How To Listen To Music Part 20

[Sidenote: _Secularization of the Ma.s.s._]

Transferred from the Church to the concert-room, and considered as an art-form instead of the eucharistic office, the Ma.s.s has always made a strong appeal to composers, and half a dozen masterpieces of missal composition hold places in the concert lists of the singing societies.

Notable among these are the Requiems of Mozart, Berlioz, and Verdi, and the Solemn Ma.s.s in D by Beethoven. These works represent at one and the same time the climax of accomplishment in the musical treatment and the secularization of the missal text. They are the natural outcome of the expansion of the office by the introduction of the orchestra into the Church, the departure from the _a capella_ style of writing, which could not be consorted with the orchestra, and the growth of a desire to enhance the pomp of great occasions in the Church by the production of ma.s.ses specially composed for them. Under such circ.u.mstances the devotional purpose of the ma.s.s was lost in the artistic, and composers gave free reign to their powers, for which they found an ample stimulus in the missal text.

[Sidenote: _Sentimental ma.s.ses._]

[Sidenote: _Mozart and the Ma.s.s._]

[Sidenote: _The ma.s.ses for the dead._]

[Sidenote: _Gossec's Requiem._]

The first effect, and the one which largely justifies the adherents of the old ecclesiastical style in their crusade against the Catholic Church music of to-day, was to make the ma.s.ses sentimental and operatic. So little regard was had for the sentiment of the words, so little respect for the solemnity of the sacrament, that more than a century ago Mozart (whose ma.s.ses are far from being models of religious expression) could say to Cantor Doles of a _Gloria_ which the latter showed him, "_S'ist ja alles nix_," and immediately sing the music to "_Hol's der Geier, das geht flink!_" which words, he said, went better. The liberty begotten by this license, though it tended to ruin the ma.s.s, considered strictly as a liturgical service, developed it musically. The ma.s.ses for the dead were among the earliest to feel the spirit of the time, for in the sequence, _Dies irae_, they contained the dramatic element which the solemn ma.s.s lacked. The _Kyrie_, _Credo_, _Gloria_, _Sanctus_, and _Agnus Dei_ are purely lyrical, and though the evolutionary movement ended in Beethoven conceiving certain portions (notably the _Agnus Dei_) in a dramatic sense, it was but natural that so far as tradition fixed the disposition and formal style of the various parts, it should not be disturbed. At an early date the composers began to put forth their powers of description in the _Dies irae_, however, and there is extant in a French ma.s.s an amusing example of the length to which tone-painting in this music was carried by them. Gossec wrote a Requiem on the death of Mirabeau which became famous. The words, _Quantus tremor est futurus_, he set so that on each syllable there were repet.i.tions, _staccato_, of a single tone, thus:

[Music ill.u.s.tration: Quan-tus tre---mor, tre-- etc.]

This absurd stuttering Gossec designed to picture the terror inspired by the coming of the Judge at the last trumpet.

[Sidenote: _The orchestra in the Ma.s.s._]

[Sidenote: _Beethoven and Berlioz._]

The development of instrumentation placed a factor in the hands of these writers which they were not slow to utilize, especially in writing music for the _Dies irae_, and how effectively Mozart used the orchestra in his Requiem it is not necessary to state. It is a safe a.s.sumption that Beethoven's Ma.s.s in D was largely instrumental in inspiring Berlioz to set the Requiem as he did. With Beethoven the dramatic idea is the controlling one, and so it is with Berlioz.

Beethoven, while showing a reverence for the formulas of the Church, and respecting the tradition which gave the _Kyrie_ a triple division and made fugue movements out of the phrases "_c.u.m sancto spiritu in gloria Dei patris--Amen_," "_Et vitam venturi_," and "_Osanna in excelsis_," nevertheless gave his composition a scope which placed it beyond the apparatus of the Church, and filled it with a spirit that spurns the limitations of any creed of less breadth and universality than the grand Theism which affectionate communion with nature had taught him.

[Sidenote: _Berlioz's Requiem._]

[Sidenote: _Dramatic effects in Haydn's ma.s.ses._]

[Sidenote: _Berlioz's orchestra._]

Berlioz, less religious, less reverential, but equally fired by the solemnity and majesty of the matter given into his hands, wrote a work in which he placed his highest conception of the awfulness of the Last Judgment and the emotions which are awakened by its contemplation. In respect of the instrumentation he showed a far greater audacity than Beethoven displayed even in the much-mooted trumpets and drums of the _Agnus Dei_, where he introduces the sounds of war to heighten the intensity of the prayer for peace, "_Dona n.o.bis pacem_." This is talked about in the books as a bold innovation. It seems to have escaped notice that the idea had occurred to Haydn twenty-four years before and been realized by him. In 1796 Haydn wrote a ma.s.s, "In Tempore Belli," the French army being at the time in Steyermark. He set the words, "_Agnus Dei qui tollis peccata mundi_,"

to an accompaniment of drums, "as if the enemy were already heard coming in the distance." He went farther than this in a Ma.s.s in D minor, when he accompanied the _Benedictus_ with fanfares of trumpets.

