Critical and Historical Essays, Edward MacDowell [fun to read .txt] 📗

as an example; deep shadow is unmistakably suggested. Herbert Spencer's theory of the influence of emotion on pitch is well known and needs no confirmation. This properly comes under the subject of musical speech, a matter not to be considered here. Suffice it to say that the upward tendency of a musical phrase can suggest exaltation, and that a downward trend may suggest depression, the intensity of which will depend upon the intervals used. As an instance we may quote the "Faust" overture of Wagner, in which the pitch is used emotionally as well as descriptively. If the meaning I have found in this phrase seems to you far-fetched, we have but to give a higher pitch to the motive to render the idea absolutely impossible.

The suggestion offered by movement is very obvious, for music admittedly may be stately, deliberate, hasty, or furious, it may march or dance, it may be grave or flippant.

Last of all I wish to speak of the suggestion conveyed by means of tone-tint, the blending of timbre and pitch. It is essentially a modern element in music, and in our delight in this marvellous and potent aid to expression we have carried it to a point of development at which it threatens to dethrone what has hitherto been our musical speech, melody, in favour of what corresponds to the shadow languages of speech, namely, gesture and facial expression. Just as these shadow languages of speech may distort or even absolutely reverse the meaning of the spoken word, so can tone colour and harmony change the meaning of a musical phrase. This is at once the glory and the danger of our modern music. Overwhelmed by the new-found powers of suggestion in tonal tint and the riot of hitherto undreamed of orchestral combinations, we are forgetting that permanence in music depends upon melodic speech.

In my opinion, it is the line, not the colour, that will last. That harmony is a potent factor in suggestion may be seen from the fact that Cornelius was able to write an entire song pitched upon one tone, the accompaniment being so varied in its harmonies that the listener is deceived into attributing to that one tone many shades of emotion.

In all modern music this element is one of the most important. If we refer again to the "Faust" overture of Wagner, we will perceive that although the melodic trend and the pitch of the phrase carry their suggestion, the roll of the drum which accompanies it throws a sinister veil over the phrase, making it impressive in the extreme.

The seed from which our modern wealth of harmony and tone colour sprang was the perfect major triad. The raison d'être and development of this combination of tones belong to the history of music. Suffice it to say, that for some psychological reason this chord (with also its minor form) has still the same significance that it had for the monks of the Middle Ages. It is perfect. Every complete phrase, must end with it. The attempts made to emancipate music from the tyranny of this combination of sounds have been in vain, showing that the suggestion of finality and repose contained in it is irrefutable.

Now if we depart from this chord a sensation of unrest is occasioned which can only subside by a progression to another triad or a return to the first. With the development of our modern system of tonality we have come to think tonally; and a chord lying outside of the key in which a musical thought is conceived will carry with it a sense of confusion or mystery that our modern art of harmony and tone colour has made its own. Thus, while any simple low chords accompanying the first notes of Raff's "Im Walde" symphony, given by the horns and violins, would suggest gloom pierced by the gleams of light, the remoteness of the chords to the tonality of C major gives a suggestion of mystery; but as the harmony approaches the triad the mystery dissolves, letting in the gleam of sunlight suggested by the horn.

Goldmark's overture to "Sakuntala" owes its subtle suggestion to much the same cause. Weber made use of it in his "Freischütz," Wagner in his "Tarnhelm" motive, Mendelssohn in his "Midsummer Night's Dream," Tchaïkovsky in the opening of one of his symphonies.

In becoming common property, so to speak, this important element of musical utterance has been dragged through the mud; and modern composers, in their efforts to raise it above the commonplace, have gone to the very edge of what is physically bearable in the use of tone colour and combination. While this is but natural, owing to the appropriation of some of the most poetic and suggestive tone colours for ignoble dance tunes and doggerel, it is to my mind a pity, for it is elevating what should be a means of adding power and intensity to musical speech to the importance of musical speech itself. Possibly Strauss's "Thus Spake Zarathustra" may be considered the apotheosis of this power of suggestion in tonal colour, and in it I believe we can see the tendency I allude to. This work stuns by its glorious magnificence of tonal texture; the suggestion, in the opening measures, of the rising sun is a mighty example of the overwhelming power of tone colour. The upward sweep of the music to the highest regions of light has much of splendour about it; and yet I remember once hearing in London, sung in the street at night, a song that seemed to me to contain a truer germ of music.

For want of a better word I will call it ideal suggestion. It has to do with actual musical speech, and is difficult to define. The possession of it makes a man a poet. If we look for analogy, I may quote from Browning and Shakespeare.

Dearest, three months ago
When the mesmerizer, Snow,
With his hand's first sweep
Put the earth to sleep.

BROWNING, A Lovers' Quarrel.


Daffodils,
That come before the swallow dares, and takes
The winds of March with beauty; Violets dim,
But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes.

