|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 8
This theory would certainly account for much of the
potency of what we moderns call music. All that aims to be
dramatic, tragic, supernatural in our modern music, derives
its impressiveness directly from rhythm.[01] What would
that shudder of horror in Weber's "Freisch�tz" be without
that throb of the basses? Merely a diminished chord of the
seventh. Add the pizzicato in the basses and the chord sinks
into something fearsome; one has a sudden choking sensation,
as if one were listening in fear, or as if the heart had
almost stopped beating. All through Wagner's music dramas
this powerful effect is employed, from "The Flying Dutchman"
to "Parsifal." Every composer from Beethoven to Nicod� has
used the same means to express the same emotions; it is the
medium that pre-historic man first knew; it produced the same
sensation of fear in him that it does in us at the present day.
Rhythm denotes a thought; it is the expression of a
purpose. There is will behind it; its vital part is intention,
power; it is an act. Melody, on the other hand, is an almost
unconscious expression of the senses; it translates feeling
into sound. It is the natural outlet for sensation. In anger
we raise the voice; in sadness we lower it. In talking we
give expression to the emotions in sound. In a sentence in
which fury alternates with sorrow, we have the limits of the
melody of speech. Add to this rhythm, and the very height of
expression is reached; for by it the intellect will dominate
the sensuous.
[01] The strength of the "Fate" motive in Beethoven's fifth
symphony undoubtedly lies in the succession of the four
notes at equal intervals of time. Beethoven himself
marked it _So pocht das Schicksal an die Pforte_.
II
ORIGIN OF SONG vs. ORIGIN OF INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC
Emerson characterized language as "fossil poetry," but "fossil
music" would have described it even better; for as Darwin says,
man _sang_ before he became human.
Gerber, in his "Sprache als Kunst," describing the degeneration
of sound symbols, says "the saving point of language is
that the original material meanings of words have become
forgotten or lost in their acquired ideal meaning." This
applies with special force to the languages of China, Egypt,
and India. Up to the last two centuries our written music
was held in bondage, was "fossil music," so to speak. Only
certain progressions of sounds were allowed, for religion
controlled music. In the Middle Ages folk song was used by
the Church, and a certain amount of control was exercised
over it; even up to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries
the use of sharps and flats was frowned upon in church music.
But gradually music began to break loose from its old chains,
and in our own century we see Beethoven snap the last thread
of that powerful restraint which had held it so long.
The vital germ of music, as we know it, lay in the fact that
it had always found a home in the hearts of the common people
of all nations. While from time immemorial theory, mostly in
the form of mathematical problems, was being fought over, and
while laws were being laid down by religions and governments
of all nations as to what music must be and what music was
forbidden to be, the vital spark of the divine art was being
kept alive deep beneath the ashes of life in the hearts of the
oppressed common folk. They still sang as they felt; when the
mood was sad the song mirrored the sorrow; if it were gay the
song echoed it, despite the disputes of philosophers and the
commands of governments and religion. Montaigne, in speaking
of language, said with truth, "'Tis folly to attempt to fight
custom with theories." This folk song, to use a Germanism,
we can hardly take into account at the present moment, though
later we shall see that spark fanned into fire by Beethoven,
and carried by Richard Wagner as a flaming torch through the
very home of the gods, "Walhalla."
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|