But in thesecondplace we may observe as a further incidentof distinct types of the triad, which I cannot now examine in more detail, the deliberate appearance of a deeper mode of opposition. We have, however, already at an earlier stage seen that the scales contain over and above those notes, which coalesce without opposition, others which annul such consonance. Examples of these are the diminished and augmented seventh. Inasmuch as these notes equally belong to the totality of tones, they too will necessarily find an entrance into the triad form. And when this happens it follows that the immediate unity and consonance above mentioned is disturbed, to the extent that we have added a tone essentially of another character, by means of which for the first time we meet with agenuine differencewhich actually asserts itself as contradiction. In this way we have the true depth of musical tone really asserted. It proceeds to contradictions that are fundamental and does not flinch from the acerbity[454]or fracture they involve. And, in fact, the notion in its truth is no doubt essential unity; but it is not only immediate unity, but one which ideally is disrupt, which falls into contradictions. In this sense I have for example in my Logic developed the notion as subjectivity, but at the same time disclosed how this subjectivity, as ideal transparent unity, is resolved in that which confronts it in opposition, namely, objectivity. And further such subjectivity regarded as itself wholly ideal is nothing more than a one-sided and abstract presentment of it, which as such retains a something else, an opposed other over against it, namely, objectivity, and only becomes subjectivity in the profounder significance of its truth, in so far as it enters into this opposing other-than-itself, overcomes it and resolves it. And for this reason in the world of reality it is to the higher natures that power is given to endure the pain of that fundamental contradiction of conscious life and to overcome it. In order that music therefore may as an art express the ideal significance no less than purely subjective emotion of the profoundest content, that of religion for example, and above all that of the Christian religion, in which the profoundest depth of suffering is an essential constituent, it must possess the means within its empire of tone to depict such a conflict of opposing forces. And a means of this kind it doespossess in the so-called dissonant chords of the seventh and ninth[455]. The function of these, however, I cannot venture further to discuss here.
Looking, however, from a general point of view at the nature of these chords I would draw attention to thefurtherimportant point, that they hold what is contradictory, under the mode of contradiction already explained, in one and the same unity. That, however, what is contradictory as such should remain in unity is a contradiction in terms and unintelligible. The very nature and notion of a contradiction assumes that assured repose in it and what it implies is impossible. On the contrary it is as such self-destructive. Harmony is therefore unable to remain in chords of this character; our ear and feeling, in order to obtain satisfaction, imperatively demands their resolution. To the extent of this contradiction we are inevitably impelled to seek aresolutionof dissonance and a return to the consonant triad. And this motion, as the return of the principle of identity upon itself, is the movement of truth in the widest sense. In the art of music, however, this completed identity is only possible as a succession of its moments in time, which appears consequently as a series, but declares its collective dependence in this that a necessary movement of an advance, which is essentially self-caused and a movement of change belonging to its very nature, is thereby asserted.
(γγ) And this suggests athirdpoint it may be as well to draw attention to. In other words just as the scale was an essentially co-ordinate, albeit in the first instance still abstract series of tones, so too the chords do not persist in their isolation and self-consistency, but possess an ideal relation to one another, and a necessary impulse to change and progress. In this advance, although the same can be changed and extended to a far more considerable extent than in the scales, yet again mere caprice is not more possible in the one case than the other. The transition of chord to chord is effected in part by the nature of the chords themselves, and in part by the keys, to which these chords leadus. It is in virtue of this that the theory of music has established many rules, to enumerate and adequately explain which would, however, extend our survey into much too difficult and discursive matters. I must therefore rest content with having confined myself to a few observations of most general interest.
(c)Melody
Taking now a glance in retrospect on that which, as connected with the means of musical expression, has already engaged our attention, it will be seen that first in order came the mode of configuration appropriate to thetemporalduration of tones considered as time-measure, beat, and rhythm. We then proceeded to discuss theactual tonesof musical sound themselves;first, that is to say, in the sound produced by musical instruments and the human voice;secondly, in the fixed and determinate measure of the intervals, and the abstract succession of notes that are subject to them in the scale and the various keys;thirdly, in the rules which appertain to the different chords and their conjoint progression. The concluding subject, which still remains for us to consider, and in which those previous to it discover their synthetic unity, and disclose in the same the fundamental form by virtue of which tones are for the first time in veritable freedom and union unfolded and co-ordinated, ismelody.
