Harmonium

“ Thought, emotion, all that we call the spiritual side of music, expresses itself not through sonorous or harmonic effects, primarily sensuous in appeal, but through melody and rhythm and their interplay and elaboration in so-called thematic development. In truly great music we remember, not such and such a bit of tone-color, not this or that sonority, but the soaring or tender curve of the themes, their logical yet ever new unfolding, their embodiment, in the whole composition, of richest variety with completest final unity. ”

“ Only by passing on and on, from chord to chord in ever-changing forms, from sweetest consonance to most brilliant dissonance, from exciting successions and combinations to calming ones, is harmonic texture provided for musical compositions. Sometimes, also, the melody remains unchanged when the harmonies are greatly altered, so that its expression may be varied, as the features of the same countenance may express varied emotions, and yet be always recognized. ”

“ II. THE MUSIC OF NATURE. TO the inventive genius of man must, of course, be attributed the present developments, and the beautiful, diversified forms, existing in musical art. But, before man was, the great Author of harmony had created what may be called the music of Nature.
Afterwards, the human ear, penetrated by sounds of melody issuing from wind, wave, or bird, the rapt mind in strange and pleasing wonder contemplating the new and charming harmonies,—then it was that man received his first impressions, and took his first lessons in delightful symphony. ”

“ It keeps us in joint; then the power flows from Him, through that joint, out where our life touches.
Obedience is really a music word. It is the rhythmic swinging together of two wills, His and ours. Rhythm of action is power. Rhythm of colour is beauty. Rhythm of sound is music. But it's really all music. For power is music of action. Beauty is music to the eye. Rhythmic sound is music to the ear and heart. If there might be more of this music, He and we in perfect accord, how the crowds would be caught by its melody and come eagerly to listen. ”

“ Harmony and melody—which have an equal share in the effects produced by sound—find their original type, it may be, in the double nature of the universe, and of human destiny considered socially and individually. Harmony, like the external world and its moving masses, presents us with various parts, linked together and arranged so as to subserve one and the same end. ”

“ CONTENTS OF THE PHRASE.—The question may arise, what is it that makes a phrase,—the rhythm, harmony, or melody? Strictly speaking, all three; for music subsists in the ceaseless co-operation of these three primary elements of composition, and no phrase is wholly complete without the evidence of each and all. Generalizing the definitions already given, the function of each of these primary elements may be thus described: The element of harmony regulates the choice of the tones that are to sound together; the upright shafts of tone (chords) which determine the body, or framework, of the music. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Unity is first manifested in the rhythm; then, as the tones consecutively follow each other, the succeeding one always born and growing immediately from the one just expiring, in the consequent melody; and lastly, as the tones progress simultaneously, hand to hand, and heart to heart, with the single line or passion of the melody, conditioned and responding to it in all its varied phases— (the individual and collective, the soul and its surroundings) —the grand diapason of harmony rolls on—and the magic unity of music is complete! ”

“ Or, again: we have all heard of the "music of the spheres"—a beautiful and significant name used by the old thinkers for the divine order of the universe—a music heard not by human ear, but only by the attentive human spirit. Harmonic relation apprehended by reason we call Law and its embodiment Science; the same apprehended by the imagination and æsthetic sense, we call Beauty, and its embodiment Art, music. ”

“ Nay,—to increase still more the difficulty,—they are often as sensible, as others, of the beauty of series of tones of a different kind; and some of our best poets and declaimers,—who of course must have had a quick discernment of metrical rhythm, and of the melody of elocution,—have yet been incapable of distinguishing the musical relations of sounds, as reciprocally high or low,—the melody that results from them in certain successions, and the harmony or the discord of their union. ”

“ From Harmony, from heavenly Harmony This universal frame began: When nature underneath a heap Of jarring atoms lay And could not heave her head, The tuneful voice was heard from high Arise, ye more than dead! Then cold, and hot, and moist, and dry In order to their stations leap, And Music's power obey. From harmony, from heavenly harmony This universal frame began: From harmony to harmony Through all the compass of the notes it ran, The diapason closing full in Man. What passion cannot Music raise and quell? ”

“ For music, however, the configuration of musical tone as such is the essential end. For although the soul in the course and movement of melody and its harmonic relations presents what is ideal in objects, or its own ideal content, to the emotional life; yet the ideality thus presented is not pure ideality, but the human soul interwoven in the closest way with the musical tone as its expression, and the configuration of such musical expression which confers on music its true character. ”

“ With this, then, as the foundation-tone, running through all the spaces and along all the lines of life, the thoughts, desires, words, and acts must all harmonize with love; and if they do not, if they strike a note that is foreign to its key-tone, it breaks the harmony at once, throwing jars and discords into the music. ”

“ No one can ponder upon the above-mentioned harmonic foundation of the musical scale without conceiving a new idea of the beauty and significance of that glorious art and science which may be proved to be based upon laws decreed by the Almighty himself. The one consideration that, in all probability, no single musical sound comes to us alone, but each one is accompanied by its choir of ascending harmonic sequences, is sufficient to afford matter for many a wholesome and delightful meditation. ”

