How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. | Page 9

as in the
sonata takes the form of a theme with variations. Here, then, the
recognition of a simple rhythmical figure has helped us to an
appreciation of the spiritual unity of the parts of a symphony, and
provided a commentary on the poetical contents of a sonata. But the
lesson is not yet exhausted. Again do we find the rhythm coloring the
first movement of the pianoforte concerto in G major:
[Music illustration]
Symphony, concerto, and sonata, as the sketch-books of the master
show, were in process of creation at the same time.
[Sidenote: His Seventh Symphony.]
Thus far we have been helped in identifying a melody and studying
relationships by the rhythmical structure of a single motive. The
demonstration might be extended on the same line into Beethoven's

symphony in A major, in which the external sign of the poetical idea
which underlies the whole work is also rhythmic--so markedly so that
Wagner characterized it most happily and truthfully when he said that it
was "the apotheosis of the dance." Here it is the dactyl, [dactyl symbol],
which in one variation, or another, clings to us almost as persistently as
in Hood's "Bridge of Sighs:"
"One more unfortunate Weary of breath, Rashly importunate, Gone to
her death."
[Sidenote: Use of a dactylic figure.]
We hear it lightly tripping in the first movement:
[Music illustration] and [Music illustration];
gentle, sedate, tender, measured, through its combination with a
spondee in the second:
[Music illustration];
cheerily, merrily, jocosely happy in the Scherzo:
[Music illustration];
hymn-like in the Trio:
[Music illustration]
and wildly bacchanalian when subjected to trochaic abbreviation in the
Finale:
[Music illustration]
[Sidenote: Intervallic characteristics.]
Intervallic characteristics may place the badge of relationship upon
melodies as distinctly as rhythmic. There is no more perfect illustration
of this than that afforded by Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Speaking of

the subject of its finale, Sir George Grove says:
"And note--while listening to the simple tune itself, before the
variations begin--how very simple it is; the plain diatonic scale, not a
single chromatic interval, and out of fifty-six notes only three not
consecutive."[A]
[Sidenote: The melodies in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.]
Earlier in the same work, while combating a statement by Lenz that the
resemblance between the second subject of the first movement and the
choral melody is a "thematic reference of the most striking importance,
vindicating the unity of the entire work, and placing the whole in a
perfectly new light," Sir George says:
"It is, however, very remarkable that so many of the melodies in the
Symphony should consist of consecutive notes, and that in no less than
four of them the notes should run up a portion of the scale and down
again--apparently pointing to a consistent condition of Beethoven's
mind throughout this work."
[Sidenote: Melodic likenesses.]
Like Goethe, Beethoven secreted many a mystery in his masterpiece,
but he did not juggle idly with tones, or select the themes of his
symphonies at hap-hazard; he would be open to the charge, however, if
the resemblances which I have pointed out in the Fifth and Seventh
Symphonies, and those disclosed by the following melodies from his
Ninth, should turn out through some incomprehensible revelation to be
mere coincidences:
From the first movement:
[Music illustration]
From the second:
[Music illustration]

The choral melody:
[Music illustration]
[Sidenote: Design and Form.]
From a recognition of the beginnings of design, to which identification
of the composer's thematic material and its simpler relationships will
lead, to so much knowledge of Form as will enable the reader to
understand the later chapters in this book, is but a step.
FOOTNOTES:
[A] "Beethoven and His Nine Symphonies," p. 374.

III
The Content and Kinds of Music
[Sidenote: Metaphysics to be avoided herein.]
Bearing in mind the purpose of this book, I shall not ask the reader to
accompany me far afield in the region of æsthetic philosophy or
musical metaphysics. A short excursion is all that is necessary to make
plain what is meant by such terms as Absolute music, Programme
music, Classical, Romantic, and Chamber music and the like, which not
only confront us continually in discussion, but stand for things which
we must know if we would read programmes understandingly and
appreciate the various phases in which music presents itself to us. It is
interesting and valuable to know why an art-work stirs up pleasurable
feelings within us, and to speculate upon its relations to the intellect
and the emotions; but the circumstance that philosophers have never
agreed, and probably never will agree, on these points, so far as the art
of music is concerned, alone suffices to remove them from the field of
this discussion.
[Sidenote: Personal equation in judgment.]

Intelligent listening is not conditioned upon such knowledge. Even
when the study is begun, the questions whether or not music