In other words, harmony possesses merely the essential relations, which establish the law of necessity in the world of tone; but these are not in themselves, any more than beat and rhythm are, actually music: they are rather the substantive basis, the foundation of rule and principle, upon which the soul in its freedom expatiates. The poetry of music, that speech of human souls, which pours forth the ideal atmosphere and the pain of emotional life, and in this overflow is raised with a sense of alleviation above the natural constraint of feeling, by making present to the soul that which actually affects it strongly; by enabling it freely to dally round its essential being, and by liberating it by this very means from the oppression of joys and sufferings—well, this power of soul-expression in the domain of music isin the first instance melody[456]. It is this concluding section of our inquiry, in so far as it constitutes the more supremely poetic aspect of music, the realm of its really artistic creations, while availing itself of the elements previously discussed, which obviously possesses an exceptional claim to our attention. Unfortunately it is just in this direction that we find ourselves confronted with the difficulties already adverted to. In other words, to mention one of them, a detailed and scientific treatment of the subject implies a more accurate knowledge of the laws of composition, and a totally different sort of acquaintance with the masterpieces of musical composition to any I possess or indeed am able to secure, for we seldom hear anything of a definite or conclusive character on this head either from musical experts or practical musicians, from the latter, only too frequently men of very average intelligence, least of all. And we may further observe that it is a characteristic of the art of music itself, that we should find the task of presenting and expounding particular detail in general terms a less easy matter than in the case of the other arts. It is true enough that music, as other arts, deals essentially with a spiritual content, and propounds the ideality of this subject-matter, or the ideal movements of emotional life, as the object of its expression: yet for all that this content remains more indefinite in outline and more vague, for just this very reason that it is apprehended with exclusive regard to its ideality, or is reflected in sound as subjective feeling; and the transitional states of music are not in each case at the same time the change of a particular emotion or idea, a thought or an individual form, but are merely a musical progression, which consists in self-exposition or play, and avails itself of artistic method for this purpose. I will consequently limit myself merely to the following general observations, which have fallen in my way and strike me as of interest.
(α) From a certain point of view, no doubt, melody, in its free disclosure of musical tone, floats independent of beat, rhythm, and harmony; but none the less the only means employed in its realization are just these rhythmical and metrically constructed movements of tone in their essentially necessary relations. The movement of melody, therefore, is inseparable from the means employed to create it, and, if merely opposed to the practical necessity of the subjection of these means to rule, is unable to exist at all. In this intimate association between melody and harmony, however, no real surrender of freedom is involved: what melody is thus emancipated from is a purely capricious fancy of the composer exercised in odd or eccentric progressions and transitions. It is united by this very association to a stable and self-consistent art. Genuine liberty is not opposed to the principle of necessity as a foreign and therefore oppressive and suppressive power; rather it possesses in the substantive character of the same what is a constituent of and identical with the core of its being; in following the demands of it it therefore is only conforming to its own laws, acting in accordance with its own nature. And in fact it is by the rejection of such proscriptions and only then that it proves an alien to its nature, untrue to itself. Conversely, it is sufficiently obvious that beat, rhythm, and harmony are, taken independently, merely abstractions, which as thus isolated have no musical[457]significance, and are able only to acquire real existence as music in virtue of melody, and as within the domain of this, supplying moments to or aspects in its realization. It is precisely in the manner that the distinction between melody and harmony is thus effectively mediated and resolved that the secret power of great compositions is disclosed.
(β)Secondly, in this question of theindividualcharacter of melody the following points appear to me of importance.
(αα) In thefirstplace, melody may be restricted, if we consider its harmonious progression, to a very simple compass of chords and keys, extended within the embrace of tone-relationsdestitute of all opposition in their harmonious fusion, which it employs merely as the fundamental ground on which to develop its more appropriate form and movement. Song melodies, for instance, which be it understood are not on that account in the least superficial, but may express the depths of soul-life, as a rule are motived by constructive harmony of this most simple character. They do not propound the more difficult problems of chords and keys in so far as they deal with such things and their modulation at all. They are mainly satisfied with obtaining a simple harmonious accompaniment, which is not carried to the point of serious opposition, and consequently requires few resolutions in order to recover the final impression of unity. Such a mode of composition no doubt may lead to superficial results, such as we find in a great many modern Italian and French melodies. In such cases the development of the harmony is entirely superficial. The composer endeavours to substitute for the genuine demand of his work in this aspect of it a merely piquant charm of rhythm or flavour of some kind. Generally speaking, none the less the emptiness of a melody is not the inevitable result of a simple harmonic basis.
