Chapter XXVI: Introduction (4)

(_ββ_) Being of this character this form of declamatory expression, known as recitative, is suitable for tranquil statement of situation, or facts, no less than the presentment of the entire compass of the emotions, under which the distraction of the soul in exceptional circumstances is depicted, and which in its soul-full harmonies stirs the heart sympathetically with its every movement. The recitative is first mainly applicable to the oratorio, either as the declamed narration, or the more vivacious presentment of instantaneous occurrence; or, secondly, we find it in dramatic song, in which case it can appropriately express every shade of parenthetical statement, no less than every sort of passion, it matters not whether the result be expressed in abrupt, curtailed, or fragmentary variation, or with aphoristic violence, or in a dialogue of rapid lightning flashes and counter flashes, or in a more continuous stream. In both these provinces of epic or dramatic poetry, we may add that instrumental music is a possible accompaniment. Its function in either case is either quite simply to emphasize the pauses in the harmonic progression, or to interrupt the course of melody with incidental music, which, agreeably to the general import of the former, depicts in musical language other aspects and movements of the situation.

(_γγ_) What, however, we find defective in this declamatory recitative is just the qualities which are essentially characteristic of the pure melody; these are the definite articulation and unification of its parts, the expression of that spiritual homogeneity or unity of which we have spoken, that which, it is true, is confined in a particular content, but at the same time asserts its own sense of unity in that content, being enabled to do this through its refusal to be distracted or broken up by its absorption in particular aspects of it, or rather, instead of this, still retaining in them as predominant its ideal coalescence. For this reason the art of music cannot rest satisfied, even where we are dealing with the more sharply defined features of the libretto proposed, with such recitative of declamation; nor in general can it remain content with the unmediated _difference_ between the pure melody, which, in comparison with it and as above explained, floats over the particularity of the words, and the recitative, whose task it is so far as possible to identify itself with it. On the contrary we must look for some mode of _mediation_ between these extremes. We may compare with this new type of unity a constituent which entered into our consideration of the distinction between harmony and melody. This harmony was acknowledged as being not merely the general, but to a like extent the essentially specific and particularized foundation of melody; and far from the latter being thereby deprived of its freedom of movement, we found that it only thus secured for the same a power and definition comparable to that the human organism secures by virtue of its consistent bone-structure, which only impedes inappropriate postures and movements, while it adds stability and security to the right ones.

This brings us to the final point of view of our discussion of music as an accompaniment.

(_γ_) This _third_ mode of expression consists in this that the melodic song, which accompanies words, is also involved in their particularized substance, and thereby is not permitted to remain wholly indifferent to the principle of most force in recitative; rather it appropriates this with the result that while it repairs its own defects in clear definition, it confers on the characteristic recitative an organic articulation and a unified self-consistency. For, as already observed, even that which is throughout melody is impossible without a certain defined content. When, therefore, I mainly emphasized the fact that in all and every mode of it the tranquil self-reflection of the soul's own essential substance and ideal unity is the mode of expression peculiarly that of simple melody, inasmuch as, musically considered, it presents a similar unity and a similarly complete return upon itself, I did so because I then had in view this aspect as the distinctive point of contrast between the pure melody and the recitative. It is, however, further incumbent on the melodic phrase to bring it about that its mode come into actual possession of that which in the first instance appears necessarily to have its movement outside it, and by means of this replenishment, in so far as it then is equally of a declamatory or a melodic character, for the first time attain to a truly concrete expression. It follows also from the converse point of view that the declamatory part of it is no longer independently aloof from it, but finds its own one-sidedness supplemented in like manner by the accretion of melodic expression. This is what constitutes the necessary condition of such concrete unity. In order to examine this more closely we had better keep distinct the following points of view.

_First_, it will be as well to glance at the kind of _libretto_, or text, which is adapted to musical composition, and for this reason that it has been now proved that clear definition in the content of words adapted to music and its expression is of essential importance.

_Secondly_, we have now introduced as a fresh constituent of _composition_ declamatory characterization; it will therefore be necessary to consider this in its relation to the principle, which we, in the first instance, identified as that of melody.

_Thirdly_, we must endeavour to specify the more prominent _modes_ under which we may review this type of musical expression.

(_αα_) Music[466] is not merely in a general way an accompaniment of the content of a work in a sphere which already engages our attention, but it is part of its function, as already observed, to define still further the characterization of such a work. It is consequently an injurious assumption that the construction of the libretto is a matter of indifference to the musical composition. We find, on the contrary, that really distinguished musical compositions presuppose an excellent libretto, carefully selected by the composers or actually written by them. It is impossible that an artist should treat with indifference the material with which he is dealing and a musician least of all, precisely in the degree that poetry has already worked out and settled for him the epic, lyrical, or dramatic configuration of the content in question.

