{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_69856/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_69856","id":"gutenberg_69856","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/69856","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Music","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Music -- Philosophy and aesthetics"],"text":"ORPHEUS\n\n\n\n\n                                ORPHEUS\n\n                                   OR\n\n                        The Music of the Future\n\n                                   BY\n\n                              W. J. TURNER\n\n             _Author of \u201cThe Seven Days of the Sun,\u201d etc._\n\n                             [Illustration]\n\n                                NEW YORK\n\n                         E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY\n\n                            681 FIFTH AVENUE\n\n\n\n\n                            Copyright, 1926\n                       BY E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY\n\n                         _All Rights Reserved_\n\n                Printed in the United States of America\n\n\n\n\n                               CONTENTS\n\n\n  CHAPTER                                                           PAGE\n\n  I. DEFINITION OF MUSIC                                               1\n\n  II. IS MUSIC KNOWLEDGE OR LIFE?                                     14\n\n  III. THE GENERAL IDEA OF PROGRESS                                   27\n\n  IV. THE IDEA OF PROGRESS IN MUSIC                                   36\n\n  V. ABSOLUTE VALUE                                                   47\n\n  VI. EMOTIONAL SIGNIFICANCE                                          64\n\n  VII. BEYOND ALL SENSE                                               83\n\n\n\n\n                                ORPHEUS\n\n\n\n\n                               CHAPTER I\n\n                          DEFINITION OF MUSIC\n\n\nThe dullest books on literature are the books which begin with a\nhistory of the alphabet. A good history has its uses; however, this\nbook is not a history but a phantasy or, if you like, a philosophy.\nFor if it be a good phantasy it will be a good philosophy since all\nphilosophy is phantasy, or the imagination of love.\n\n  _Amor che muove il mondo e l\u2019altre stelle_\n\nWe know, however, that philosophy degenerates from that love which\nmoves the spheres into that love of moving in the tracks of the spheres\nwhich is called the love of knowledge, and philosophers are commonly\nmen who spend their lives describing the old tracks in which they are\nrunning, and teaching how you also may keep your feet in them. So, too,\nmusician has come to mean a man who performs music--he plays over again\nBeethoven\u2019s sonatas and Chopin\u2019s studies;\n\n _partout il parcourit et parfournit_\n\nThis performance of his is a tribute to our weakness and a sign of our\nimperfection, and, since we are weak and imperfect, is necessary; but\nI cannot state too clearly and decisively at the outset that music\nis not the playing or the hearing of symphonies and sonatas but the\nimagination of love.\n\nIf music is not the imagination of love, if it is not a spiritual\nact, what is it? The commonsense reply will be that it is an ordered\narrangement of sounds. But two words of this definition beg the\nquestion. What is meant by \u201cordered,\u201d and what by \u201carrangement\u201d? Order\nand arrangement imply meaning and significance. Can we have an order\nthat is an end in itself, is intrinsically satisfying, or beautiful, or\nstimulating? But to whom? To man. But take away love from man, and what\nis he? What is left is meaningless, even indescribable, for in love all\nthings exist and have their being. Music is the imagination of love\n_in sound_. It is what man imagines of his life, and his life is love.\nThere are as many kinds of love as there are many kinds of life, and it\nis possible that they may not all be imaginable _in sound_. I say it\nis possible, I do not say it is probable. We do not know at present,\nand indeed we shall only know when the common instinct of mankind has\nabandoned sound as a means of expression. And that may happen. There\nmay be no unending future of music, only a limited future. Or the world\nof music may be like the universe of Einstein, \u201cfinite but unbounded.\u201d\nAnd this indeed is my belief. It is a finite, a closed world.\n\nCan you express the life of the vegetable world in music? The\nimagination of a plant? The tree that rises to the sun throws its\nshadow upon the mind of man; you may think you cannot throw that shadow\nin music but you can sound forth the _shadow_ of that shadow, turn\nthe impalpable ghost of light into a ghost of sound, transform those\ntremulous visual waves into auditory waves--not in the laboratory of\nthe physicist but in the laboratory of the mind. The musician may do\nthis. He may do in a bar of notes what the poet does in a line of\nverse--make a unique sensible impression upon the mind. Debussy\u2019s\n_Pr\u00e9lude \u00e0 l\u2019Apr\u00e8s-midi d\u2019un Faune_ makes this impression of a\nvegetable world alive in quivering hot sunshine and Debussy\u2019s music\nis full of the imagination of a special order of life, the life of\ntrees, streams and lakes, the play of light upon water and on clouds,\nthe murmur of plants drinking and feeding in the sunlight, and all\nthat order of motion and movement which we are in the habit of calling\nphysical, all that order of emotion which we describe as belonging to\nthe five senses. I do not believe there is any sensation or feeling of\nwhich man is capable in the presence of the natural world which may not\nbe expressed in music.\n\nMusic is the most concrete and physical of all the arts as it is\nprobably the earliest and most primitive. Beasts which cannot draw or\nwrite can make expressive sounds, and the earliest men undoubtedly\ncommunicated by sound before they learned to communicate by written\nor painted signs. But whether at the other end of the scale there is\na limit to music\u2019s power of expression no one can say. It is only\npossible at this stage in the history of mankind to affirm that up\ntill now the highest, most spiritual powers of the human mind have\nbeen able to find expression in music. There is nothing in the world\u2019s\nfinest literature that surpasses what we may find in the world\u2019s best\nmusic, although, as we shall see later, music may have a virtue that is\nentirely its own. But it will not surprise us to find ourselves limited\nto the work of a very few composers when we ask for music that is as\nhighly organized as the finest poetry.\n\nMusic in this respect has been in the past nearer to painting and to\nsculpture than to poetry. As with the plastic arts its swifter and\nstronger appeal to the senses is a source of weakness as of strength.\nIt is a source of weakness because in every artist there is a natural\ntendency to slip into what comes easiest in his medium. In music it is\neasier to make sounds that merely gratify or stimulate the sense of\nhearing and the cruder emotions than to make sounds of a more complex\ncharacter which will express the subtler and finer life of a more\nspiritual imagination. Infantile music is both easier to compose and\neasier to hear than mature music, so the public and the musician find\nthemselves in a natural league in favour of the rawer kinds of music.\nThus the song of obvious and commonplace sentiment and the jazz tune of\nblatant rhythm have universal popularity. Even an animal, one sometimes\nfancies might be conscious of such music. Its combinations are so\nsimple that they may certainly be understood by every human creature.\n\u201cAll Nature hears thy voice,\u201d one might almost say of the saxophone,\nand possibly it is the sort of music to which the mountains would skip\nlike rams could they but hear it.\n\nAll life moves in rhythm. We know to-day that the old distinctions\nbetween spirit and matter are superficial. When I was a student at\nthe School of Mines at the age of seventeen, learning organic and\ninorganic chemistry, we were taught Mendel\u00e9eff\u2019s Law which showed that\nall the elements were multiples of a common denominator, the atom;\nand since then it has been discovered that instead of the atom being\nthe smallest possible bit of matter, finite and irreducible, it is a\nsolar system--its sun and planets being bits of positive and negative\nelectricity. All that is left of the whole structure of nineteenth\ncentury materialism has crumbled away to that word \u201cbits.\u201d We cannot\nas yet imagine or think without resting somewhere on \u201cbits.\u201d Our minds\nlike our feet need a solid something beneath them. It is paralysing to\nconceive that the floor we stand upon, the chair we sit upon, consist\nsolely of rotating electrical forces, but when we think of \u201cbits\u201d\nwelded together we feel safe again, although actually these \u201cbits\u201d are\na pure mental fiction, and what we stand and sit upon is _motion_. If\nthe motion stopped we should fall into the bottomless pit, the famous\nvacuum abhorred of Nature (alias Tophet in biblical language).