What is good music? Suggestions to persons desiring to cultivate a taste in musical art

Front matter

WHAT IS GOOD AVSIC ?

WJ.HENDEJ^SON

1^^

Part I.— The Qualities Of Good Music

Excellence of musical ideas — Musical high thinking — Laws which are recognizable — Musical form and history — Why needful to know form ? — Music exists when heard — Necessity of repetition — Distribution of repetitions — Diversity in unity — Importance of separate functions — High grades of organization — Nature of rhythm — Elementary

Vll

Prelude.

Chap.

I

vm

Chap.

I.

rhythms — Simple and compound rhythms — Nature of melody-^Nature of harmony — Melody and rhythm associated — Analyzing a common melody — The closing cadence — Explanation of phrases — Repetition of a motive — Satisfying the ear — Musical and [loetic rhythms— Complexity of organization Page 13

Chap. Polyphonic system of repetition — The monophonic sys- II. tem — The harmonic basis — ^A tune accompanying itself — A tune accompanied by chords — Polyphonic music defined — Meaning of counterpoint — The fugue defined — Subject and answer — Counter-subject and stretto — What to listen for — The fugue's intellectuality — Age of polyphony — Lasso and Palestrina — Music originally formless — Beginning of song — Appearance of rhythm — Rhythm taken from text — The ecclesiastical chant — Obviousness of melodic form — The instrumental development — The fugues of J. S. Bach — Characteristics of polyphony — Mastery of rigid material. Pagtzj

Chap. The solo-voice style — Dominance of song-thought — ^The

III' sonata its issue — Period and stanza — Many schemes of

repetition — The Rondo form — A Rondo in verse — Development of Rondo forms — The late Rondo form — The First Movement form — The slow introduction — Sometimes made important — The two chief themes — Relation of keys — Subjects and their relations — Use of episodes — Value of the " repeat " — The " working-out " part — Thematic development — Alterations of the subject — Altering the melody — Treatment and coloring — Difference in styles — Value of working out — Climax of a movement — The skeleton concealed — Essentials of sonata form — Vocal and instrumental styles — The second movement — The minuet with development — The minuet and scherzo — Origin of the scherzo — Scherzi by Bach — The true Beethoven scherzo — Form of the scherzo — Finale of the sonata — Modern innovations — The concerto form — Sonata the classic form — The era of musical beauty — The term " classical " — Absence of deep emotion— Beauty and the Sonata. . . . Page 41

Romantic Forms

Recapitulation — The two great impulses — Classicism and Romanticism — Demand for expression — Beethoven's romanticism — Its effect on form — Community of theme — Schumann's fourth symphony — Its plan of development — The Symphonic poem — The programme overture — Liszt's piano concertos — Traits of romantic music. . . Page 63

IX

Chap.

Vocal Forms Church Counterpoint

Mediaeval church music — Essentials of vocal counterpoint — Beauty of church polyphony. .... Page 73

CftAP.

VI. Simple Song Forms

Age of the song — Song form and poetry — ^The cyclical song — Meaning in accompaniment — Value of form and style — Dramatic songs^Essentials of a good song — Variety of song forms Page 75

Chap.

VII. X

Chap.

VIII

Origin of opera— Monotony of recitative— Advent of the aria — Reign of vocal display — Tickling the ear — ^Abolishing set forms — Purpose of opera music — Fidelity to the text — Music as an expression— Kinds of recitative— "Recitative secco" — The arioso style — ^The aria da capo —Different kinds of aria— Artistic level of opera— Absolute music higher. Page 79

Chap.

IX

Form not everything — Criticism of form and style — Fundamental qualities of music— Form implies content— Three fundamental forces — The sensuous element — Purely sensuous music — Sensuousness of the orchestra — Pleasure of the thoughtless — Factors of the sensuous — Composition and painting— Tone-color and art — The Sensuous a means —Color and Outline. Page 88

Chap.

X

"Music of the intellect "—Intellect and method— The Intellectual and design — Demands of musical design — A correct emotional scheme— Attributes of an organism- Organism in music — Hanslick on form— The Intellectual in history — Beethoven and the Intellectual — Music's high-

Chap.