(ββ) A further distinction consists in this that melody in the case supposed is no longer developed, as in our previous example, merely in the exposition of separate notes composed upon a relatively independent harmonic progression, regarded simply as the base of it: in the melody now under consideration every separate note of the melody is substantially complete as a concrete whole In a chord. In this manner it, on the one hand, includes a world of tones, and from another it is so closely interwoven with the movement of the harmony, that it is now impossible to retain the distinction previously accepted between a melody unfolded in relative independence, and a harmony which supplies the emphatic pauses of the accompaniment and its more fixed and determinate musical basis. Harmony and melody are here one and the same compact whole, and a modification of the one implies a correspondent and necessary alteration of the other[458]. This may be pre-eminently illustrated bychorales written in four parts. In like manner the same melody can be so interwoven in the varied vocal expression of its parts, that this interlacery itself creates a harmonic progression; or we may have different melodies in a similar way elaborated harmonically in association, so that the union of particular notes of these melodies produces musical harmony. We often, for example, meet with this in the compositions of Sebastian Bach. In such cases the music progresses by means of parts that vary greatly from one another in their character and movement, which appear to associate or inter-thread with each other on independent lines, yet retain at the same time an essential harmonic relation to each other. A necessary and coherent union is thereby asserted.
(γγ) In composition of this kind it is not merely necessary for music which has any claim to profundity to be developed to the bare limits of undisturbed consonance, nay, even first to pass beyond it in order that it may return thereto: rather the first simple mode of concord will have to be rent asunder in dissonances. It is only through such conflict that the profounder combinations and mysteries of music in which an independent necessity reposes, discovers their source and ground; and for the same reason it is only in such profounder harmonic progressions that the arresting moments of melody originate. A bold style of musical composition will consequently part company with a purely consonant progression. It will pass into the sphere of opposing forces, will summon to its aid the most discordant contrasts, and disclose its unique power amid the tumult of all the resources of harmony, the conflicts of which it is equally able to calm, wholly confident in its ability to celebrate finally the grateful triumph of melodic tranquillity. We have in short here a battle waged between freedom and necessity; a conflict between the freedom of inventive genius, seeking to yield itself to its upward flight, and the necessary constraint of those harmonic conditions, which it is forced to acknowledge as the means of its expression, and in which its own ideal significance is reflected. On the other hand if the harmony, the employment, that is, of all its resources, theunrelenting nature of its conflict in the disposal of them and in its attitude to them is the main interest, the composition may very easily become heavy and overweighted with science, in so far at least as the freedom of movement is really impaired, or at least we are not allowed to feel the complete effect of its triumph.
(γ) To put the matter in other words, in every genuine melody a truly melodic, songful impulse, which is its essential type as music, must declare itself as predominant and independent, as something which it neither forgets nor loses in the plenitude of its expression. Thus regarded melody presents, no doubt, an infinite power of adaptation and co-ordination in the progressive motion of tones, but the mode or form of this must be such that throughout we are made aware of an essentially complete and self-subsistent whole. This totality contains, it is true, a varied complexity, and implies in itself a forward advance; but it must for all that, regarded as a whole, be beyond all doubt rounded off and secure. It must therefore have a distinct beginning and termination to the extent at least that the intermediate part of it may be simply presented as the mediating link between that beginning and end. Only as such a movement, asserted with unmistakable emphasis, itself self-differentiated and returning on its own unity, does the melody of music reflect the free self-consciousness[459]of soul-life, whose expression it ought to be; only as thus perfected can music, in its own peculiar medium of ideality, enforce expression in its pure immediacy, or avail itself of the ideal freedom of that mode of expression which is the untarnished reflection of the inner life, an expression which, despite its subordination to the necessary laws of harmony, enables the soul to perceive a more exalted vision.
