Music Trade Review

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
8
THE
MUSIC TRADE
REVIEW
:<
THE PLAYER-PIANISTS' DEPARTMENT
[It is in every way eminently desirable that a publication
which undertakes to give so much space and so authoritative
a treatment to the great player industry, as does The Re-
view, should not neglect what is after all the real excuse
for the player's existence, namely, the music that is evoked
from it. Recognizing the extraordinary importance of do-
ing everything possible to spread more widely appreciation
and love for music among player-pianists, The Review's
Player Section for the present month contains below, and
will in future regularly contain, a department devoted to
the musical interests of player-pianists and of the player-
piano. Each month one musical article of general interest
will appear, together with useful hints, notes and comments.
This is in addition to the regular sub-section of the Player
Section which analyzes the monthly issues of music rolls.
Professional demonstrators, salesmen and player-pianists of
every degree will find each month on the "Player-Pianist's"
page of the Player Section much valuable information. And
the Editor of the Player Section will at all times be glad
to answer inquiries on any and all musical player matters.]
Now, it is to be noted that just as music, ordi-
narily speaking, appeals to the plain man merely
as a succession of more or less pleasing sounds
until he begins to feel its influence more deeply;
so also all development of the art itself has been
from a more objective to a more subjective con-
dition. Many writers on Music have taken views
which appear to be widely different from this.
But due consideration of the facts in the case
will be likely to show the justice of what is here
urged.
Three hundred years measure the whole period
of Music's development as an art. Form, con-
tent and practice have all been brought to a rela-
THE MEANING OF MODERN MUSIC.
tive perfection within that comparatively short
time. It is not, therefore, at all surprising that
Prolegomena.
It may be taken as a truism that most people the state of mind which has characterized our
begin really to get interested in music only as soon attitude toward Music has hitherto been almost
as music becomes something to them far apart entirely objective. The classic masters had no
from their original notions of it. The plain man mental problems to solve. Their business was to
write Music that would sound well and at the
considers the world around him from an em-
pirical, objective, concrete standpoint. Abstrac- same time agree with the rules laid down by the
tions are less obscure than meaningless to him. experience of the past and improved or extended
He constantly looks outward and very seldom by their own genius. Beethoven broke the crust
thinks pi reversing the process. Inner vision, in- of simple objective presentation which Mozart,
trospection, subjectivity are mere words to the Haydn and their school had so firmly cemented.
Mozart and the classic masters wrote most lovely
average person.
music.
But their music was entirely without any
Now, so long as one maintains this attitude ex-
mental significance. It did not mean anything.
clusively, it is plain that an art like music can
One man may look at the sea and perceive merely
appeal only from a corresponding aspect. In
its play of color, its tossing waters, its deep boom
other words, if I look at the world entirely from
on
a distant beach. Another may see the same
what is (though very erroneously) called a "prac-
sight, yet find awakened in him deepest emo-
tical" point of view, enumerating and judging
its wealth of details without looking for the more tions, which he cannot explain, and which cannot
general idas underlying them, any art which ap- otherwise be evoked. The first sees as the classic
school wrote—external beauty and nothing else.
peals to me can do so only through its own ob-
jective presentations. Its outer form and ves- The second sees as Beethoven wrote—deep in-
ternal emotions similar to those which governed
ture may wake in me something like interest or
even enthusiasm, but into its secret penetralia I the composer himself.
Beethoven, during the greater part of his pro-
never shall enter; principally because I shall be
ductive life, was a deaf man, shut off entirely
totally unconscious of their existence.
This is, indeed, the attitude of the plain man. from the audible world. His music, therefore,
But it is not to be supposed that therefore it is was an expression of his own inner thoughts and
either inevitable, or even necessarily normal. feelings. It is almost purely—at least from the
There are two principal ways of looking at things. period beginning in 1805—a representation of
We may consider, ourselves as individuals who mind-states. The plain man may therefore find
are parts of and in a world, with things happen- Beethoven at times obscure, but the slightest nat-
ing around us, in which we have more or less ural sensitiveness to music will soon enable him,
of a part. That is the ordinary objective or com- after a little familiarity with the master's works,
mon-sense view. Then, again, with equal pro- to see more and more clearly into their depths.
priety, we may consider ourselves each as an in- It is perhaps with Beethoven, above all other
writers, that the novice should begin, who wishes
dividual being, in front of whom, and around
whom, a world exists; a world which is con- to know what Music to-day really means.
With the, romantic school which followed Beet-
tinually acting on us and on which we in turn are
continually acting, and which consists of every- hoven and which Schumann headed, we see even
thing else in the world except ourselves, who are more of this tendency; this desire to make Music
opposed to it. The world may either include or tell the secrets of the heart, the true mysteries of
exclude us. The first is the common-sense view Eleusis. Schumann was less controlled than
Beethoven, had less power over himself, and was
and the second the philosophic.
