocal sound and simple intrinsic beauty
of melody ; but in Schubert the claims of expression again found
an extremely powerful advocate. He appealed to human crea-
tures a good deal by means of melody, but much more by his
power of general expression. He often produces much more
effect by a kind of recitative than by tune. He uses tune
when it is suitable, otherwise musical declamation. He
appeals to intelligent human beings who want music to mean
something worthy of human intelligence ; and Schumann
does eminently the same, though he too knows full well how
to express a noble sentiment in a noble melodic phrase.
Wagner again takes an attitude of u no compromise." The
voice has an infinity of functions in music. It may be
necessarily reduced to the standard of mere narrative, it
may have to utter dialogue which in detail is near the level
of everyday talk ; it must rise in drama to the higher levels of
dramatic intensity, and it may rise at times to the highest
pitch of human ecstasy. For each its appropriate use. The
art is not limited to obvious tune on one side, and chaotic
recitative on the other, but is capable of endless shades of
difference. Wagner makes Mime sing melody because he
is a sneaking impostor, who pretends to have any amount of
beautiful feelings, and has none ; that no doubt is a subtlety
of satire ; but otherwise he generally reserves vocal melody
for characteristic moments of special exaltation. That is to
say, the actor becomes specially prominent when the develop-
ment of the drama brings his personality specially forward.
The human personality is an element in the great network
of circumstances and causes and consequences which make
a drama interesting, and no doubt it is by far the most
interesting element ; but there is no need that the actor
should always be insisting upon his own importance, and
the importance of his ability to produce beautiful sounds.
The human voice is for use, and not only for ornament.
People must no doubt learn to sing in a special way in order
to do justice to the beautiful old-world artistic creations;
and art would be very much the poorer if the power to give
MODERN PHASES OF OPERA 33 I
them due effect was lost. But the expression of things that
are worth uttering because they express something humanly
interesting is much more difficult, and implies a much higher
aim. Both objects require a great deal of education, but the
old-fashioned singer's education was limited chiefly to the
development of mechanical powers ; the singer of the genuine
music of Bach, Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, amd Wagner
requires the old-fashioned singer's education and education
of the mind as well.
Of Wagner's general reforms in connection with music-
drama this is not the place to speak in detail. His hiding
away the unsightly fussy notions of the orchestra under
the stage, and his alteration of the arrangements of the
theatre, are accessories which do not immediately bear on
the musical question here under discussion. His aim in all
is to control the multitudinous factors and elements, from
small minutiae up to the largest massing of combined powers
to the ends of perfect expression of his dramatic and poetic
conceptions. His personality, and the particular subjects
that he chooses, and the manner in which he looks at them,
affect people in different ways; that is a matter apart from
the development of resources or the method of applying
them. Of the method itself it may be said that it is the
logical outcome of the efforts of the long line of previous
composers, and the most elaborately organised system for the
purposes of dramatic musical expression that the world has
ever yet seen.
Of what has been done in the line of opera since Wagner's
death, it is not yet time to speak in detail. Some of the most
successful opera composers have been considerably influenced
by his personality, and a few have endeavoured to apply his
methods; but it can hardly be said as yet whether the results
make any fresh advance of artistic importance. A disposition
to compromise is obvious, and it may well be that a step back-
wards is necessary, as a preliminary to another Larger st 1 i<• The
unfortunate art may be made to grovel and wallow as well as
to soar. A man may use slender resources to virv good eni>,
and great resources to very bad ones. It rests with a very
wide public now to decide what the future of the art shall
be ; and if its members can understand a little of what mask
means and how it came to be what it is, perhaps it may
tend to encourage sincerity in the composer, and to enable
themselves to arrive at an attitude which is not too open to
be imposed upon by those who have other ends in view than
honouring and enriching their art.
If the art is worthy of the dignity of human devotion, it is
worth considering a little seriously, without depreciating in
the least the lighter pleasures to which it may minister. If it
is to be a mere toy and trifle, it would be better to have no
more to do with it. But what the spirit of man has laboured
at for so many centuries cannot only be a more plaything.