\n\nMy chemistry teachers would have been as scandalized to think that at\nthe bottom of their inorganic and organic chemistry there was nothing\nbut motion, as my music teachers would have been scandalized to think\nthat at the bottom of the major and minor scales there was nothing but\nlove. They imagined that these were two entirely different worlds with\nan infinite chasm between them. They thought that inorganic chemistry\nwas absolutely different from organic chemistry, although of course\nthey would have got into a hopeless muddle had they tried to prove\ntheir belief--but then only fools and geniuses try to prove their\nbeliefs. Neither my chemistry nor my music teachers could ever explain\nanything. One was simply asked to swallow whole and regurgitate whole\nwhat was obviously mere unintelligible rigmarole. Those of us who had\nthis parrot-like faculty became in our turn Professors of Chemistry and\nof Music.\n\nThe great creative scientists of this age have disintegrated those\nold hard ideas, and it now _appears_ that the Universe is a miracle\nof rhythm, and that \u201cmatter,\u201d just like man, is kept going, is\nmaintained as a co-ordinated whole by some electrical urge or spiritual\nimpulse--at bottom it is perhaps the same thing, although \u201cthing\u201d is\na very inappropriate word. The conception of the \u201cwill to live\u201d has\na profounder meaning for us now, and we realize that if the \u201cwill to\nlive\u201d dies in a man the man himself dies. A recent anthropologist,\nthe late Dr. W. H. R. Rivers, F.R.S., in a book on the decay of\nMelanesia, attributes the dying off of the population in certain\nislands, unaffected by disease and with an abundance of food, to life\nhaving become devoid of meaning to them after contact with an alien\nand unassimilable civilization. They had lost faith in their old\nworld of ideas without having the power to enter the completely new\nand strange white man\u2019s world. With the decay of their ancient beliefs\nthey took no pleasure in their ancient religious exercises. Joy and\nRitual simultaneously faded. _They lost the desire to live._ Each one\nof us goes on living only so long as he desires to live, and the desire\nvaries in degree.\n\nWe have to admit that we use these words \u201clife\u201d and \u201cliving\u201d still\nwithout knowledge of what they mean, but it is not necessary, nor do I\nthink it possible, to know what they mean. Knowledge is not important,\nit is life that is important, and we can feel life if we cannot know\nit. The only way in which we can know life is by creating it, and it\nwill be my duty in a later chapter to discuss this.\n\nIn the meantime it is clear that the line from Dante which I began by\nquoting:\n\n  _Amor che muove il mondo e l\u2019altre stelle_\n\nis no idle phantasy but a literal truth. The world about us _seems_\nto be material, but exists in rhythm. It is a living world, and it is\nkept alive by a spiritual force which we can best describe as love, and\nI end this chapter with the definition with which I began it. All art\nis the imagination of love, and music is the imagination of love _in\nsound_.\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER II\n\n                      IS MUSIC KNOWLEDGE OR LIFE?\n\n\nWhat is knowledge? And what is musical knowledge? The latter question\nis no doubt included in the former, but we shall see. We know by\nexperience that it is possible to learn the alphabet of a language. The\nalphabet as such has no longer any meaning, that is why it is possible\nto use it with meaning--in that form we call language. But, at the\nbeginning, these perfectly conventionalized, perfectly meaningless\nsymbols, A, B, C, D, etc., had each a meaning and a very definite\nmeaning. And those series of meanings (which have now shrivelled\ninto the scentless, savourless, unembodied twenty-six ghosts of the\nalphabet) precluded by their very vitality the possibility of all other\nmeanings. Their life was death to all other life and not until they\nwere dead could others live. This strange phenomenon is an element in\nthe beautiful myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. Orpheus must not behold the\nface of Eurydice when he brings her up from the underworld where she\ndisappeared, for in the physical vision he will be forever blinded to\nthe spirit which is returning with him, who is not the Eurydice that\nwas but the Eurydice that is to be. And the whole life of language is\nin this process of continuous dying. Words die by becoming abstract,\nthen when they are completely dead they come to life again as members\nof a more complicated life, the life of the sentence. Sentences die\nand become idioms, idioms ideas, ideas theories, theories philosophies\nand religions. Every page of prose is a harvest raised from corpses\nand under its flowering abundance dead bodies lie thickly buried. Then\na time comes when these extremely complex systems break up and the\nwords re-emerge in single units again, but with changed countenances\nand expressions, to begin a new series of death-and-life existence. But\nthe letters themselves, of which all words are comprised, are finally\nand forever dead--which is another way of saying they are immortal;\nfor they do not change as words change from one generation to another.\nThe \u201co\u201d in dog does not differ from the \u201co\u201d in god because \u201co\u201d has no\nlonger individuality or meaning. What we call \u201cknowledge\u201d is that which\nhas become fixed and immortal, that which has ceased to live and have\nbeing and is immutable. Obviously we cannot be said to know a thing\nwhich is susceptible of change, which may differ to-morrow from what\nit is to-day. Therefore we can only know what is unknowable, because\nwe only know what does not exist. This is no empty paradox. It is not\na play on the word \u201cexist.\u201d We may say we know the letters A, B, C, D,\netc., because they are the same for everybody; but they are only the\nsame for everybody because they are nothing to anybody. If I ask you\nwhat A means to you it is impossible for you to tell me, since it means\nno more to you than to me. A in itself is nothing, you can neither\nthink it nor feel it, you can only state it, and so it is, as I have\nsaid, a fact. There are in all our literature only twenty-six absolute\nfacts. And they are facts merely because there is no life in them.\n\nIn music there are also facts, so there is a part of music which we can\nsay we know. The modern European knows a certain number of musical\nsounds which are the facts of music. They can be described in various\nways, but as European musical facts they are twelve semi-tones repeated\nin series between two arbitrarily selected points which are the highest\nand the lowest notes comfortably audible to the human ear. Each of\nthese semi-tones is an arbitrarily selected note or vibration number\nchosen out of all the masses of vibrations which we call noises by\nvirtue of an inner unity, a mathematical symmetry which gives it form\nand makes it a musical sound. But even this mathematical symmetry is\na fiction, a thing made by the human mind; and these sounds, like the\nletters of the alphabet, have no life or meaning in themselves.\n\nBut at this point a reservation must be made. For most, possibly for\nall, the letters of the alphabet have a varied character, a character\nwhich derives (_a_) from their different shapes, (_b_) from their\ndifferent sounds. The effect of their shape belongs to the world of\ngraphic art, the effect of their sound belongs to the world of music.\nWe may think of these impressions as the residuary fossils left by\ngiantlike primitive emotions which have stalked through those other\nworlds. A certain artistic use can be made of them, and indeed we find\nthat every new wave of artistic expression is preluded by a breakdown\nof the abstract combinations of symbols in which the symbols had become\nmost completely devitalized, and a return to a sense of a meaning, a\ncolour, a life in the symbol itself. This results in simplification,\nwhich ultimately gives place to a new complication. What is called\nprogress in art consists mainly of this process. Whether there is\nanother kind of progress underlying this process must be considered in\nanother chapter.\n\nNow that we have become clear as to what facts are we can perceive what\nknowledge is. But I must prevent the danger of a mere logomachy between\nreader and writer by stating at once that I am giving here definitions\nof \u201cknowledge\u201d and \u201clife\u201d to which we must both adhere. If any reader\nlikes to give the name of \u201ctrue knowledge\u201d to what I call life and says\nthat what I call knowledge is not true knowledge at all, he is welcome\nto do so. But I am going to use my own terms, and I shall continue to\nuse the term \u201clife\u201d instead of so idiotic a term as \u201ctrue knowledge.\u201d\n\nThe knowledge of music, then, is the knowledge of the facts, and the\nfacts are, as we saw, the alphabet of music, the twelve artificial\nsemi-tones of the tempered scale. If a musician knows these and\nknows those combinations of them which are called intervals--as the\ncombinations of letters are called words--he knows what the man knows\nwho knows the letters of the alphabet and has a vocabulary of words.