What is of first importance in the construction of a good text is this that its content should be stamped by essential _self-consistency._[467] It is impossible that music should conjure forth an artistic product of real strength and penetration from what is commonplace, trivial, barren, or absurd. With all the spices and seasonings in the world your musical chef will never make a hare pie out of a roasted cat. In the case of song compositions no doubt the nature of the words is less decisive, yet even here we require words with a really genuine content. From a further point of view, however, it is equally necessary that such a content should not tax our reflection too much, or aspire to philosophical profundity, as is rather the case with the lyrics of Schiller. In such an example the extraordinary range of pathos exceeds the musical expression of lyrical emotion. The same thing may be said of the choruses of Aeschylus and Sophocles. The penetrative power here displayed in imaginative conception is so exceptional, they are so elaborate in their detail whether regarded in their scenic or ideal presentment, they are already so absolutely complete as poetry that we have nothing left for music to add to them[468]. We have literally no room left us for any further play or exposition of ideal significance or movement beyond that already presented. The more modern material and mode of treatment we find in the so-called romantic poetry are in their type the strongest contrast to these. Their pretension, as a rule, is that of being naive and popular; but we only too frequently find a _naïveté_ which is finical, artificial, and stilted. Instead of pure and genuine emotions we get a _simplicitas_ that is nothing but feeling worked upon and acting under the constraint of reflection; a false kind of yearning and affectation, which is far too complaisant with dulness, stupidity, and vulgarity, and is equally blind to the defects of passions, envy, licence, and even devilish wickedness wholly without ideal content; which is, moreover, as self-satisfied with its assumed excellence in the one case as it is with the dissolution and baseness of the other. Emotion that is spontaneous, simple, thorough, penetrative, is here entirely absent, and music, in any attempt to reproduce it, can suffer no greater injury. We may therefore accept the fact that neither mere depth of thought, nor the vanity or worthlessness of mere emotion can give us a satisfactory content. On the contrary what is most adapted for music is a certain intermediate type of poetry, which we Germans are loth even to admit as poetry, and the true feeling and talent for which is more largely possessed by Italians and Frenchmen. It is a poetry of a genuine lyrical quality, extremely simple, which indicates situations and emotions in a few words. Where it is more dramatic it remains luminous and vital without too involved a development; detail is not so much elaborated, but it is rather, as a rule, concerned to supply general effects, than the completely articulate results of a poet's activity. We find here that the composer receives, in accordance with his demand, merely the general foundation, upon which he can, in subordination to his own invention, and his own threshing out of motives of every kind, erect his building, treating many aspects of the subject as part of his own life and movement. For inasmuch as music has to adapt itself to words, these words should not particularize the picture too closely; if they do the musical declamation becomes absorbed in trifles, lacking in a common impulse, too contracted in the direction of particular features, and the unity and general effect is impaired. In this direction people are only too frequently at fault when expressing an opinion upon the excellence or insufficiency of a libretto. It is one of the most common verdicts, for example, that the libretto of the Magic Flute is hopelessly bad, though this piece of manufacture is nevertheless among the best of opera librettos. Among the many wildly fantastic and commonplace productions of his pen Schickaneder has in this for once hit the right track. The empire of Night, with its queen, the empire of the Sun, these mysteries, these initiations, this Wisdom, Love, these ordeals, and with it all this typically world-wise ethic, excellent in the breadth of its applicability--all this when combined with the depth, the bewitching loveliness and soul of the music expands and floods our imagination, and warms the heart.

To mention further examples, the old Latin texts of great masses and other services are unrivalled for religious music. This is in part due to the fact that they set before us in the greatest simplicity and brevity the most general content of religious faith, in part also to this that they present in the same spirit the varied stages of emotion that accompany the substance of this in the consciousness of the community of the faithful, and by doing both offer the musician a wide field for his own particular development. The great Requiem and many selections from the Psalms are equally serviceable. In a similar way Handel welded his texts, partly from religious dogmas themselves, but, above all, from scriptural passages and situations of symbolical import, into a completely consistent whole.

In the field of lyrical poetry the more suitable for this purpose are the emotional and shorter poems, in particular the simple ones, in content no less than speech, steeped in emotion, which penetrate into one prevailing mood or affection, or those too of lighter and more gay character. There is hardly a nation that does not possess such. In the sphere of drama I will only mention Metastasio, and with him Marmontel the Frenchman, who, himself richly emotional, cultured, and lovable, instructed Piccini in French, and knew so wisely how to combine in the drama grace and vivacity with the skill and interest of the action and development. But before all else we shall do well to emphasize the libretti of the famous operas of Glück. Without exception we shall find their motives simple. The content they offer to the emotions is in a sphere the most sterling of all, depicting as they do the love of mother, wife, sister, friendship, honour, and so forth, and permitting these simple motives and the form of their essential collisions to unfold in an atmosphere of tranquillity. And for this reason the passion they disclose is throughout pure, great, noble, and of plastic simplicity.

(_ββ_) It is, then, the function of music, by the characterization of its expression no less than its wealth of pure melody, fittingly to reproduce a content of the above nature. And that we may obtain such a result it is not merely necessary that the text contain in itself earnestness of heart, the comic and tragic greatness of human passion, the depth of religious idea and emotion, the powers and fatalities that the human breast discloses, the composer also on his part must be absorbed wholly in the composition, and must have lived in and through it heart and soul.