“ Again it may be said, that our ideas in music arise from the choice of sounds and their measures. The time alone in sounds, only gives birth to ideas emanating little or not at all from sentiment; in music, as in poetry, great poetical effects may be produced without the charm of poetry: such movements belong to harmony; melody possesses essentially the beauty of sentiment. We know that in natural, and even in moral philosophy, nothing can exist without motion ”

“ Next in order to harmonies, rhythms will naturally follow, and they should be subject to the same rules, for we ought not to seek out complex systems of metre, or metres of every kind, but rather to discover what rhythms are the expressions of a courageous and harmonious life; and when we have found them, we shall adapt the foot and the melody to words having a like spirit, not the words to the foot and melody. ”

“ You perceive how all these varied groups of men and animals and fruits and flowers and stones unite to form one harmonic whole, whose loud and excellent music is the divinely pure chord of glorification. ”

“ Oh, music comes directly from heaven! The harmony of sounds is something of a more intimate, secret, and mysterious nature than the harmony of lines and colours; for what constitutes the beauty, harmony, [414] and attraction of exterior things, is not there alone in appearance, but radiates from the spirit within: therefore it is that the beautiful, emanating from the divine harmony of sound, is more exquisite and more living, because it is the manifestation of the soul and the spirit without encumbrance. ”

“ In this kind of music, harmony, the real seat of emotionality in music, is an eloquent factor, and, indeed, there is no greater mystery in the art, which is full of mystery, than the fact that the lowering of the second tone in the chord, which is the starting-point of harmony, should change an expression of satisfaction, energetic action, or jubilation into an accent of pain or sorrow. ”

“ But to create that intensity of feeling, which solely identifies itself with the accordance of musical composition, the corresponding symphony of which awakens from their secluded cells the sweetest and tenderest affections, elucidates emotions of hope, fear, surprise, terror, and joy,—and as the stream of harmony flows along calls forth involuntary exclamations of delight, wonder, and admiration—demands a much more copious extent of subject and execution. ”

“ In the first place, 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-relations [Pg 396] destitute 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. ”

“ Oh, music of the spheres, of which we dream but never hear!—you alone have revealed it, for you alone possess that touching language, at once radiant and heart-thrilling, yet penetrating, like all real beauty, like that divine essence whence you emanate. ”

“ They said, ‘If we preach wisdom to you, before your mind is disposed towards it, we shall lose our time; but if by harmonious sounds we establish harmony in your mind, you will yield without opposition.’ Let us then, like these philosophers, make men more or less musicians, and they will be disposed to every sort of harmony—for that of colours in a picture, or the order that pervades an architectural pile.
In short, to be alive to the beauties of harmony is to love the order which pervades the system of the Creator. ”

“ For once a week there is the lesson in harmony, which is one of the driest and most discouraging topics in the world. Yet no one can be said to know anything about music who does not understand harmony. Just think of it—harmony, counterpoint and fugue, form, theory, composition, instrumentation, sight-reading, history of music. ”

“ The conditions and causes of rhythm and our pleasure in it are more deeply seated than language, custom, even instinct; they are in the most fundamental functions of life. This element of music, at least, seems not to have arisen as a "natural language."
IV The facts of the relations of tones, the elements, that is, of melody and harmony, are as follows. We cannot avoid the observation that certain tones "go together," as the phrase is, while others do not. This peculiar impression of belonging together is known as consonance, or harmony. ”

“ In music, however, as in every other form of art, the higher and the earthly—the soul, as it were, and the body—the heavenly longing and the terrestrial are often blended together in the same note and tone, so as scarcely to be discriminated. ”

“ Whose harmonics ever leap high'r
Where the suns and the worlds expire.
Is such music not fit for a god?
Yet ever the deep is a dark,
And ever the night is a void,
Nor brightens a word nor a mark
To show if our God may hark. ”

“ Thirdly, and finally, it is the melody, by virtue of which on these foundations of a beat characterized by rhythmical vitality and of distinctions and movements of harmony itself that the realm of tones is unitedly discharged in a spiritually free mode of expression, and conducts us thereby to the final main section of our subject, which will undertake to consider music in its concrete unity with the spiritual content it is intended to express in beat, harmony, and rhythm. ”

“ Music is then the knowledge of that which relates to love in harmony and system. In the very system of harmony and rhythm, it is easy to distinguish love. The double love is not distinguishable in music itself; but it is required to apply it to the service of mankind by system and harmony, which is called poetry, or the composition of melody ”

“ Pile note on note the infinite music that flows increasingly to your soul from the tactual sonorities of a thousand branches and tumbling waters. How can the world be shrivelled when this most profound, emotional sense, touch, is faithful to its service? I am sure that if a fairy bade me choose between the sense of light and that of touch, I would not part with the warm, endearing contact of human hands or the wealth of form, the nobility and fullness that press into my palms. ”

“ Souls and planets in a glass;
And within the music hears
All the motions of all spheres,
All the whispers of all feet,
Cries of triumph and retreat,
Songs of systems and of souls,
Circling to their mighty goals. ”