\nHe may know them by sight, by sound, or by sight and sound. If only\nby sight he is in the position of a man who can read and write but\nnot speak the words of a foreign language; if only by sound he is in\nthe position of a man who can speak the words of a foreign language\nand understand them when spoken but cannot read or write them. The\nreader can make this analogy more precise by subdivisions which I shall\nnot bother to make here. I will merely point out that the ordinary\nauditor, the music-lover who is no musician, knows the facts by sound\nonly and may so know them with greater or less precision and depth of\nimpression. That he should not know them by sight is immaterial to his\nunderstanding what he hears, although it prevents his communicating\nwhat he hears to anyone else. He is therefore technically equipped to\nhear but not to compose music.\n\nSuch knowledge may extend beyond the knowledge of the vocabulary of\nwords or chords to those more complicated combinations which have\nalso died and become facts--sentences, idioms, ideas; or, in music,\nsequences, harmonies, melodies. All this knowledge represents so much\ndead life which can be incorporated into a page of music as it can be\nincorporated into a page of prose. When sentences, idioms and ideas\n(or sequences, harmonies and melodies) have been used over and over\nagain so frequently as to have become immediately recognizable they\ncease to have meaning; because, as I pointed out at the beginning of\nthis chapter, having been used so often in so many different contexts\nthey have shrivelled to that residuum or abstraction which fits the\nlot. Having shed all individuality they shed all expression, and what\nwas once life becomes knowledge. For example, what was a feeling in\nWagner becomes merely a major ninth in Vincent d\u2019Indy. When the music\nof Debussy was first heard it was an emotional experience. Presently\nthe intellect abstracted an element which it found commonly in that\nexperience, and that element was the whole-tone scale. Then everybody\nby using the whole-tone scale could write music which superficially\nsounded like Debussy\u2019s; but such music had no meaning or life, it was\ndead music, mere knowledge. And Debussy\u2019s music itself tended to become\na perceptive and not an emotional experience. There is a universal\ntendency to this intellectual formalizing, stereotyping process which\nI have called knowledge or death; and contrasted with it everywhere\nis a complementary process, the process of creation or life. But the\none is necessary to the other and all experience is the one becoming\nthe other. Just as life uses death--as when we eat meat and transform\nit into living tissue--so art uses knowledge. Music, therefore, is\nexperience becoming knowledge and knowledge breaking up and becoming\nexperience, and its especial nature lies not in the experience but in\nthe medium. Music is the experience of life and death in _sound_.\n\nHas sound in itself any meaning? I mean by this is there a quality,\nvirtue, life--call it what you will--specifically in sounds and the\ncombination of sounds which does not exist elsewhere--in painting,\nin sculpture, in architecture, in mathematics? I think there is; but\nto go further into this would be to transgress the limits I have set\nfor myself, for here we touch on perhaps the profoundest problem of\nphilosophy. I shall be content to throw a little light upon it by\nanalogy. Experience in _sound_ has an individuality which separates\nit from experience in the other arts. This individuality in the arts\nis comparable to individuality in animal and vegetable life (the\ndifferent and analysable virtues of an elephant, a butterfly, a lily\nand a violet) and to personality in human life. It is an implicit and\nunexplained factor in all that I shall have to say; but we have to\nremember that it is the combining, the making of a harmony of this\ncharacter or idiosyncrasy with the composer\u2019s imagination of love which\nmakes music. It is then that musical _form_ is created. What we call\nmusical genius is related to this individuality in some mysterious and\nas yet unfathomable way and it would seem that there are degrees of\nmusical genius. But it is only when great musical genius is combined\nwith great human personality that we get what we may call the great\nartist as distinct from the merely great musician.\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER III\n\n                     THE GENERAL IDEA OF PROGRESS\n\n\nIt may be objected that my persuasion in Chapter I that music is the\nimagination of love _in sound_ and in Chapter II that music is also\nthe experience of life-and-death _in sound_ are two conclusions not\nonly extraordinary in themselves but different. It will be seen that\nthey are not irreconcilable. My conception of the nature of music\nmust, if true, be such as to include all music, the music of Sullivan,\nPuccini, Elgar and the Jazz-Kings as well as the music of Bach, Mozart,\nBeethoven, and Wagner; the songs of the folk, old and new, peasant and\nurban, as well as the songs of Schubert and Hugo Wolf. There is no\ndifficulty in this.\n\nWe have seen that the development of music is analogous to the\ndevelopment of language. That this must be so is obvious when we\nunderstand that both music and language are mental structures\ncontemporary with the human mind, reflecting its development and\nhaving their origin in the senses of sight and hearing. No arts have\nbeen founded on the sense of touch in its forms of taste and smell.\nThe reason for this gives us a clue to the character of progress in\ngeneral. The senses of smell and taste are too intimate, too physically\ndiffused, too direct or primitive in effect to be controlled by the\nmind. We may say that the body now short-circuits in these sensations\nand that the mind is cut out. But when, in the past, the sense of\ntouch developed into the more complicated organs of the eye and the\near[1] which made touch _at a distance_ possible, then what the mind\nsensed was more highly organized and less direct and amorphous. Smells\nand tastes may be compared with noises before the mind has organized\nthem into musical sounds, or with sensations which have not yet passed\nthrough the imagination and become organized into emotions and ideas.\n\nIt would seem that the history of man is the history of this process of\norganization and that the organizations differ more from one another\nthan do the senses from which they grew. A Chinaman, for instance, is\nmuch more like an Englishman in his body than in his language; he can\nhave a child by an Englishwoman with whom he is unable to speak.[2]\n\nWhat we think is understanding Chinese music when we hear it is\nmerely recognition of that organization of vibration, which we call\nmusical sounds, an organization common to the human ear in all mankind.\nThe major part of popular music consists of stringing these sounds\ntogether for the mere pleasure of recognizing them--pleasure in their\norganization as contrasted with the unorganized mass of mere noise\nout of which they have been selected; also its use of them in simple\ncombinations expressing simple emotions--sensations of rudimentary\norganization--which again are common to all mankind. It is because\nlanguage is not an organization of the merely visual or auditory\nsensations made by the physical eye and ear with which almost\neverybody is born (there _are_ colour-blind and tone-deaf people) but\na post-natal acquired and complicated mental construction that it is\ntotally unintelligible until learnt. So Chinese music does not mean the\nsame to us as to a Chinaman, nor does European music mean the same to\nhim as to a European, because it is not merely a construction of the\near, but is also in some although in varying degree a construction of\nthe mind. Just as it took a multitude of lives and deaths to evolve the\nhuman eye and ear--organs with which all men are now born--so it has\ntaken many generations of that mental development we call culture and\ntradition to create a language that was more than onomatopoeia, and a\nmusic that was more than recognizable and, therefore, agreeable sounds.\n\nThere is, and I maintain there can be no absolute, universal, pure art\nimmediately intelligible to all men. It was the false idea that music\nwas purely sensual which led Pater to think that music was such an art\nand that all other arts should attain its perfection. The development\nof every art is a development farther and farther away from the mere\nsensations upon which it is founded, and these developments make a web\nof experience which is constantly being rewoven and renewed (probably\nwithout a single strand ever being lost or destroyed) and, without\nthis, music would dissolve into meaningless sounds. We look upon the\neye and the ear as beautiful complex creations of life. We think of\nthem as physical entities because their creation is so far back in\nlife that it belongs to the sub-human or animal epoch, and so they\nhave become physical things, if not material objects. But this power\nof becoming _physical_ (life taking on flesh, the spirit achieving\nform) or _material_ (electricity becoming molecules of hydrogen, lead,\netc.) is the process which I have described as death; and as that\nnecessary and important death, death the complement of life. But, as I\nhave already shown, a third kind of death, other than the material and\nthe physical, is that of _intellectual_ structure--known variously as\ntradition, belief, dogma, logic, technique or, most comprehensively,\nas knowledge. Just as a multitude of deaths were necessary to the\nevolution of the eye and the ear so a multitude of deaths (an\nEncyclop\u00e6dia is a mental cemetery) are necessary to the evolution of\nthe mind. The past experience of music which every trained musician\npossesses is such knowledge. If he merely repeats it, copies out of\nthe past stored in his mind, in the mind of his generation, in the\nculture he and his generation have inherited, he is a mere academic\nmusician and not a creative artist. But there are degrees in this as\nin everything else. It is not the possession of the tradition which\nmakes a musician academic and lifeless, it is the failure to use the\ntraditions to express himself; and this is a failure in musical life.