What is equally important is the relation under which what is characteristic and melodious in such music is on either hand associated. The main point appears to be, that as between them it is the melodic expression which without exception, as the factor of synthetic unity, which gains the day, rather than that which tends to distract and break up the whole into particular characterization. To take an example of the latter case from modern dramatic music, the effect often sought for here is one of powerful contrasts, and this is brought about by forcing into one continuous stream of music, under the conditions of conflict permitted to the art, contrasted passions. We have, it may be, expressed for us jollity, marriage, and festive associations, intermingled with which we may have hate, revenge, hostility, so that for result we are presented a fine uproar in which joviality, delight, dance-music, passionate scolding, and the very extremes of distraction are all involved. But contrasts of interrupted life such as these are, and which tumble us from one side to another, without any principle of union, are opposed to harmonious beauty precisely in the degree that the point of opposition in such characterization is acutely emphasized, and any return of the melody to a real self-repose and self-enjoyment is out of the question. And in general the union of the melodic and characteristic features of such music readily incurs the risk of overstepping the finely drawn boundaries of musical beauty, more especially when the intention is to express force, selfishness, evil, impetuosity, and other extremes of exclusive passion of a similar nature. The moment that music is involved in its abstract task of such characteristic limitation it can hardly avoid making for chaos, becoming, that is to say, more acute, unpliable, and, in fact, thoroughly unmelodious and unmusical, to the extent even of sheer misuse of discord.

A similar result will be found if we look at the _different_ features of characterization generally. I mean that if these are strongly emphasized in their independent form the connection between themselves and other traits is readily weakened and their self-subsistency in repose is at once evident: but in musical exposition our difficulty is, we have an essential movement throughout, and it is in this progression that we are forced to look for the relation of stability; this being so the isolation of effect cannot fail to act injuriously on the flow and unity of the music.

Genuine beauty in music consists, under the aspect now being discussed, in this, that while there is no doubt a movement towards characterization out of that which is simply melodic, yet within the sphere of this more defined articulation[469], the melodic aspect is still maintained as the sustaining soul and unity, much as we find in what is most characteristic in the paintings of Raphael the fundamental tone of beauty is throughout conserved. Melody is then not without definite significance, but in all such definition betrays a coalescing and suffusing principle of life, and more characteristic detail presents itself merely as the emphasized prominence of certain aspects, which are none the less always and essentially fused again in this medium of unity and animation. To hit off the just mean in this respect is, however, a more difficult task for music than the other arts, for the reason that music surrenders itself more readily to such antagonistic modes of expression. For this reason criticism over musical composition is almost always divided into two camps. The one attaches most importance to the melodic structure, the other prefers further advance in characterization. Handel, for example, who frequently in his operas insisted on having certain lyrical episodes emphasized acutely, had to face many a tussle on this head with Italian singers, and was finally compelled, when the public ranged itself on the side of the Italians, to confine himself wholly to the composition of oratorios, in which field his genius pre-eminently asserted itself. In the time of Glück also the long and vehement controversy between the supporters of Glück and Piccini is famous. Rousseau also in his turn insisted on the superiority of the more melodious Italian music as compared with the deficiency in this respect of the earlier French composers. We have in our own days the same old controversy waged for or against Rossini and the more modern Italian school. The opponents of the former condemn his music as if it were so much empty ear-tickling; if we, however, assimilate his melodies more generously we shall find that there is much in this music of real feeling and genius; it is not without a real message to our faculties, although it does not make any claim to the characteristic effects, which are more especially dear to our severe German musical sense. And indeed it must be admitted that only too often Rossini says good-bye to his libretto, and gives free vent to his melodies, precisely as his mood dictates, so that we have nothing left us but the alternative either to stick to the subject-matter and grumble over the music that is indifferent to it, or abandon the former and take our hearty delight in the inspired irrelevances of the composer and the soul which they reveal[470].

(_γγ_) I will now in conclusion briefly summarize the most notable _forms_ of music regarded as accompaniment.

_First_, in the order of our classification we may mention _ecclesiastical_ music. Music of this type, in so far as it is not concerned with the personal emotion of individuals, but with the substantive content of emotion in its widest compass, or shall we say the universal emotion of the community viewed collectively, is in a large measure throughout of _epical_ consistency, even though it instructs us in no events in so many words. How an artistic conception is able to be epical in significance, though we have in it no narrative of event, we shall endeavour to explain at a later stage when we come to deal more closely with epic poetry. This fundamentally religious music is among the profoundest and most impressive creations that Art can bring into being in any sphere whatever. Its true position, in so far, that is, as it is associated with the sacerdotal petition for the community, we find in the cult of _Roman Catholicism_, conjoint with the Mass, and more generally as a means of musical devotion attendant to the most varied ecclesiastical functions and festivals. Protestants can also boast of musicians of the profoundest gifts not merely as religious men, but also in the sterling character and opulence of their imaginative resource or executive ability. Sebastian Bach here stands before us as the master of masters. For the first time in our own day we have been taught to appreciate at something like its value the great genius of this man, his truly protestant, robust temper, and withal his profound erudition. Of first importance we may observe in this connection, and in contrast to the direction followed by the music of Catholicism, the emergence in complete form of the oratorio, in the first instance out of the Passion music. Nowadays, of course, music for Protestantism is no longer so closely associated with the cult of religion, nor so essentially a part of its services; and indeed it is often more a matter of exercise in musical scholarship than a really vital creation.

