Music Talks with Children Part 5

"And thou? Thou art unhappy. And thy daily bread is set before thee with music and with sunshine.

"Yet there are little ones, like thyself, who are hungry in the darkness.

"And thou? Thou art unhappy."

CHAPTER XII.

THE GREATER MASTERS.

"In spite of all, I have never interrupted the study of music."

--_Palestrina._

An opera writer of Italy, named Giovanni Pacini, once said that to study the writings of Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven "lightens the mind of a student, since the cla.s.sics are a continuous development of the most beautiful and simple melodies," and we sometimes hear it said that great men are they who dare to be simple. In our Talks thus far we have learned one important fact, which is, that music is truth expressed out of the heart. Of course we know that to be in the heart it must be felt, and to be expressed we must know a great deal about writing. Now we are able to imagine quite well what a great master is in music. As Pacini says, his melodies will be simple and beautiful, and as we ourselves know, his simple melodies will be an expression of truth out of the heart.

But to go only as far as this would not be enough. Many can write simply and well, and truthfully, yet not as a master. There must be something else. When we have found out what that something else is we shall understand the masters better and honor them more.

Everywhere in the history of music we read of what men have been willing to do for the love of their art. It is not that they have been willing to do when told; but that they have cheerfully done painful, laborious tasks of their own accord. The name of every master will recall great labor willingly given for music and equally great suffering willingly endured, nay, even sought out, that the music might be purer to them. Poor Palestrina went along many years through life with the scantiest means. But, as he says, "in spite of all, I have never interrupted the study of music." Bach was as simple and loyal a citizen as any land could have, and from the early years when he was a fatherless boy to the days of his sad affliction, he sacrificed always. Think of the miles he walked to hear Buxterhude, the organist; and in the earlier years, when he lived with Johann Christopher, his brother, how eagerly he sought learning in the art that so fascinated him. It was a constant willingness to learn honestly that distinguished him.

Any of us who will labor faithfully with the talents we have can do a great deal--more than we would believe. Even Bach himself said to a pupil: "If thou art _equally_ diligent thou wilt succeed as I have."[40] He recognized that it matters little how much we wish for things to be as we want them; unless our wish-thoughts are forced into prompt action we cannot succeed; for while all thoughts seek action, wish-thoughts demand the most labor.

It would be pleasant to have a Talk about every one of the great masters to see in what particular way each of them sacrificed for the art he loved. In all of them the true qualities come out: in one as earnestness; in another as determination; in another as patriotism; but all are loyal to the art itself. It must be a very plain lesson to us to see that when men are willing to give all their thoughts to a subject they get much from it. And is it not quite as plain to see that no one can get much if he gives but a few unwilling minutes to it? I trust none who hear these Talks will ever think that with a little time given to their music, and that not freely given, they can ever get either pleasure or comfort from it. They never can. And rather than do it so they would better leave it undone. If we set out on the way to go to the masters we shall get there only by earnestness. Lagging is a disgrace to the one who travels and to the one to whom we go. It shows his laziness on the one hand, and his misunderstanding of the master on the other; for if he understood he would take no listless step.

Now we have said again and again that true music comes from the heart, and is simple. At the same time we find it difficult to understand the music of the masters. That is, some of us find it so. It seems anything but simple to us; and naturally we conclude that there is something wrong somewhere. We sit at our tasks, poring over the music, and we grow discouraged because we cannot play it. To think it a very hard task is natural, and we cannot bear to hear such tones. Well, let us not get discouraged for that; let us see!

First of all, the playing is more difficult to do than the music is to understand. Once a great master of the piano played to a lady who had never heard a great master before, and the playing was like beautiful lace. When it was over and the master had gone away, some one asked the lady how he had played, and she said:

"He played so that the music sounded as I thought it should."

And they asked her what she meant.

"Always I have been taught," she said, "to listen to music and to think it. I have been taught this more than I have been taught to play. And the music of the master-composers I always think of as beautiful and simple but hard to make it sound as it should. Often I have heard others say that the music of the masters is dull, and not beautiful, but that is really not what the people feel. It is difficult for them to play the music rightly. And again they cannot understand this: that art is often simple in, its truth, while those who look upon it are not! simple-hearted, as they regard it. This is hard to understand, but it is the true reason."

Now, if we think of what this cultured lady said, we shall think her wise. Whatever stumbling we may do with our fingers, let us still keep in our minds the purity of the music itself. This will in a sense teach us to regard reverentially the men who, from early years, have added beauties to art for us to enjoy to-day. The wisest of the Greeks [41] said:

"The treasures of the wise men of old, which they have left written in books, I turn over and peruse in company with my friends, and if we find anything good in them, we remark it, and think it a great gain, if we thus become more attracted to one another."

Once an English lady[42] wrote about a verse-writer: "No poet ever clothed so few ideas in so many words." Just opposite to this is a true poet, he who clothes in few words many and n.o.ble ideas. A master tells his message in close-set language.