\nA musical mind which is a mere body of musical tradition is like a\ndetached ear or a plucked out eye--an ear which does not hear or an\neye which does not see. The life of hearing is not in the organ, not\nin what has been heard--of which it is the physical representation,\nthe _death-shape_--it is in creation, the hearing of a new thing. And\ncreation is that movement from life to death, from soul to substance,\nfrom the spirit to the form which is the imagining forth of love, for\nlove alone is a creative motive.\n\nAnd the forms of love vary from the flowering and seeding of plants\nto the music of Beethoven. It is not a progress from bad to good, it\nis not a retrogression from good to bad. It is rather a process which\nfills the Universe with death--death in myriads of lovely forms, from\nthe form of the wood-violet to the form of the symphony. And this\nprocess is life. And life increasing the varieties of death is the\ngeneral principle of progress. What is the purpose of this process?\nWe do not know. But we can say that its purpose is delight. _Ecstasy\nclothing Himself in a thousand Forms._ The Universe delighting in\nitself preserves itself in death, for in death the imagination of the\nspirit is made immortal.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1] How was this achieved? No biologist can tell us, but we shall not\ngo far wrong in seeing here again the created organs of Desire.\n\n[2] Here we can find a conclusive argument in proof of the superiority\nof sentiment to sense in sexual experience. Sentiment is non-existent\namong animals and it is very faint in the lower human types but in the\nhighest European types it now almost completely controls the sexual\nsense.\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER IV\n\n                     THE IDEA OF PROGRESS IN MUSIC\n\n\nIn the history of the world as we know it we discover that not all\nforms of death are immortal. There are animals which are extinct,\nthere are plants which have disappeared, there are flowers which bloom\nno more. In vain has life fixed their images in that immortality of\nautomatic repetition which we call death. Even death, we seem to find,\nis occasionally an illusion and its sleep is not more eternal than a\nman\u2019s dream. It is probable that all things as _things_ are perishable;\nand we have no reason to believe that even the music of Beethoven will\nlast for ever, or even for as long as man lasts. But there is the\nproblem why some things last longer than others, and this perhaps\nraises the question of value, of goodness. Here is a new element in\nthe idea of progress. Is it possible to discover any principle in\nthe history of music which explains why, already, Bach has outlasted\nFrohberger?\n\nIf we say that Frohberger is superfluous because Bach is the same as\nFrohberger, only better, we are saying something very difficult to\nunderstand, for how would it be possible to prove that two things can\nbe the same and yet different, one of them being better--except by\nmaking goodness depend on quantity? But, obviously, to think that Bach\nis three Frohbergers is not the same as thinking he is three times as\ngood as Frohberger. As the ordinary man speaks this is not at all what\nhe means. We definitely do think Bach is better than Frohberger, not\nthat he is Frohberger plus a Frohberger fraction. I submit that we\nthink so because we find all Frohberger in Bach plus something more\nwhich is not Frohberger. But this has a tremendous consequence for,\nif true, it means that Frohberger is not unique. He is included in\nBach. And may we not think that the music which vanishes from human\nconsciousness is the music which is not unique and that so long as\na composer is unique his music will be heard? I believe so. It is\nreasonable to think that every act, everything created has value. Our\nminds cannot imagine a Universe in which that would not be true; but we\ncan imagine complex organizations incorporating simpler organizations,\nwhich then cease to have a separate existence. Therefore it is possible\nthat nothing goes out of the Universe, and the idea that a thing may\nbe lost seems illusion. Our minds find it difficult to imagine an\nexit from the Universe. _Where?_ But the incorporation of the lesser\nwithin the greater remains, as stated, a mechanical idea. We can find\nno satisfaction in a mere increasing complexity of structure. \u201cIf\nthat is all that makes Bach better than Frohberger\u201d--we can imagine\nsomeone saying--\u201cI never want to listen to music again.\u201d The process,\nwe feel, must have a purpose or a meaning. Well, we have forgotten\none vital element. Delight. The Universe is the imagination of its\ndelight. If the purpose of the Universe were merely to attain to an\never higher degree of complexity for its own sake it would not be\nlittered with these innumerable shapes of death--the violet, the lily,\nthe rose, the cedar, the oak, the pine, the butterfly, the tiger, the\nelephant, and all other lovely and curious structures. Even man has\nnot supplanted the ape, nor has the fugue of Bach annihilated the\nsong of the shepherd boy. We may think all these things are unique\nand that is why they still persist. But what about Frohberger, was he\nnot unique? Why has Frohberger vanished? For if Frohberger was not\nunique how did he come to appear? Not to be unique is not to exist.\nYes, but his uniqueness may not have been in his music. Here at last\nwe have it. And _his_ music does not exist since there is no music\nwhich can be said to be his. This is a different kind of non-existence\nto that of the Dinosaur, the Dodo, the Great Auk. Although their\ndeath-shapes no longer repeat themselves upon the earth they have not\ncompletely vanished. Their images live in the imagination of man,\nvivid, individual, unique. We have no such image of Frohberger\u2019s music.\nIt is a shrivelled, meaningless ghost, a letter in the alphabet of\nmusic, which has in itself no life. Frohberger\u2019s music is not like\nthe Great Auk, an isolated death-shape of the physical world, nor\nlike the Centaur, an isolated death-shape of the intellectual world,\nits position in music is that of one of those intermediates which,\nlike the \u201cmissing link,\u201d can never be found because the mind works\n_per saltum_. Frohberger and the \u201cmissing link\u201d are for ever lost\nin the gaps. All that is without residuary value, all that has been\ncompletely incorporated in a new structure disappears thus because it\nslips through the mesh of the mind--not because the mind is not fine\nenough to retain the most minute differences, but because it chooses\nnot to perceive. This reconciles the pre-Bach existence of Frohberger\u2019s\nmusic with its present non-existence and delivers us from the apparent\ncontradiction; for it allows us to make what is, philosophically, a\nnecessary assumption, namely, that no two things are ever exactly the\nsame, and consequently that Bach\u2019s music does not contain Frohberger\u2019s\nmusic absolutely. Therefore the equation is not:\n\n Bach = B(ach) + F(rohberger)\n\nbut\n\n Bach = B + (F-X)\n\nX being that unknown quantity which is Frohberger\u2019s uniqueness and\nwhich we to-day cannot perceive.\n\nBut although art feeds on knowledge as life feeds on death at the same\ntime creating more knowledge, as life creates more death--_Ecstasy\nclothing Himself in Forms_--yet there remains much that is mysterious.\nWhy there are different forms of art is a question which insistently\nrecurs. A comparison of music with the other arts in order to discover\na value specific and exclusive to music is not likely to enlighten us.\nPainters talk of \u201cpictorial construction\u201d as the specifically painter\u2019s\nelement which in all good graphic art is wedded to the illustration,\npsychology, representation or whatever other content a picture may\nyield, be it ancient or modern. They point out that the spectator is\nnot emotionally moved by the representation of tears but by the rhythm\nof lines and the recession of planes. The good writer knows that a\ndescription of a sad event is not in itself saddening, it may even\nbe comic; but unlike the painter he has no technical term for this\nessential quality without which literature is mere verbiage--unless,\nindeed, we apply the word \u201cpoetic\u201d to this quality, as we have every\nright to do. Painting which is without this vital element--call it\n\u201cpictorial representation,\u201d \u201csignificant form,\u201d or what you will--is\nnot art but knowledge or science.