Auld Lang Syne
9781465543752
213 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
True it is, music gives us a new life, and to be without that life is the same loss as to be blind, and not to know the infinite blue of the sky, the varied verdure of the trees, or the silver sparkle of the sea. Music is the language of the soul, but it defies interpretation. It means something, but that something belongs not to this world of sense and logic, but to another world, quite real, though beyond all definition. How different music is from all other arts! They all have something to imitate which is brought to us by the senses. But what does music imitate? Not the notes of the lark, nor the roar of the sea; they cannot be imitated, and if they are, it is but a caricature. The melodies of Schubert were chosen, not from the Prater, but from another world. For educational purposes music is invaluable. It softens the young barbarian, it makes him use his fingers deftly, it lifts him up, it brings him messages from another world, it makes him feel the charm of harmony and beauty. There is no doubt an eternal harmony that pervades every kind of music, and there are the endless varieties of music, some so strange that they seem hardly to deserve to be called a gift of the Muses. There is in music something immortal and something mortal. There is even habit in music; for the music that delights us sounds often hideous to uneducated ears. Indian music is thoroughly scientific, based on mathematics, and handed down to the present age after many centuries of growth. But when we hear it for the first time, it seems mere noise, without melody, without harmony, without rhythm. The Maoris have their own music too, but send a New Zealander to hear a long symphony of Beethoven, and, if he can, he will certainly run away long before the finale. In a lesser degree it is the same with us. Beethoven’s compositions were at first considered wild and lawless. Those who admired Mozart and Haydn could not endure him. Afterwards the world was educated up to his Ninth Symphony, but some of his later sonatas for pianoforte and violin were played by Mendelssohn and David in my hearing, and they both shrugged their shoulders, and thought that the old man had been no longer quite himself when he wrote them. We have grown into them, or up to them, and now many a young man is able to enjoy them, and to enjoy them honestly. I remember the time when Schumann’s songs were published at Leipzig, and the very same songs which now delight us were then by the best judges called curious, strange, interesting, promising, but no more. Yes, there is habit in music, and we are constantly passing through a musical education; nay, the time comes when our education seems finished, and we can learn and take in no more. I have passed through a long school. I began with Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, lived on with Mendelssohn, rose to Schumann, and reached even Brahms; but I could never get beyond, I could never learn to enjoy Wagner except now and then in one of his lucid intervals. No doubt this is my fault and my loss, but surely the vulgus profanum also has its rights and may protest against being tired instead of being refreshed and invigorated by music. Would Mendelssohn have admired Wagner? Would Beethoven have listened to his music, would Bach have tolerated it? Yet these were musicians too, though perhaps not sufficiently educated. To be honest, a great deal of Wagner’s music seems tiresome to me, and I do not see why it should ever end.