XI

Music arouses emotion — Mistakes about musical emotion—Primary law of expression— Music imitates speech—

Power of musical expression — Limit of this expression- Music expresses moods — Not an indefinite expression — Errors of the hearer — Groundless expectations — What one may expect — Beethoven's emotional utterance — Evils of bad criticism — How not to criticise — Music wrongly censured — Conventions of expression — Descriptive music^ Programme music — Telling a story — Value of opera music — Communication of emotion Puge 104 jEsthetics of Music

What is the beautiful ? — Kant on Beauty — Free and adherent beauty— Their place in music — Art and symbolism — Beauty and education — ^Art and judgment — Value of the Inevitable — Suitability of style — Fitness in opera music — ^Esthetics of the emotional — Music and abstract Beauty — Form absolutely essential — Summary of musical beauty. Page 117

PART It.— THE PERFORMANCE OF MUSIC

Performance a sure ground — Questions of fact— The modem orchestra— Its scope and power— Its three groups

^The various instruments — Functions of the three choirs

— The wood wind — Its minor groups — Its compass and variety—Close and dispersed writing — The brass choir — French horn passages — Trumpets and trombones — Use of kettle drums — The string quintet — Special effects— Muted

XI

Chap.

XI.

Chap.

XIII. Xll

Chap. strings — Relations of stringed instruments — The viola's XIII. character — Its dramatic power — ^ITie violoncello — Variety in the strings — Good orchestration — Solidity and balance — Contrast and variety — Hearing all the instruments — Good orchestral playing — Balance of tone — Smoothness of tone — Solidity of tone — Precision and unanimity — Light and shade — The middle voices — Duties of a conductor. Page 129

Chap.

XIV. Chamber Music

Homogeneity of tone — The pervasive " soloist " — Place of the piano^Beauty of quartet playing— Taste for chamber-music. Page 151

Chap. Ignorance about piano playing — Technic and tone- XV. color — Music must be heard — Power of the interpreter — Paderewski an example — Object of piano technic — Emanuel Bach and Mozart — dementi's style — Liszt, Chopin, and tone-color — Independence of fingers — The singing tone — Touch and pedalling — Rhythm and phrasing — Musical temperament — Emotion and performance — Control of emotion — Intellect in command — Province of the intellect — Emotion and shading — Historical justice — Making a reading — ^Analysis of the design — Adjustment of effects — Grasp of organic unity — Value of emotional power — Summary of the matter. Page 155

CaKS. The violin technic — ^Accuracy of stopping — Quality of XVI. tone — ^Touch in bowing — Purity and sonority — Large and small tone — The bow arm — Special effects — ^Violins as singers — Intimacy of the violin Page 17s

Xlll

The Work of a Chorus

Requirements of choral singing— Orchestra and chorus — Balance of tone — Singing in tune — Importance of phrasing — Phrasing and the text — Light and shade— Refinement and size Pagt i8o

Chap.

XVII.

Soh Singing

Ignorance about singing — ^Temperament and agility — Highest type of singing — Voice and art — Difference of methods — Registers and equalization — Good tone-production — Clearness and freedom — Secret of attack — The legato style — Messa di voce — Vocalization — Distinct enunciation — Good phrasing — Regulation of breathing — Technic and art — Mme. Patti's skill — Ultimate purpose of song. Page l86

Chap.

XVIII.

INDEX. Pagt 199

WHAT IS GOOD MUSIC?

THE right to like or dislike a musical composition without giving a reason has long been regarded as coexistent with human freedom. Music has been a sort of Cinderella of the arts, casually observed, incidentally admired, but generally treated as of no serious importance in the presence of her favored sisters, painting and poetry. No one presumed to pronounce an opinion on the merit of a picture or a statue who had not at least learned the difference between a penand-ink drawing and a water-color, and few persons would have ventured to write down Shakespeare an ass before having acquired a sufficient knowledge of poetry to tell a sonnet from a five-act tragedy. But it was deemed altogether fitting and, indeed, intellectually satisfying that Beethoven should be smugly patted on the back, Brahms viewed with

Music and the other arts.