[3] Literature which is without\nthis \u201cpoetic\u201d quality is, again, mere knowledge, mere fiction. We\nhave no need to seek for examples. A dozen famous names leap to our\nminds. Rather have we to seek for that literature which is poetic.\nSimilarly in music there is a specific, purely musical quality without\nwhich music also is mere science. This quality I will call melodic\nimagination.\n\nAnd here an interesting fact emerges. In all three arts the valuable\nelement, the element of life is linked with the imagination. In\npainting pictorial imagination, in literature verbal imagination,\nin music melodic imagination--_imagination_ always is the magical\nessence, the power referred to in the lines:\n\n\u201cIn the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word\nwas God.\u201d\n\nAnd we may be sure that there can be no art unless the word is made\nflesh--in the forms of painting, literature, or music--and dwells among\nus. But when we ask ourselves why it should take the form of painting\nor of words, or of music, it is impossible to give an answer. We can\nonly echo: Why the lily, the rose, the violet? Why the tiger, the\nelephant, the antelope? Why the Moon, Venus, and the Stars? _Ecstasy\nclothing Himself in Forms._\n\nAnd still we have failed to discover in music any principle of progress\nother than increasing complexity of organization and a multiplication\nof lovely deaths. A principle which does not as yet satisfy our\ninstincts since it seems quantitative rather than qualitative. But\nperhaps we are on the verge of a discovery.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[3] Such according to eminent critics is the work of the painter\nSargent and, for my part, I have no difficulty in seeing that what they\nsay is just.\n\n\n\n\n                               CHAPTER V\n\n                            ABSOLUTE VALUE\n\n\nIt may appear fantastic to assert that art is the only sphere where\nabsolute values appear, and that the function of art in the Universe\nis to create absolute values, but it may be true. It is impossible\nto avoid the insistent demand of the human instinct for absolute\nvalues. This exists, an insatiable craving which will not rest content\nwith the good but demands the better. And yet it is impossible to\ndiscover values that are absolute in themselves. The very notion is\na meaningless abstraction. I do not even believe we can prove that\nBeethoven\u2019s music is better music than Mozart\u2019s or that Shakespeare\u2019s\npoetry is better than Milton\u2019s, or _vice versa_, unless we first of\nall limit the idea of music or poetry to something intellectually\nmeasurable. For example it would be difficult to convince all\nmusic-lovers that Bach\u2019s counterpoint was better than Beethoven\u2019s, or\nthat Palestrina\u2019s was better than Bach\u2019s; for what is to determine\n\u201cgood\u201d counterpoint? Very few musicians would accept any individual\ntheorist\u2019s rules--all rules being mere abstractions or generalizations\nfrom practice, and varying according to their historic date, so that\neven the academic theory of one age differs from that of another. Even\nin judging a fugue, one has ultimately to fall back upon expression,\nsignificance, or meaning, and who is to say--and on what universally\nacceptable principle is it to be said--that Bach\u2019s \u201cSt. Anne\u201d fugue is\nbetter than Beethoven\u2019s \u201cGrosse Fuge,\u201d Op. 133?\n\nThere is exactly the same difficulty in poetry. In an excellent and\nwell-known book on the English Sonnet a definition is given of perfect\nsonnet form which is intellectually satisfactory. But we find that most\nof the greatest English sonnets are not written in this form, while\nthousands of mediocre sonnets observe it correctly. The same is true of\nBach\u2019s Fugues. You cannot value them according to their correctness.[4]\nWhat then becomes of our \u201cperfect\u201d sonnet and our \u201cperfect\u201d fugue?\nEach is apparently an unreal abstraction--like all other attempts at\ncreating absolute value. But are these \u201cabsolute\u201d ideas necessarily\nvalueless in themselves? I do not think so, for they correspond to and\nare the formalization or _death-shapes_ of desires ineradicably rooted\nin the human soul, those desires which create all values, and that\nprofounder urge which is satisfied with none.\n\nWhat is important to recognize is the diversity of these desires and\nto understand that it is the diversity (in itself profoundly desired)\nwhich nullifies standards. We can say that this fugue is more perfect\nthan that fugue--having made an abstract and definable conception\nof the fugue form and separated it from all life. Criticism is an\napplication of such abstract conceptions--derived by analysis from the\npractice of artists--from all past works of art to one present work of\nart and, again, backwards, from all existent works of art to one past\nwork of art. The former is historical criticism (when a composer is\njudged only on what preceded him) and the latter is, or should be, the\nabsolute \u00e6sthetic criticism. But what prevents its being so is that it\nleaves out the future. The work of art is judged by the present and\nthe past but the future is unknown and the judgment is thereby vitiated\nand is not and cannot be an absolute judgment. But this does not mean\nthat the future does not exist _now_, somewhere. To demonstrate this,\nhowever, would take me on too far-stretching a parabola. I would merely\ndraw attention to this reservation, and say that its relevance will\nappear later.\n\nMy belief is that when I say, as I do emphatically say, that Beethoven\nis a greater composer than Bach and find my assertion difficult\nor impossible to prove I am judging by an instinctive but not yet\nintellectually formalized sense of value, or values, which will only\nemerge in the future to take a place among all the other principles\nand standards--the totality of life in its sum of _death-shapes_\nso far created. So we see there can be no such thing as a perfect\nfugue-in-itself but only the idea of one. The actual fugue must\nhave a meaning, it must be an expression of life; a fugue-in-itself\nwithout relation to life, perfect and completely, is an impossibility.\nNevertheless a musician like Bach finds in himself the fugue-idea as\nwell as the fugue-emotion, the fugue-form as well as the fugue-content,\nand there is a constant struggle between them to coincide exactly and\nto materialize in one indivisible unity. Sometimes the fugue idea\nprevails and sometimes the fugue-emotion prevails, and the result\nalways is an imperfect fugue. But this imperfection in all its varying\ndegrees is the musical reality. Absolute perfection, absolute unity is\nannihilation, the end of all things and the attainment of Nirvana. But\neven the fugue-idea is not a constant unchangeable abstraction or fixed\nshape. It is modified by the actual fugues which are created, for it\nis an abstraction, a general principle from examples, an induction\nfrom particulars; and as fresh particulars arise, the induction must\nbe modified. Again, I spoke of the content or fugue-emotion, but this\nfugue-emotion is not--except perhaps in the simplest and most feeble\nexamples--single but, on the contrary, multiple. Who is to appraise\nor range in order of value these emotions? How is it to be done? The\nbelief that any single judgment may do it--the mind of any one critic,\nexpert or practitioner--is preposterous. But this does not suspend\nindividual judgment or make it vain, since it is through the conflict\nor discord of all genuine individual judgments that new conceptions\nor attempts at concord emerge. This conflict arises from unsatisfied\ndesire and, in the end, we think Beethoven better than Bach only\nbecause Beethoven more profoundly satisfies our desire or satisfies\na deeper desire than any satisfied by Bach. Just as new conceptions\nemerge or are induced from discordant or unrelated conceptions so\nnew emotions and new desires are induced from the discordance or\nconflict of our desires. This process of organization would seem\ninfinite--a conception which I, personally, find intolerable and\nincomprehensible--were it not for a strange phenomenon, and this\nphenomenon is that ultimately at the core of all men there seems to be\nthe same desire.\n\nThe world is not really divided as to who are its greatest painters,\nsculptors, scientists, mathematicians, musicians and poets. We may not\nbe able to prove to our own logical satisfaction that Beethoven is\ngreater than Bach, that Bach is greater than Haydn, that Palestrina\nis greater than Verdi, but we are all strangely certain that it is so.\nWhat are we to make of this? Evidently there is a unity somewhere in\nour diversity, and it is more than a lowest common factor--a far-away\ndim primitive element, never quite lost sight of but growing ever\nfainter, linking all men and all art. It is not that touch of nature\nmaking the whole world kin, for that--although it might enable us to\nhave some sympathy with all things--would not enable us to range them\nin value. Such a minute dose of common kinship could not so vitally\nrelate us. It is, on the contrary, by our very essence, by the most\nspiritual and intense of our desires that we are united. We are not\nunanimous about Scriabin, Puccini, Tchaikovsky, Liszt, Rimsky-Korsakov,\nSchumann, Chopin, Mendelssohn and Dvorak, just as we are not unanimous\nabout Aubrey Beardsley, Sargent, El Greco, or about Byron, Tennyson,\nand Conrad.