After passing in review the general nature of musical art we considered the particular aspects according to which notes and their duration in time secured their necessary form. Having now arrived in our discussion of melody at the confines of a world of free artistic invention and actualmusical composition, what we have now to deal with is acontent, which, under its rhythm, harmony, and melody, is capable of receiving an expression conformable to art's requirements. After fixing clearly in our minds general modes of this expression we shall as our conclusion be in an advantageous position to review the different provinces of musical composition. With these objects before us we may in the first instance advert to the following important distinction.
On the one side music may be, as already observed, in the nature of anaccompaniment.This is the case where its spiritual content is not merely seized in the abstract ideality of its significance, or as individual emotion, but enters into the movement of the music subordinate to the significance it has already received from idea and words. As a type of music opposed to this we have the composition which is disconnected with any such content already prepared for it; music in this case establishes itself in its own proper sphere, so that it either, if it still is forced to deal with a definitely received content, resolves the same wholly in melodies and their harmonic development, or asserts itsabsolute independencein the medium of musical tone simply and its harmonic or melodic configuration. We have already seen that a similar distinction is apparent in a wholly different section of our inquiry. I refer to the case of architecture considered either as an independent art, or in the service it renders to that of building generally. But in music the mode of its accompaniment is of an essentially freer type than that of our illustration; it is far more intimately united with its content than is ever possible in the case of architecture.
In the actual domain of art this distinction marks the difference betweenvocalandinstrumentalmusic. We are not, however, entitled to accept it in the purely external interpretation of it, as though in vocal music it was merely the sound of the human voice, while in instrumental music it was the more varied tones of the many distinct instruments which were made serviceable. We must not in other words overlook the fact that the voice expresses at the same time in its song deliberate speech, presenting us the ideas of a specific content, so that music, regarded as theword that is sung, if the twofold aspect of the same in tone and human speech is not to fall into a condition of indifferenceor absence of relation, is obviously bound, so far as the art enables it to do so, to supply its musical expression to thiscontent, which as suchcontentis brought before the receptive faculties in its nearest approach to definition, and no longer is left unrelated in more indefinite feeling. In so far, however, as the presented content, as libretto, is, despite of the above union, independently ascertainable in legible form, and is also consequently distinguishable in the mind itself from its musical expression, to this extent the music attached to a libretto is anaccompaniment, whereas in sculpture and painting the unfolded content does not already attain to any presentment independently of its artistic form. At the same time we must be careful not to go to the other extreme and entertain an idea of such accompaniment, as though its entire purpose were one solely of subordination; the truth is precisely the reverse. The libretto is written in the interest of the music, and has no further importance save in so far as it brings home to the mind a more intimate knowledge of the actual subject the artist has selected for his work. Music maintains this freedom pre-eminently by virtue of the fact that it does not apprehend the content in the manner the libretto may be assumed to make it intelligible. Rather it exhibits its mastery of a medium, to which sense-perception and imaginative idea do not belong[460]. In this respect I have already, when discussing the general characteristics of music, pointed out that music expresses the principle of ideality in its intrinsic quality. The ideality of soul-life, however, may be of atwofoldtype. That is to say, to accept an object in itsideal presentation[461]may, in the first place, mean that we do not conceive it in its actual appearance in the phenomenal world, but relatively to itsideal significance.We may, however, mean by this, secondly, that a content is expressed as we find it realized in the experience of personalemotion.Both forms of idealization are represented in the art of music. I will therefore endeavour to explain in more detail how this comes about.
In old church music, take the movement of acrucifixus estfor example, we find that the profound meanings unfolded in the central idea of the Passion regarded as Christ's suffering, death, and burial, are severally so conceived, that it is not simply one merelypersonalfeeling of sympathy or individual pain over these facts that is expressed, but along with this the very facts themselves, or in other words the depth of their significance is motived by the harmony of the music and its melodic progression. It is, of course, true that even here the impression is one which acts upon the emotion of those who hear it. We do not actuallyperceivethe pain of the crucified, we do not merely receive a generalideaof it; the aim is throughout that we experience in the depths of our being the ideal substance of this death and this divine suffering, that we absorb with heart and soul its reality, so that it becomes as it were a part of ourselves, permeating our entire conscious life to the exclusion of everything else. And in like manner must the soul of the composer, if his work is to disclose such a power of impress upon others, entirely lose itself in these facts and only in them. It must not merely have experienced a personal emotion of them. It must accept as its aim the task of making in its music the facts themselves live again for the ideal sense.
