How to Listen to Music, 7th ed.

How to Listen to Music, 7th ed.

Project Gutenberg's How to Listen to Music, 7th ed., by Henry Edward
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Title: How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. Hints and Suggestions to
Untaught Lovers of the Art
Author: Henry Edward Krehbiel
Release Date: January 7, 2006 [EBook #17474]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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HOW TO LISTEN TO MUSIC
HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS TO UNTAUGHT LOVERS OF THE
ART

BY
HENRY EDWARD KREHBIEL
_Author of "Studies in the Wagnerian Drama," "Notes on the
Cultivation of Choral Music," "The Philharmonic Society of New
York," etc._
SEVENTH EDITION
NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1897
COPYRIGHT, 1896, BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
TROW DIRECTORY PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING
COMPANY NEW YORK
* * * * *
TO
W.J. HENDERSON
WHO HAS HELPED ME TO RESPECT MUSICAL CRITICISM
* * * * *

AUTHOR'S NOTE
The author is beholden to the Messrs. Harper & Brothers for
permission to use a small portion of the material in Chapter I., the
greater part of Chapter IV., and the Plates which were printed originally
in one of their publications; also to the publishers of "The Looker-On"
for the privilege of reprinting a portion of an essay written for them
entitled "Singers, Then and Now."

CONTENTS
[Sidenote: CHAP. I.]
Introduction
Purpose and scope of this book--Not written for professional musicians,
but for untaught lovers of the art--neither for careless seekers after
diversion unless they be willing to accept a higher conception of what
"entertainment" means--The capacity properly to listen to music as a
touchstone of musical talent--It is rarely found in popular
concert-rooms--Travellers who do not see and listeners who do not
hear--Music is of all the arts that which is practised most and thought
about least--Popular ignorance of the art caused by the lack of an object
for comparison--How simple terms are confounded by literary
men--Blunders by Tennyson, Lamb, Coleridge, Mrs. Harriet Beecher
Stowe, F. Hopkinson Smith, Brander Matthews, and others--A warning
against pedants and rhapsodists. Page 3
[Sidenote: CHAP. II.]
Recognition of Musical Elements
The dual nature of music--Sense-perception, fancy, and
imagination--Recognition of Design as Form in its primary stages--The
crude materials of music--The co-ordination of tones--Rudimentary
analysis of Form--Comparison, as in other arts, not
possible--Recognition of the fundamental elements--Melody, Harmony,
and Rhythm--The value of memory--The need of an
intermediary--Familiar music best liked--Interrelation of the
elements--Repetition the fundamental principle of Form--Motives,
Phrases, and Periods--A Creole folk-tune analyzed--Repetition at the
base of poetic forms--Refrain and Parallelism--Key-relationship as a
bond of union--Symphonic unity illustrated in examples from
Beethoven--The C minor symphony and "Appassionata" sonata--The
Concerto in G major--The Seventh and Ninth symphonies. Page 15
[Sidenote: CHAP. III.]

The Content and Kinds of Music
How far it is necessary for the listener to go into musical
philosophy--Intelligent hearing not conditioned upon it--Man's
individual relationship to the art--Musicians proceed on the theory that
feelings are the content of music--The search for pictures and stories
condemned--How composers hear and judge--Definitions of the
capacity of music by Wagner, Hauptmann, and Mendelssohn--An
utterance by Herbert Spencer--Music as a language--Absolute music
and Programme music--The content of all true art works--Chamber
music--Meaning and origin of the term--Haydn the servant of a
Prince--The characteristics of Chamber music--Pure thought, lofty
imagination, and deep learning--Its chastity--Sympathy between
performers and listeners essential to its enjoyment--A correct definition
of Programme music--Programme music defended--The value of titles
and superscriptions--Judgment upon it must, however, go to the music,
not the commentary--Subjects that are unfit for music--Kinds of
Programme music--Imitative music--How the music of birds has been
utilized--The cuckoo of nature and Beethoven's cuckoo--Cock and hen
in a seventeenth century composition--Rameau's pullet--The German
quail--Music that is descriptive by suggestion--External and internal
attributes--Fancy and Imagination--Harmony and the major and minor
mode--Association of ideas--Movement delineated--Handel's
frogs--Water in the "Hebrides" overture and "Ocean"
symphony--Height and depth illustrated by acute and grave
tones--Beethoven's illustration of distance--His rule enforced--Classical
and Romantic music--Genesis of the terms--What they mean in
literature--Archbishop Trench on classical books--The author's
definitions of both terms in music--Classicism as the conservative
principle, Romanticism as the progressive, regenerative, and
creative--A contest which stimulates life. Page 36
[Sidenote: CHAP. IV.]
The Modern Orchestra
Importance of the instrumental band--Some things that can be learned
by its study--The orchestral choirs--Disposition of the players--Model

bands compared--Development of instrumental music--The extent of an
orchestra's register--The Strings: Violin, Viola, Violoncello, and
Double-bass--Effects produced by changes in manipulation--The
wood-winds: Flute, Oboe, English horn, Bassoon,