_Second_ in order we have _lyrical_ music, which expresses in melody isolated moods, and for the most part should be disjoined from the wholly characteristic or declamatory mode, although it may rightly undertake to combine with its expression the specific content of the words illustrated, whether their import be religious or otherwise.

Tempestuous passions, however, which neither issue in repose or finality, the unresolved division of the heart, emotional distraction destitute of all relief, such experiences are more suitably reproduced as an integral part of _dramatic_ music; they are out of place in the harmonious consistency of the lyrical mode.

This _dramatic_ form is then our _third_ and final division. The tragedy of the ancients was associated with music; but this aspect was not emphasized, and for this reason that in truly poetical works precedence must necessarily be given to human speech and the poet's own exposition of ideas and emotion; the only way music could in these times assist--which in its harmonic and melodic expression had not as yet reached that of a subsequent Christian era--was mainly from the rhythmical point of view by heightening with increased animation the musical sound of the poetical language, and thereby bringing the same more home to the heart.

Dramatic music, however, receives a really independent position when once the form of church music is essentially complete, and in lyrical expression some degree of perfection has been attained. We find this in our modern operas and operettas. It must be admitted that from the point of view of song the _operetta_ is a half-way house of less importance, one which mixes together with no vital connection speech and song, what is musical and unmusical, the language of prose and that of melody. It is a common objection no doubt that song in the drama is without exception unnatural. Such an objection cannot be pressed, and would be far less open to argument as against the opera, in which from the first line to the last every idea, emotion, passion, and resolve is accompanied by and expressed in song. On the contrary, it is rather the operetta which still requires justification in so far as it introduces music in which we have a more animated presentment of the emotions and passions, or the latter are adapted for such presentment, while in the juxtaposition of a confused melody of prosaic dialogue with these artistically treated interludes of song we have what is a perpetual embarrassment. In other words, the emancipation of art is incomplete. In genuine _opera_, however, in which the action throughout receives its musical analogue, we are once and for all transported into an ideal world of art, the atmosphere of which is throughout the work maintained in so far as the music accepts for its fundamental content the ideal aspects of emotional stress, the particular phases of such in specific situations, and the conflicts of passion, that it may, by virtue of the more complete effects of its expression, add the final emphasis they would otherwise have lost. Conversely in the _vaudeville_, where airs already popular and well known are set to the more pointed and arresting rhymes, singing is merely a self-imposed kind of irony. The fact that there is singing at all is intended to be taken rather as parody or amusement: here the main point is the meaning of the text and its fun, and the singing has no sooner ceased than we laugh that it should ever have commenced.

(_b_) _Independent Music_

We may compare melody, as an essentially self-contained and self-supported whole, to plastic sculpture; in the more detailed characterization of painting we shall find an analogous type to that of musical declamation. And inasmuch as in the latter case we have an aggregate of specific differentia unfolded such as the more simple movement of the human voice is unable in all its variety to express, the more all these many aspects of life enter into the movement of the music, to that extent instrumental music is a necessary accompaniment. In addition to this, as a _farther_ point of view, whether in its relation to the music that accompanies a libretto, or the characteristic expression of the words, we have to recognize in its freedom a content of definite ideas, which is, as transmitted, wholly independent of musical sound.

Now what constitutes the essential principle of music is the ideality of the soul-life. But this innermost, or ideality of the concrete self is the subjective state in its bare simplicity, that is, as defined by no assured content, and for this reason not forced into motion either one way or another, but reposing on its unity in unfettered freedom. And if this subjective principle is to come entirely to its own in music also it must rid itself of a traditional text, and in all purity, out of its own resources, master its content, the movement and the kind of expression, the unity and development of its creation, the carrying out of a main conception, no less than all episodical or incidental matter; and in doing this, for the reason that the significance of the whole is not expressed in language, it must restrict its means to those exclusively of musical value. And this is what does take place in the sphere I have already described as _independent_ music. Music, as an accompaniment, possesses that which it undertakes to express outside its own domain; to this extent it is associated in its expression with that which does not belong to it as music, but to an alien art, poetry. If music is to be nothing but music simply, it must disengage itself from this factor, which it has only borrowed elsewhere, detach itself absolutely from the definite substance of language. Thus alone it becomes entirely free. And this is the point we have now to examine more closely.

