Part 9 (1/2)

VI

It is strange that those ould accept the general facts of ic as outlined above do not perceive that they have thereby cut away the ground frouress of a melody is tone-relationshi+p, the principle of choice cannot also be the cadences of the speaking voice Thatvoice is another matter, as we have said, and to this it may be added that they much more often do not The question here is only of the primacy of the principle Thus it would seem that the facts of musical structure constitute in themselves a refutation of the viee have disputed

To say that htened speech” is irrelevant; for the occasion of an aesthetic phenoht as well be said that music arose in econoe der Kunst,” conclusively shoithout atte to make this social occasion intrude into the nature of the phenomenon Primitive decorative art arose in the imitation of the totemic or clan symbols, mostly animal forms; but we have seen that the aesthetic quality of the decoration is due to the demands of the eye, and appears fully only in the coradation of the representative forradation” of speech cadences into real in of music As a reed that the priless chant, and that the original pitch- elements were mechanically supplied by the firstat first , sonorous bodies because they were more easily struck if they were hard or taut The ave out were the first determinations of pitch, and of the elements of the scale, which correspond to the natural partial vibrations of such bodies ”The human voice,”

Wallaschek<1> tells us, ”equally admits of any pentatonic or heptatonic intervals, and very likely we should never have got regular scales if we had depended upon the ear and voice only

The first unique cause to settle the type of a regular scale is the instrument” To this material we have to apply only that ”natural persuasion of the ear” which we have already explained, to account for the full development of music

<1> _Primitive Music_, 1893, p 156

The beauty of music, in so far as beauty is identical with pleasantness, consists in its satisfaction of the deanism as connected with the ear It is now ti It was said that a co the musical experience was to make musical beauty the object of perception, and musical expression the object, or source, of emotion This view seems to attach itself to all shades of theory Hanslick always contrasts intellectual activity as attaching to the for to the sensuous material (that is, the physical effects of motion, loud or soft sound, tempo, etc) He speaks of the aesthetic criterion of INTELLIGENT gratification ”The truly musical listener” has ”his attention absorbed by the particular form and character of the composition,” ”the unique position which the INTELLECTUAL ELEMENT in music occupies in relation to FORMS and SUBSTANCE (subject)” M Dauriac in the same way separates the emotion of music<1> as a product of nervous excitations, from the appreciation of it as beautiful ”It is probably that the pleasure caused by rhythreatest number, over the pleasure in the musical form, pleasure too exclusively PSYCHOLOGICAL for one to be content with it aloneThe enceThe theoryapplies to a great number of sonorous sensations, and not at all to any musical perceptions”

Mr WH Hadow<2> tells us that it is the duty of the musician not to flatter the sense with an eh sensation to the ain we read ”the art of the composer is in a sense the discovery and exposition of the INTELLIGIBLE relations in the multifarious material at his command”<3>

<1> ”Le Plaisir et l'Emotion Musicale,” _Rev Philos_, Tome 42, No 7

<2> Op cit, p 47

<3> Grove's _Dict_ Art ”Relationshi+p”

Now it is not hard to see how this antithesis has come about

But that the work of a ical analysis does not prove that our apprehension of it is a logical act And the preceding discussion has wholly failed to make its point, if it is not now clear that the h the aesthetic enjoyment ofof tonality is active, that feeling is ible to the listener

Indeed, if it were not so, we should have to restrict, by hypothesis, the enjoyive a technical report of what they hear,--which is notoriously at odds with the facts That psychologist is quite right who holds<1> that psychology, in laying down a principle explaining the actual effect of aitself to skilledno notice of more than nine tenths of those who listen to the piece But on the understanding that the tonality-feeling acts subconsciously, that our satisfaction with the progression of notes is unexplained by the laws of acoustics and association, we are enabled to bring within the circle of those who have the musical experience even those nine tenths whose intellects are not actively participant