What Is Good Music?

Prelude.

Criticism as opposed to enjoyment.

Influence of romanticism.

lifted brows, and Wagner convicted of lunacy by persons who could not, while in the concert-room, detect a fantasia masquerading as an overture, nor a suite disguised as a symphony — nay, more, who could not tell when the composer dropped the elementary rhythm of the valse to take up that of the polonaise. For music was, if you please, not matter to be reasoned about, but just to be listened to and to be enjoyed. " Who are these fellows," said the concert-goers, " with their prosy platitudes about music and her dignity as an art ? Do we go into the concert-room to search for the skeleton under the beautiful flesh ? Nay, let us feast our hearts upon the ravishing beauty of naked Sound, and let these anatomists go fall upon their own scalpels."

But even as they spoke there arose a race of composers who used the scalpel on their own art, and who cried aloud in the market-places for intellectual consideration. And these composers were forthwith discovered to be romanticists, who declared that music was not only beautiful, but throbbing with the pentup passion of humanity. In her these found the elemental voice of mankind, the speech of fundamental emotions, the irresistible declaration of the primeval barbarian grandeur of the man and woman at gaze one upon the other; and they called the world to witness that when they sat down to compose music they were engaged in graving with subtler tools what the painter splashed with his brush and the poet traced with his pen.

Finally, one of these romanticists, a mad, uncontrollable fellow, whose convictions burnt into his soul with such fierce fire that they sent him running through the highways of the world screaming his agony into the faces of men, proclaimed his belief in a hybrid, acephalous thing called the art-work of the future, in which poetry, painting, acting, and music should unite and form an aesthetic Dagon to be worshipped in Gath and Askalon, and all the cities of the Philistines. And then the listeners to music said to one another, " Wherein do the works of this Utopian differ from those of Mozart and the prophets ? We

Prelude.

Wagner and his theories.

What Is Good Music?

Prelude.

Phrases, sections and melodies.

Growth of the desire to understand hear a great confusion of sounds, but the aria and the trio and the finale are not." So they learned that there was a something called a leit motif, and that sometimes it was only a phrase, sometimes a section, and again a complete melody. Whereupon they became aware that they themselves did not know how a phrase, a section, or a complete melody might differ one from the other. And so, as has frequently happened since the beginning of the world, the woman timorously tasted the fruit of the tree of knowledge, and finding that it was good for food and to make one wise, " gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked."

Assuredly, whatever may have been the course of musical culture in other lands, in the United States the appetite for an understanding of music was aroused by Wagner. Now many who have for years been sitting in the temples of the divine art in sloth and carelessness are crying out, "What shall I do to be saved ? " It has been the happy experience of the writer to meet with hundreds who were searching anxiously for the path that leads to musical salvation. Fortunately, it is not only a straight path, but a broad and short one. The person who desires to cultivate a discriminating taste in music may acquire the fundamental knowledge in a few short months. After that, one needs only to live much in an atmosphere of good music until the acquired principles become unconsciously the moving factors underlying all attention to the art. If, therefore, I venture to offer a few hints to those who find pleasure in listening to music, but desire to make that pleasure dependent not on fancy but on judgment, I may hope that not every man will deem me an impertinent fellow.

Let us suppose, then, forbearing reader, that you are in the state of the average music-lover. You get great enjoyment out of the opera, though you freely admit that you begin to be weary at the point where the inner brotherhood pricks up its ears and looks very wise. You attend the functions of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Phil-

Prelude.

Living with good

Condition of the iin^ instructed listener.

What Is Good Music?

Prelude.

Hearing in the conven' tionalway.