SHAKESPEARE, Winter's Tale.

For me this defies analysis, and so it is with some things in music, the charm of which cannot be ascribed to physical or mental suggestion, and certainly not to any device of counterpoint or form, in the musical acceptance of the word.


INDEX


A.

Accents, 92.
Adagio, 189.
Aeolian mode, 83.
Aeschylus, 70, 76.
Alberti bass, 197.
Allemande, 182, 189, 195.
Amati, 138.
Ambros, 205.
Ambrose, 98, 99, 102, 104.
Amiot, 50, 57, 61, 263.
Anapaest, 75.
Andaman Islanders, 3, 5, 6.
Animals, 13.
Arabian, 152, 158.
Architecture, 192, 225.
Arion, 76.
Aristides, 74, 84.
Aristophanes, 91, 92.
Aristotle, 49.
Aristoxenus, 73, 81.
Assyrian, 48.
Auber, 216, 217, 219.


B.

Bach, C.P.E., 191, 199, 200, 247, 248, 251.
Bach, J.S., 136, 185, 186, 187, 191, 231, 239, 241, 244, 247,
248, 265.
Bagpipe, 32, 93.
Ballet, 177.
Bamboo, 52.
Banjo, 29.
Basso continuo, 237.
Bassoon, 139.
Bazin, 217.
Beethoven, 14, 16, 17, 22, 185, 189, 190, 196, 197, 199, 200,
201, 202, 203, 234, 247, 250, 267.
Bell, 7, 8, 46.
Bellini, 210.
Berlioz, 14, 65, 219, 266.
Bizet, 144, 151, 197, 217, 219, 222.
Boieldieu, 216, 217.
Bolero, 182.
Borneo, 3, 5.
Bourrée, 179.
Brahma, 36, 37.
Brahminism, 36, 39.
Brahms, 203, 224.
Brevis, 118, 120.
Browning, 198, 272.
Buddha, 36.
Burmah, 23, 64, 65.
Burney, 194.
Byrd, 184.


C.

Caccini, 177, 209.
Cachucha, 182.
Canon, 205.
Cantata, 188.
Cantus firmus, 130, 205.
Ceylon, 5.
Chaconne, 181.
Chaldeans, 49.
Charlemagne, 105.
Che, 50, 66.
Cherubini, 213.
China, 16, 18, 23, 49.
Chinese folksong, 59.
Chinese music, 144, 147, 263.
Chinese orchestra, 55.
Chinese scale, 62.
Chinese theatre, 61.
Chopin, 27, 204.
Christianity, 34.
Christians (Early), 96.
Chrotta (Crwth), 137.
Church music, 206.
Clarinet, 13, 139.
Clavichord, 134.
Clavicitherium, 136.
Clef, 116.
Colour in music, 200, 263, 270.
Comedy, 76.
Confucius, 49, 56, 60, 263.
Conjunct tetrachord, 86.
Constantinople, 103.
Corelli, 138, 189.
Cornet, 177.
Corrente (Courante), 181, 185, 189.
Coucy, Raoul de, 118.
Council of Laodicaea, 99.
Council of Trent, 176.
Counterpoint, 129, 205, 208, 264.
Couperin, 136, 191, 200, 210.
Cristofori, 136.
Czardas, 183.


D.

Dactyl, 25, 26, 69, 75.
Dance, 24, 27, 28, 78, 97, 126, 149, 178.
Dance forms, modern, 182.
Dance forms, old, 179, 180.
Dante, 207.
Darwin, 1, 16.
Declamation, 26, 27, 254.
Delibes, 218.
Descant (discant), 129, 205.
Diaphony, 128, 129.
Diatonic, 45.
Didymus, 81.
Dionysian, 75.
Disjunct tetrachord, 86.
Dithyramb, 76.
Donizetti, 210.
Dorian, 75, 83.
Drum, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 25, 30, 33.
Drum organ, 65.
Dulcimer, 33, 49, 136.


E.

Egypt, 16, 34, 43, 152.
Emerson, 16.
Embellishments, 238.
Enharmonic (Greek), 88.
Epitrite, 75.
Equal temperament, 187, 241.
Euclid, 79.


F.

Fantaisie-mazurka, 184.
Faux bourdon, 130, 163.
Fear, 2.
Feast of asses, 125, 206.
Field, 204.
Figured bass, 237.
Flageolet, 177.
Flats, 16, 39, 112.
Flute, 6, 13, 30, 31, 43, 44, 45, 67, 82, 138, 177.
Flute players, 91.
Folk song, 16, 17, 141.
Folk song (Chinese), 59.
Folk song (German), 152.
Form, 24, 25, 263, 264.
Fourth (augmented), 128.
Franco of Cologne, 117, 123.
Frauenlob, Heinrich, 167, 168.
Froberger, 199.
Fugue, 187, 206.