\n\nApparently each of us carries within him a fundamental note which\npicks out all the notes struck upon us by nature and mankind and\nranges them in a series. And it is this which gives to each one his\nvalues. The fundamental note which any individual carries may not be\nthe fundamental note of mankind, or of the Universe, but it must have\na more or less simple relationship with them. Thus the values of one\nindividual are true for all others, within their limits. They are real\nvalues though not necessarily ultimate values; they can and will be\nrelated to all other values but can only be so related through a more\nfundamental note--hence the importance of such a note. It is my belief\nthat the profoundest, most fundamental note in music, so far, has\nbeen struck by Beethoven. There is nothing in the music of any other\ncomposer which his does not comprehend. But his, on the other hand, has\na new foundation to which no other music reaches.\n\n[Illustration]\n\nBut this analogy of the fundamental note must be understood merely as\nan analogy, suggestive rather than explanatory. Of all the simpler\nmusical intervals I find that of the seventeenth the most satisfying\nto my ear. I may wonder what is the secret of the purity of its\nconcord--so much greater than that of the perfect fifth or the perfect\nfourth, which at first sight seem to be more intimate relationships.\nThen I discover that the ratio of the vibrations of the two notes\nof the seventeenth is 1:5, whereas that of the perfect fifth is 2:3,\nof the perfect fourth 3:4. Stated thus this may not mean much to the\nnon-mathematically minded reader but it denotes that the seventeenth\nis a perfect and not a syncopated interval. That is to say there is no\nsyncopation of the vibrations of the two notes, but they beat together\nin a closer more united rhythm than that of a perfect fifth or perfect\nfourth.\n\nBut the twelfth\n\n[Illustration]\n\n(I use the tenor or C clef partly because it is more obscure and will\nannoy those who are only accustomed to the treble and bass clefs)\nhas a ratio of 1:3 which also is not a syncopated interval but has\nthe same kind of perfection as that of the octave (1:2) and the\nseventeenth (1:5). Yet the twelfth is not so pleasing an interval as\nthe seventeenth, and the octave is inferior to them both. Nevertheless\nthe twelfth and octave are mathematically closer relationships than the\nseventeenth. Evidently there is another principle to be discovered, and\nI will call it the principle of affinity in unlikeness and illustrate\nit by an analogy which may seem far-fetched but which I believe to be\nilluminating and significant.\n\nLet us imagine that the unison or note A represents oneself; that\nthe relationship of the octave (1:2) represents that of father and\ndaughter; the relationship of the perfect fifth (2:3) that of brother\nand sister; the relationship of the perfect fourth (3:4) that of two\nbrothers; the relationship of the twelfth (1:3) that of male and\nfemale cousins--in which a new element that of sexual affinity, is\nintroduced, bringing with it a deeper reverberation although the blood\nrelationship is more distant. And, finally, the relationship of the\nseventeenth, that of unrelated lovers which--although the most distant\nof all in blood--strikes a still profounder sympathy and beauty. It is\nnow possible to understand more clearly why my analogy of the relation\nof Beethoven to the rest of music as that of a more fundamental note is\nnot to be taken in its literal meaning. With Beethoven, a new element\ncame into music, an element of such sublimity and beauty that its\nadvent into the world of imagination is comparable in importance with\nthat of sex in the physical world.\n\nSex as we know it did not always exist; it does not exist in the\ninorganic world, hardly in the vegetable world, but dimly in the animal\nworld. It is a human discovery, and upon that new more fundamental\nnote (fundamental not in the vertical sense but in a focal sense)\nrises the whole wealth of man\u2019s intellectual and physical harmony.\nBut even in sex we have not touched an absolute. The presage of a\nstill profounder intimacy trembles fitfully here and there in music\nthroughout the historical European period. In the music of Palestrina,\nof Byrd, of all the rarer spirits up to Bach, Mozart and Wagner there\nare fitful gleams of a more central desire until, finally, a love that\nplumbs deeper than even the love of sex rings forth unmistakeably in\nthe music of Beethoven and immediately creates for us a new hierarchy\nof values. And so here we find for the time being an Absolute. The\nworld of art, we find, resembles both the world of the atom and the\nworld of solar space. There are greater and lesser planets and greater\nand lesser satellites. We can imagine that if there were inhabitants\nupon the Moon they might think the Earth was the primary fact of\ntheir being, since it was the focal point of their orbit, whereas\nthe Sun would seem so eccentrically placed as to be an irregular and\nincomprehensible singularity; until by a process of more profound\nimagining they conceived the more fundamental though more distant\nrelationship in which it stood to them.\n\nJust as the Sun is the centre of the only system of the physical\nuniverse so far formulated--for no centre has been found to the\ninnumerable suns of the stellar universe--so Beethoven is our temporary\nAbsolute in the world of music. And just as the Sun is the source of\nall vegetable and animal life upon the earth, so I believe that in art\nwe find the vital spirit which animates our human life. Thus it would\nseem to be true--as I suggested we might discover--that the function of\nart in the world is to create absolute values in the imagination upon\nwhich the human species can continually re-create its intellectual,\nmoral, and physical structures. And if this is so it means that in the\nvalues of art we approach most nearly to Truth.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[4] See Mr. Harvey Grace\u2019s excellent book on the organ works of J. S.\nBach.\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER VI\n\n                        EMOTIONAL SIGNIFICANCE\n\n\nA technical analysis of the art of music as practised in Europe during\nthe past few hundred years would be interesting, but it lies outside\nthe scope of this book. What is relevant is to consider the emotional\nand intellectual significance of the music composed during that\nperiod. Folksong, from which most great composers have consciously\nor unconsciously drawn, is the emotional substratum of all European\nmusic. At its best it is simple, sensuous and passionate--the heart-cry\nof men whose desires are frustrated by the accidents of life, whose\njoys are too short, or whose griefs are too enduring. Where it chiefly\ndiffers from similar, later, more sophisticated music is in the\nsimple intensity of the emotion. In a society more subject to extreme\nvicissitudes of fortune than later and more stable social states it\nwas easier, and natural, to believe that mere irresponsible \u201caccident\u201d\nor mischance separated men from happiness.[5] In a beautiful old\nNeapolitan song collected by Madame Geni Sadero the singer bewails\nthe loss of his love carried off by Moorish pirates in a raid on the\nItalian coast. Such a song has an extraordinary plasticity of melody,\nrivalling in expressiveness the melodic invention of the greatest\ncomposers. These melodies were modelled by an intense sincerity, of\na kind inconceivable to men in a more complex environment, richly\nprovided with compensations. Any attempt at such sincerity would\nto-day be insincere.[6] Equally insincere would be any modern\ncomposer\u2019s attempt to express the simple natural thrill of the\nSardinian shepherd boy who greets the rising of the Sun in a wonderful\nsong included in the Sadero collection. In our civilized society man\nknows that the sun will rise to-morrow as it did yesterday, and that\nnext year or the year after he may love again. It is not Moorish\npirates, or the accident of plague, or the malefic interference of\nan unfriendly God that will bear away his happiness. It is happiness\nitself that has flown away as he sits securely in the midst of his\npossessions and asks himself, what he used not to ask himself: \u201cWhy do\nI live?\u201d\n\nI do not lament this change as a disaster. I merely wish to point out\nthe difference and to show why the music of to-day must differ from the\nmusic of yesterday. Those who believe that music is a purely abstract\nart (mere negation this, which I have abundantly shown to be empty of\nreality) will be shocked at the dependence of music upon man\u2019s life;\nbut the great composers themselves knew better:\n\n \u201cThe error in the art-genre of opera consists in the fact that a Means\n of Expression (Music) has been made the object, while the Object of\n Expression (the Drama) has been made a means.