The marvellous concentration of faculties towards the achieve-
ment of such ends as actually exist, must of itself be enough
to give the product human interest. Moreover, though a
man's life may not be prolonged, it may be widened and
deepened by what he puts into it ; and any possibility of
getting into touch with those highest moments in art in
which great ideals were realised, in which noble aspirations
and noble sentiments have been successfully embodied, is
a chance of enriching human experience in the n
manner: and through such sympathies and into
humanising influences which mankind will hereafter have at
its disposal may be infinitely enlarged.
Note to pp. 49 and 51.
The brilliant Idea of phonographinp the tunes of garage and semi-
civilised races seems to offer such opportonitiea of getting at the real
facts of primitive and barbarous n H before been avail-
able for the investigation of such subject.-.. It has been put into pr.
33* THE ART OF MUSIC
by a Mr. J. W. Fewkes to record the tunes of the Zuni Indians of the
southern states of North America, and the results have been published
in the "Journal of American Ethnology and Archaeology," vol. i.
Several tunes are given, and some of them afford happy illustrations
of the uncertainty of savage intonation referred to on p. 49, and also of
the singularly unsystematic manner in which the savages reiterate the
characteristic intervals or musical figures which have taken their fancy.
The following is an approximate record of one of their curious tunes,
which is stated to have been considerably irregular in the details of
pitch and intonation : —
forte.
@ tjf c r nmn^ gn ^
BB ^ ^M £J ZJ^ ^
piano. ^ pp
INDEX
Accidental*, 45, 112.
Accompaniment, 89, 127, 137, 140,
168, 196, 220, 222, 224, 287, 289,
290, 292, 323.
Ainu music, 50.
Alberti bass, 211, 287.
Alceste, 217, 219.
Allemande, 1S5, 200.
Arcadelt, 109, na
Aria, I44, 146, 214, 219, 231.
Arpeggio subjects and figures, 190,
238.
Arpeggio tunes, 70, 73, 74.
Artistic disposition, 2.
Auber, 310.
Australian native music, 49, 54.
Bach, John Christian, 205, 208,
242, 244.
Bach, John Sebastian, 45, 54, 119,
162, 176, el leg., 189, 197, 273,
276, 279, 281, 300, 335.
Bach, Philip Emmanuel, 192, 193,
209.
Bagpipe scale, 39.
Ballet, 139, 184, 219, 312.
Balletti, 1 1 3,
Bas Quercy, tune from, 65.
Beethoven, 252, et teq., 273, 293,
321, 325-
Herlioz, 276.
Boccherini, 245.
Brahms, 303, 305.
Buffa opera, 215, 237.
Byrd, 121, 155.
Oaooini, 127, 132.
Cadenoes, 99. 12a
Cadences, Church, 43.
of the voice, 18, 19.
Canons, 97, 122, 184.
Cantatas, 284.
Canto fermo, 89, 92, 98.
Canzonas, 1 13, 177,
Caribs, music of, 48.
Carissimi, 136.
Cavaliere, 133.
Cavalli, 135, 139.
C.-sti, 137.
Chamber music, 304.
Characterisation, 135, 149, 162, 16$
219, 221, 275, 2y6, 303.
Cherubim, 309, 311.
Chinese scale, 21, 33, 34.
Chinese tune, 57.
Chopin, 241, 298.
Choral music, 80, 102, 106, 119,
163, 283.
Churcli modes, 41.
Classification of notes of the scale,
44-
Clavichord, 183.
Olementi, 256.
Concerto, 151, 152, 18&
Contrasts, IO, II, 13, 129, 153,
200, 236, 240, 26a
Oorelli, 151,
Obantarpoint, 89, 90, 101, 106, 177,
183, 195-
Ooupc-rin, 155, 184.
Dancb movement*, 1 1 5, 1 16, 1S4,
199, 247, 260.
Dance music, early, 116.
Dancing, and dance goaturaa, 6,
7.9-
340
INDEX
Declamation, 127, 130, 139, 141,
284, 289, 330.
Design, 2, 3, 4, 12, 13, 48, 62, 70,
109, 113, 129, 131, 140, 146, 157,
175, 234. 249, 259, 262, 273, 289,
297, 324, 327, 330, 335.
