Essays Before a Sonata | Page 6

say that a

certain movement is not inspired. But that may be a matter of
taste--perhaps the most inspired music sounds the least so--to the critic.
A true inspiration may lack a true expression unless it is assumed that if
an inspiration is not true enough to produce a true expression--(if there
be anyone who can definitely determine what a true expression is)--it is
not an inspiration at all.
Again suppose the same composer at another time writes a piece of
equal merit to the other three, as estimates go; but holds that he is not
conscious of what inspired it--that he had nothing definite in mind--that
he was not aware of any mental image or process--that, naturally, the
actual work in creating something gave him a satisfying feeling of
pleasure perhaps of elation. What will you substitute for the mountain
lake, for his friend's character, etc.? Will you substitute anything? If so
why? If so what? Or is it enough to let the matter rest on the pleasure
mainly physical, of the tones, their color, succession, and relations,
formal or informal? Can an inspiration come from a blank mind?
Well--he tries to explain and says that he was conscious of some
emotional excitement and of a sense of something beautiful, he doesn't
know exactly what--a vague feeling of exaltation or perhaps of
profound sadness.
What is the source of these instinctive feelings, these vague intuitions
and introspective sensations? The more we try to analyze the more
vague they become. To pull them apart and classify them as
"subjective" or "objective" or as this or as that, means, that they may be
well classified and that is about all: it leaves us as far from the origin as
ever. What does it all mean? What is behind it all? The "voice of God,"
says the artist, "the voice of the devil," says the man in the front row.
Are we, because we are, human beings, born with the power of innate
perception of the beautiful in the abstract so that an inspiration can
arise through no external stimuli of sensation or experience,--no
association with the outward? Or was there present in the above
instance, some kind of subconscious, instantaneous, composite image,
of all the mountain lakes this man had ever seen blended as kind of
overtones with the various traits of nobility of many of his friends
embodied in one personality? Do all inspirational images, states,
conditions, or whatever they may be truly called, have for a dominant
part, if not for a source, some actual experience in life or of the social

relation? To think that they do not--always at least--would be a relief;
but as we are trying to consider music made and heard by human
beings (and not by birds or angels) it seems difficult to suppose that
even subconscious images can be separated from some human
experience--there must be something behind subconsciousness to
produce consciousness, and so on. But whatever the elements and
origin of these so-called images are, that they DO stir deep emotional
feelings and encourage their expression is a part of the unknowable we
know. They do often arouse something that has not yet passed the
border line between subconsciousness and consciousness--an artistic
intuition (well named, but)--object and cause unknown!--here is a
program!--conscious or subconscious what does it matter? Why try to
trace any stream that flows through the garden of consciousness to its
source only to be confronted by another problem of tracing this source
to its source? Perhaps Emerson in the Rhodora answers by not trying to
explain
That if eyes were made for seeing Then beauty is its own excuse for
being: Why thou wert there, O, rival of the rose! I never thought to ask,
I never knew; But, in my simple ignorance, suppose The self-same
Power that brought me there brought you.
Perhaps Sturt answers by substitution: "We cannot explain the origin of
an artistic intuition any more than the origin of any other primary
function of our nature. But if as I believe civilization is mainly founded
on those kinds of unselfish human interests which we call knowledge
and morality it is easily intelligible that we should have a parallel
interest which we call art closely akin and lending powerful support to
the other two. It is intelligible too that moral goodness, intellectual
power, high vitality, and strength should be approved by the intuition."
This reduces, or rather brings the problem back to a tangible basis
namely:--the translation of an artistic intuition into musical sounds
approving and reflecting, or endeavoring to approve and reflect, a
"moral goodness," a "high vitality," etc., or any other human attribute
mental, moral, or spiritual.
Can music do MORE than this? Can it DO this? and if so who and
what is to determine