We have already noticed the beginnings of such an emancipation within the limits of music as an accompaniment. For though it is true that in part here music was compelled by the force of poetical language to be subservient, yet also in part it either moved in benign repose over the more _limited_ characterization of the words or removed itself entirely from the significance of ideas therein expressed, to expatiate of its free will in the musical language of joy or sorrow. The same result is apparent in its effect on an audience, the public as we say, and more especially in its attitude to the music of drama. In other words, an opera has many constituents. We have the local condition, landscape and the rest, or the movement of the action, or incidental episodes and pageants. From another point of view we are confronted with human passions and their expression. In short, there is a twofold content--namely, the external action and the soul-emotion that corresponds. If we take the action simply we shall find that, though it is that in which all the parts cohere, yet regarded merely in its movement forward it is less adapted to musical expression and mainly elaborated in recitative. With a content of this nature an audience is not so arrested; its attention is particularly liable to wander off from the dialogue of recitation, and to fix itself upon the portion of the work that is really musical and melodious. We have an exceptional illustration of this--I have already adverted to the fact--in our modern Italian opera, which is from the first made to fall in with the custom of the audience to engage in conversation, or other ways of enjoying itself, during the chatter or trivialities of the musical dialogue, and which only returns to that part of the music which is truly music, with the full measure of sympathetic attention, enjoyment, and delight. In this case we find, then, that composer, no less than audience, barely fall short of bidding good-bye to the libretto's substance altogether, and of treating music for the purposes of enjoyment as an absolutely independent art.

(_α_) The true province of such independence is, however, not the accompaniment of vocal music undeniably conditioned by a text, but instrumental music simply. As already observed, the human voice is the appropriate musical expression of man's inner life in its entirety, a life also expressed in ideas and words, which therefore discovers in its own voice and song its distinctive organ, so often as it seeks to express and recover this inner world of its ideas permeated throughout with the concentrated intensity of emotion. In the case of instruments taken by themselves, however, this basis of an associated text of words disappears; here we find an opening for the empire of a music that is confined strictly to its own unassisted powers.

(_β_) Such a music of particular instruments presented us in quartets, quintets, sextets, symphonies and the like, without text or vocal music, remains unrelated to any movement of ideas independently asserted, and is for this very reason compelled to have recourse to emotions of a more indefinite character, emotions which in such music can only be expressed in general terms. The aspect of importance here, in short, is the varied motion of the music simply, the ups and downs of the harmony or melody, the stream of sound through its degrees of opposition, preponderance, emphasis, acuteness or vivacity, the elaboration of a melodic phrase in every respect that is suitable to the means of musical art, the musician-like fusion of all the instruments as one _ensemble_ of tone, or in their succession, alternation, and emphatic display of themselves and each other. It is in this sphere pre-eminently that the distinction between the _ordinary person_ and the _expert_ of music asserts itself. The ordinary man likes best in music an expression of emotion and ideas that is at once intelligible, that whereof the content is obvious; his predilection is consequently for music under the mode of an accompaniment. The connoisseur, on the contrary, who is able to follow the relation of musical sounds and instruments as composition, enjoys the artistic result of harmonious modulation, and its interwoven melodies and transitions on its own merits. He is entirely absorbed by this alone, and is interested in comparing the detail to which he listens with the rules and principles he is fully able to apply to it, in order thus to follow the performance with judgment and delight, although even in his case it frequently happens that our modern type of virtuosity, with variations in tempo or other nuances for which our connoisseur is unprepared, will perplex him not a little. A complete satisfaction of this kind comes rarely to the mere amateur. He is seized with the vain desire to master this apparently phantomnal process of music, to discover arresting points for his attention in the musical development, and generally more definite ideas and a more detailed content in the volume of sound that invades him. In this respect he seeks to attach to music a symbolical significance, yet can find in the same little beyond mysterious problems that vanish in the moment they are propounded, which baffle his powers of solution and in general are capable of a variety of interpretations.

The _composer_ is able, it is true, on his part to associate with his work a definite significance, a content of specific ideas and emotions, which are expressed articulately in movement that excludes all else; conversely he can, in complete indifference to such a scheme, devote himself to musical structure simply and the assertion of his genius in such architectonic. Composition, however, of this character readily tends to become defective both in the range of its conception and emotional quality, and as a rule does not imply any profound cultivation of mind or taste in other respects. And by reason of the fact that such a content is not necessary, it frequently happens that the gift of musical composition not merely will show considerable development in very early age, but composers of eminence remain their life long men of the poorest and most impoverished intellectual faculty in other directions. More penetration of character may be assumed where the composer even in instrumental music is equally attentive to both aspects of composition; in other words, the expression of a content, if necessarily less defined than in our previous mode, no less than its musical structure, by which means it will be in his power at one time to emphasize the melody, at another the depth and colour of the harmony, or finally to fuse each with the other.

