Essays, or discourses, vol. 2 (of 4)

by Benito Jerónimo Feijoo

XIX. Is not this attempting to banish from music, all enlivening chearfulness, except that which savours of the puerile and buffoon? Music may be exceedingly chearful, and at the same time, impregnated with a majestic gravity, capable of exciting in the hearers, affections of respect and devotion: or, to speak more properly, the most chearful and delectable music of all, is that which induces a sweet tranquillity in the soul; collecting it within itself, and let us say, elevating it with a kind of extatic rapture, superior to the body it is attached to; that the mind may take a flight, towards the mansions of bliss, and contemplate divine things in a nearer point of view. This is the sort of chearful music, which St. Austin approved as useful in churches, and which he treated St. Athanasius with excessive severity for having objected to; because its proper effect, is elevating those hearts to noble affections, which are oppressed and weighed down with earthly inclinations: Ut per hæc oblectamenta aurium infirmior animus in affectum pietatis assurgat. (Lib. 10. Confess. cap. 32.)

XX. It is true, that the masters capable of forming this noble kind of melody, are very few; but those who can’t attain this degree of perfection, should content themselves with doing something less; taking care however, that their compositions should tend to excite such dispositions, as are suitable to divine offices; or at least being careful, that they should not conduce to promote inclinations of an opposite nature; and at all events, although it should be at the hazard of disobliging the multitude, to shun those skittish sort of airs, which have a certain occult relation to forbidden affections; but of the two evils into which church music is in danger of falling, that of its being offensive to the ears, is a less mischief, than that of its being an incentive to vice.

XXI. The power of music to stir the passions, and raise in the minds of men, dispositions to virtue or vice, is very well known. It is related of Pythagoras, that, having by music adapted to produce such an effect, inflamed the heart of a certain youth to a dishonourable amour, he afterwards, by changing the tone, reduced him to the dominion of continence. It is also related of Timotheus, a musician of Alexander the Great, that he could irritate the martial fury of that prince to such a degree, that he would seize on his arms, and put himself in an attitude, as if his enemies were in front, and he on the point of charging them. This effect, however, was the less surprising, because the natural disposition of the prince, conspired to assist the skill of the artist. Some add, that after having enraged, he calmed him; and caused Alexander, who never turned his back on any danger, to become a fugitive from his own rage. But what is told of the power of another musician, which was exercised on Henry II. King of Denmark, called the Good, is more extraordinary than all this; for it is said, that by a movement and touch, calculated to excite choler, he inflamed the rage of that prince to such a degree, that he fell upon, and put to death, three or four of his domestics, and would have carried the havoc and devastation still further, if he had not been restrained by violence. This was the more wonderful, because the king’s natural disposition, was gentle and peaceable.

XXII. I don’t imagine the musicians of these times can perform such miracles, neither perhaps did the antient ones; for these histories are not extracted from Holy Writ. It is however certain, that music, according as the melody is varied, induces in the mind a variety of dispositions, some good, others bad. With one we find ourselves moved to sorrow, with another to mirth; with one to clemency, with another to blood; with one to fortitude, with another to pusillanimity; and so on with respect to other inclinations.

XXIII. There is no doubt of the justness of this remark; neither is there any, that a master, who composes for the church, should dispose the music in such a way, and write it in such a stile, as is best calculated to promote the spiritual welfare of souls; and to sustain the majesty, decorum, and solemnity of divine worship. St. Thomas, touching upon this point, says, the chant was a salutary institution in the church, because it excited sickly souls, that is, such as were weak in spirit, to devotion. But, alas! what would the saint say, if he was to hear in the church some of the airs of these times, which, so far from fortifying the sick, enfeeble the healthy; which, instead of promoting devotion in the breast, banish it from the soul; and instead of elevating the mind to pious reflections, bring to the memory forbidden things? I repeat it again, that it is an obligation on musicians, and a very serious one, to correct this abuse.