Sonatas versus fandangoes.

harmonic Society, and when they play Haydn's works, you are quite content. You like also some of the symphonies of Mozart, some of Mendelssohn's, and parts of Beethoven's. But you are troubled by that dark-blue music of Tschaikowsky, and those impolite compositions of Dvorak ; and you deem it an unpardonable rudeness on the part of any orchestra to confuse you with those tonal riddles of Brahms. Privately you are willing to admit that the slow movements of nearly all symphonies are as poppy and mandragora to you ; and you surreptitiously go to the Sundayevening concerts where the ballet-music of Massenet and Delibes refreshes your intellect by its appeal to your feet. You go to piano recitals when the buzz of public talk about the pianist excites your curiosity, but you do wish the artist would let those dreary Beethoven sonatas, Schumann fantasias, and Bach fugues rest, and stick to his Chopin valses, Rubinstein barcarolles, and Liszt fandangoes.

As for the oratorio, you, like others, go religiously once a year to hear the

" Messiah," thoroughly satisfied that it towers above other oratorios as Mount Browne above Tacoma, and sometimes you go to hear the " Elijah." You never heard any other oratorios and — but stop a bit ; someone induced you once to go and listen to a thing called the " St. Matthew Passion," and you might have known better, because it was by that old contrapuntal carpenter. Bach. Thank goodness, you had the good fortune to hold a seat under the gallery, where you could sleep without being seen. Moreover, you were once persuaded to go to what a friend described as a chamber-music concert. There you heard four ghostly persons perform an operation which seemed to you to be the articulation of a symphonic skeleton. At that entertainment you became reckless and slept openly in the sight of all men. And let me add in strict confidence that if the performance was no better than most of our quartet-playing, I do not blame vou for your somnolence.

Now, how are you to escape from this slough of despond? You know there is a land of promise somewhere on the

Prelude.

Hearing Bach's *' Passion,'

Chamber music as a soporific.

lO

Prelude.

Friends in needbutnot in deed*

What Is Good Music?

other side, because your friends, who have entered into it, have told you there is, and have comforted you with their pity for your unregenerate state, and with vivid descriptions of the superiority of their own condition, They have encouraged you vastly, but have neglected to pull you out of the slough. Yet it is possible to escape from it. Music is an art. It is a thing of law and order. There is no ineffable mystery and miracle about it which may not be understood by the average man. Let us, then, address ourselves to the inquiry. What is good music ? It is not a question to which a complete and satisfying answer can be given, but something can be said which will, perchance, be of aid to him who has been in search of some guide for his judgment.

Part I The Qualities of Good Music

I

NO rule can be laid down for recognizing the excellence of a musical idea. It cannot, for instance, be said that originality of rhythm or harmony is necessary. Such a statement would be overthrown at once by the mere citation of the first theme of Beethoven's " Eroica " symphony or the Walhalla theme from Wagner's " Der Ring des Nibelung." The essential qualities of greatness in a musical subject are not to be described. The loftiness of their thought commands an immediate recognition from the cultured mind, and that recognition, by force of habit, becomes immediate and almost instinctive. No practised listener to music is often at a loss to decide whether a theme is digni-

Excellmct of musical ideas.

H

Chap. I. Musical high think' ing

fied or trivial. The power to recognize the elevation of a line musical thought must come from continued musical highthinking. One must live with the masters and absorb the spirit of their nobility. There is no other way to learn to discern the excellence of musical ideas.

But it is possible to help the student of music to perceive the skill of the composer in building music with his ideas and that of the performer in presenting the composition to the hearer. For in these departments we are confronted with a system of laws derived from the discoveries of the great geniuses of the art. The task of the honest student of music is to learn these laws, to acquire the ability to perceive, in lisJ tening to a performance, when they are observed and when they are broken. He will thus come to listen to music intelligently.

It is my purpose in this volume to do what I can to assist the reader to gain an acquaintance with those qualities of excellence in music and musical performance which are susceptible of definition. The person who desires to

Rhythm, Melody, and Harmony i r cultivate a taste in music ought to be acquainted, first of all, with musical form and the history of music. From the first he will learn to perceive the structure, the artistic design, of every composition to which he listens, and from the second he will acquire a knowledge of the period to which a composition belongs, of the state of development of the art, of the purposes and possibilities of composition at that time. It is obvious that any attempt at an outline of the history of music would be out of place in this volume. The subject is altogether too large for treatment here, and there are already extant excellent and trustworthy treatises on the subject. Let us, therefore, start with the inquiry : Why is it essential to the intelligent appreciation of music that one should be acquainted with the elements of musical form ?

