Essays Before a Sonata | Page 5

by a
genius whose power of objective contemplation is in the highest state
of development? Can it be done by anything short of an act of
mesmerism on the part of the composer or an act of kindness on the
part of the listener? Does the extreme materializing of music appeal
strongly to anyone except to those without a sense of humor--or rather
with a sense of humor?--or, except, possibly to those who might excuse
it, as Herbert Spencer might by the theory that the sensational element
(the sensations we hear so much about in experimental psychology) is
the true pleasurable phenomenon in music and that the mind should not
be allowed to interfere? Does the success of program music depend
more upon the program than upon the music? If it does, what is the use
of the music, if it does not, what is the use of the program? Does not its
appeal depend to a great extent on the listener's willingness to accept
the theory that music is the language of the emotions and ONLY that?
Or inversely does not this theory tend to limit music to programs?--a
limitation as bad for music itself--for its wholesome progress,--as a diet
of program music is bad for the listener's ability to digest anything
beyond the sensuous (or physical-emotional). To a great extent this
depends on what is meant by emotion or on the assumption that the
word as used above refers more to the EXPRESSION, of, rather than to
a meaning in a deeper sense--which may be a feeling influenced by
some experience perhaps of a spiritual nature in the expression of
which the intellect has some part. "The nearer we get to the mere
expression of emotion," says Professor Sturt in his "Philosophy of Art
and Personality," "as in the antics of boys who have been promised a
holiday, the further we get away from art."
On the other hand is not all music, program-music,--is not pure music,
so called, representative in its essence? Is it not program-music raised

to the nth power or rather reduced to the minus nth power? Where is
the line to be drawn between the expression of subjective and objective
emotion? It is easier to know what each is than when each becomes
what it is. The "Separateness of Art" theory--that art is not life but a
reflection of it--"that art is not vital to life but that life is vital to it,"
does not help us. Nor does Thoreau who says not that "life is art," but
that "life is an art," which of course is a different thing than the
foregoing. Tolstoi is even more helpless to himself and to us. For he
eliminates further. From his definition of art we may learn little more
than that a kick in the back is a work of art, and Beethoven's 9th
Symphony is not. Experiences are passed on from one man to another.
Abel knew that. And now we know it. But where is the bridge
placed?--at the end of the road or only at the end of our vision? Is it all
a bridge?--or is there no bridge because there is no gulf? Suppose that a
composer writes a piece of music conscious that he is inspired, say, by
witnessing an act of great self-sacrifice-- another piece by the
contemplation of a certain trait of nobility he perceives in a friend's
character--and another by the sight of a mountain lake under moonlight.
The first two, from an inspirational standpoint would naturally seem to
come under the subjective and the last under the objective, yet the
chances are, there is something of the quality of both in all. There may
have been in the first instance physical action so intense or so dramatic
in character that the remembrance of it aroused a great deal more
objective emotion than the composer was conscious of while writing
the music. In the third instance, the music may have been influenced
strongly though subconsciously by a vague remembrance of certain
thoughts and feelings, perhaps of a deep religious or spiritual nature,
which suddenly came to him upon realizing the beauty of the scene and
which overpowered the first sensuous pleasure--perhaps some such
feeling as of the conviction of immortality, that Thoreau experienced
and tells about in Walden. "I penetrated to those meadows...when the
wild river and the woods were bathed in so pure and bright a light as
would have waked the dead IF they had been slumbering in their graves
as some suppose. There needs no stronger proof of immortality."
Enthusiasm must permeate it, but what it is that inspires an art- effort is
not easily determined much less classified. The word "inspire" is used
here in the sense of cause rather than effect. A critic may