(_γ_) We have throughout posited subjectivity in its unconstrained presentment within the limits of music as the general principle of this type of composition. This independence of a content already proposed to it from an alien source will, however, more or less assert itself in opposition to mere caprice, though the restrictions under which it admits it are not defined rigorously. For, albeit this type of composition has its own rules and modes, the authority of which no mere whim or fancy can reject, yet they are regulations which only affect the broader aspects of music; in actual detail there is no end to the opportunity which the inner content of soul-life[471], provided it once accepts the boundaries fixed by the essential conditions of musical composition, may discover for its otherwise free expatiation and exposition. And, in fact, as a result of the elaboration of modes congenial to this type, the caprice of individual composers asserts, in contrast to the steady advance of purely melodic expression and music in association with a definite text, a practically unrestrained mastery in every sort of conceit, caprice, interlude, inspiriting drollery, startling suspension, rapid transition, lightning flashes, extraordinary surprises and effects.

(_c_) _The Artist as Executant_

In sculpture and painting we have a work of art presented us as an external and independent _result_ of artistic activity; we do not regard this activity itself as the actual creation of life[472]. It is, however, necessary to the presentation of a musical work of art that we should have an executant musician in co-operation, just as in dramatic poetry we have the representative presence of living manhood as an essential factor in this type of art's realization.

We have, then, reviewed musical composition under the two aspects, that is to say, in so far as it sought to conform with a specific content, or struck out on its own free path of independence. We may now in the same way distinguish between two main types of purely executive art. The one is wholly absorbed in the work of art on hand, and makes no attempt to reproduce anything over and beyond this. The other, on the contrary, is not simply reproductive; it actually creates expression, delivery, in short the essential animation of the work, not merely from the composition as composed, but predominantly from its own resources.

(_α_) In the case of the epic poem, wherein the poet seeks to unfold an objective world of event and modes of action, the rhapsodist, who recites it, has no occasion to do anything further than wholly withdraw the expression of his own personality in the presence of the exploits and events he brings home to us. The more reserved he is in this respect the better; indeed such recitation is not incompatible with a monotoned and unemphasized delivery. What is effective here is the fact of the poem, the poetical execution, the narrative itself, not its realization in voice and speech. This illustration will suggest to us the _rationale_ for our first type of musical reproduction. In other words, if the composition is in a similar way of a genuine objective quality, in the sense that the composer has simply translated his subject-matter, or the emotion that is absorbed with it, into musical language, the artistic reproduction should retain the same objective character. It is not merely true that here there is no reason for the executant to import into it his idiosyncrasies; by doing so he necessarily impairs the true artistic effect. He must subordinate himself entirely to the character of the work, and prescribe to himself simply this attitude of attention. On the other hand, he must not, as is too frequently the case, confuse such an attitude with that of the purely servile artisan, and lower himself to the level of an organ-grinder. If such execution is to retain any artistic claim the artist is bound to avoid leaving the impression of a musical automaton, which merely repeats its prescribed lesson mechanically, and instead to animate the entire work with the heart and soul of the composer himself. The virtuosity of such a vital reproduction is restricted, however, to the just elucidation of the technical difficulties presented by the work, and in doing so the object will be not merely to cover any appearance of triumph over an exacting task, but to portray the freest movement under such conditions, and, in so far as superior artistic endowment and experience can in the particular case manage to do so, attain in the reproduction to the spiritual altitude of the composer and reflect the same in actual performance.

(_β_) It is another matter when we come to deal with works of art, in which personal idiosyncrasy and caprice are even by the composer himself features brought into prominence, and where generally we find the traces of such a clearly objective quality in expression, the treatment of the harmonic or characteristic development less pronounced. In such a case the _bravura_ of virtuosity is, it is our first distinction, quite admissible; and over and above this executive ability is not only limited to the reproduction of the actual score, but may considerably amplify; an artist will _himself_ add to the composition in his delivery, supplement defects, add substance to what is comparatively superficial, import into parts a new life, and in doing so assert independent judgment and invention. In the Italian opera, for example, much is always left to the singer's discretion; in particular where we have embellishments a more liberal opportunity of display is granted, and in so far as the exposition of sound is further removed from the mere interpretation of the libretto, the execution in its independence becomes a more spontaneous flow of melody, in which the soul of the singer is permitted to enjoy itself and exult in its own free rapture. When therefore it is objected that Rossini for one has made the singer's task too easy, the stricture is only in part justified. The difficulty is none the less there, only he frequently leaves it to the trained intelligence of the executant to work it out for himself. If in the result we are conscious of the cooperation of genius, the work as thus reproduced makes an exceptionally favourable impression. We have not merely a _work of art_ reproduced, but we are conscious at the same time of actual _musical creation._ In this very present realization of life the external conditions of artistic reproduction disappear, such as place, opportunity, the local associations of a divine service, the content and intent of a dramatical situation; we have no further need for, nor do we desire any text, we have left us simply the unspecialized impulse of emotion, in the element of which the soul of the artist can surrender itself without let or hindrance to its own rapture, displaying thereby inventive genius, the finest qualities of emotion, and a mastery of technique; and in fact, provided we find the right spirit, ability, and personal charm to justify it, it may venture to interrupt the flow of melody itself with humour, caprice and virtuosity, and accept for once the moods and suggestions of the moment.