Conversely, I may read a text, a libretto, which narrates an event, places before me an action, gives to feelings the impress of speech, and thereby become moved even to tears in my profoundest being. This effect ofpersonalemotion, which may attend all human action and conduct, every expression of inner life, and further may be excited by the perception of every such event and by participation in the presentment of such, the art of music is able to regulate; by so doing it ameliorates, tranquilizes and idealizes by its influence the fellow-feeling in the listener who finds himself attuned to it. In both cases, therefore, the content rings through the inner life, in which music, for the very reason that it subdues consciousness in the simple attitude of rapt attention[462], is able to restrain the unfettered range of thought, imagination,sensation, and passage beyond the true boundary-line of the subject on hand. Music, in short, keeps the soul absorbed in a particular content, fructifies its energy therein, and moves and fills the life of feeling up to the brim within these limits.
Such is our conception and description, so far as the present occasion permits, of the manner of which music, as an accompaniment, when dealing with a definite content which is, as previously explained, set before it by means of a libretto, elaborates that aspect of it we have termed ideality. Inasmuch, however, as music is pre-eminently called up to do this in vocal music, and the human voice is added to this associated with instruments, it is customary to speak of instrumental music in a special sense as the music of accompaniment. It is no doubt true that it accompanies the voice, and should not either assert unqualified independence or claim an unqualified precedency. But for all that vocal music is placed, as thus associated, in a more direct relation still under the definition previously given of an accompanying tone. The voice expresses words articulate to the mind; and song is merely a fresh or additional modification of the content of these words, or in other words it is the explication of them in the language of the emotions. In the case of instrumental music, if taken by itself, the expression of imaged idea vanishes, and such music must necessarily confine itself to the means and modes of purely musical expression[463].
The discussion of these points suggests athirdone, which, in conclusion, it is well not to overlook. I have previously drawn attention to the fact that the reality of a musical composition, in its full and vital embodiment, depends on a continually repeated reproduction. In this respect it is at a disadvantage as compared with sculpture and painting.The sculptor, no less than the painter, conceives a given work and executes it throughout. The entire artistic activity implied therein is centred in one single individual, and by this means absolute reciprocity between the creative idea and its execution is secured. The architect, on the contrary, is in a less favourable position, who, in carrying through all the variety of structure in a building, has to entrust such work to other hands than his own. The composer in a similar way, must leave the execution of his work to other hands and voices. But in his case there is this difference, that the execution, from the point of view of mere technique, no less than that of the vital spirit of his work, itself demands an artistic activity, not one of mere craftsmanship. In this respect we may in our own time, no less than previously in that of the older Italian opera, whereas in other arts there has been little or nothing fresh of the kind, point to a marvellous advance in two respects in music. The first is to be noted in the conception, the second in the increased virtuosity of execution. It is due to these results the very notion of what music implies and is able to perform has, even in the case of acknowledged experts, been increasingly enlarged[464].
We may now briefly summarize the heads of the concluding sections of this portion of our work.
First, we shall investigate more carefully music regarded asaccompaniment, and raise the question with what modes of expression in a given content it is as a rule most compatible.
Secondly, it will be necessary to consider this question more closely as viewed in relation to musical composition that isexclusively independent.
Thirdly, our conclusion will be reached with a few observations upon artisticexecution.
(a)Music as Accompaniment
It follows, as a necessary result of what I have already described as being the relative position of libretto andmusic, that, in this sphere of its activity, musical expression is compelled to concern itself far more exclusively with a defined content than in the alternative case where it is able to surrender itself without restraint to its own movement and inspiration. A libretto offers us to start with definite ideas, and compels the attention to forsake that field of more visionary emotion destitute of distinct idea, in which we are permitted to range without interruption, and are not forced to abandon our licence to receive from pure music whatever chance impression or wave of emotion it may arouse. In this act of artistic interlacery with words, however, it is not right that music should carry its loyalty so far as to impair the free course of its progressions, even though it do so with the object of emphasizing the full character of what is contained in the libretto. To do this is to employ the mere pedantry of learning, to adapt means of musical expression for the most faithful presentment possible of a content which is not in the first instance its own, but supplied it externally. It is to accept this artificial result rather than the creation of a real self-subsistent work of art. And to that extent we have here evidenced a definite check and hindrance to free artistic activity. It is equally wrong in the opposite extreme that music should, as is almost invariably the fashion with modern Italian composers, wholly emancipate itself from the contents of the libretto, as though its specific character were only a bond, and with no other aim than that of approaching independent music as closely as possible. The true function of such music is this. It ought to steep itself in the meaning of the expressed words, situation, or action, and by virtue of such impregnation, ideally conceived, discover therefrom a vitally arresting expression, and elaborate the same in terms congenial to art. That is the course followed by all great masters. They appropriate everything of vital interest in the words; but the stream of their music, the tranquil flow of the composition, remains for all that as free as ever. We acknowledge the natural growth of the music no less than its affinity to the text it illustrates. We would draw attention tothreedistinct types of expression all illustrative of this free spirit.
