Musical phrase

“ No other art is able to inflict such merciless suffering! Under the name of music we are afflicted with every variety of noise, including the hand organ, the bagpipes, the German band, the man who toots the cornet in the street, the harp man, the lady who has seen better days and who sings before our house in the evening, the active piano-organ invented by a heartless genius, the musical box and all its amazing progenies, the gramophone and the pianola. ”

“ Incapable of feeling the austere emotions of art, I begin to read into the musical forms human emotions of terror and mystery, love and hate, and spend the minutes, pleasantly enough, in a world of turbid and inferior feeling. At such times, were the grossest pieces of onomatopoeic representation—the song of a bird, the galloping of horses, the cries of children, or the laughing of demons—to be introduced into the symphony, I should not be offended. ”

“ It must be shaped, and strung, and kept carefully in tune; no easy matter in surroundings little suited to delicate instruments and delicate music. Possessing it, we possess, in the only true sense of possession, the whole world. For going along our way, whether rough or even, there are formed within us, singing the beauty and wonder of what is or what should be, mysterious sequences and harmonies of notes, new every time, answering to the primæval everlasting affinities between ourselves and all things; our souls becoming musical under the touch of the universe. ”

“ Alighting on nearby trees, they sing with a hearty vengeance, bursting out without any puttering prelude in gloriously glad concert, hundreds or thousands of exulting voices with sweet gurgling _baumpalees_ mingled with chippy vibrant and exploding globules of musical notes, making a most enthusiastic, indescribable joy-song, a combination unlike anything to be heard elsewhere in the bird kingdom; something like bagpipes, flutes, violins, pianos, and human-like voices all bursting and bubbling at once. ”

“ The second cause for the concreteness of the musical experience I take to be certain emotions and feelings which are aroused by association, not with the rhythmic elements of music alone, but with the tone-color, intensity, and melody also. There is a human quality, a poignancy and intimacy, about much music, which can be understood only through its analogy with the sounds of the human voice. ”

“ We in some sort listen to such music as we do to the pleasing murmur of a neighbouring brook, the whisper of the passing breeze, or the distant warblings of the lark and nightingale; and if agreeable natural voices have the power of soothing the contemplative mind, without interrupting its contemplations, simple musical effusions must assuredly have that power in a superior degree. ”

“ This second and higher "soul" significance shows itself in the emotional appeal of the music, in the feelings it provokes and the mood it engenders. Here sound speaks in parables with an outer story and an inner meaning. The non-musical person hears sounds, but the musical mind hears sense. Whether the tidings be of sweetness, affection, or delight, of strength, vigour, or energy, of sorrow or regret, there is all the difference in the world between the outward comprehension and the inner interpretation. The formal part of the music is the frame, but the emotion supplies the picture within. ”

“ For when the musical meaning is specialized through the emotions that are the burden of the song, it necessarily loses the power which it would otherwise have of expressing one's own inner life—once more, what it gains in definiteness it loses in scope. It no longer possesses the unique function of the musical. ”

“ She feels keenly the eternal magic of invisible music which lies pillowed in silence and night. The whole scene is a hymn on the infelt soul of musical self-centredness, wherein man finds his best self. ”

“ When they rose to sing, the tune must needs be one which they had often sung together, out of the same book, at the singing-school,—one of those wild, pleading tunes, dear to the heart of New England,—born, if we may credit the report, in the rocky hollows of its mountains, and whose notes have a kind of grand and mournful triumph in their warbling wail, and in which different parts of the harmony, set contrary to all the canons of musical Pharisaism, had still a singular and romantic effect, which a true musical genius would not have failed to recognize. ”

“ I have carried through life, without any sort of musical gift, and with a very imperfect apprehension of tonality, harmony, and the refinements and complexities of musical expression, this keen sensibility to the emotional effect of certain lovely rhythms and simple curves of notes. ”

“ Moreover, the discipline of music is diffused through all the acts of our life. For when we keep the commandments of God, and observe His law, it is certain that our words and acts are associated by musical rhythm with the virtues of harmony. ”

“ It is not long ago that songs without the slightest pretence to any musical value attained to immense popularity, and when a scream at the end of one of them, on a note known as high F, would draw volumes of applause on the panting and highly gratified singer. ”

“ We do not find, however, in his works, any proposal to sing, in colors, either at Mass or Vespers, thunder and lightning, landscapes and sunrises, jigs and waltzes, serenades of love-sick swains, the shrieks and gnashing of teeth of devils and lost souls, as our modern musicians have done with their musical coloring. ”

“ For here we have scores of melodies which, although cast in scales long since discarded by the art-musician, nevertheless throb with the pulse of life and make a strong appeal to modern musical taste and feeling. ”

“ And if such feeling-tones exist independently from harmony it is evident that they would enter into every melody in addition to the strictly musical feelings of harmony and that they deserve consideration as a factor of music. ”

“ When musical taste has passed from a sentimental intoxication with the sensuous beauty of the sounds themselves, the beauty we admire is primarily beauty of form or structure. The musical connoisseur likes to trace the recurrence of a theme in a symphony, its deviations and disappearances, its distribution in the various choirs of wood-wind, brass, and strings, its interweaving with other themes, its resilient, surprising, and apposite emergences, its pervasive penetration of the total scheme. ”

“ Happy they, whose full souls can lighten their secret burdens by the low musical plaint, understood only by those who have themselves loved and suffered! [Pg 257] Of how many tried and aching hearts has music been the eloquent voice? The ruffled brow grows smooth beneath its influence ”