(_γ_) This kind of virtuosity is yet more remarkable in cases where the instrument is not the human voice, but one of _human invention._ By this I mean to say that such naturally in the kind of sound they produce are further removed from the soul's direct expression; they are in relation to that of an external object, apiece of dead mechanism, and music is essentially a spiritual movement and activity. When we find, therefore, this externality of the instrument vanishes altogether, in the case, that is, where the music of the soul breaks right through this alien crust of mechanism, by means of such virtuosity, even an instrument of this character is transformed into one as fully adapted to express the soul of the artist as it is possible to conceive. Among the memories of my youth I can still recall the case of an astonishing executant on the guitar, who in his own eccentric fashion had composed huge battle-pieces for this comparatively insignificant instrument. By profession, if I remember rightly, he was a weaver, and in conversation he had little enough to say for himself. But no sooner did he begin to play than one wholly forgot the absurd pretensions of his composition, forgot these precisely as he forgot all else but the music, and the marvellous result he made of it by being totally absorbed body and soul in his instrument, entirely witless of any form of nobler execution than that expressed in the tones of a guitar[473].

A virtuosity of this type, in so far as it asserts such a unique superiority, is not only a proof of extraordinary mastery over material forces, but we receive from it as it strides victoriously over difficulties apparently unplayable, even turns aside to add to them, or in wayward mood breaks in upon us jestingly with I know not what interruptions and surprises, and by original invention even makes us enjoy what would otherwise be vulgar, is a direct reflection of absolutely free soul-life[474]. It is quite true that a mere charlatan[475] of this type is unable to produce original works of art; but where real genius is part of the endowment we can have extraordinary mastery in composition no less than over a particular instrument, the limitations of which this virtuosity lays itself out to overcome, and in audacious vindication of its triumph will reproduce the artistic effects of other instruments entirely remote in other hands from its own. It is an accomplishment of this kind which delights us with our acutest sense of the life of music. And this riddle of riddles we discover in the fact that a mere piece of mechanical craft can become an instrument one with our life, which enables us to follow, as through a flash of lightning, a power of ideal conception no less than execution, by virtue of which the imagination of genius penetrates to the core of life as instantaneously as it vanishes therefrom.

Such, then, are the most essential features, which I have selected from my own experience of music, the more general points of view which I have detached from the subject and concentrated attention upon in the present discussion.

[Footnote 377: _Ein festes Daseyn_, lit., an assured existence.]

[Footnote 378: We should not expect the plural. Hegel apparently includes the transitional relief of sculpture.]

[Footnote 379: Lit., "But also strives to set itself back into the previous condition." He refers to the mutual relation of tones.]

[Footnote 380: _In sich selbst Ideellgezetzte._ That is, posited as ideal in the way music does with its object, as to which further explanation is given below.]

[Footnote 381: It is difficult to follow closely this very technical interpretation of musical sound, and a doubt may be perhaps permitted as to whether it corresponds to the scientific facts. I mean it does not appear fully to do justice to the reaction of the organ of human hearing itself and the intelligence with which it is related upon the sound waves that through such mediation are cognized as musical sound. The ideality appears to me to be more complete than even Hegel's theory would suggest, or, at any rate, some of his expressions. And surely, too, in sight, though it may be true we see independent objects, we only do so, in so far as their secondary qualities are concerned, by virtue of a considerable action of what he here calls _Seelenhaftigkeit._ But this is not the place for more than a suggestion. The main points of contrast are in Hegel's interpretation sufficiently obvious.]

[Footnote 382: _Des Körpers._ I am not sure that I quite follow the meaning of this second moment of negation. If it means the reaction or synthetic process of human hearing it removes in great measure the objection above. We then have as the twofold negation the negation by the ideality of sound and that through the human sense. But owing to Hegel's use of _Material_ to indicate the medium which is subject to oscillation, it would rather appear to mean that one vibration is cancelled by another.]

[Footnote 383: _Das an und für sich schon etwas Ideelleres ist._ This would correspond to the ideality of the first negation of spatial condition.]

[Footnote 384: He means its own ideal existence. _Aufgeben_ must here be used in the primary sense of "delivers." He does not mean that it gives expression to the ideality of spirit; this is added by the next clause.]

[Footnote 385: This is, I think, Hegel's meaning for _das an sich selbst Subjektive._ Its content is also formally ideal or abstract as above explained, but to express this he would rather have used the word _ideell_ or _innerlich._ It is also, as I have pointed out, in great measure ideal in the sense that as musical tone it is not natural even in the qualified sense that colour is. It is even more dependent on the human organism for its quality and synthesis. But I do not think Hegel means subjective in this sense, but that it directly expresses human emotion.]

[Footnote 386: Both ideas are contained in the word _Verschweben_, which means to hover and slowly vanish away.]

[Footnote 387: _Figurationen._ Their modal combinations.]

[Footnote 388: It is obvious that in this respect music to some extent infringes on the distinction Hegel has already pointed out between its content and that of poetry.]

