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Page 65
Analysis may be considered as the reducing of a musical
composition to its various elements--harmony, rhythm,
melody--and power of expression. Just as melody may be analyzed
down to the motives and phrases of which it consists, so may
the expressiveness of music be analyzed; and this latter study
is most valuable, for it brings us to a closer understanding
of the power of music as a language.
For the sake of clearness we will group music as follows:
1. Dance forms.
2. Programme music. (Things. Feelings.)
3. The gathering together of dances in suites.
4. The beginnings of design.
5. The merging of the suite into the sonata.
The dance tunes I need hardly quote; they consist of a mere play
of sound to keep the dancers in step, for which purpose any more
or less agreeable rhythmical succession of sounds will serve.
If we take the next step in advance of instrumental music
we come to the giving of meanings to these dances, and, as I
have explained, these meanings will at first have reference
to things; for instance, Couperin imitates an alarm clock;
Rameau tries to make the music sound as if three hands were
playing instead of two (_Les trois mains_); he imitates sighing
(_Les soupirs_); the scolding voice; he even tries to express a
mood musically (_L'indifferente_). In Germany, these attempts
to make instrumental music expressive of something beyond
rhythmic time-keeping continued, and we find Carl Philip
Emanuel Bach attempting to express light-hearted amiability (_La
complaisance_) and even languor (_Les tendres langueurs_). The
suite, while it combined several dances in one general form,
shows only a trace of _design_. There was more design in one
of the small programme pieces already quoted than in most of
the suites of this period (see, for example, Loeilly's "Suite").
Bach possessed instinctively the feeling for musical speech
which seemed denied to his contemporaries whenever they had no
actual story to guide their expression; and even in his dance
music we find coherent musical sentences as, for instance,
in the _Courante_ in A.
In art our opinions must, in all cases, rest directly on the
thing under consideration and not on what is written about
it. In my beliefs I am no respecter of the written word,
that is to say, the mere fact that a statement is made by
a well-known man, is printed in a well-known work, or is
endorsed by many prominent names, means nothing to me if the
thing itself is available for examination. Without a thorough
knowledge of music, including its history and development,
and, above all, musical "sympathy," individual criticism is,
of course, valueless; at the same time the acquirement of this
knowledge and sympathy is not difficult, and I hope that we may
yet have a public in America that shall be capable of forming
its own ideas, and not be influenced by tradition, criticism,
or fashion.
We need to open our eyes and see for ourselves instead
of trusting the direction of our steps to the guidance of
others. Even an opinion based on ignorance, frankly given,
is of more value to art than a platitude gathered from some
outside source. If it is not a platitude but the echo of some
fine thought, it only makes it worse, for it is not sincere,
unless of course it is quoted understandingly. We need
freshness and sincerity in forming our judgments in art, for
it is upon these that art lives. All over the world we find
audiences listening suavely to long concerts, and yet we do
not see one person with the frankness of the little boy in
Andersen's story of the "New Clothes of the Emperor." It is
the same with the other arts. I have never heard anyone say
that part of the foreground of Millet's "Angelus" is "muddy"
or that the Fornarina's mysterious smile is anything but
"hauntingly beautiful." People do not dare admire the London
Law Courts; all things must be measured by the straight lines
of Grecian architecture. Frankness! Let us have frankness,
and if we have no feelings on a subject, let us remain silent
rather than echo that drone in the hive of modern thought,
the "_authority_ in art."
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