REMARKS ON MUSIC.
The influence of music on our affections is a truth established both by sacred and profane history, and confirmed by its constant use in all religious rites where the passions are most deeply interested. If this art has power to direct the emotions of the heart, does it not deserve our most earnest attention to preserve its proper influence, and direct it to the good purposes intended by the wise and kind Author of all things? And this can only be done by preventing the art itself from being corrupted by the caprice and absurdity of human frailty, and by directing the powers of its purity to assist us in the habits of virtue and religion. Plutarch tells us, that a man who has learned music from his infancy, will ever after have a proper sense of right and wrong, and an habitual persuasion to decorum; this is undoubtedly true if we consider the ancient manner of inculcating the laws of their country, the great actions of heroes, the praises of their deities, which were the subjects of this art; not to mention its mathematical principles, which made a part of the Greek education, and induced the youths to serious enquiry, and led them to noble truths. The same author has also told us, that the manners of a people are best denoted by the prevailing music of their country: and this is certainly true; as the mind will always seek its repose and delight in pursuits the most similar to its general tendency and direction. This reflection leads us to consider the present state of music in this country, and how far it may be made subservient to the ornamental part of education; and at the same time a means of inducing the mind to the sober pursuits of virtue and religion, which ought to be the true intention of parents in forming the minds of their children.
Music is to be understood as a powerful assistant to sentimental expression, which by the power of its charms enforces our attention to some particular subject, adapted to some natural passion of mankind. Under such consideration we are strongly impressed with the ideas of love, pity, fear, or some other natural affection. But to produce the effects of nature, the means must be unnatural: and to raise the ideas of certain passions, the means should be consonant to the passion itself; and confined within the simple bounds of nature. If this be not the case in music, its true end is defeated, it ceases to be an assistant to sentimental expression, and we absurdly admire its mere sounds, rather than powerfully feel its proper effects.
A. O.
(To be continued.)
New-York, Sept. 15, 1796.