Because in music form is the first manifestation of law. Music is to be conceived primarily as presented to the hearing. The printed page of a composition is not music ; it is merely the record of music. The music itself has no

Chap. I.

Musical form and history.

Why needful to know formt i6

Chap. I.

Music exists when heard.

Necessity ef repetition.

existence except when it is sounded by instrument or voice, and heard. There are very few persons, even among professional musicians, who are capable of imagining the precise sound of a composition from reading the printed page. And even if many could do this, it would still be foreign to the art. It would be like imagining a picture from reading a description of it. Pictures must be seen ; music must be heard. The musical composition, then, passes before the sense of hearing as a panorama of sounds. If the music consists of a series of consecutive melodic bits, each different from the other, the mind grasps nothing. The fleeting nature of a musical thought demands that it be repeated in order that the mind may become acquainted with it. And so we come upon the first requisite of musical form — repetition.

The necessity of repetition in musical composition is so obvious that it calls for brief discussion. The music-lover, by examining any simple air, will find that at regular intervals the initial notes of the melody are repeated, as for example in " Home, Sweet Home," and that it is the repetition of these notes that identifies the tune. Thus we come upon the elementary fact that a musical form is dependent upon the more or less regular repetition of some recognizable bit of melody. The study of the methods of distributing repetitions led composers to the organization of forms, and hence we find that form in music is synonymous with design. Without design there is no artistic work ; and the greater the diversity in unity displayed by the design, the higher the art. In architecture, to make use of analogical illustration, the simplest form is a plain, square building, but the highest art is to be found in a great Gothic cathedral with its thousands of details, each beautiful in itself, but all similar in general character, and all forming part of a whole, which is the perfect embodiment of unity. In natural life a simple form is the polyp, while the highest and most complex form is man. If you cut a polyp into pieces, each piece lives still. Turn it inside out, and the skin becomes the

Chap. I.

Distribution of repetitions.

Diversity in unity.

i8

Chap. I.

Importance of separate functions.

High grades of organisation.

stomach, and vice versa. Every part performs every function, and hence no one part is indispensable. That is the lowest form of design. In man every part has a separate function, and without that part the whole would be incomplete. That is the highest form of design. It is the most admirable example of diversity in unity. Goethe, contemplating these facts, formulated in his " Morphology " this law : " The more perfect the being, the more dissimilar are its parts. Subordination of parts indicates high-grade of organization." Hence, in music, the simplest form is that of a common ballad, but the most complex form is that which is the most highly organized — the sonata. Before the lover of music is able, however, to discern the component parts of a sonata, and therefore to appreciate its design, he must acquaint himself with the elements of musical form.

The material of form in music consists of rhythm, melody, and harmony. Rhythm is the grouping of sounds with reference to their duration and accent. In poetry it is primarily manifested by the distribution of accented and unaccented syllables in what is called a foot. In music it is indicated by the number of notes of similar character in one measure. In three-fourth time we have three quarter-notes in a measure, with the accent normally on the first. In fourfourth time we have four quarter-notes, with the principal accent on the first and a secondary accent on the third. The elasticity of musical material, however, makes it possible for the composer to build rhythms which shall extend beyond the limits of a single measure, and thus we get a wide limit of complexity, leading always toward that high organization which is part of an art-work. But as the complexity of a musical work may depend largely on factors other than rhythm, we find that in some of the greatest compositions the rhythms are elementary. An elementary rhythm may be described as one in which the notes of the melody nearly or wholly coincide with the number of beats in a measure. Instances of this kind of rhythm are the theme of the scherzo of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony,

Chap. I.

Nature of rhythm.

Elementary rhythms.

Chap. I.