Discord, 99, 119, 120, 134, 323.
Domestic life, music of, 116, 294.
Doric mode, 24, 41.
Dunstable, 105.
Dvorak, 304.
Ellis, 21.
English folk-music, 55, 74.
English music of Elizabethan period,
114, 121.
Equal temperament, 45, 187.
Erl Konig, 288.
European scale system, modern, 16,
18, 45, 187, 188.
Expression, 3, 7, 8, 9, 14, 48, 62,
72, 77, 83, 123, 129, 134, 136,
148, 149, 150, 160, 162, 165, 172,
173, 183, 185. 189, 219, 220, 252,
258, 260, 276, 284, 289, 293, 296,
303. 319. 3 2 8, 330. 336. Ac
Fantabia, 191, 301.
Feejee music, 53.
Field, 296.
Flying Dutchman, The, 319,
Folk-music, 47, 96.
Types of, 61.
Forty -eight, the, 186, 30a
Freischutz, Der, 316.
French characteristics in music, 138,
155, 218, 277, 308.
Frescobaldi, 1 19, 154, 179.
Fugue, 122, 153, l8o, 189.
Gabbtkli, Giovanni, 121.
Galician tune, 64.
Gaultier, Denis, 155.
Germau folk-music, 70, 72, 74.
Opera, 227, 230, 314.
Gibbon*, Orlando, 121, 155.
Gipsy music, 59.
Gluck, 216, 250, 306.
Gossec, 209.
Gounod, 314.
Greek scales, 22.
Gretchen am Spinnrade, 288, 289.
Gre*try, 310.
Ground bass, 54, 14a
Hale, Adam de la, 95.
Halevy, 312.
Handel, 162, 165, 168, 170, 185, 195.
Harmonic form, 199, 235.
Harmony, 43, 88, 108, HO, 134.
incipient, 82.
Harpsichord music, 117, 183, 202,
256.
Haydn, 241, 288.
Heptatonic scales, 21.
Histrionic music, 133, 139, 277, 311
Hobrecht, 121.
Hungarian music, 48, 59, 63, 77.
Hypolydian mode, 25.
Idomenko, 224.
Indian scales, 30,
tune, 57.
In dulci jubilo, 66.
Instrumental music, 114, 137, 150,
175. 273, 293.
Instrumentation, 135, 139, 141, 143,
167, 206, 209, 220, 221, 224, 246,
257, 278, 281, 308, 314, 316, 327.
Intermezzi, 214.
Iphigenie en Aulide, 219.
en Tauride, 22a
Irish folk-music, 79.
Israel in Egypt, 170.
Italian choral music, 113, 114, 121
160.
Opera, 127, 143, 223, 307.
Japanese scales, 37.
Javese scale*, 38.
music, 92.
Josquin, 12 1.
■n
nMBH
INDEX 34I
KlIBKB, 227.
Lasso, Orlando, 121.
Leit-m<»tive, 3^0, 323, 329*
Liszt, 298.
Lohengrin, 32a
Lulli, 138, 311.
Lis, 34-
L no, 116, 294.
Macusi native maiio, 5a
Madrigals, 109.
Mannheim, 209.
Marenzio, 121.
Marscbner, 318.
Mascarades, 138.
Masques. 138.
Material of music '3-
MeTiul, 311.
Melodic element, 7, 9.
music, 18, 56, 93*
systems, 18.
Melodies, several sung simultane-
ously, 92.
Mendelssohn, 281, 284, 296.
Mexican tuue, 69.
Meyerbeer, 312, 318.
Minuet, 247, 26a
Modes, 1 10 ; Greek, 24; Indian, 32.
Modulation, lit, 133, 324.
Monte verde, 1 33, 250.
Motets, 93.
Mozambique, native music of, 51.
Mozart, 223, 240, 244, 251, 263.
Murcian tune, 78.
Nethkblands, music of, 120.
Notation, 83, 91.
Nozze di Figaro, 228
Nuove musiche, 133.
Odbs, choral, 284.