“ Well, no one, I think, will question the existence in us, at the present day, of something that may well be called, in general terms, the musical faculty. For the musician as we now know him—and, indeed, have known him for [199] some centuries—music is a means of emotional expression that can function without the aid of poetry or even of speech. ”

“ One man thumps his chin with his fingers, and draws from it pure and agreeable musical tones, and another whistles a melody in parts; while men in general might thump and whistle till their teeth fell out without producing any music worth listening to. ”

“ The love of novelty occasions the great variety of tunes which we possess, and the diversity of musical skill. A newly-constructed instrument, a new or superior mode of performing on it and the last new tune, are objects of universal attraction. ”

“ An unusually emotional nature being thus the general characteristic of musical composers, we have in it just the agency required for the development of recitative and song. Intenser feeling producing intenser manifestations, any cause of excitement will call forth from such a nature tones and changes of voice more marked than those called forth from an ordinary nature—will generate just those exaggerations which we have found to distinguish the lower vocal music from emotional speech, and the higher vocal music from the lower. ”

“ It presents all the characteristics we are accustomed to [pg 87] in freer musical forms: a flowing and distinctive melody, ease, clarity, and facility in the progression of the parts, inexhaustible variety of modulation, purest harmony, the exclusion of every jarring or unnecessary note, unity of form and variety of style, rhythm, and measure, and such superabundant animation that the hearer may well ask himself whether every note is not actually alive. ”

“ In such situations the musical appeal may lie for one person in the verbal message or the overt action and for another, purely in the musical appeal. Yet both words and action on the one hand and music on the other are enriched through the association. ”

“ Its tones of melody and harmony require only to be heard in order to awaken in the breast emotions the most delightful. And yet who can speak at all of an agency so charming in other than words of warmest praise? Again: if music be a thing of such consummate beauty, what else can be done but to tender an offering of praise, and even of gratitude, to those, who, by the invention of most pleasing combinations of tones, melodies, and harmonies, or by great skill in vocal or instrumental performance, so signally help us to the fullest understanding and enjoyment of it? ”

“ Their practice, indeed, unanimously confirms the theory of musical effect which has now been briefly sketched, and which may be more briefly summarized before we pass on to deduce from it some general canons of appreciation and criticism.
Music, we have seen, originates in the spontaneous gestures and cries made by primitive man under the sway of emotion, imitated by observers, and arousing in them the same feelings. ”

“ On the other hand, we have seen that a more moderate party, numbering among its ranks some young Composers of acknowledged merit, is neither prepared to sacrifice dramatic truth to musical symmetry, nor musical symmetry to dramatic truth: but is determined to use Melody, Harmony, and Form, as means of enforcing Expression, Action, and the varied demands of scenic propriety not as hindrances to them ”

“ With few exceptions music has been for some centuries the art which has devoted itself not to the reproduction of natural phenomena, but rather to the expression of the artist's soul, in musical sound. ”

“ In both cases the immediate appeal is to the feelings and the imagination, without recourse to intervening 283 imagery borrowed from external nature. Both embody the cry of one soul to another, and they are not widely divergent in quality or effect. Language at its highest is almost song, and music at its best is idealized declamation. All good poetry must be musical. It should, as we say, sing itself; and all good music must be poetical, conveying a distinctly poetic impression.
To me every poem presupposes a possible musical setting, and every worthy composition, a possible poetic text. ”

“ To express calmness, decision, et cetera, avoid rubato.
It must now be evident to the reader that this whole matter of musical nuance is too subtle to be treated adequately in a book of this character, and it becomes necessary for us once more to advise the amateur to study music, both vocal and instrumental, in order that his latent musical feeling may be developed into a ripe and adequate musical taste. ”

“ The greater number of songs are mere repetitions of short phrases, and frequently but single words, to which are added meaningless sounds or syllables to aid in prolonging the musical tones, and repeated ad libitum in direct proportion to the degree of inspiration in which the singer imagines himself to have attained. ”

“ It should be treated as a means of expressing the feelings, not as an introduction for developing musical capacities, though for that matter singing can give a lead to the discovery of musical talent. ”

“ We ourselves have constant opportunities of remarking the intense emotional effects due to mere pitch, tone, and rhythm; that is to say, to the merely physical qualities of number, nature, and repetition of musical vibrations. We have all been cheered by the trumpet and depressed by the hautboy ”

“ It is not agreed as to whether birds can appreciate music. They respond to it, and even imitate it, as in the case of the mocking bird, but we cannot be sure that their singing is for “pure joy,” or for the love of the melody rendered. With the majority of men we know that musical tones arranged in melody or harmony act as original satisfiers, by and in themselves. “Music hath power to soothe the savage breast.” ”

“ It is then the less surprising, though it is surprising still, that they were contented in their music to gratify their sense of melody and rhythm, without exploring the mines of musical enjoyment which have been opened to modern audiences by the discoverers of counterpoint and harmony. ”

“ The complete understanding of musical expression involves, finally, as was suggested at the beginning of this chapter, the recognition of the analogy that exists between music and the noises produced by nature and human activities. ”

“ But the frequent hearing of the best music given by the best singers and instrumentalists,—the living in an atmosphere of art and literature,—will develop and perfect a [223] vocal style in one who has the gift of song; and, for any other, all the instruction of all the musical professors that ever came out of Italy will do no more than teach an avoidance of positive errors in musical grammar. ”