Instrumentalist

“ But in the case of an executive musician, the art seems incarnate in the artist. We associate the personality of the artist with the effects of his art. We are not yet within the limitless domain of imaginative music. The great instrumentalist is, indeed, a wizard—a cunning necromancer ”

“ SOME DISTINGUISHED OPERA-SINGERS MY concert-playing and teaching have naturally made me more interested in instrumental than in vocal music. Moreover, the principal celebrities who came to visit Liszt during my sojourn at Weimar were composers and instrumentalists. ”

“ The same writer points out that instrumentalists in improvising their parts were prone to vie with each other in demonstrating their ability as contrapuntists, a perfectly comprehensible habit, which must have affected instrumental music in the sixteenth century as badly as the vagaries of coloratura singers affected operatic music in the eighteenth. ”

“ The lack of knowledge of the whys and wherefores of scales, intervals, and chords among instrumentalists and singers is appalling, and is due partly to the neglect of text books and partly to incompetent teachers. ”

“ Leaving the rivalries of vocalists with a number of incidents entirely out of proportion to the frequency of such animosities, we will cite one case in the ranks of the instrumentalists which was remarkable not only for the intensity of the partisanship it inspired, but for the artistic interests and principles it involved. ”

“ No one has showed so deep an insight into the individuality of each instrument, its resources, the extent to which its capabilities could be carried. Between the phrase and the instrument, or group of instruments, the equality is perfect; and independent of this power, made up equally of instinct and knowledge, this composer shows a sense of orchestral colour in combining single instruments so as to form groups, or in the combination of several separate groups of instruments by which he has produced the most novel and beautiful effects—effects not found in other composers. ”

“ Human life appears to me as a great orchestra in which we are the players. The great composition to be performed is the "Symphony of Life," its infinitude of dissonances and melodies blending into one colossal tone picture of harmony and grandeur. We players must study the laws of music and the score of the Great Symphony and we must practice diligently and persistently, until we can play our part unerringly in harmony with the concepts of the Great Composer. ”

“ An instrument (which is, of course, not a part, but the whole organism and its life) is played on, and it pours forth its strange human music like an æolian harp through which all the winds of life are passing. ”

“ A complete inventory of musical talent will rest upon knowledge of how all the various kinds of music are related as regards the capacities required in each, and of how the violinist may differ from the singer, and the drummer from the conductor of an orchestra. ”

“ The former constitutes, so to speak, the theme, the truth, or motive of the artistic conception, which the composer seizes under his inspiration. When he goes to communicate the expression of this musical truth or melody through the instrument he at once and instinctively avails himself of the chords which, by way of accompaniment, emphasize the musical truth which his soul utters through the instrument, according to the peculiar nature or form of the latter. These chords of the accompaniment are not the leading motive or truth of his theme, but they are equally true with it. ”

“ It is far too wide, too subtle, and, in my opinion, is an art of itself, requiring not only great space in which to voice its merits, its component parts, and the thousand and one compounds in which those parts assimilate, but the calm of the study rather than the bustle of the workshop, given out deliberately by him whose conclusions are based on the sound issues arising from momentous research, careful analysis of former old examples, and an utter abhorrence of prejudice, for or against this or that compound or colour—prejudice, mind, actuating choice. ”

“ But in that wonderful drama, which the emancipation of the secular or popular principle in the music of the sixteenth century presents, the instrument appears as the second agent, with its greater freedom as contrasted with the human voice. Choral counterpoint penetrates into the music of the future in the two ways of the one-part song and of the instrumental polyphony, which form a quite natural whole. In proportion as vocal music became more individual and more full of soul, the absolute instrumental music gained in meaning. ”

“ I am an instrument, and He is the operator. Through this instrument He is rousing the religious instinct in thousands of hearts in this far-off country. Thousands of men and women here love and revere me. ”

“ When improvements in the structure of an instrument remove from the modern composer’s memory an entire category of limitations which in classical music determined the very character of the instrument, the temptation is easy to regard the improvement as a kind of access of wisdom, in comparison with which not only the older form of the instrument, but the part that it plays in classical music, is crude and archaic. ”

“ It must be disheartening work learning a musical instrument. You would think that Society, for its own sake, would do all it could to assist a man to acquire the art of playing a musical instrument. But it doesn’t! ”

“ The performers may complain of the demands made upon them, but they realize that the page before them bears the impress of a master of instrumentation whose music is written with special regard for the very instrument they are playing,—can and must therefore be played. ”

“ The technique in each case consists not in mastery of an instrument (though the musical composer may be, and often is, a master of some one of the instruments whose effects he in his mind’s ear co-ordinates and combines) ; it lies in the power of knowing and conjuring up all the emotional resources and effects of the various materials at his command, and of conceiving and designing to their last detail vast and ordered structures, to be raised by subordinate executants from those materials, which shall adequately express his temperament and embody his ideals. ”

“ I by no Means intend to debase that noble and solemn Instrument the Organ, nor the Wonders that are done upon it, nor the great Merit of the Performers who execute them, by what has been here said; only to discuss a little upon the Perfections and Imperfections of different Instruments, as the more the Imperfections of an Instrument are looked into, the more likely is the Ingenuity of Mechanics one Day or other to rectify them.
X.
That every different Key in Music ought to have a different Effect or Sound. ”