(α) To start with, there is that aspect of musical expression which we may describe as the trulymelodic.We havehere simply emotion, the utterance of soul itself, which, apart from anything else, finds self-enjoyment in such expression.
(αα) The domain here, in which the composer moves, is coincident with the human heart and the moods of the soul; and melody, which is the pure musical utterance of this inward world, is in the most profound sense the soul of music. Musical tone only attains to expression that is really vital when emotion is embodied in it or reflected in sound from it. Connected with this the purely natural cry of feeling, whatever it may be, of horror, for example, or the sobbing of grief, or the exclamation or outburst of uncontrolled jubilation, are themselves highly expressive; and indeed I have already referred to them as the starting-point of music, subject of course to the statement that art is unable to accept them under the mode of purely natural utterance. Here, too, we find a distinction between music and painting. The art of painting is frequently able to produce the most beautiful and artistic effect by its realization in every respect of the actual form, the colour and animation of a particular human being in some definite situation and environment, and its complete reflection of all that it has thus assimilated and received in its bare vitality. The truth of Nature, if presented conformably to artistic truth, is here entirely justified. But the art of music ought not thus to repeat emotional expression in the form it assumes as a purely natural utterance of passion; what it should do is to vitalize with the emotional forces musical sound elaborated under the definite conditions of its tonal progression, and to this extent resolve the expression in a medium of sound wholly created by art and inseparable from the artistic purpose, a medium in which the mere cry becomes a series of musical tones with a definite progression, the transitions and course of which are subject to the laws of harmony and unfolded in the completeness of a melodic phrase.
(ββ) The essential significance of this melodic quality and its bearing on the human spirit is best apprehended if we view the latter as a whole. The fine arts of sculpture and painting give an objective existence to the ideality of soul-life; moreover, they liberate the mind from this externality of their presentation in so far as, from a certain point ofview, it discovers itself therein as an ideal, spiritual work, and from another everything which partakes of adventitious singularity[465], of capricious idea, opinion, and reflection, is rejected, the content thereof being placed before us in its entirely appropriate individuality. The art of music, on the contrary, as we have repeatedly pointed out, possesses as a means to such objectivity merely the element of the soul-life itself, by means of which that which purely belongs to this enters into conversation with itself, and as expressed in the utterance of emotion itself returns, as it were, upon itself. Music is spirit or soul, which ring forth in their untrammelled immediacy, and derive satisfaction in this record of their self-knowledge. As a fine art, however, it is its necessary function to regulate the expression of such life no less than its effects. It ought not to permit that expression to be whirled away in bacchantic thunder and tumult, or be left in the distraction of despair, but retain the blessed freedom of its deliverance in the extremity of sorrow no less than the jubilant outburst of delight. And this is the character of truly ideal music, the utterance of melody such as we find it in Palestrina, Durante, Lotti, Pergolese, Glück, Haydn, and Mozart. Tranquillity of soul is never lost in the compositions of these masters. Grief is no doubt often expressed, but the resolution is always there; the luminous sense of proportion never breaks down in extremes: everything finds its due place knit together in the whole; joy is never suffered to degenerate into unseemly uproar and even lamentation carries with it the most benign repose. I have already, when discussing Italian painting, emphasized the fact, that a spirit of reconciliation is not wanting even in extreme examples of sorrow and distraction of soul; by virtue of this, even where we have tears and suffering, some trait of tranquillity and assurance is preserved; the tenderness and grace which assert themselves in the harlequin's rôle illustrates the same truth. In like manner a feeling for nature and the endowment of musical expression is pre-eminently a characteristic of the Italians. In their earlier church music we find that, along with the deepest devotionalfeeling, the sense of reconciliation is expressed in its purity; and though grief may stir the soul most profoundly, yet beauty and rapturous joy, the simple greatness and impress of an imagination which discovers delight in its own varied expatiation, is equally present. It is a beauty of an apparently sensuous type, so that it is not unusual to refer to such melodious contentment as a purely sensuous enjoyment. But it is sometimes overlooked that it is precisely in this realm of the senses that art discovers its life and movement, and thereby transfers Spirit to a sphere in which, as in the world of Nature, this essential wave of self-satisfaction is throughout the fundamental tone.
