Such is our conception and description, so far as the present occasion permits, of the manner of which music, as an accompaniment, when dealing with a definite content which is, as previously explained, set before it by means of a libretto, elaborates that aspect of it we have termed ideality. Inasmuch, however, as music is pre-eminently called up to do this in vocal music, and the human voice is added to this associated with instruments, it is customary to speak of instrumental music in a special sense as the music of accompaniment. It is no doubt true that it accompanies the voice, and should not either assert unqualified independence or claim an unqualified precedency. But for all that vocal music is placed, as thus associated, in a more direct relation still under the definition previously given of an accompanying tone. The voice expresses words articulate to the mind; and song is merely a fresh or additional modification of the content of these words, or in other words it is the explication of them in the language of the emotions. In the case of instrumental music, if taken by itself, the expression of imaged idea vanishes, and such music must necessarily confine itself to the means and modes of purely musical expression[463].
The discussion of these points suggests a third one, which, in conclusion, it is well not to overlook. I have previously drawn attention to the fact that the reality of a musical composition, in its full and vital embodiment, depends on a continually repeated reproduction. In this respect it is at a disadvantage as compared with sculpture and painting. The sculptor, no less than the painter, conceives a given work and executes it throughout. The entire artistic activity implied therein is centred in one single individual, and by this means absolute reciprocity between the creative idea and its execution is secured. The architect, on the contrary, is in a less favourable position, who, in carrying through all the variety of structure in a building, has to entrust such work to other hands than his own. The composer in a similar way, must leave the execution of his work to other hands and voices. But in his case there is this difference, that the execution, from the point of view of mere technique, no less than that of the vital spirit of his work, itself demands an artistic activity, not one of mere craftsmanship. In this respect we may in our own time, no less than previously in that of the older Italian opera, whereas in other arts there has been little or nothing fresh of the kind, point to a marvellous advance in two respects in music. The first is to be noted in the conception, the second in the increased virtuosity of execution. It is due to these results the very notion of what music implies and is able to perform has, even in the case of acknowledged experts, been increasingly enlarged[464].
We may now briefly summarize the heads of the concluding sections of this portion of our work.
First, we shall investigate more carefully music regarded as accompaniment, and raise the question with what modes of expression in a given content it is as a rule most compatible.
Secondly, it will be necessary to consider this question more closely as viewed in relation to musical composition that is exclusively independent.
Thirdly, our conclusion will be reached with a few observations upon artistic execution.
(a) Music as Accompaniment
It follows, as a necessary result of what I have already described as being the relative position of libretto and music, that, in this sphere of its activity, musical expression is compelled to concern itself far more exclusively with a defined content than in the alternative case where it is able to surrender itself without restraint to its own movement and inspiration. A libretto offers us to start with definite ideas, and compels the attention to forsake that field of more visionary emotion destitute of distinct idea, in which we are permitted to range without interruption, and are not forced to abandon our licence to receive from pure music whatever chance impression or wave of emotion it may arouse. In this act of artistic interlacery with words, however, it is not right that music should carry its loyalty so far as to impair the free course of its progressions, even though it do so with the object of emphasizing the full character of what is contained in the libretto. To do this is to employ the mere pedantry of learning, to adapt means of musical expression for the most faithful presentment possible of a content which is not in the first instance its own, but supplied it externally. It is to accept this artificial result rather than the creation of a real self-subsistent work of art. And to that extent we have here evidenced a definite check and hindrance to free artistic activity. It is equally wrong in the opposite extreme that music should, as is almost invariably the fashion with modern Italian composers, wholly emancipate itself from the contents of the libretto, as though its specific character were only a bond, and with no other aim than that of approaching independent music as closely as possible. The true function of such music is this. It ought to steep itself in the meaning of the expressed words, situation, or action, and by virtue of such impregnation, ideally conceived, discover therefrom a vitally arresting expression, and elaborate the same in terms congenial to art. That is the course followed by all great masters. They appropriate everything of vital interest in the words; but the stream of their music, the tranquil flow of the composition, remains for all that as free as ever. We acknowledge the natural growth of the music no less than its affinity to the text it illustrates. We would draw attention to three distinct types of expression all illustrative of this free spirit.
(α) To start with, there is that aspect of musical expression which we may describe as the truly melodic. We have here simply emotion, the utterance of soul itself, which, apart from anything else, finds self-enjoyment in such expression.
(αα) The domain here, in which the composer moves, is coincident with the human heart and the moods of the soul; and melody, which is the pure musical utterance of this inward world, is in the most profound sense the soul of music. Musical tone only attains to expression that is really vital when emotion is embodied in it or reflected in sound from it. Connected with this the purely natural cry of feeling, whatever it may be, of horror, for example, or the sobbing of grief, or the exclamation or outburst of uncontrolled jubilation, are themselves highly expressive; and indeed I have already referred to them as the starting-point of music, subject of course to the statement that art is unable to accept them under the mode of purely natural utterance. Here, too, we find a distinction between music and painting. The art of painting is frequently able to produce the most beautiful and artistic effect by its realization in every respect of the actual form, the colour and animation of a particular human being in some definite situation and environment, and its complete reflection of all that it has thus assimilated and received in its bare vitality. The truth of Nature, if presented conformably to artistic truth, is here entirely justified. But the art of music ought not thus to repeat emotional expression in the form it assumes as a purely natural utterance of passion; what it should do is to vitalize with the emotional forces musical sound elaborated under the definite conditions of its tonal progression, and to this extent resolve the expression in a medium of sound wholly created by art and inseparable from the artistic purpose, a medium in which the mere cry becomes a series of musical tones with a definite progression, the transitions and course of which are subject to the laws of harmony and unfolded in the completeness of a melodic phrase.