Part 1 (2/2)

I have said that music speaks a language all its own, and one that is universal. Bring together a representation of all the nations of the earth, in which body there shall be a very Babel of tongues. All will be confusion until the all-penetrating, the all-thrilling voice of music is heard. At once, silence reigns; each ear quickly catches and recognizes the delicious sounds. The language of each one in the concourse may be different: but with ”music's golden tongue” all are alike innately acquainted; each heart beats in sympathy with the delightful, absorbing tones of melody; and all seem members of one nation.

Again: music may be called that strangely peculiar form of the beautiful, whose presence seems, indeed is, appropriate on occasions the most diverse in character. Its aid is sought alike to add to the joys of festive scenes, to soothe and elevate the heart on occasions of mourning, and to enhance the solemnity, the excellence, of divine wors.h.i.+p.

The poet Collins, aptly a.s.sociating music with the good and beautiful, calls it the ”heavenly maid.”

Martin Luther, himself a musical composer and performer of merit, paused in his great work of religious reform to declare, ”I verily think, and am not ashamed to say, that, next to divinity, no art is comparable to music.” And Disraeli utters this n.o.ble thought: ”Were it not for music, we might in these days say the beautiful is dead.”

”Touching musical harmony, whether by instrument or by voice, it being but of high and low in sounds a proportionable disposition, such, notwithstanding, is the force thereof, and so pleasing effects it hath in that part of man which is most divine, that some have thereby been induced to think that the soul itself is or hath in it harmony: a thing which delighteth all ages, and beseemeth all states; a thing as seasonable in grief as in joy; as decent being added unto actions of greatest weight and solemnity as being used when men most sequester themselves from action. The reason hereof is an admirable facility which music hath to express and represent to the mind, more inwardly than any other sensible means, the very steps and inflections of every way, the turns and varieties of all pa.s.sion whereunto the mind is subject.”[1]

”I would fain know what music is. I seek it as a man seeks eternal wisdom. Yesterday evening I walked, late in the moonlight, in the beautiful avenue of lime-trees on the bank of the Rhine; and I heard a tapping noise and soft singing.

At the door of a cottage, under the blooming lime-tree, sat a mother and her twin-babies: the one lay at her breast, the other in a cradle, which she rocked with her foot, keeping time to her singing. In the very germ, then, when the first trace of life begins to stir, music is the nurse of the soul: it murmurs in the ear, and the child sleeps; the tones are the companions of his dreams; they are the world in which he lives. He has nothing; the babe, although cradled in his mother's arms, is alone in the spirit: but tones find entrance into the half-conscious soul, and nourish it as earth nourishes the life of plants.”[2]

[Footnote 1: Hooker.]

[Footnote 2: Bertini.]

II.

THE MUSIC OF NATURE.

”The lark sings loud, and the throstle's song Is heard from the depths of the hawthorn dale; And the rush of the streamlet the vales among Doth blend with the sighs of the whispering gale.”

MATIN AND EVENING SONGS.

To the inventive genius of man must, of course, be attributed the present developments, and the beautiful, diversified forms, existing in musical art. But, before man was, the great Author of harmony had created what may be called the music of Nature.

Afterwards, the human ear, penetrated by sounds of melody issuing from wind, wave, or bird, the rapt mind in strange and pleasing wonder contemplating the new and charming harmonies,--then it was that man received his first impressions, and took his first lessons in delightful symphony.

Take from man all creative and performing power in music, leaving him only the ear to catch and the mind to comprehend the sounds, and there would still be left to him G.o.d's own music,--the music of Nature, which, springing as it did from eternity, shall last throughout eternity.

Pa.s.sing what must appear to human comprehension as vague (an attempt at the contemplation of which would be without profit in this connection), and what has been called the ”music of the spheres,”[3]

we may proceed to briefly touch upon those forms of natural music which are ever within our hearing, and which constantly afford us pleasure.

[Footnote 3: Reference is supposed to be made to this in the Book of Job, in these words: ”When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of G.o.d shouted for joy.”]

First let us go forth into the summer woods. The eye takes in the charming prospect,--the trees dressed in beautiful green; the ”gra.s.sy carpet,” parted ever and anon by a gliding, gurgling brooklet; the wild flower peeping up near the feet; a landscape of even surface, or at times pleasingly undulated. The atmosphere is freighted with a delightful fragrance; and from rustling bough, from warbling bird, from rippling brook, and from the joyous hum of insects almost innumerable,

”The air is full of noises, sounds, and sweet airs, That give delight, and hurt not.”

All these, the beauties of animate and inanimate Nature, pleasantly affect the senses. But the chief influence there--the crowning glory of the groves--is the songs, the charming music of the birds, as they warble from tree to tree, untrammelled by the forms of art, their sweetest melodies. How often do their lightsome, inspiriting carollings ring out upon the morning air, persuasively calling us from our couches to listen in delight to Nature's minstrelsy! ”After man,”

says a writer, ”the birds occupy the highest rank in Nature's concerts. They make the woods, the gardens, and the fields resound with their merry warbles. Their warbled 'shake' has never been equalled by human gifts of voice, nor by art.”

Indeed, it has been found that many of the songs of birds are sung in certain of the keys; while a learned musical writer has produced a book in which are printed many samples of the music often sung by birds. In very recent times it is stated, too, that birds have been taught to sing some of the popular tunes of the day; this being accomplished by placing a bird in a room for a while, allowing it to hear no other bird, and only the tune to be learned. Professor Brown of Aiken, S.C., has mocking-birds which he has taught to sing such songs as ”The Star-spangled Banner” and ”Yankee Doodle.” These birds were to be taken to the Centennial Exhibition, to there exhibit their marvellous skill.

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