(γγ) Albeit, therefore,particularityof emotional content must be duly represented, yet it is right that music, while permitting passion and imagination to stream forth in its harmonies, should at the same time lift the soul that is absorbed in such emotion over the same, enable it to hover around such content, and in short create an atmosphere wherein the recovery from such an absorption, and the pure reflection of itself is possible. This it is which gives us in fact the really melodious character to song-music. The important feature of it is not merely the progression of determinate emotion such as we indicate by the words love, yearning, jollity, and so forth; it is rather that inward sense, which presides over it, which expatiates in its suffering no less than its delight, and finds satisfaction in doing so. Precisely as the bird in the brake, the lark on high sings its glad and touching song for the mere sake of singing, an outburst of Nature herself, having no further thought or intention whatever, it is just the same with human song and the expression of its melody. Consistently with this not infrequently Italian music, in which this truth is pre-eminently emphasized, will, just as poetry will, pass into mere melodious sound simply, and can readily appear to part company with the emotional stimulus and its particular mode of expression, or even in fact do so, for the very good reason that its object is the enjoyment of art by itself, and the contentment of all who thus are able to enjoy themselves. And apart from the Italians this is more or less the characteristic of all right melody. The specific nature of the expression, albeit present also, passes away, in so far as our hearts areabsorbed in what we appropriate rather as our own, than in that which belongs to another, a something beyond us. By reason of this and this alone—it is much as we receive the impression of pure light—we are admitted to the most intimate conception of ideal blessedness and attuned spirits.
(β) In the art of sculpture the predominant impression is ideal beauty or self-repose. Painting, on the other hand, already presents a movement in the direction of specific characterization, and the emphasis it attaches to articulate expression is an essential feature of its executive purpose. In a similar fashion the art of music is unable to rest satisfied with melodious expression as above indicated. The purely emotional grasp by the soul of its intrinsic nature, and the play in musical sound of this apprehension is, regarded as the mere atonement of mood, when we take it strictly, too general and abstract. It is inseparable from the danger not merely of an alienation from the more careful interpretation of the content expressed in the libretto, but of that of becoming generally empty and trivial. If sorrow, joy, yearning, and so forth are to find adequate reflection in melody, the soul that is actual and concrete only comes by such emotions in the downright reality of the same as involved in a veritable content, that is, in particular situations, events, actions, and so on. If, for example, a song arouses the emotion of mourning, the lament at a loss, we inevitably ask ourselves, what is the nature of that loss. Is it, shall we say, the loss of life with all its many interests? Is it a loss of youth, happiness, wife, beloved, children, friends, or anything else? For this reason it is further incumbent upon music that it should of itself differentiate in like manner its mode of expression when dealing with aspecificcontent and thevarious relationsand situations, which the soul has experienced, and the more ideal or intimate life of which it seeks to reflect in its harmonies. Music in short is not primarily concerned with the bare form of the inward soul, but with that innermost life as replenished, the specific content of which is most closely related to the particular character of the emotion roused, so that the mode of the expression will, or should, inevitably assert itself with essential differences, according to the varied nature of the content. In a similar way the soul, preciselyin the degree that it takes a headlong plunge into any distracting experience, proceeds through an accumulating series of effects, and, in opposition to our previously described state of benign self-contentment, passes through conflicts and distraction, wrestlings with passions, and in short reaches an extreme of division, for which the mode of expression hitherto observed is no longer adequate.
