By beauty we understand the highest perfection of the single parts in a perfectly represented whole, and the most intimate union of the ideal with the material, i. e., of the spiritual with the formal, which must have as its basis a certain proportion and order in the position of the several parts as well as in their relation to the whole work. In the perception of the beautiful, everything must tend to awaken the feeling of repose and pleasure; and the more susceptible we are of the impression of the beautiful, the more shall we be disturbed by defects, even the least, in any work of art. The pleasure which we take in any work of art, which, however faultless in certain respects, shows any glaring defect, is greatly abridged. The ugly spot will absorb our attention and destroy the pure enjoyment of its beauty, and still more disagreeable will be the effect if the different parts, otherwise beautifully shaped, are thrown out of their due symmetry and proportion. In the successive arts, as music, the dramatic art, &c., proportion (Maassvolle) is an essential condition of beauty, more than in the simultaneous arts; and an artist whose technique is altogether perfect, and who can succeed in reproducing every emotion of the mind in his work, is a true artist only when he never transgresses by an excess of passion the fine boundary lines of beauty.
It is given to only a very few to recognize at once the high and beautiful in art. In most the sense of the beautiful awakens only with a riper spiritual development. It is thus the fruit of a higher stage of culture. To children and persons wholly uneducated a brightly painted picture-book is more beautiful than the Dresden Madonna, that great masterpiece of painting. And most people take greater pleasure in a waltz by Strauss or Lanner than in a symphony by Beethoven or Mozart. Beauty depends upon principles, i. e., rules and laws, which are founded in the nature of the human reason. The appreciation, therefore, of beauty accompanies the development in man of his reason.
Music, above all the other arts, finds the earliest and most universal recognition, and almost every one listens to it with pleasure. Helmholtz says that music is much more intimately related to our sensations than all the other arts put together. Tones touch the ear and are instantly felt to be agreeable or disagreeable, while the impressions of painting, poetry, &c., upon our senses must be brought to our consciousness, and be judged of there by comparison. But it is not only through the direct effect of tones, as it appears to me, but more through the life (Belebung) which animates it, that music comes so close to us, and is so natural and near of kin to us. That must needs be the most interior of the arts whose office it is to express the various moods of the human soul in their tenderest and most secret fluctuations. The incorporeal material of tone is far better fitted to express these different moods (Stimmungen) than it is possible for poetry to do. Peculiar, definite feelings it cannot, indeed, distinctly denote without the help of poetry. But it is this very indefiniteness that enables music so to insinuate itself into the soul of the hearer that the tones heard seem to be the expression of his own feelings, and not those of another. Hence it is that music, in its whole nature, acts beneficently and soothingly, because its ruling principle is always a striving after repose, after a rest in consonances, just as this is the innermost aim and struggle of our own life. In the other arts this is much less the case. Aristotle, in his twenty-seventh and twenty-ninth problems, distinguishes the influences of music as the expression of tones of feeling (Stimmungen), and not of definite feelings. And Brendel, who, in his history of music, holds to the order among the arts received by the Greeks, by which architecture takes the lowest place, then sculpture, painting, music, and, lastly, as the highest of the arts, poetry, remarks, that “Music, by virtue of its power to express the most delicate shades of sentiment, would certainly take the highest rank were it more definite.” It has always been attempted to extend the boundaries of music by calling in the assistance of painting and poetry. Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, etc., have imitated in their compositions the singing of birds, the rippling of water, storms, &c. And now our modern musicians of the future endeavor to express in tones definite thoughts and feelings, imagining that here a new epoch in art is to open. But these new compositions always require elaborate explanations. Music until now, at least, has not yet given up its ethereal, indefinite character.[ 18 ]
It is essential to the full effect of a work of art that the artist should create it, and the hearer or beholder should enjoy it, without thinking of the rules and laws of beauty. A work of art must act immediately upon the feelings; it must appear to be spontaneous, and must be felt without reference to any aim or plan. What is æsthetically beautiful pleases a cultivated taste at once without any reflex consideration. But when, by the help of the understanding, we seek to account for the harmony and perfection of the several parts, and find by more searching study that the work is in conformity to the laws of reason, our enjoyment will naturally be enhanced. But this study must always come as a consequence of the first effect upon the soul, otherwise all effect is wanting. The unconscious enjoyment of the legitimate in art is the first condition of the influence of the beautiful upon the soul. The happy, elevated feeling which all works of art immediately awaken in us is thus only an unconscious recognition of the reasonable, the harmonious, the symmetrical. But this unconscious impression is instantly disturbed by any, the least imperfection, before we perceive where and in what it consists, for the human mind is not able fully and at once to examine a production of art in its entirety to its minutest parts.
An artist must, therefore, be esteemed according as his works excite and ravish the hearers or beholders without their knowing why, and he stands all the higher the simpler and the more naturally—i. e., the more unconsciously—this takes place.
In order to reach such a height, and to be able to act upon the souls of men with an elevating and informing power, it is first of all necessary that an artist should cultivate the form, or the technique, of his art to its greatest possible perfection, and have such perfect command of it, that the practical application of it is as natural to him as to breathe. For empty and dead as all technical knowledge is unless it is animated with a soul, yet no product of art æsthetically beautiful is possible without a perfect technique.
But the culture of the technique in the art of singing requires a special faculty in the teacher, and, together with the finest power of observation, an ear, which not only perceives the purity of the tone, whether high or low, but feels also the direction of the aerial column, the too much or too little of the breath, the coloring of the timbre, &c. An æsthetically artistic education demands likewise that the singer should have the highest general culture. As soon as the technical education has advanced so far that it no longer makes any demand upon the attention of the learner, the infusion of life and soul into the singing must be begun. The teacher must then be so filled with the spirit of his art that he shall be able so to inspire his pupils that, forgetting themselves, they may be absorbed in the high ideal work of their art, and regard their well-trained voices simply as expressing the noblest and most varied sentiments (Stimmungen). And on this account a teacher should seek to act upon the souls of his pupils, and awaken in them above all things a feeling for the high and the noble, that they may be able to find the correct mode of expressing it in singing. It is a very hard but not impossible work to educate true artists, who, penetrated with faith in the high worth of their art, shall fulfil its aim by exercising a refreshing and elevating influence upon their fellow-men. But, in order to be able to form true artists, a teacher must be devoted without intermission to his own culture, scientific and general; must strive with pleasure, and love, and inspiration to accomplish the high work of his calling, and make the severest demands upon himself, before he can expect anything great of his pupils.
Having spoken of those parts of the technique of the art of singing which rest upon impregnable natural laws, such as the registers of the voice, the formation of tones in regard to strength, pitch, and timbre, &c., let us consider more closely those other parts of the technique which rest upon psychological, i. e., æsthetic principles (Motiven). To these belong Rhythm, Correct understanding of the Tempo, Composition, Execution, that is, the delivery of the sentiment of the composition, and the aids thereto.