Now, in the last minutes, let us see what a great master is:

I. He will be one who tells a beautiful message simply.

II. He has been willing to sacrifice and suffer for his art.

III. He has lived his every day in the simple desire to know his own heart better.

IV. Always he has concentrated his message into as few tones as possible, and his music, therefore, becomes filled to overflowing with meaning.

About the meaning of the masters, one of them has written this: "Whenever you open the music of Bach, Mozart, or Beethoven, its meaning comes forth to you in a thousand different ways." That is because thousands of different messages from the heart have been _concentrated_ in it.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE LESSER MASTERS.

"And the soul of a child came into him again."--_I Kings, XVII: 22._

If, one day, some one should say to you, earnestly: "Well day are to you!" you would scarcely know what to make of it. You would at once understand that the person had knowledge of words but could not put them together rightly. And if the person continued to talk to you in this manner you might feel inclined to lose your patience and not listen. But if you would stop and consider things and examine yourself you would learn something well worth thinking about.

You would discover that your own ability to put words in the right order has come from being obedient. First of all, you have been willing to imitate what others said until you have thereby learned to speak quite well. Besides that, you have been corrected many times by those about you at home, and in school, until language is at length a careful habit in you. Every one knows at once what you mean. You see, therefore, that you may combine words in such a manner that you will be easily comprehended by others; or, as in the case of the imaginary person we began with, they may be combined in a perfectly senseless way. Consequently, it is not enough to know words alone, we must know what to do with them. The true art of using words is to put full and clear meaning into a few of them; to say as much as possible with as few words as you may select.

Tones may be treated in the same manner as words. One can write tones in such a manner as to say quite as senseless a thing as "Well day are to you!" Many do. This teaches you that true and simple tone-sentences, like similar word-sentences, must have for their object to say the fullest and clearest meaning in as little s.p.a.ce as possible.

For many hundreds of years thoughtful composers have studied about this. They have tried in every way to discover the secrets underlying tone-writing so that the utmost meaning should come out when they are united. Tones thus arranged according to the laws of music-writing make sense. To learn this art all great composers have studied untiringly. They have recognized the difficulty of putting much meaning in little s.p.a.ce, and to gain this ability they have found no labor to be too severe.

We must remember that there is no end of music in the world which was not written by the few men whom we usually call the great composers.

Perhaps you will be interested to know about these works. Many of them are really good--your favorite pieces, no doubt. When we think of it, it is with composers as with trees of the forest. Great and small, strong and weak, grow together for the many purposes for which they are created. They could not all be either great or small. There must be many kinds; then the young in time take the place of the old, and the strong survive the weak. Together beneath the same sky, deep-rooted in the beautiful, bountiful earth, they grow side by side.

The same sun shines upon them all, the same wind and the same rain come to them, selecting no one before another. What are they all doing? Each living its true life, as best it can. It is true they may not come and go, they may not choose, but as we see them, beautiful in their leaves and branches we feel the good purpose to which they live and, unconsciously, perhaps, we love them.

Among us it is quite the same. Some are more skilful than others. But be our skill great or small, we are not truly using it until we have devoted it to a worthy purpose. And as with us, so it is with the musicians. There are the great and small. The great ones--leaders of thought--we call the great masters. The lesser are earnest men, who have not as much power as the masters, but they are faithful in small things.

They sing lesser songs it is true, but not less beautiful ones. Often these lesser ones think more as we do. They think simply and about the things which we have often in our minds. It is such thoughts as these which we have in our best moments that we love so much when we see them well expressed by one who is a good and delicate writer, either of tones or words. Particularly do we understand these thoughts well in the first years of our music when nearly all the works of the greater composers are above us.

Thus are the many composers (who yet are not great masters) of value to us because they write well a kind of thought which is pure and full of meaning, and which we can understand. They give us true pleasure day after day in the beginning and seem at the same time to help us onward to the ability of understanding the great masters. This they do by giving our thought training in the right direction.

Now, we know that the very best music for a young musician to learn in the first days is that of the lesser tone masters, together with those simpler pieces of the great composers which come within his power to comprehend--within the power of a child's hands and voice. Let us see, once again, if it is not clear:

True composers, great and small, sing from the heart. If one having a little skill turn it unworthily away from the good and true work he might do, then he does not use rightly his one talent. He does not give us true thought in tone. He writes for vanity or a low purpose, and is not a lesser master but he is untrue.

It is not our right to play anything. We may rightly play only that which is full of such good thought as we in our power may understand.

It is to supply us with just this that the lesser masters write. In simple, yet clear and beautiful pictures, they tell us many and many a secret of the world of tone into which we shall some day be welcomed by the greater ones if we are faithful unto the lesser.

CHAPTER XIV.

HARMONY AND COUNTERPOINT.

"Whilst I was in Florence, I did my utmost to learn the exquisite manner of Michaelangelo, and never once lost sight of it."--_Benvenuto Cellini._[43]