\u201d\n\nThose words of Wagner\u2019s show clearly that to Wagner, as Mr. Newman\naptly puts it:\n\n \u201cTo invent a theme for its own abstract sake, to pare and shape it\n till it was \u2018workable\u2019 and then to weave it along with others of the\n same kind into a pattern of which the main lines were predetermined\n for him by tradition--this was something he could not imagine himself\n doing, and that he scoffed at when he found the Conservatoire\n musicians engaged in.... Wagner always protested against the current\n fashion of performing Beethoven\u2019s symphonies as if they were nothing\n more than agreeable or exciting musical patterns.\u201d\n\nMy preceding chapters will have made it quite clear why Wagner\u2019s\ninstinct was right, although his mode of expression is so inexact as\nto be often confusing and misleading.[7] What Wagner means is that\nintellectual forms or _death-shapes_ are given no significance by\nbeing manipulated, dove-tailed, and re-arranged by the intelligence\nworking from rules and examples. It is \u201clife\u201d that gives significance,\na spiritual urge into creation, and where this is absent there is no\nartistic creation. We may perceive by his use of the word \u201cdrama\u201d\nthat Wagner\u2019s conception of \u201clife\u201d was a limited one; but he could\nonly express the life that was in him and his soundness lay in his\nrecognizing this. But we shall not make the mistake of inventing an\nartificial and unilluminating distinction between Wagner as a dramatic\nor programmatic composer and, for example, Mozart or Bach as absolute\ncomposers. The difference between all these composers (including\nBeethoven) lies mainly in inner feeling, in spiritual life, in the\nindividual _psyche_--not in their musical faculty as composers. It\nwas natural to each one of them that his vital activity should run\ninto the form of sound-patterns. It is this idiosyncrasy which has\nmade them all musicians and not poets, sculptors, or painters. But\nthis peculiarity is only a physiological bias for--to quote Mr. Newman\nagain, since he is a musician and what he says will be more appropriate\nhere than the words of a poet or sculptor, besides being admirably\nclear--\n\n \u201cIt is only the most superficial of psychologists and \u00e6stheticians\n who can regard any human faculty as wholly cut off from the rest. Our\n perceptions of sight, of taste, of touch, of hearing are inextricably\n interblended as is shown by our constantly expressing one set of\n sensations in terms of another, as when we speak of the colour of\n music, the height or depth or thickness or clarity or muddiness of\n musical tone. In every poet there is something of the painter and the\n musician; in every musician something of the poet and the painter; in\n every painter something of the musician and the poet. The character\n of the man\u2019s work will depend upon the strength or weakness of the\n tinge that is given to his own special art by the relative strength or\n weakness of the infusion of one or more of the other arts.\u201d\n\nThus we can explain the sensuous individuality of an artist as being a\nresult of the special and peculiar bias and intermixture of his senses.\nBut this is only a part of his character or personality, and it is my\nargument that it is the minor (though essential and indispensable)\nand not the major or most important part. For besides this physical\nindividuality he has a spiritual individuality. The former is the\ninstrument, the latter is the \u201clife,\u201d and, in the case of music, the\nphysical expression, the communication, the tangible (eye and ear are\n\u201ctouch\u201d at a distance) _death-shape_ is the musical creation or form--a\nBach fugue, a Beethoven symphony, a Mozart or Wagner opera, a Schubert\nsong.\n\nThe importance of Beethoven--which Wagner was the first to\nunderstand--lay in that stupendous stream of \u201clife\u201d within him which\nburst through all the old academic forms, as the sap bursts through a\ntree into colour and blossom, and strewed the history of music with\nthose gigantic skeletons of spiritual life which we know as his works.\nBut we have yet to discover the meaning of these compositions. Their\nfull meaning can only be felt, it cannot be re-stated--except when his\nworks are adequately performed; but they have a characteristic to which\nI shall try to give a verbal construction because I think it immensely\nimportant. It is not a quality for which there exists a word, or a\nphrase, or even a poem; but it is a particular kind of desire. \u201c_Like\nas a hart desireth the water-brooks so thirsteth my soul after the\nliving God_,\u201d that--were it not for its association with the desires\nof Baptists, Methodists, Wesleyans, Anglicans, Catholics, Mohammedans,\nBuddhists, Christian Scientists, Mormons, and all those bodies of\npeople known to-day as \u201creligious\u201d--would perhaps be suggestive. At\nany rate it would serve to distinguish the quality of this desire or\npassion from the passion which created _Tristan und Isolde_. And,\nmagnificent and beautiful as that was, its magnificence compared with\nthe magnificence of Beethoven\u2019s passion is as the magnificence of a\ncoloured duck to a black swan. The simile is a totally unworthy one,\nfor we have nothing to which we can compare Beethoven. We can easily\nfind similes for Wagner, but Beethoven is a _rara avis_.\n\nIt is natural to the young to be idealists, an old idealist is\ngenerally either a rogue or a fool--unless he happens to be a\nBeethoven. The young find something stirring in their hearts when\nlistening to Beethoven which they never find when listening to Bach,\nMozart or Wagner, great as these composers are. Beethoven awakes a\nfeeling so romantic, so idealistic, of so fine and exquisite a bloom\nthat it is guarded by everyone who experiences it as a precious secret.\nWhat Beethoven imagined inevitably lures men away from the sensuous\ndelights of Debussy and Strauss, from the fatiguing excitements of\nStravinsky and Jazz, from the gaieties of Verdi and Rossini, from the\nsentimental nostalgia of Brahms, from the solid satisfaction of Bach,\nfrom the sensitive melancholy of Mozart and from the lesser loves of\nWagner; but why it does so we cannot tell.\n\n\u201cHad I been willing,\u201d said Beethoven to Schindler in 1823, in the\ncourse of a conversation about the Countess Giulietta Guicciardi, \u201cto\nsurrender thus my vital power and my life what would have been left of\nthe best and noblest in me?\u201d What a different ring this plain statement\nhas beside the rhetorical p\u00e6ans to renunciation on the lips of Wagner,\nwho was satisfied to accept what would never have satisfied Beethoven.\n\nIt is a peculiarity of Beethoven that he can use the words \u201cbest\u201d and\n\u201cnoblest\u201d without making an intelligent man laugh up his sleeve. If we\ndo succeed in laughing it is with the wrong side of our mouths. The\nvery words \u201cgood,\u201d \u201cnoble,\u201d \u201cspiritual,\u201d \u201csublime,\u201d have all become in\nour time synonymous with humbug. In Beethoven\u2019s music they take on a\nnew and tremendous significance and not all the corrosive acid of the\nmost powerful intellect and the profoundest scepticism can burn through\nthem into any leaden substratum. They are gold throughout. Am I wrong\nin thinking this an achievement without parallel in the modern world?\nPoint to me in poetry, painting, sculpture, music, _anywhere_, one\nother artist who has recreated (not paid lip-service to) the meaning of\ngood and left to us the _imagination_ of a love transcending both the\nsacred and the profane. There is none.\n\nWe cannot live without values and at present we cannot conceive a\nstate when men would not ask themselves: \u201cWhy do I live?\u201d \u201cIs life\nworth living?\u201d This is the theme which touches us to-day when we marry\nand settle down with our love, measure the spots on the Sun, and fear\nneither plagues, pirates, nor eclipses:\n\n  \u201cHere I am an old man in a dry month,\n  Being read to by a boy, waiting for rain.\n  I was neither at the hot gates\n  Nor fought in the warm rain\n  Nor knee-deep in the salt marsh, heaving a cutlass,\n  Bitten by flies, fought.\n  My house is a decayed house,\n  And the jew squats on the window-sill, the owner,\n  Spawned in some estaminet of Antwerp,\n  Blistered in Brussels, patched and peeled in London.\n  The goat coughs at night in the field overhead;\n  Rocks, moss, stonecrop, iron, merds.\n  The woman keeps the kitchen, makes tea,\n  Sneezes at evening, poking the peevish gutter.\n                    I am an old man,\n  A dull head among windy spaces.\u201d\n\nThe bravest, the most intelligent, the most sensitive are oppressed\nwith that profound sense of the futility of life which Mr. Eliot\nexpresses so admirably in the above lines. It is, indeed, the constant\nburden of the most characteristic of our modern poets:\n\n  \u201cThis is the way the world ends\n  This is the way the world ends\n  This is the way the world ends\n  Not with a bang but a whimper.