Simple and

compound

rhythms.

i*-t and the choral theme of the same composer's Ninth Symphony :

F6tis calls this kind of rhythm simple, , and distinguishes it from compound rhythm, in which the notes in successive measures do not so nearly coincide with the number of beats in a bar, as, for example :

It must be obvious to the reader that in the construction of a melody a composer has wide scope for complexity of rhythm, and that he can display marked originality and produce striking effects.

The second element of form is melody, by which we mean the distribution of sounds with reference to their succession. No amount of rhythmic originality would satisfy the ear if a single tone were maintained throughout. In order to have melody, we must have movement from lower tones to higher, or vice versa. The melodic succession, therefore, is dependent upon changes of pitch. It is a succession of tones of different elevation. The third element of form — harmony — is the distribution of sounds with reference to their union. It is the science of arranging the effect of tones which are to be heard simultaneously, and it also governs the sequences of the groups, or chords, as they are called. Our modern music is so thoroughly founded on harmony that it is difficult to conceive of any familiar air as dissociated from its usual chord arrangement. A new harmonization gives the air apparently a new melody. For example :

Chap. I.

Nature of melody.

Nature of harmony.

Chap. I.

Melody and

rhythm

associated.

Analyzing a common melody.

It is equally true that melody is indissolubly associated with rhythm, and that an alteration of the rhythm will give a new character to a melodic succession, thus:

We may lay harmonic form aside for the present and confine ourselves to the study of melodic form. The simplest and most intelligible method of procedure is to take a common tune and pull it apart to see how it is built :

-Ut Section-

This is the first part of the principal theme in the opening movement of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony. An examination will show that it divides itself into two equal parts of four measures each, the first part, which may be called the proposition, ending at the point marked by an arrow. Long habit has taught the human ear that a melody is not ended till it closes with a cadence returning it to the tonic key ; hence on hearing the suspension at the arrow we realize that the sense is incomplete, just as we would if we heard a man say, " If I go down town to-morrow," and then pause. But when the man adds, " I shall buy new shoes," he completes the sense and the sentence. Just so Beethoven completes his sentence by adding the second half, or conclusion. These two equal parts of a melody are called sections, and the portion making complete sense, whether composed of two or more sections, is called a period.

A further examination will show that each section is naturally divided into two balancing parts of two measures each, and that each of these parts has a perfectly defined shape and motion and a point of repose, or partial repose. These parts are called phrases. The germ of the phrase is the motive, which

Chap. I.

The closing cadence.

Explanation of phrases.

Chap. I. indeed is the germ of the whole melody. It defines the rhythm and sets the figure for the melody. In the example quoted, the motive is coincident with the first phrase, but, of course, this is not always the case. In Beethoven's Fifth Symphony the motive is this :

RefeHtion of a motivt.

while the first phrase is this :

^^^^1^^^ ^^ m m

From the example quoted above, the reader will be able to gather what was meant by the phrase " distribution of repetitions." He will note, for instance, that the repetition may be either rhythmic, or melodic, or both. The motive, announced in the first measure, is repeated exactly in both rhythm and melody in the fifth (the first measure of the second section). So, indeed, is the whole of the first phrase. The third measure of the first section is identical in rhythm, but not in melody, with the third measure of the second section. The change in melody is dictated by the composer's

Rhythm, Melody, and Harmony 2 C perception of the most suitable method of returning to the tonic. He could have used the third measure of the first section over, but it would have deprived him of the reposeful effect gained by the B preceding the final A, which requires a harmony passing from dominant to tonic, and thus giving a satisfying cadence. The fourth measure of the first section repeats the rhythm of the third measure with the lengths of the first two notes transposed for the obvious purpose of accentuating the suspension, and of satisfying a demand of harmony which need not be discussed here.

This examination of the first period of a melody by Beethoven reveals to us some of the principles of elementary form. It shows us that rhythms and metres in music are distributed in very much the same way as they are in poetry, and that the identity of a tune is established by the repetitions of the fundamental melodic ideas of which it is made. Any simple song — a folk-song, a ballad, or one of the ordinary opera airs — can be analyzed in the manner above employed and without difficulty.