writes Edgar Allan Poe. Lastly, one may speak quite correctly of “musical laughter,” because it sounds like music.
Taking the signification in which the term is applied and almost exclusively employed in German, a musical person is one who manifests an inclination for music by a nice discrimination and sensitiveness with regard to the technical aspects of the art. By “technics” I mean rhythm, harmony, intonation, part-leading, and the treatment of themes. The more subtleties he is capable of hearing or reproducing in these, the more “musical” he is held to be.
In view of the great importance attached to these elements of the art, this “musical” temperament has naturally become of the highest consequence. And so an artist who plays with perfect technical finish should be deemed the most musical player. But as we mean by “technics” only the mechanical mastery of the instrument, the terms “technical” and “musical” have been turned into opposites.
The matter has been carried so far as to call a composition itself “musical,”[K] or even to assert of a great composer like Berlioz that he was not sufficiently musical.[L] “Unmusical” conveys the strongest reproach; branded thus, its object becomes an outlaw.[M]
In a country like Italy, where all participate in the delights of music, this differentiation becomes superfluous, and the term corresponding is not found in the language. In France, where a living sense of music does not permeate the people, there are musicians and non-musicians; of the rest, some “are very fond of music,” and others “do not care for it.” Only in Germany is it made a point of honor to be “musical,” that is to say, not merely to love music, but more especially to understand it as regards its technical means of expression, and to obey their rules.
A thousand hands support the buoyant child and solicitously attend its footsteps, that it may not soar aloft where there might be risk of a serious fall. But it is still so young, and is eternal; the day of its freedom will come.—When it shall cease to be “musical.”
*
**
The creator should take over no traditional law in blind belief, which would make him view his own creative endeavor, from the outset, as an exception contrasting with that law. For his individual case he should seek out and formulate a fitting individual law, which, after the first complete realization, he should annul, that he himself may not be drawn into repetitions when his next work shall be in the making.
The function of the creative artist consists in making laws, not in following laws ready made. He who follows such laws, ceases to be a creator.
Creative power may be the more readily recognized, the more it shakes itself loose from tradition. But an intentional avoidance of the rules cannot masquerade as creative power, and still less engender it.