\u201d\n\nYes, we are convinced. This _is_ the way the world ends and we have no\nmore faith in anything. Democracy, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, have\nall been added to the list of the Great Superstitions. Mussolini and\nLenin have made moonshine of Socialism and Communism. God is a word\nused only in treatises on tribal magic, when it is spelt correctly\nas god. Love has been appropriated by the writers of silly magazine\nstories and even sillier novels. All honest men are reduced to silence\nbefore the daily avalanche of fraudulent lies from pulpit, printing\npress, parliament and platform. Everywhere men speak with the tongues\nof serpents and the minds of manufacturers of chewing gum. And deep in\nall men\u2019s hearts there is only one thought:\n\n  \u201cI grow old--I grow old\n  I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.\u201d\n\nBut in the midst of futility and inanity, in the midst of desperation\nand despair there sounds the music of Beethoven which says without\nbombast or credo: \u201cThis is _not_ the way the world ends.\u201d And says it\nin such a way that we are forced to listen. We listen to Beethoven when\nwe would listen to nobody else because he is a man without any of the\nworld\u2019s illusions. How feeble and superficial seems the disillusionment\nof Mr. T. S. Eliot\u2019s poems compared with the agony of the Cavatina in\nthe B flat Quartet with its mysterious pause--as if the pulse of the\nwhole Universe were stopped and might not continue; of the Fugue in B\nflat Op. 133; and of the last Pianoforte Sonata which Beethoven wrote.\nIn this last Sonata we feel the agony of a man whose imagination is\ngrappling with some insupportable horror. Let us conceive the Captain\nof a ship standing on its bridge in a calm, unconscious sea. The boats\nare useless because land does not exist anywhere. From the deck come\nthe cries, curses and weeping of the doomed crew, who are only his own\nembodied emotions, for he is really alone. Slowly they are going down\ninto the unruffled water. The Captain does not shake his fist defiantly\ninto the sky and deny that he is going down, but knowing that he is\ngoing down never to return sinks passionately into the sea. Such is\nthe mind and temper of Beethoven. There is agony but no whimper, and\nif that is not ending with a bang I don\u2019t know what is. In the music\nof Beethoven there are no anodynes, no lullings of sense, no deceits\nof the intelligence, but pure _virtus_. And this _virtus_ is thrilling\nabsolutely, without reservations. After the tremendous drama of the\nfirst movement of the C minor Sonata, for example--a drama in which\nthere is the whole ecstatic misery of life--we are not assuaged by a\ndream. The conflict does not cease. That wonderful Arietta--surely\nthe most wonderful thing in all music--is no bringer of peace and\nresignation. In it something passes away but _its passing away is an\nact of creation not of extinction_. It is this which gives Beethoven\u2019s\nmusic its peculiar significance, for Creation not Nirvana is the\nessence of Beethoven. It has its root therefore in human personality\nand may be most accurately described as the supremest imagination of\nlove in human art. But though beyond the conception of the Neapolitan\nfisherman mourning for his lost bride it does not lessen but enriches\nthat ancient love-song, making it impossible for us to feel that it was\nmeaningless.\n\nAnd if anyone should say that the question: \u201cWhy do I live?\u201d has not\nbeen answered, I reply that Beethoven has rendered it ridiculous.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[5] The ancient Greeks with characteristic intellectual power did not\nbelieve in mere irresponsible accident.\n\n[6] Compare for example the feebleness of our contemporary love-songs\nand ballads.\n\n[7] For example we can ask nothing more than that a composer should\nwrite \u201cexciting musical patterns.\u201d It all depends upon what is meant by\n\u201cexciting.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER VII\n\n                           BEYOND ALL SENSE\n\n\nMusic will not end with Beethoven. It is possible that the very\nproblems that confronted him and still confront us will fade out of\nthe imagination just as those political problems which occupied so\nmuch of the attention of the historical world from the Greek Republics\nto the British Empire are ceasing to exist before our very eyes.\nAnd when we think of the religious dissensions of Christendom and\nreflect on the questions which once divided father from son, sect\nfrom sect, church from church, it is with difficulty that we can give\nthem a meaning intelligible to our minds, much less feel any shadow\nof the life that was once in them. In the memory of living men,\nheartburning intellectual problems have become empty phrases. Darwin,\nHuxley, and the Anglican Bishops all seem as unreal as the waxworks of\nMadame Tussaud and are seen to be the complementary phenomena of an\nintellectual nightmare. No one to-day imagines that Truth wears the\nstrange Victorian get-up of any of these gentlemen.\n\nSimilarly the sociological phantoms of the age of Bernard Shaw and\nH. G. Wells, of Karl Marx and Lenin are cutting the last of their\nantithetical capers. Socialist and Anti-Socialist, Communist and\nAnti-Communist, Conservative and Revolutionary have suddenly caught\nsight of their own faces behind the masks of their opponents. Their\npassionate reality is seen to be no more than a Fancy Dress Ball--for\nall these figments, these fictions, these _Ideas_ were never any more\nthan the Masks of false passions, passions which have never succeeded\nin begetting a progeny, since they are the mere nightmare passions of\nsocial indigestion.\n\nIn another five generations there will be no poverty, there may be\nno matrimony, there will certainly, if there is no poverty, be no\npatrimony. Children may take their mother\u2019s name and then fathers\nwill have not even a fifty-year royalty upon their creations. Men and\nwomen will look upon their children as artists look upon their works\nand will wish others to enjoy them. The world will be so changed that\nnone of the problems which to-day set our newspapers printing and\nour politicians talking will even exist. Our present ideas on sex,\nmorality, beauty and value will in those days appear as strange,\nas fantastic, as illusory as the ideas of our ancestors who took\nBeecham\u2019s pills to cure all ills.\n\nWill the music of such a world differ from the music of to-day?\nNecessarily, since life without change is inconceivable to us and music\nthat is alive must be changing. But the meaning of this change is not\nto be apprehended by the mind, for it is no less than life itself.\nA part of it, however, can be apprehended, for, although we feel\ninstinctively that the more the world changes the more that it is the\nsame[8] yet we cannot deny that it is the same with a difference. And\nit is the difference which matters and is _matter_--that which appears,\nis visible and audible--_the death-shape of the spirit_.\n\nIt would be boring and futile to consider the methods which may\nbe invented of distributing music or of making music heard. That a\nmillion persons listen to Beethoven by wireless or gramophone where,\npreviously, a thousand listened in a concert hall is one of those\nstatistical changes which it is beyond the wit of man to value.\n\nFortunately there is a period fixed to the possibilities of \u201cprogress\u201d\nof this kind; and when every baby is born to Beethoven and to Freedom\nthen culture and statistics of culture, education and measurements\nof education will have simultaneously ceased. There will be in those\ndays no newspaper interviews with Neo-Edisons because there will be no\nnewspapers; the people will have forgotten that it is interesting to\nknow whether a celebrity drinks de-caffeined coffee or dehydrogened\nwater because there will be no \u201cpeople\u201d and no celebrities. The Age of\nVulgarity will have passed.\n\nWhat sort of music will be listened to in those days? The music of\nOrpheus, the music that comes out of darkness.\n\nAccording to Plato when Orpheus descended into hell and succeeded\nby the strains of his mysterious music in softening the hearts of\nPluto and Persephone--who themselves were phantoms, prisoners of the\nimagination, supernal beings chained to the bottom of Hades because\nthey were imagined there and existed only in _Imagination_--he brought\nback with him but an Apparition. It was an Apparition that he gazed at\nso fondly, and which nevertheless vanished before his eyes. His music\nwas that Apparition; those heavenly strains, mysterious, profound,\nissuing from his mouth took form, the form of _Eurydice_--the\nimagination of light in darkness, of love in the midst of death.\n\nThe forms that music will take in the future are as yet unimagined;\nbut these forms will always be the form of Eurydice plucked by\nOrpheus vainly out of Hell. And they will not be abstract forms but\nthe apparition of a real love which, bitten by the serpent of life,\ndescended into the kingdom of Pluto.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[8] The evolutionary theory will no longer be thought of as a\ncontinuous or a discontinuous ascent; biological species will be\nregarded as ripples on a pool; the Astronomical Universe will be\nconceived as stationary.\n\n\n                                THE END","title":"Orpheus; or, The music of the future","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":12254}