Performance (music)

“ I make my pieces difficult whenever I please, according to my disposition and that of my audience.' Yet in nothing was he so superior to himself', and to other musicians, as in writing and playing adagios, in which the most pleasing, yet learned modulation, the richest harmony, and the most elegant and polished melody, were all expressed with such feeling, taste, and science, that no musical production or performance with which I was then acquainted seemed to approach nearer perfection. ”

“ I perform on no instrument nor do I sing, but I love music and in my time have attended operas and philharmonics sufficient to know something of what is what, and I can truthfully affirm that no more remarkable performance was ever heard by the ears of mortal man. ”

“ Likewise, much of the charm of music lies in its association with overt action as in dances, work songs, marches, and games, where action is rhythmic. This added power of the music lies not only in the dance steps but more conspicuously in the suggestive rhythms divided into intricate patterns often far surpassing the score or the physical performance. That is what we mean when we say music carries. ”

“ These remarks concern, not only the performance of Orchestral and Church Music. They apply, with equal force, to Solo Performances of every kind: to Pianoforte Sonatas, and Organ Fugues, Violin Concertos, and Solos for the Flute or Oboe, these, the Performer, having no Conductor prompt him, must think for himself, and the success of his performance will depend entirely upon the amount of his capacity for doing so. ”

“ Perhaps we find ourselves tapping the rhythm with our feet or our fingers, or it may be that we find the very expression on our own face is altering to match that upon the countenance of the dancer. The skilful speaker also can arouse almost any emotion he pleases in the minds of his audience. He may one moment have them laughing, and then the next, as if by magic touch, he may bring them to sober mood or even to sorrow. Music no less surely does the same through the agency of rhythm, melody, and harmonic texture. ”

“ It is the outcome of so much patience and skill that by a little adjustment it can be made to produce any kind of music—vocal or instrumental—from a single voice singing the simplest melody, up to the grandest orchestral masterpieces. ”

“ We referred at some length, in the chapter on "The Dance and Its Development," to this germination of musical thought as of the greatest importance in composition. The reader will readily understand that the highest form of an art like music, in which the element of time enters as a vital matter—in which the message of the composer comes to us in successive sounds—must depend on something more than the beauty of its several and successive melodies. ”

“ And not until singers realise that the composition is but the raw material waiting to be imbued with expression at their hands, waiting, in fine, to be given life, personality, and real being, can they thoroughly grasp the innermost meaning of music which, rendered by the true artist, expresses more clearly than any words ever written, the true emotions of the soul. ”

“ In the
fusing of melody and words into an utterance of song—at last into a strophe—music worked potently, shaping the composition of the lines, moulding them to rhythm, insisting upon sonorousness in the words, promoting their assonance and at last compelling them to rhyme so as to meet the stress, or mark the ending, of the musical periods. Thus the exigencies of melody helped to evoke the finished verse, while the words reciprocating through their vocal capabilities and through the inspiration of their meaning, aided the evolution of the melodies. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But why should I occupy your time by quotations from celebrated poets or prose writers, to prove the influence of music, when I have it in my power to verify the saying of that eminent composer whose life I have undertaken to sketch?
"The effect of music on a man should be to strike fire from his soul." ”

“ Such attention is frequently impossible while singing, because the minds of the singers are intent upon the beauty or difficulty of the purely musical aspects of the composition, and thus the so-called "expression" becomes merely a blind and uninspired obedience to certain marks like piano, forte, and ritardando—the real spirit of interpretation being entirely absent.
DISTRIBUTING AND CARING FOR THE MUSICHave the distribution and care of music so systematized that there will be neither confusion nor waste of time in this part of the rehearsal. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It will thus be seen that the manner in which we are impressed by Music is enormously complex. First, there is the sensuous appeal, the different characteristics of timbre and tone, of rich harmony and full orchestration, of all those devices which are usually described in metaphors of taste and colour. Second, and inclusive of the first, is the emotional appeal, the exhilaration of rapid movement, the gravity of stately chords and broad diatonic melody, the restlessness of broken rhythm and frequent modulation, the shades of surprise which follow upon a sudden change or an unexpected crisis. ”