Now what we mean by the detail of the content is just that which is supplied by thelibrettoor words. In the case of a simple melody, which is less concerned with this specific character, the more defined characteristics of thelibrettoare appreciably of less importance. A song, for instance, although it essentially implies as a poem and text a whole of variedly motived moods, perceptions, and ideas, none the less as a rule asserts throughout one fundamental progression of emotion; it is primarily one chord of the soul that it emphasizes. To grasp this, and to reflect the same in the language of music, this is what such song-melody is mainly called upon to do. Consequently we may have identically the same music through all the verses of our poem, although the meaning they carry admits of much variety; and what is more, this very repetition, so far from proving injurious to the effect, may serve to enforce and enhance it. We may see the same thing in a landscape, where, too, the most varied objects confront the vision, and yet for all that the prevailing mood and aspect of Nature, which animates the whole, is one and the same. It is just such a prevailing tone that ought to assert itself in the song, and this, though it only applies strictly to some of the verses, but does not so apply to others; and the reason of this is that here the specific sense of the words is not to be taken as of most importance. What comes first is the simple melody that floats freely over all variety of content. In the case of many compositions which infringe this principle, and which start every fresh verse with a novel melody, which not unfrequently varies from the preceding one in beat, rhythm, and even scale, it is quite impossible to understand why, if such essential modifications were really inevitable, the poem itself ought not to have been altered in metre, rhythm, and rhyme, through all its verses.
(αα) What is, however, appropriate for the song, which isa genuine melodious utterance of the soul, is not applicable to every kind of musical expression. It is necessary, therefore, to draw attention to afurtheraspect in contrast to pure melody as such, one of equal importance, and by virtue of which alone song is really brought into line with accompanying music. We find this in that mode of expression which is dominant in therecitative.Here we have no independently exclusive melody, which at the same time reflects the fundamental mood of the content, in the elaboration of which soul-life, as at home with itself, receives back in musical sound some portion of its ideal activity; rather in the case before us the content of the words, to the full compass of its specific character, is imprinted upon the musical expression, the import of which no less than the course it determines; and this is so whether we regard it from the point of view of the elevation or profundity which distinguishes it, or the prominence or subordination of its particular features. By such means music, as contrasted with melodic expression, approximates to an emphatic declamation, one accurately corresponding with the movement of the words, whether the view we take of them be that of their meaning, or that of their syntactical arrangement. And in so far as it adds also, as a novel element, the aspect of a more exalted emotion, it stands midway between the pure melody and poetical speech. Conformably to such a station, therefore, we have a free accentuation, which adheres strenuously to the specific sense of particular words. Moreover it is not necessary for the libretto in this case to be written in any particular metre, nor need the musical exposition, as the pure melody does in a like case, follow beat and rhythm with absolute precision; rather the music under this condition of it, that is in its acceleration, suspension, or pause in particular progressions, or rapid passage over such, is entitled to adapt itself freely to the emotion aroused by the meaning of the words. For the same reason the modulation is not so restricted as in the case of melody. Precisely as the text which it attempts to express may suggest, it may begin, proceed, pause, break off, begin again, or stop with absolute licence. Unexpected accents, progressions only partially mediated, sudden transitions and resolutions are equally permissible; and, in direct contrast to the continuousstream of melodious music, provided always that the libretto's content requires it, this latter mode of expression is equally in its place, though delivered in fragments, and torn asunder by passionate emotion.
(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 contentwith the unmediateddifferencebetween 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 ofmediationbetween 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) Thisthirdmode 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 declamatoryor 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 oflibretto, 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 ofcompositiondeclamatory 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 prominentmodesunder 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 essentialself-consistency.[467]It is impossible that music should conjureforth 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 anaïvetéwhich is finical, artificial, and stilted. Instead of pure and genuine emotions we get asimplicitasthat 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 contrarywhat 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 accompanythe 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 oneither 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 thedifferentfeatures 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 anyclaim 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 notableformsof music regarded as accompaniment.
First, in the order of our classification we may mentionecclesiasticalmusic. 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 ofepicalconsistency, 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 ofRoman 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 itsvalue 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.
Secondin order we havelyricalmusic, 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 ofdramaticmusic; they are out of place in the harmonious consistency of the lyrical mode.
Thisdramaticform is then ourthirdand 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 theoperettais a halfway house of less importance, one which mixes together with no vital connection speechand 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 genuineopera, 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 thevaudeville, 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 humanvoice 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 afartherpoint 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 asindependentmusic. 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 morelimitedcharacterization of the words or removed itself entirely from the significance of ideas therein expressed, to expatiate ofits 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.