Part 21 (2/2)

[Sidenote: _Personal equation._]

[Sidenote: _Exact criticism._]

So writes Dr. Stainer, and it is his emotionalist against whom I uttered a warning in the introductory chapter of this book, when I called him a rhapsodist and described his motive to be primarily a desire to present himself as a person of unusually exquisite sensibilities. Frequently the rhapsodic style is adopted to conceal a want of knowledge, and, I fancy, sometimes also because ill-equipped critics have persuaded themselves that criticism being worthless, what the public need to read is a fantastic account of how music affects them. Now, it is true that what is chiefly valuable in criticism is what a man qualified to think and feel tells us he did think and feel under the inspiration of a performance; but when carried too far, or restricted too much, this conception of a critic's province lifts personal equation into dangerous prominence in the critical activity, and depreciates the elements of criticism, which are not matters of opinion or taste at all, but questions of fact, as exactly demonstrable as a problem in mathematics. In musical performance these elements belong to the technics of the art. Granted that the critic has a correct ear, a thing which he must have if he aspire to be a critic at all, and the possession of which is as easily proved as that of a dollar-bill in his pocket, the questions of justness of intonation in a singer or instrumentalist, balance of tone in an orchestra, correctness of phrasing, and many other things, are mere determinations of fact; the faculties which recognize their existence or discover their absence might exist in a person who is not ”moved by concord of sweet sounds” at all, and whose taste is of the lowest type. It was the acoustician Euler, I believe, who said that he could construct a sonata according to the laws of mathematics--figure one out, that is.

[Sidenote: _The Rhapsodists._]

[Sidenote: _An English exemplar._]

Because music is in its nature such a mystery, because so little of its philosophy, so little of its science is popularly known, there has grown up the tribe of rhapsodical writers whose influence is most pernicious. I have a case in mind at which I have already hinted in this book--that of a certain English gentleman who has gained considerable eminence because of the loveliness of the subject on which he writes and his deftness in putting words together. On many points he is qualified to speak, and on these he generally speaks entertainingly. He frequently blunders in details, but it is only when he writes in the manner exemplified in the following excerpt from his book called ”My Musical Memories,” that he does mischief. The reverend gentleman, talking about violins, has reached one that once belonged to Ernst. This, he says, he sees occasionally, but he never hears it more except

[Sidenote: _Ernst's violin._]

”In the night ... under the stars, when the moon is low and I see the dark ridges of the clover hills, and rabbits and hares, black against the paler sky, pausing to feed or crouching to listen to the voices of the night....

”By the sea, when the cold mists rise, and hollow murmurs, like the low wail of lost spirits, rush along the beach....

”In some still valley in the South, in midsummer. The slate-colored moth on the rock flashes suddenly into crimson and takes wing; the bright lizard darts timorously, and the singing of the gra.s.shopper--”

[Sidenote: _Mischievous writing._]

[Sidenote: _Musical sensibility and sanity._]

Well, the reader, if he has a liking for such things, may himself go on for quant.i.ty. This is intended, I fancy, for poetical hyperbole, but as a matter of fact it is something else, and worse. Mr. Haweis does not hear Ernst's violin under any such improbable conditions; if he thinks he does he is a proper subject for medical inquiry. Neither does his effort at fine writing help us to appreciate the tone of the instrument. He did not intend that it should, but he probably did intend to make the reader marvel at the exquisite sensibility of his soul to music. This is mischievous, for it tends to make the injudicious think that they are lacking in musical appreciation, unless they, too, can see visions and hear voices and dream fantastic dreams when music is sounding. When such writing is popular it is difficult to make men and women believe that they may be just as susceptible to the influence of music as the child Mozart was to the sound of a trumpet, yet listen to it without once feeling the need of taking leave of their senses or wandering away from sanity. Moreover, when Mr. Haweis says that he sees but does not hear Ernst's violin more, he speaks most undeserved dispraise of one of the best violin players alive, for Ernst's violin now belongs to and is played by Lady Halle--she that was Madame Norman-Neruda.

[Sidenote: _A place for rhapsody._]

[Sidenote: _Intelligent rhapsody._]

Is there, then, no place for rhapsodic writing in musical criticism?

Yes, decidedly. It may, indeed, at times be the best, because the truest, writing. One would convey but a sorry idea of a composition were he to confine himself to a technical description of it--the number of its measures, its intervals, modulations, speed, and rhythm.

Such a description would only be comprehensible to the trained musician, and to him would picture the body merely, not the soul. One might as well hope to tell of the beauty of a statue by reciting its dimensions. But knowledge as well as sympathy must speak out of the words, so that they may realize Schumann's lovely conception when he said that the best criticism is that which leaves after it an impression on the reader like that which the music made on the hearer.

Read Dr. John Brown's account of one of Halle's recitals, reprinted from ”The Scotsman,” in the collection of essays ent.i.tled ”Spare Hours,” if you would see how aptly a sweetly sane mind and a warm heart can rhapsodize without the help of technical knowledge:

[Sidenote: _Dr. Brown and Beethoven._]

”Beethoven (Dr. Brown is speaking of the Sonata in D, op.

10, No. 3) begins with a trouble, a wandering and groping in the dark, a strange emergence of order out of chaos, a wild, rich confusion and misrule. Wilful and pa.s.sionate, often harsh, and, as it were, thick with gloom; then comes, as if 'it stole upon the air,' the burden of the theme, the still, sad music--_Largo e mesto_--so human, so sorrowful, and yet the sorrow overcome, not by gladness but by something better, like the sea, after a dark night of tempest, falling asleep in the young light of morning, and 'whispering how meek and gentle it can be.' This likeness to the sea, its immensity, its uncertainty, its wild, strong glory and play, its peace, its solitude, its unsearchableness, its prevailing sadness, comes more into our minds with this great and deep master's works than any other.”

That is Beethoven.

[Sidenote: _Apollo and the critic--a fable._]

[Sidenote: _The critic's duty to admire._]

[Sidenote: _A mediator between musician and public._]

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