“So I see, but I’m sure none could play it exactly as you would feel it.”
Adele knew this to be true; no one could really accompany the songs she really loved so completely to her own satisfaction as herself, that was the way she had learned to love them.
“You won’t be offended if I do?”
Semple responded at once and stood beside her, but he felt intensely curious to know exactly why, since she was so different from many, she desired to do so with this particular piece,—the accompaniment did not appear to be especially exacting, so he asked her about the peculiarities of the composition.
“I like to be near the composer, near as I can,” was all she said in reply, and without further ado seated herself at the instrument.
Some noticing her movement were disappointed, others delighted; the latter were those who loved music which came from the heart,—the former those who admired what came from the head.
The Doctor asked her father if she preferred to accompany herself. “Only at times,” said the Professor, and he appeared rather serious himself when he observed the mood she was in. It would probably be Adele at her best, but by no means likely to command the most general appreciation. Then he told the Doctor: “She knows that head and heart must work together as one if any true emotion is to come with the music, and she thinks this is such a subtle matter in her own case that she must become as near like the composer himself as she possibly can to render the music as he originally conceived and felt it. She insists that every good song is fundamentally emotional, the spirit dominating the art. To get close to this spirit in the piece, to become the composer and try to re-create the piece, is what she is after. One soul and mind, the voice soul and the artistic accompaniment; both had come originally from one creative source, the composer, whose whole being must have throbbed with one emotion when he wrote the piece if worth anything. Those who would really feel the same emotion must try to be like him and follow him in spirit and in truth. She wishes to reproduce the intimate sympathetic blending of voice and accompaniment which the composer had felt when he wrote the song.”
“How intensely she must feel!” said the Doctor, pensive, and turned to listen, giving attention to the singer to recognize her personality as creator for the time being of the song,—the singer giving new life, a renaissance or resurrection to the song.
What Adele sang was a melody by Gounod with simple chords in the accompaniment, the piano filling in like a second voice when her own was not prominent. The second voice sang with her, that is, to her and for her, and the two blended as one, a veritable duet of heart and head as one. The piano gave the atmosphere in which the melody lived, moved and had its being, and the melody itself was the voice of a living soul singing in truth and purity.
To sing it as she did required intense mental effort, herself under admirable control;—the dominating emotional spirit within. It was the divine art, the purity in the art, hence divine in origin. Art dominated by the Spirit of Truth that is Holy, in Music. Music as Truth, for a religious fervor lay deep within the song. It was the overflow of her own feelings which others heard and felt, yet she sang as if no one was present,—none,—herself alone,—Adele an Idyl. As she continued, the melody seemed to gain in spiritual significance, so pure, so true, so simply lovely, the good, true and beautiful, as one, a trinity of inner experience, and thus possessing a high spiritual significance. All who heard, associated with her voice their own best thoughts. They “became one” with her,—and while she thus led them towards higher and better things, the melody soared upon the wings of a dove, rising as if nearing the celestial choir. It did not diminish, grow less, nor die away, but passed from hearing; it was heard, and then it was not heard, gone—gone to live among the melodies of immortality, for the truth in her music had made it an immortal song—none could ever forget, neither her, her song, nor how she sang it.