XXIV. Truly, when I reflect on the serious turn of mind for which Spaniards heretofore were remarkable, I can’t help being struck with amazement, to find at present, that we can relish no other but puppet-shew music. This looks as if the celebrated Spanish gravity, was reduced to nothing more, than stalking stiff and erect up and down the street. The Italians, by means of the false flattering insinuation, that music has been improved of late days, have made us the slaves of their taste. I, for my own part, believe what they call improvement, to be ruin and destruction, or something very near it. All intellectual arts, of whose excellencies, the understanding and the taste, cloathed with an equal degree of authority are judges, have their points, or zenith of perfection, which when they are once arrived at, he who attempts to advance them, commonly occasions their decline, and puts them in a train, which leads to their destruction.

XXV. It will perhaps, with respect to the science of music, happen to Italy very soon, if it has not happened there already, just as it happened to it with regard to the Latin language, oratory, and poetry. These faculties, in the age of Augustus, arrived to that state of propriety, beauty, elegance, and natural energy, in which their true perfection consisted. Those who succeeded to that age, pretended, by the violent introduction of improper ornaments, to refine them; by doing which, they precipitated them from Nature to affectation, and from thence they afterwards fell into barbarism. The poets who succeeded Virgil, and the orators who succeeded Cicero, were thoroughly persuaded in themselves, that they had given new graces, and new excellencies to the two arts; but the keen Petronius Arbiter, after upbraiding them with their ridiculous and pompous affectation, told them very plainly, what in reality they had done: Vos primi omnium eloquentiam perdidistis.

SECT. VII.

XXVI. To see whether the music of these times suffers the same shipwreck, which the before-named sciences underwent; let us examine, in what the music, which is now practised, differs from that of the antecedent age. The first and most remarkable distinction which occurs, is the diminution of the figures. The shortest points which were formerly known, were demi-semi quavers; and with them, it was imagined, they had given to the execution of the chant, and the instruments, as great a degree of velocity, as without doing violence to both, they were capable of attaining. This did not seem sufficient, and a little while afterwards, they invented dividing the demi-semi quavers into thirds, by which means, the movement became one part in three quicker than it was before. The extravagance of composers did not stop here, for they doubled the demi-semi quavers, and made a movement, that, for its rapidity, seems to have gone beyond the reach of imagination, which can scarce conceive, how it is possible, in the compass of a bar, to articulate or express sixty-four points. I don’t know whether before this age, any double demi-semi quavers ever appeared figured in any composition; except it was in the song of the Risuenor, which father Kircher, in the middle of the last century, caused to be printed, in the first book of his Musurgia Universalis; and I am even inclined to think, that solfa savours of the hyperbolic; for it is not easy to persuade me, that that bird, with all his agility and flexibility of throat, could articulate sixty-four points, in the space of raising and falling the hand, within the compass of regular time.

XXVII. I now say, this diminution of figures, instead of perfectioning music, entirely spoils and ruins it; for two reasons: the first is, that it will be very difficult to find a person, who either with the voice, or an instrument, is capable of executing points of such velocity. The before-cited father Kircher, says, that having made some compositions which were out of the common track, and of difficult execution, (though I believe they were not so difficult as those which are now the fashion) he could not find in all Rome, a singer capable of performing them. How then can you expect to find in every province, and in every cathedral, instrumental performers and singers, who, in exact time, and with the due intonation, are capable of executing these exceeding minute figures; and to this difficulty, we may likewise add, that of the many extravagant flights and jumps, which at present are the fashion also. To articulate such a solfa, requires a throat of prodigious volubility; and to express such music on an instrument, demands admirable agility, and dexterity of hand; and, therefore, such compositions are only fit for one or two very singular executionists, which may be found in this or that particular court; but they should not be printed for the use of the world at large; for the same singer, who, with a natural and easy solfa, would give pleasure to the hearers, would, by attempting these difficult passages, distract them; and from the same hand, by which a sonata, of easy execution, would sound delightsome and sweet, one of arduous difficulty would sound like the talking of gibberish.