“ For a long time, though they enjoy instrumental music, and even mere noise, they have little impulse to make any other instrument than this. And so the original instruments are well used, and well nourished, they become stronger, and finer with use, and fall more under the control of the will. ”

“ One should always remember that technic is, after all, only a means. It must be acquired in order to be an unhampered master of the instrument, as a medium for presenting the thoughts of the great creators—but these thoughts, and not their medium of expression, are the chief objects of the true and great artist, whose aim in life is to serve his Art humbly, reverently and faithfully! ”

“ But imagine, if it be possible, an absolutely universal instrument, which united in itself all instruments, without being in itself a particular one; thou wilt then see that it is an absurd contradiction to desire a particular tone which only belongs to a particular instrument, from an instrument which thou hast divested precisely of that which is characteristic in all particular instruments. ”

“ Music and movement.
Handel's frogs.
How near a large number of suggestions, which are based wholly upon experience or association of ideas, lie to the popular fancy, might be illustrated by scores of examples. Thoughts of religious functions arise in us the moment we hear the trombones intone a solemn phrase in full harmony; an oboe melody in sixth-eighth time over a drone bass brings up a pastoral picture of a shepherd playing upon his pipe; trumpets and drums suggest war, and so on. The [Pg 58] delineation of movement is easier to the musician than it is to the poet. ”

“ The notion of an instrument is quite a familiar notion. An instrument helps the principal agent to do what the latter could not otherwise do, or at least not so easily. An instrument therefore is really a cause. It contributes positively to the production of the effect. How does it do so? By reason of its nature or structure it influences, modifies, and directs in a particular way, the efficiency of the principal cause. But this property of the instrumental cause comes into play only when the latter is being actually used by a principal cause. ”

“ I have followed these principles in orchestrating my own works, and, wishing to impart some of my ideas to young composers, I have quoted examples from my own compositions, or given references to them, endeavouring to show, in all sincerity, what is successful and what is not. ”

“ The first requirement of a composer is intuition or the spontaneous expression of musical instinct—an element more essential to musical creation than to any other branch of art. Further requisites are imagination, emotion, inspiration, and above all spirituality. There is a tendency among recent exponents of the most advanced school to declare that the possibilities of purely æsthetic music have been exhausted. Morbidness and pessimism dominate the creative conceptions of these recent experimentalists. ”

“ Half the conceited virtuosos would not condescend to study the mysteries of the violin and the soul of melody, or his principles of fingering and manifold colors of tone and expression, but called all they could not comprehend and themselves execute “tricks” and “playing for the multitude.” Nothing has been produced equaling his twenty–four “Studies,” either in beauty, originality, or difficulty of performance. ”

“ What should we think of a man who should set a whole orchestra of instruments upon playing together without the least provision or forethought as to their chord, and then howl and tear his hair at the result? It is not the fault of the instruments that they grate harsh thunders together; they may each be noble and of celestial temper; but united without regard to their nature, dire confusion is the result. ”

“ For this is the very essence of the doctrine, that one and the same intelligence is speaking in the unity of a person; which unity is no more broken by the diversity of the pipes through which it makes itself audible, than is a tune by the different instruments on which it is played by a consummate musician, equally perfect in all. One instrument may be more capacious than another, but as far as its compass extends, and in what it sounds forth, it will be true to the conception of the master. ”

“ Then comes the imitation of the human voice by means of the flute, and other wind or stringed instruments; and the ever-growing desire to give utterance by means of music to the most delicate shades of emotion has brought into existence instruments of increasing flexibility, number, and complexity, from the invention of the organ (in the Alexandrian age) up to our own day when instrumentation plays the preponderant part. ”

“ This is to the fullest extent the case in the song of the human voice, but it is relatively so in all instrumental music, which can only be executed by means of a practised artist and his living and spiritual no less than technical powers as such. ”

“ Instrumentation, and all manner of elaboration—orchestral and choral—is of value only when it enhances and sets forth ideas, melodies, harmonies—in a word, musical forms which in themselves have the value which belongs to beauty and expression. ”

“ All this may be discouraging, but on the other hand, granting a fair degree of native musical ability, coupled with a large amount of solid music study, any one possessing a sense of leadership can, after a reasonable amount of intelligent practice, learn to handle a chorus or even an orchestra in a fairly satisfactory manner. ”

“ The masters say, that they know a master in music, only by seeing the pose of the hands on the keys; — so difficult and vital an act is the command of the instrument. To have learned the use of the tools, by thousands of manipulations; to have learned the arts of reckoning, by endless adding and dividing, is the power of the mechanic and the clerk. ”

“ Men of their hands have thought well of my brains, and men of brains of my hands, and that is the best that I can say of myself. Save in the one matter of having an inborn readiness for music, so that the mastery of any instrument comes very easily and naturally to me, I cannot recall any single advantage which I can boast over my fellows. ”

“ To overcome such difficulties means a great deal of work, real musical instinct and, above all, great familiarity with the composer's harmonic processes. Yet with time and patience the true balance of tone can be obtained. ”

“ The chief object ‘of the society is the performance, in the best style possible, of the most approved instrumental music, consisting of full pieces; concertantes for not less than three principal instruments ”

“ PHRASING IN INSTRUMENTAL MUSICIn instrumental music we have no definite ideas and no concrete imagery to guide us; and the conductor, in company with all other students of instrumental music, will find it necessary to study his score most carefully if he is to unravel the threads that are woven together in such complex fashion in orchestral music. ”