But all such timid ventures in the use of instruments in the ma.s.s sink into utter insignificance when compared with Berlioz's apparatus in the _Tuba mirum_ of his Requiem, which supplements the ordinary symphonic orchestra, some of its instruments already doubled, with four bra.s.s bands of eight or ten instruments each, sixteen extra drums, and a tam-tam.

FOOTNOTES:

[H] "Notes on the Cultivation of Choral Music," by H.E. Krehbiel, p.

17.

IX

_Musician, Critic, and Public_

[Sidenote: _The newspapers and the public._]

I have been told that there are many people who read the newspapers on the day after they have attended a concert or operatic representation for the purpose of finding out whether or not the performance gave them proper or sufficient enjoyment. It would not be becoming in me to inquire too curiously into the truth of such a statement, and in view of a denunciation spoken in the introductory chapter of this book, I am not sure that it is not a piece of arrogance, or impudence, on my part to undertake in any way to justify any critical writing on the subject of music. Certain it is that some men who write about music for the newspapers believe, or affect to believe, that criticism is worthless, and I shall not escape the charge of inconsistency, if, after I have condemned the blunders of literary men, who are laymen in music, and separated the majority of professional writers on the art into pedants and rhapsodists, I nevertheless venture to discuss the nature and value of musical criticism. Yet, surely, there must be a right and wrong in this as in every other thing, and just as surely the present structure of society, which rests on the newspaper, invites attention to the existing relationship between musician, critic, and public as an important element in the question How to Listen to Music.

[Sidenote: _Relationship between musician, critic, and public._]

[Sidenote: _The need and value of conflict._]

As a condition precedent to the discussion of this new element in the case, I lay down the proposition that the relationship between the three factors enumerated is so intimate and so strict that the world over they rise and fall together; which means that where the people dwell who have reached the highest plane of excellence, there also are to be found the highest types of the musician and critic; and that in the degree in which the three factors, which united make up the sum of musical activity, labor harmoniously, conscientiously, and unselfishly, each striving to fulfil its mission, they advance music and further themselves, each bearing off an equal share of the good derived from the common effort. I have set the factors down in the order which they ordinarily occupy in popular discussion and which symbolizes their proper att.i.tude toward each other and the highest potency of their collaboration. In this collaboration, as in so many others, it is conflict that brings life. Only by a surrender of their functions, one to the other, could the three apparently dissonant yet essentially harmonious factors be brought into a state of complacency; but such complacency would mean stagnation. If the published judgment on compositions and performances could always be that of the exploiting musicians, that cla.s.s, at least, would read the newspapers with fewer heart-burnings; if the critics had a common mind and it were followed in concert-room and opera-house, they, as well as the musicians, would have need of fewer words of displacency and more of approbation; if, finally, it were to be brought to pa.s.s that for the public nothing but amiable diversion should flow simultaneously from platform, stage, and press, then for the public would the millennium be come. A religious philosopher can trans.m.u.te Adam's fall into a blessing, and we can recognize the wisdom of that dispensation which put enmity between the seed of Jubal, who was the "father of all such as handle the harp and pipe," and the seed of Saul, who, I take it, is the first critic of record (and a vigorous one, too, for he accentuated his unfavorable opinion of a harper's harping with a javelin thrust).

[Sidenote: _The critic an Ishmaelite._]

[Sidenote: _The critic not to be pitied._]

[Sidenote: _How he might extricate himself._]

[Sidenote: _The public like to be flattered._]

We are bound to recognize that between the three factors there is, ever was, and ever shall be _in saecula saeculorum_ an irrepressible conflict, and that in the nature of things the middle factor is the Ishmaelite whose hand is raised against everybody and against whom everybody's hand is raised. The complacency of the musician and the indifference, not to say ignorance, of the public ordinarily combine to make them allies, and the critic is, therefore, placed between two millstones, where he is vigorously rasped on both sides, and whence, being angular and hard of outer sh.e.l.l, he frequently requites the treatment received with complete and energetic reciprocity. Is he therefore to be pitied? Not a bit; for in this position he is performing one of the most significant and useful of his functions, and disclosing one of his most precious virtues. While musician and public must perforce remain in the positions in which they have been placed with relation to each other it must be apparent at half a glance that it would be the simplest matter in the world for the critic to extricate himself from his predicament. He would only need to take his cue from the public, measuring his commendation by the intensity of their applause, his dispraise by their signs of displeasure, and all would be well with him. We all know this to be true, that people like to read that which flatters them by echoing their own thoughts. The more delightfully it is put by the writer the more the reader is pleased, for has he not had the same idea? Are they not his? Is not their appearance in a public print proof of the shrewdness and soundness of his judgment? Ruskin knows this foible in human nature and condemns it. You may read in "Sesame and Lilies:"

