How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. | Page 3

Mr. Haweis cited--Ernst's
violin--Intelligent rhapsody approved--Dr. John Brown on
Beethoven--The Critic's duty. Page 297
* * * * *
PLATES
I. VIOLIN--(CLIFFORD SCHMIDT).--II.
VIOLONCELLO--(VICTOR HERBERT).--III. PICCOLO FLUTE--(C.
KURTH, JUN.).--IV. OBOE--(JOSEPH ELLER).--V. ENGLISH
HORN--(JOSEPH ELLER).--VI. BASSOON (FEDOR
BERNHARDI).--VII. CLARINET--(HENRY KAISER).--VIII. BASS
CLARINET--(HENRY KAISER).--IX. FRENCH HORN--(CARL
PIEPER).--X. TROMBONE--(J. PFEIFFENSCHNEIDER).--XI. BASS
TUBA--(ANTON REITER).--XII. THE CONDUCTOR'S SCORE.
Page 325
INDEX Page 351

How to Listen to Music

I

Introduction
[Sidenote: The book's appeal.]
This book has a purpose, which is as simple as it is plain; and an
unpretentious scope. It does not aim to edify either the musical
professor or the musical scholar. It comes into the presence of the
musical student with all becoming modesty. Its business is with those
who love music and present themselves for its gracious ministrations in
Concert-Room and Opera House, but have not studied it as professors
and scholars are supposed to study. It is not for the careless unless they
be willing to inquire whether it might not be well to yield the common
conception of entertainment in favor of the higher enjoyment which
springs from serious contemplation of beautiful things; but if they are
willing so to inquire, they shall be accounted the class that the author is
most anxious to reach. The reasons which prompted its writing and the
laying out of its plan will presently appear. For the frankness of his
disclosure the author might be willing to apologize were his reverence
for music less and his consideration for popular affectations more; but
because he is convinced that a love for music carries with it that which,
so it be but awakened, shall speedily grow into an honest desire to
know more about the beloved object, he is willing to seem unamiable
to the amateur while arguing the need of even so mild a stimulant as his
book, and ingenuous, mayhap even childish, to the professional
musician while trying to point a way in which better appreciation may
be sought.
[Sidenote: Talent in listening.]
The capacity properly to listen to music is better proof of musical talent
in the listener than skill to play upon an instrument or ability to sing
acceptably when unaccompanied by that capacity. It makes more for
that gentleness and refinement of emotion, thought, and action which,
in the highest sense of the term, it is the province of music to promote.
And it is a much rarer accomplishment. I cannot conceive anything
more pitiful than the spectacle of men and women perched on a fair
observation point exclaiming rapturously at the loveliness of mead and
valley, their eyes melting involuntarily in tenderness at the sight of

moss-carpeted slopes and rocks and peaceful wood, or dilating in
reverent wonder at mountain magnificence, and then learning from
their exclamations that, as a matter of fact, they are unable to
distinguish between rock and tree, field and forest, earth and sky;
between the dark-browns of the storm-scarred rock, the greens of the
foliage, and the blues of the sky.
[Sidenote: Ill equipped listeners.]
Yet in the realm of another sense, in the contemplation of beauties
more ethereal and evanescent than those of nature, such is the
experience which in my capacity as a writer for newspapers I have
made for many years. A party of people blind to form and color cannot
be said to be well equipped for a Swiss journey, though loaded down
with alpenstocks and Baedekers; yet the spectacle of such a party on
the top of the Rigi is no more pitiful and anomalous than that presented
by the majority of the hearers in our concert-rooms. They are there to
adventure a journey into a realm whose beauties do not disclose
themselves to the senses alone, but whose perception requires a
co-operation of all the finer faculties; yet of this they seem to know
nothing, and even of that sense to which the first appeal is made it may
be said with profound truth that "hearing they hear not, neither do they
understand."
[Sidenote: Popular ignorance of music.]
Of all the arts, music is practised most and thought about least. Why
this should be the case may be explained on several grounds. A sweet
mystery enshrouds the nature of music. Its material part is subtle and
elusive. To master it on its technical side alone costs a vast expenditure
of time, patience, and industry. But since it is, in one manifestation or
another, the most popular of the arts, and one the enjoyment of which is
conditioned in a peculiar degree on love, it remains passing strange that
the indifference touching its nature and elements, and the character of
the phenomena which produce it, or are produced by it, is so general. I
do not recall that anybody has ever tried to ground this popular
ignorance touching