[Footnote 389: By _verständige Formen_ Hegel means, of course, forms that express an artistic, that is, an intelligible purpose. The whole passage is not very clearly expressed. The general meaning is, however, that as architecture surrounds its statues with a medium of material environment co-ordinated by artistic design and invention, so, too, music in its medium of emotional content is equally indefinite and may be used as an accompaniment (as architecture is a kind of accompaniment to statuary) in the melodic play of its harmonies to definite ideas in uttered speech. The reader of Browning will doubtless recollect the fine use made of architecture as metaphorical illustration in the poem "Abt Vogler." I think it was Schopenhauer who first spoke of architecture as frozen music. But Schelling speaks of it in the same way.]

[Footnote 390: I presume Hegel here refers primarily to scholastic music, musical exercises intended to exhibit the structure of music. The exercises, for example, of Cramer or Fuchs. Bach's forty-eight fugues would occupy a transitional place.]

[Footnote 391: _Tonseele._ There is, of course, something almost mystic in Hegel's conception of musical sound as the ideality issuing from the material world.]

[Footnote 392: That is, sculpture and painting.]

[Footnote 393: By _Haltpunkte_ Hegel appears to mean material that will act as stays and supports in contrast to those which are indifferent.]

[Footnote 394: I presume by _solchen festen Bestimmungen_ Hegel refers to the general definition of artistic function just enunciated. But the sense may possibly be, "while the point of departure is the stable determinations of natural form."]

[Footnote 395: We are inevitably reminded of the release which Art was to such men as Beethoven, Dante, Milton, and Blake.]

[Footnote 396: In the theme.]

[Footnote 397: It seems doubtful how how far a musician would accept this at least in so far as it applies to classical music of the formal type. The development, for instance, on the repetition of a theme in a sonata is at least part of the formal content of the sonata movement as a whole.]

[Footnote 398: _Ein Auseinandergehen._ Variations on a theme would be a good example. But surely the development of a theme may do precisely this in great measure, I mean disclose both the depth of it and its concentration.]

[Footnote 399: No doubt this is so if we assume the content to be mainly a theme, a motive. But the content of a movement includes the development. The main difference after all is the fundamental one that in music the content is unfolded in a time series and in the plastic arts instantaneously in spatial form. And in poetry the apprehension is also in a temporal series.]

[Footnote 400: It is impossible in English to reflect the play of words between _Erinnerung_ (memory) and _Er-innerung_ (self-penetration or ideal realization).]

[Footnote 401: I am not sure whether Hegel exactly means by _Phantasiren_ what we understand as Improvization. But it is the only form of music that strictly applies to his definition. Even the rhapsodies of Liszt are controlled by the form, as in a sense all music is.]

[Footnote 402: As the plastic arts. It certainly is not so closely associated with a definition given outside it by Nature, that is, but it is obviously very closely associated to the formal modes of music, such as the laws of counterpoint, fugue, sonata, etc.]

[Footnote 403: The first is its relation to architecture, the second that to the plastic arts.]

[Footnote 404: That is, the ideas. By "receiving self-subsistency" Hegel means it maybe regarded independent of the art, something essentially outside it.]

[Footnote 405: By _Ton_ Hegel means, of course, musical sound. The object of music is music and ideas only in so far as they are expressed in music.]

[Footnote 406: _In diesem Freiwerden._ In this free medium of its existence.]

[Footnote 407: How far would Hegel have applied this criticism to the great symphonies of his compatriots? I think it is obvious, at any rate, that his criticism of pure music is somewhat lacking in sympathy. Nowadays it is not even a wholly obvious fact that the song or the opera are the most popular. The truth is that musical education, and that is what the appreciation of programme or symphonic music implies, has made enormous strides since his day. But his criticism will still hold for many in regard to more modern developments in Strauss and his school.]

[Footnote 408: By _fertig_ Hegel must mean here that the world of poetry is one whose claims to independent coherence is generally acknowledged.]

[Footnote 409: By "universal" Hegel appears to mean more universally intelligible, He uses the same word in a like sense just below.]

[Footnote 410: If Hegel means to imply that pure music, in so far as it presents ideas by suggestion, has any advantage over music the effect of which is entirely a musical effect he is on dangerous ground. The Pastoral Symphony of Beethoven may or may not be more popular than Beethoven's other symphonies, but it is unquestionable that its artistic merit depends exclusively on its claims as musical composition. And indeed its worth as music suggestive of ideas is mainly so great because, as Beethoven himself claimed, it is rather a suggestion of emotional mood than the imitation of natural sounds or the suggestion of distinct ideas. So far as popularity or universality of appeal is concerned, he may be right. But this is obviously no final test of the significance of music as compared with other arts, though it may mark a distinguishing feature. And surely music expresses emotions at least "as they are" (_selber_) more directly than poetry. Poetry no doubt gives them as we express them in ordinary life. But music makes us feel them as they are unexpressed in our souls, a still higher grade of reality.]

[Footnote 411: Hegel probably never heard Beethoven's ninth symphony with its "Song of Joy." As to its success as set to music there may be two opinions, but the fact that it is the culmination of so celebrated a composition is in itself a qualification of Hegel's statement.]