Opera, 129, 145, 213, 306.
and oratorio, beginnings of,
127.
Oratorio, 133, 136, 157, 283.
Orchestrnl music, 183, 206, 257, 277.
Orchestration, 135, 141, 156, 206,
220, 234 241, 257. 278, 327.
Organ, 1 17, 152, 179.
Organuin, 91.
Oriental music, 57.
Ornament, 59, 67, 70, 78, 90, 117,
132, 141, 192, 299,314.
Overture*, 139, I47, 206, 217, 325,
327-
Palebtbina, 121, 273.
ParadM, 204.
Parti tas, 184.
Passion music, 173.
Pattern tunes, 62.
Pentatonic scales, 21, 28.
Peri, 129.
Persian scales, 28,
Phrygian mode, 25, 28.
Pianoforte, 256, 294.
Piccini, 219, 220.
Poitevin tune, 64.
Polynesian cannibals, 48.
Preludes, 189, 300, 327.
Programme music, 276, 292, 296.
Purcell, 142, 149, 274.
Qdalitt of tone, 105, 124, 168, 220,
257, 328.
Quartette, 245.
Racial characteristics, 61, 306.
Radical reforms, 125.
Ragas, 32.
Raraeau, 155, 311.
Realism, 149, 165, 290, 293.
Recitative, 128, 130, 136, 146, 166,
2J0, 226, 325.
Reduplication of mImBm, 85.
Religion and music, 82.
I: d,32i.
Rhythmic element, 7, 9, 100. 1 1 $,
181, 201, 203, 260, 261.
Rienzi, 319.
Ring of the Nibelung, the, 321.
34*
Rondo, 52, 341.
Rossini, 308.
Roumanian folk-music, 6a
Rules of early music, 89, 98.
Russian folk-music, 53, 55, 62, 66.
Sahabandk, 185.
Savages, music of, 6, 8, 48.
Scales, 15 ; Heptatonic and Penta-
tonic, 21 ; Greek, 22 ; Persian,
28 ; Indian, 30 ; Chinese, 34 ;
Japanese, 37 ; Javese, 38 ;
Siamese, 38 ; European, 16, 19,
49, 203.
Scandinavian folk-music, 74.
Scarlatti, Alessandro, 144, 206, 214.
Scarlatti, Domenico, 10, 202.
Scherzo, 260.
Schubert, 287, 296.
Schumann, 10, 302, 331.
Schutz, 136, 145, 231.
Scotch bagpipe, scale of, 39.
Scotch tunes, 67, 77.
Secular music, rise of, 1 25.
Sequence tunes, 55.
Sequences, 55, 182, 266, 269, 327.
Servian tune, 65.
Solo song, 285.
Sonata form, development of, 1 96,
232, 241, 253.
Sonatas, 151, 196, 198, 233, 241,
253, 262, 270, 303, 304.
for harpsichord, 20X
for violin, 197.
Song, 285, 296.
Spanish tune, 68, 69.
Spohr, 275, 280, 318.
Spontini, 311.
Stamitz, 208.
Stradella, 137.
Subjects, 101, 124, 178, 180, 2'-
240, 270, 322.
based on tonic chord, 238.
Suites, 184.
Symphony, 147, 206, 217, 244, 24
257, 276.
Tannhauskb, 320.
Temperament, equal, 45, 188.
Toccatas, 118, 192.
Tonality, 56, 156, 198, 234, 35
325-
Tongataboo, music of natives of, t
Troubadours, 102.
Trouvere music, 95.
Tyrole.se music, 74.
Vagueness of early music, 123.
Variations, 54, 184, 27a
Violin music, 150, 196.
Violins, 150, 196.
Viols, 115.
Vittoria, 12 1.
Vivaldi, 1 52.
Vocal music, 7, 19, 23, 48, 51, \
72, 74, 86, 89, 90, 94, 103, 1:
149, 162, 165, 171, 219, 226, 2}
285, 329.
Waoneb, 318.
Weber, 315.
Welsh tune, 64.
Wohltemperirte clavier, 186, 300
Writing, methods of, 89.
ZaubkbtlOtb, Die, 23a
(18)
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