For Every Music Lover | Page 4

ennobles the sensual and realizes the spiritual.
"Music is the harmonious voice of creation, an echo of the invisible
world, one note of the divine concord which the entire universe is
destined one day to sound," wrote Mazzini. Literature is rich in noble
definitions of the divine art.
From a matter of fact standpoint music consists of a vast concourse of
tones which are its raw materials and bear within themselves the
possibility of being moulded into form. Utterances and actions
illustrating these raw materials are common to all living creatures. A
dog, reiterating short barks of joy, or giving vent to prolonged howls of
distress, is actuated by an impulse similar to that of the human infant as
it uplifts its voice to express its small emotions. The sounds uttered by
primeval man as the direct expression of his emotions were
unquestionably of a like nature.
The tendency to manifest feeling by means of sound is universally
admitted, and sound, freighted with feeling, is peculiarly exciting to
human beings. The agitations of a mob may be increased by the
emotional tones of its prime movers, and we all know that the power of
an orator depends more on his skill in handling his voice than on what
he says.
A craving for sympathy exists in all animate beings. It is strong in
mankind and becomes peculiarly intense in the type known as artistic.
The fulness of his own emotions compels the musician to utterance. To
strike a sympathetic chord in other sensitive breasts it becomes
necessary to devise forms of expression that may be unmistakably
intelligible.
Out of such elements the tone-language has grown, precisely as the
word-language grew out of men's early attempts to communicate facts

to one another. Its story records a slow, painstaking building up of
principles to control its raw materials; for music, as we understand it,
cannot exist without some kind of design. Vague sounds produce vague,
fleeting impressions. Definiteness in tonal relations and rhythmic plan
is requisite to produce a defined, enduring impression. In primitive
states of music rhythmic sounds were heard, defined by the pulses but
with little or no change of pitch, and sounds varying in pitch without
regularity of impulse. A high degree of intellectuality was reached
before our modern scales were evolved from long-continued attempts at
making well-balanced successions of sounds. As musical art advanced
rhythm and melodic expression became united.
The study of the origin, function and evolution of music, according to
modern scientific methods, is a matter of comparatively recent date. As
late as 1835 a French writer of the history of music expressed profound
regret that he had been unable to determine when music was invented,
or to discover the inventor's name. It was his opinion that musical man
had profited largely from the voices of the feathered tribes. He
seriously asserted that the duck had evidently furnished a model for the
clarionet and oboe, and Sir Chanticleer for the trumpet. An entire
chapter of his book he devoted to surmises concerning the "Music
before the Flood." The poor man felt himself superior to the poetic
fancies of the ancients, which at least foreshadowed the Truth, but had
found no firm ground on which to stand.
Much finer were the instincts of Capellmeister Wolfgang Kasper,
Prince of Waldthurn, whose historical treatise on Music appeared in
Dresden in 1690. He boldly declared the author of music to be the good
God himself, who fashioned the air to transmit musical sounds, the ear
to receive them, the soul of man to throb with emotions demanding
utterance, and all nature to be filled with sources of inspiration. The
good Capellmeister was in close touch with the Truth.
It was in 1835, the same year that the French writer mentioned offered
his wild speculations, that Herbert Spencer, from the standpoint of a
scientist, produced his essay on the "Origin and Function of Music,"
which has proved invaluable in arousing discriminating thought in

these lines. Many years elapsed before its worth to musicians was
realized. To-day it is widely known and far-reaching in its influence.
In those inner agitations which cause muscular expansion and
contraction, and find expression in the inflections and cadences of the
voice, Herbert Spencer saw the foundations of music. He unhesitatingly
defined it as emotional speech, the language of the feelings, whose
function was to increase the sympathies and broaden the horizon of
mankind. Besides frankly placing music at the head of the fine arts, he
declared that those sensations of unexperienced felicity it arouses, those
impressions of an unknown, ideal existence it calls forth, may be
regarded as a prophecy to the fulfilment of which music is itself partly
instrumental. Our strange capacity for being affected by melody and
harmony cannot but imply that it is possible to