“ From the clapping, or rudimentary rhythmical noise, has been evolved the whole art of instrumental music, down to the entrancing complexity of the modern symphony. From the shout, or rudimentary emotional utterance, has proceeded by a kindred evolution the whole art of vocal music down to the modern opera or oratorio. From the leap, or rudimentary expression of emotion by rhythmical movements of the body, has descended every variety of dancing, from the stately figures of the tragic chorus of the Greeks to the kordax of their comedy or the complexities of the modern ballet. ”

“ Harmony was there; man, classifying and arranging the sounds, created music.
We all know what man has been able to get from it since then.
Man, past master of the musical realm, is to-day still in the infancy of art, from the standpoint of control of light. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Then after reflective study of classic ideals we find him making the decisive break with all the conventionalities and traditions of ‘opera,’ thus evolving the music drama in which music, poetry and stage setting should combine in one unified art. Situations in such a drama are no longer created to afford musical opportunities, but text and music are joined in a unity of dramatic utterance of hitherto unattained eloquence. ”

“ Not to dwell upon the numberless kinds of dancing that have, in course of time, come into use; and not to occupy space in detaining the progress of poetry, as seen in the development of the various forms of metre, of rhyme, and of general organisation; let us confine our attention to music as a type of the group. ”

“ The charms of music consist in the union and harmony of its parts; and when executed by scienced performers, it swells into a melody that holds in spellbound admiration all the finer and more elevated feelings of the soul. But the path that leads to the summit where the flowery charms of this science are wafted on the breath of our most skilful performers, and fall on your ears with such pleasing accents, is winding, steep, and rugged ”

“ The art of the musician is shown as an intelligent presentation of sounds and rhythms and inspirations into works displaying beauty or expressing emotion. It is by the handling of the materials of music that the composer proves the beauty of his vision. ”

“ Of all the fine arts, music is that which has most influence on the passions, and which the legislator ought the most to encourage. A musical composition of an intellectual character, if the work of a master, never fails to touch the feelings ”

“ In like manner thou confoundest the harmony of music with symmetry in what is visible and tangible: and thou teachest the stars how to dance to their own compositions, enlivened by fugues and variations from thy master-hand. ”

“ As we appreciate it to-day, music lends itself readily to our definition of art. It is a personal expression—who, when listening to music which he enjoys, does not feel himself poured forth in the tones? It is social and public—what brings us together under the sway of a common emotion more effectively than concert or opera? ”

“ By setting free and emphasising this music, they force it upon our attention; they compel us, willy-nilly, to fall in with it, like passers-by who join in a dance. And thus they impel us to set in motion, in the depths of our being, some secret chord which was only waiting to thrill. ”

“ The merit of the troubadours in furthering the progress of music as an art was that they liberated melody from the fetters of calculation, gave it the stamp of individuality, and bore it on the wings of fancy into the domains of sentiment. ”

“ I would go farther, and assert that, while a merely mechanical musician may set inappropriate melodies to words, and render music inexpressive of character, what constitutes a musical dramatist is the conscious intention of fitting to the words of his libretto such melody as shall interpret character, and the power to do this with effect. ”

“ His genius for orchestration, his vigorous rhythms, and the enormous volumes of sound which he was as much master of as the most delicate subtleties of small combinations of instruments, have the most powerful effect upon the hearer; while his vivid dramatic perception goes very far to supply the place of the intrinsically musical development which characterises the works of the greatest masters of abstract music. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Inasmuch as, therefore, musical expression has for its content the inward life itself, the ideal significance of fact and emotion, and a tone-world which, at least in art, does not proceed to spatial configuration, and in its sensuous existence is wholly evanescent, it follows that music directly penetrates with its movements to the ideal habitat of all the fluctuations of soul-life. ”

“ Our rules of harmony and forms of composition are unknown to them; still, their popular legends and traditions clearly [Pg 232] prove that they appreciate the beauty and power of music not less keenly than we do; and they demonstrate the superiority of their scales with the same confidence as any of our theorists are capable of displaying. ”

“ As the vocal aria was the result of the simple folk-song combined with the intense craving of song's master molders for individual expression, so instrumental music striving to walk alone, without support from words, gained vital elements through the discovery that various phases of mental disposition might be indicated by alternating dance tunes differing in rhythm and movement, according to Nature's own law of contrasts. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”