Emotion in Music
Not long since, when urging upon a pupil the necessity of bringing out the deeper mood and meaning of a certain composition, the present writer received this response: “I am afraid to make it say all that, to put so much of myself into it; people will call me sentimental!”
The reply voiced a prevailing and thoroughly American weakness. It is far too common here to find, especially among our girls, a bright, warm, impulsive nature, full of genuine sentiment and poetic fancy, choked and perverted, turned shallow and bitter, by this same paralyzing fear of ridicule; to meet persons who take a morbid pride in concealing and repressing their better selves so effectually, that even their most intimate friends shall never suspect them of being one degree less frivolous and heartless than their companions, who in their turn are doubtless vying with them in this deplorable, misguided effort to belittle themselves, their lives and influence.
It is one of the most significant and lamentable signs of the time, that any allusion to or expression of a warm, true, earnest sentiment is met in society with more or less open and bitter derision, even by those who are secretly in sympathy with it, admire the courage and sincerity of its champion, and would gladly take the same bold stand in its defense, but dare not, and so add their coward voices to swell the majority. This is the more deplorable, since this tendency is at once cause and effect. The continual and systematic denial and suppression of emotion and ideality result finally in their complete extinction in most cases, or leave them deformed and feeble, to struggle for a precarious existence in some dark, hidden recess of the soul, whose highest throne is their rightful heritage.
George Sand says, somewhere, speaking of the French, “We once had sentiment, but the sirocco of sarcasm has scorched it from our hearts, and where it grew is a desert place!” Alas for the people of whom this is true! Alas for the young man or maiden who can say, “I have no sentiment,” and speak truth. And let me here caution any young person against a light and frequent, even though purposely insincere, denial of any characteristic of value; for there is a strange and subtle sympathy between the heart and the lips, which works steadily, if stealthily, to bring them more and more into accord. A lie is in every sense a violation of the laws of nature; and what is first uttered as a conscious, flagrant falsehood, becomes less so with each repetition, till unawares a day will come which shall see it transformed into a glaring truth. Such a person, no matter how highly organized, or perfectly trained otherwise, is no better than a machine. He does not live, he simply runs.
One may not be to blame for a natural deficiency in those higher qualities which make a life warm and rich and attractive, which mark a personality as something more than an animated clod, or even a well-adjusted mental mechanism; he must be pitied even though instinctively shunned; but he who wantonly draws the fatal knife of sarcasm across the throat of a true sentiment or a lofty ideal, however feebly or imperfectly embodied, commits a crime against humanity at large, more injurious and far-reaching in its effects than slaughter of the body only. Above all, let us beware how we tamper with the natural, essential relations between art and the emotions. Good-by to the artist who has no place or use for sentiment in his work; he should turn his attention at once to some more practical and creditable branch of mechanics.
One grievous mistake in our American system of training is that we ignore almost altogether this phase of culture. We develop the conscience, the reason, the memory, but do nothing for the taste, the imagination, the esthetic sense, the whole ideal and spiritual side of the character. The faithful, protracted study of music, or other branch of art, even though it never result in any financial profit or the smallest degree of professional success, will develop faculties and tendencies of more advantage to the student and to all who may come in contact with him in private life, than any amount of algebra, or any number of Greek roots. The German methods of study, especially for young ladies, might teach us a valuable lesson in this connection.
He who would attain the best results in art should remember that we do not gather dates of thorns, nor figs of thistles; that “only life begets life,” and that after its own kind; that an art product, to be really good and great, must be the concentrated, crystallized essence of the best that is in him, the epitome of his highest moods and aspirations, of those rare, intuitive glimpses of a loftier existence, to which in favorable moments he can lift himself, the distilled perfume of weeks, it may be years, of living. He should subject himself to every possible cultivating, elevating influence, should train, not only hand and head, but heart as well; for these three are the inseparable trinity of art. He should increase his resources, widen his experiences, expand his horizon; not by cramming a quantity of facts, or by the conquest of mere technical means—what use in commanding words, or tones, if one has nothing to express withal?—but by increased familiarity with and capacity to appreciate and exercise the qualities so constantly requisite in his work.
Let us remember, too, what the scientists tell us, that light and heat radiated from a given center are dissipated in force and intensity in proportion to the square of the distance to be traversed. The same is emphatically true of emotion. If one would stir his audience to a pleasurable excitement, he must himself be shaken as in a tempest; to warm them, he must be at white heat.
Should the question arise, How shall one learn to feel music more deeply and make it more expressive? my answer would be, Read, think, feel, dream, love, live! Read—not musical history and biography—these give information, not culture; they are valuable, but not in this connection; read poetry, especially the lyric and dramatic, and good prose literature. A person entirely unaccustomed to understand or to utter anything in tones, will often find the key to this unfamiliar medium of expression by the following indirect method: Find some work, a poem is best, because briefer and more concrete, which expresses, approximately at least, the sentiment of the composition to be studied. Most persons are more familiar with the language of words than with that of tones, and will reach a given mood more directly and easily through that channel. Let the poem be well studied, not only with the mind, but with the imagination, dwelling upon it, trying to feel its meaning and beauty as deeply as possible; then throw the same emotional content into the music, making the tones tell what the words have said. The present writer has found this course in teaching very effective with all sensitive natures, even with those who have but the rudiments of an artistic temperament.
Above all, artist or amateur, teacher or pupil, fear not to use in your work to the full all the emotional power you have or can acquire. It may be the injudicious application of force that sometimes impairs artistic results; it is never the excess. Vital energy should be controlled, regulated, but never stinted. Ill-timed frenzy is not art, of course; but where intensity is demanded and proper gradations and proportions are observed, no dirge is ever too deeply gloomy, no dramatic climax too strong. The danger is always of tameness, rather than of excessive fervor.
Let us, then, be genuine, earnest, whole-hearted, open, in our allegiance to the ideal; and as for those who sneer at sentiment in art or in life, why, let them rave. We adhere to the creed which T. T. Munger has beautifully formulated for our profession in his “Music as Revelation”: “Emotion is the summit of existence, and music is the summit of emotion, the art pathway to God.”
| CHOPIN | ||
| 1810 | 1849 | |