"Very ready we are to say of a book, 'How good this is--that's exactly what I think!' But the right feeling is, 'How strange that is! I never thought of that before, and yet I see it is true; or if I do not now, I hope I shall, some day.' But whether thus submissively or not, at least be sure that you go at the author to get at his meaning, not to find yours. Judge it afterward if you think yourself qualified to do so, but ascertain it first."

[Sidenote: _The critic generally outspoken._]

As a rule, however, the critic is not guilty of the wrong of speaking out the thought of others, but publishes what there is of his own mind, and this I laud in him as a virtue, which is praiseworthy in the degree that it springs from loftiness of aim, depth of knowledge, and sincerity and unselfishness of purpose.

[Sidenote: _Musician and Public._]

[Sidenote: _The office of ignorance._]

[Sidenote: _Popularity of Wagner's music not a sign of intelligent appreciation._]

Let us look a little into the views which our factors do and those which they ought to entertain of each other. The utterances of musicians have long ago made it plain that as between the critic and the public the greater measure of their respect and deference is given to the public. The critic is bound to recognize this as entirely natural; his right of protest does not accrue until he can show that the deference is ign.o.ble and injurious to good art. It is to the public that the musician appeals for the substantial signs of what is called success. This appeal to the jury instead of the judge is as characteristic of the conscientious composer who is sincerely convinced that he was sent into the world to widen the boundaries of art, as it is of the mere time-server who aims only at tickling the popular ear. The reason is obvious to a little close thinking: Ignorance is at once a safeguard against and a promoter of conservatism. This sounds like a paradox, but the rapid growth of Wagner's music in the admiration of the people of the United States might correctly be cited as a proof that the statement is true. Music like the concert fragments from Wagner's lyric dramas is accepted with prompt.i.tude and delight, because its elements are those which appeal most directly and forcibly to our sense-perception and those primitive tastes which are the most readily gratified by strong outlines and vivid colors. Their vigorous rhythms, wealth of color, and sonority would make these fragments far more impressive to a savage than the suave beauty of a symphony by Haydn; yet do we not all know that while whole-hearted, intelligent enjoyment of a Haydn symphony is conditioned upon a considerable degree of culture, an equally whole-hearted, intelligent appreciation of Wagner's music presupposes a much wider range of sympathy, a much more extended view of the capabilities of musical expression, a much keener discernment, and a much profounder susceptibility to the effects of harmonic progressions? And is the conclusion not inevitable, therefore, that on the whole the ready acceptance of Wagner's music by a people is evidence that they are not sufficiently cultured to feel the force of that conservatism which made the triumph of Wagner consequent on many years of agitation in musical Germany?

[Sidenote: _"Ahead of one's time."_]

In one case the appeal is elemental; in the other spiritual. He who wishes to be in advance of his time does wisely in going to the people instead of the critics, just as the old fogy does whose music belongs to the time when sensuous charm summed up its essence. There is a good deal of ambiguity about the stereotyped phrase "ahead of one's time."

Rightly apprehended, great geniuses do live for the future rather than the present, but where the public have the vastness of appet.i.te and scantness of taste peculiar to the ostrich, there it is impossible for a composer to be ahead of his time. It is only where the public are advanced to the stage of intelligent discrimination that a Ninth Symphony and a Nibelung Tetralogy are accepted slowly.

[Sidenote: _The charlatan._]

[Sidenote: _Influencing the critics._]

Why the charlatan should profess to despise the critic and to pay homage only to the public scarcely needs an explanation. It is the critic who stands between him and the public he would victimize. Much of the disaffection between the concert-giver and the concert-reviewer arises from the unwillingness of the latter to enlist in a conspiracy to deceive and defraud the public. There is no need of mincing phrases here. The critics of the newspaper press are besieged daily with requests for notices of a complimentary character touching persons who have no honest standing in art. They are fawned on, truckled to, cajoled, subjected to the most seductive influences, sometimes bribed with woman's smiles or manager's money--and why? To win their influence in favor of good art, think you? No; to feed vanity and greed. When a critic is found of sufficient self-respect and character to resist all appeals and to be proof against all temptations, who is quicker than the musician to cite against his opinion the applause of the public over whose gullibility and ignorance, perchance, he made merry with the critic while trying to purchase his independence and honor?

[Sidenote: _The public an elemental force._]

[Sidenote: _Critic and public._]

[Sidenote: _Schumann and popular approval._]