Now, all the fine arts do more or less produce inclined to an exaggeration of subjectivity which
the second state of mind, in that they awake emo- mars his work. But he nobly carried on the great
tions and ideas much deeper lying than we can movement which finally was to resolve itself into
usually evoke when dealing with the ordinary the musical current of to-day. Wagner, again,
was a marvelous reversion to the objective pres-
world. We can throw ourselves into the state of
entation
idea. He was neither crude like the
mind which is most favorable for the thinking of
abstract thoughts by reading a book or a poem, classic masters nor held back from 'progress by
by gazing at a picture or by listening to music. their limited command over the technic of the art.
Of all the possible arts, music, of course, is the On the contrary, his technical command over the
most favorably situated for the evocation of the forms of composition was tremendous, his imagi-
subjective state. For Music is itself nothing that nation abounding, and his grasp of a- musical
scheme unparalleled. All the same, in each and
can be seen or touched. It can be heard, but that
is all. It is an abstraction, an evanescent series every one of his works, with the exception of
of impressions which float before our minds, "Parsifal," we find him purely objective. He
presents outer ideas in music of marvelous de-
vanishing almost as soon as they are born.
Just through this very intangibility does Music scriptive power. The love-durt "Tristan and
gain its greatest power. It awakes in us, if we Tsolde" is a truly wonderful picture of elemental
passion. But it is not subjective; very far from
be at all sensitive to it, states of mind that cannot
'be duplicated otherwise. The plain man becomes it. "Parsifal," on the contrary, sp'te of its elab-
for the moment a dreamer. And being so trans- orate stage accessories and the great amount of
formed, he is, whether he know it or not, in the descriptive music it contains, is governed through-
out by a purely subjective motive of mind.
abstract state.
But Wagner, the great objectivist, could not
forever stem a current flowing away from him.
Modern Music again has swung into line with the
forces that have for so long been urging it on-
ward into the deepest realms of subjectivity. The
modern composer, of course, has been assisted
greatly by Wagner's work, because through it
he has learned to control the orchestra and to
sound depths of harmonic richness unknown even
to Beethoven and Schumann. He has captured
Wagner's armory, but he goes forth from it
armed for a different quest.
The fact is that the whole present tendency
of modern Music is found in a constant attempt
to get away from the objective presentation of
beautiful sound or the crude picturing of event,
into the representation of mind states. Music now
seeks to preach a gospel of modern ideas through
tones. It is suggestive, representative, subjective.
But in the very richness of suggestion thus
sought, in the very possibility of making music
the true art, the art which shall universally appeal
to the minds of men, which shall bind all the
civilized world into one art-brotherhood, there
lie gravest dangers. If so be it the present tendency
of composition brings us masters who are as far
ahead of Richard Strauss and Cesar Franck as
these are above Okeghem, then perchance Music
may be turned into a prophet and bringer of evil.
The modern world is an old world, a spent and
satiated world in respect of its sensations. One
fears the possibility of a great master in tone who
shall boldly and to all the world, in his music,
speak that which must be unspoken, reveal the
unseen.
Already we hear the first faint whispers that
give half timed expression to thoughts still re-
garded as too advanced. Busoni would have it
that our musical scale is outworn; no longer able
to bear the burden of modern harmonic seeking.
He talks, almost boldly of a new scale with three
divisions to the step. Some day in the near future
we are going to have music written in this way
and instruments built to play that music. Some
day we are going to have a new musical idiom,
bound down by no cast-iron rules of notation and
scale. Some day the naked power of tone is to
be loosed on the ears and minds of a trembling
world. So say the prophets.
These things may b.e but dreams. Yet have they
within them more than the stuff that dreams are
made of. The future is big with coming events.
Music enters a new era. May it not be entirely
lost in the forests and deeps of obscurantism!
Here end the prolegomena.
A HEART TO HEART TALK
On Public Taste.
The other day the writer of the present re-
marks had occasion to buy some music rolls. He
selected from a well-known catalogue some dozens
of titles, and after he had done so, took occa-
sion to talk with the salesman upon the business
of selling music rolls and the art of buying them.
The conversation was interesting and illuminating
and suggested some lines of thought which are
the basis of what is here written. No man who
undertakes to talk to the public on any matter
which has any interest for them should neglect to
keep in touch with those who are daily in closest
contact with such subject. When one fails to
maintain this close communion, one finds that the
results of one's thinking are often rather pain-
fully erroneous.
It was the opinion of this salesman that the
class of- music which he was selling to the writer
of these paragraphs represented possibly five per
cent, of the total volume of sales. The public
taste seems irrevocably committed to the purchase