<1> Lazarus, _Das Leben der Seele_, ii, p 323

The fact is that musical form, in the sense of structure, balance, sye of harmonies and keys, is different from the musical form which is felt intiress from one note to another Structure is indeed perceived, understood, enjoyed as an orderly unified arrangement Form is felt as an immediate joy Structure it is which many critics have in mind when they speak of form, and it is the confusion between the thich makes such an antithesis of musical beauty and sensuous material possible The real musical beauty, it is clear, is in the melodic idea; in the sequence of tones which are indissolubly one, which are felt together, one of which cannot exist without the other Musical beauty is in the intrinsic musical form And yet here, too, we must admit, that, in the last analysis, structure and form need not be different The perfect structure will be such a unity that it, too, will be FELT as one--not only ”the orderly distribution of harmonies and keys in such a manner that the mind can realize the concatenation as a complete and distinct work of art” The ideal e; it would not only realize the concatenation, but it would take it in as one takes in a single phrase, a si it from first not to last The ordinary musical consciousness has merely a much shorter breath It can ”feel”

an air, a movement; it cannot ”feel” a symphony, it can only perceive the relation of keys and har, study, experience, this span of beauty may be indefinitely extended--in the individual, as in the race But no one will deny that the direct experience of beauty, the single aesthetic thrill, is enius--hearer or coue haleine”

So it is that we must understand the development in musical form from the cut and dried sonata forreater beauty of Beethoven; and thence to the ”free forms” of modern music ”Infinite melody” is a contradiction in terms, because when the first term cannot be present in consciousness with the last there is nothing to control and direct the progression; and our musical memory is limited Yet we can conceive, theoretically, the possibility of an indefinite widening of the rounds as these that Poe laid down his fa poe poem” is simply a flat contradiction in ter exciteh a psychical necessity” transient, therefore no poeer than the natural term of such excite excite of the individual What is the ,” ”i into a Gestaltsqualitat-- a roup, a scheme in which every ele Beauty ceases for the hearer where this carrying power, the ”funded capital” of tone- linkings ceases In just the same way, if rhythht to be able to apprehend a rhythe over the moments of beauty in experience that we are enabled, without stretching to a breaking-point, to speak of a syle beautiful work of art

VII

But what of the difficulties which such a theory must meet?

The most obvious one is the short life of musical works If musical beauty is founded in natural lahy does row old? The answer is that music is a phenomenon of expectation as founded on these natural laws It is the tendency of one note to progress to another which is the basis of the vividness of our experience We expect, indeed, what belongs objectively to the developression to which we have become accustomed So it is that ives the greatest sense of ease, but the least sense of effort--the idealhindered on its way Intensity, vividness, would be felt where the progression is less obvious, but felt as ”fitting in” when it is once made; and where it is not obvious at all--where the link is not felt, a sense of dissatisfaction and restlessness arises So it is with music which we know by heart It is not that we know each note, and so expect it, but that it is felt as necessarily issuing out of the preceding A piece of poor hly familiar, and yet never, in this sense, felt as SATISFYING expectation In the saer, while still not absolutely obvious, would not be less quickening to the musical sense, even if learned by heart It is clear that there is an external and an internal expectation--one, imposed by memory, for the particular piece; the other constituted partly by intrinsic internal relations, partly by the degree to which these internal relations have been exploited That is, the possibility of musical expectation, and pleasure in its satisfaction, is conditioned by the possession of a tonality- feeling which covers the constituents of the piece of music, but which has not become absolutely mechanical in its action Just as rhythm needs an obstacle to make the structure felt, so melody needs some variation from the obvious set of relations already won and possessed If that possession is too co as would a 3-4 rhythenius in music, of the width and depth ofto be strange

On the other hand, if in reat is always to be misunderstood, it is no less true, here as elsewhere, that to be reat And e, and pass into oblivion, without ever having passed that stage of surprised and delighted acceptance which is the test of its truth to fundamental laws

But how shall music advance? How shall it set out to win new relations? It is at least conceivable that it takes the et new beauties, it does not say,--Go to, I will add to the beauties I already have! It makes new occasions, and by way of these finds the ineuse of Montmartre, and finds ”the odd, beautiful huddle of lines” in so doing; Rodin portrays ever new subtleties of situation and mood, and by way of these comes most naturally to ”the unedited poses”

So a e utterances by way of a new and strange motion or cry that he iive him he chooses the ones that chance to be beautiful And in time these new beauties have becoer metaphors, but part of the ”funded capital” That was a ridiculous device of Schus by using the letters of his temporary fair one's name--A B E G G; but it rows

VIII

But what provision must be made for the emotions of music? It cannot be that the h the very ones to insist that e of e Nor has it been atteht to show, grows and flowers out of tone-relations alone, consists in tone-sequences alone But it has not been said that ht not on occasion even express it