Because of this alien character of pronounced originality, high-priestly honors are usually posthumous, for they are bestowed only upon those who have convinced the musical world of their fitness through the life-long, patient, and intelligent use of supreme endowments. It is the musical world only that has the power to confer high-priestly honors, for that office is not at the disposal of composers' friends or adherents, nor of parties or clans. One must have gained universal recognition as a beneficent and radically new factor in art in order to secure the requisite suffrages, and that requires so much time that but two of our six high-priests lived to realize the honor. Even Beethoven did not live to feel full assurance of immortality, but Wagner did. He knew that his innovations had been accepted by the world, that his achievements broadened the foundations of art and opened new channels for musical thought, that his individuality shone brightly across the broad sea of modern culture, a "beacon-light" of resplendent brightness, and that he was a period-maker, whose impress upon art was too deep to wear away, for he was a musician who abated not one jot or tittle of that which he thought was art's due.
This working throughout life for posthumous honors is not so depressing as it would seem at first glance, for any man, however modest, if blessed with supreme endowments, must feel his power, and be buoyed up by the certainty of ultimate recognition. The art love, steadfastness, ambition, individuality, and imagination of truly great men are proof against the struggles and discouragements of the artist's existence.
Time is then our final tribunal, the only adjuster of musical values who makes no errors in judgment. The individual judge gauges the merits of contemporaneous composers, guided by his or her personal impressions. Time gathers composite impressions made upon races of music-lovers during decades, and her verdicts, based upon these impressions, are final. We are sometimes nonplussed, and even rebellious, when the success of our favorite composer, or of some especially sympathetic piece of music, proves ephemeral, but the fittest always survives, and the fittest is the composer or work which, in addition to the indispensable technical and æsthetic qualities, is pervaded by the richest vein of altruistic individuality.
If time be our final tribunal, then professional critics are the advocates who present the claims of artists at the bar of her court. These advocates differ widely in ability and in character. A few of them have great learning, acute perceptions, and honesty; they will advocate no cause that is prejudicial to the interests of art, our muse having, as it were, endowed them with a super-retainer. Such advocacy embodies the highest and best of which the limitations of individuality admit. From this ideal standard professional critics grade downward until they reach assertive, prejudiced, and sometimes malicious ignorance. In passing down the scale we first find capacity without the essential confidence in convictions (timid ability is always a weak factor in adjusting affairs, whether artistic or material), then honesty and good-will unsupported by capacity, then capacity biassed by prejudice or self-interest, and last and worst, the pettifogger. These classes show arrogance, and attract attention (temporarily) in inverse ratio to their abilities. If we scan the history of our tribunal, we find that the more assertive the advocate the smaller his sphere of influence.
The great public is the jury in this court, and its decisions, although ultimately wise and just, are always so delayed by the babel of pleas that dins in its ears, that I feel justified in devoting a little space to these "moulders of opinion," and to facilitate my purpose will use a simile drawn from nature, which is less whimsical and more reliable than man.
Music is like a sensitive plant,—it flourishes only when each and every condition is favorable to its growth. For this reason those who find pleasure, edification, and comfort in its subtle qualities should imitate the skilled gardener in his watchful and discriminating culture of flowers. A professional gardener is to horticulture what a critic should be to art. Each is supposed to bring trained faculties to his task, but the gardener, familiar with the principles that govern flower growth, studies the natures of his germs, and then adapts soil, temperature, etc., to the requirements of each. He thus starts out with one material advantage over his art confrère, in that his experience enables him to recognize the genera of his germs and to anticipate results. He deals with seeds, roots, slips, and bulbs; the art critic with the mysteries of individuality, of which he most often judges from the impressions made upon his susceptibilities by a momentary contact of its outward manifestations. These manifestations are seldom full and trustworthy indexes of creative capacity, especially in the cases of young composers, because of the unfavorable conditions that so often attend upon their development and presentation.
Communities are gardens in which music thrives, barely exists (the most common condition), or entirely fails to take root. Propagation is the crucial test of vitalizing qualities. A community that can produce new varieties, really audacious talents, must possess a high degree of fertility. The composers to be found living and creating in any given place are therefore reflections of their musical environment, for the faculties of musical organisms are more sensitive even than music itself. Transplanted music will continue to exist under conditions that afford no incitement to earnest creation, nor the elements from which virility may be drawn. Beethoven's works interest communities in which his faculties would have remained latent.
The legitimate functions of criticism are to seek out and to nurture true talent and to guide public discrimination in its initial judgment. Critics and reviewers are experts to whose expressed opinions the printing-press imparts degrees of convincing power not always comportable with their merit, and spreads them broadcast for good or ill. Printed criticism, because of this cogent quality, and because it appeals, and may repeatedly appeal,—being in fixed form,—to so broad a radius of intelligence, should be the most powerful as well as the most active agency in creating the conditions essential to musical growth; but a careful review of the past and present relations of criticism to art culture would, to my mind, convince any unbiassed thinker that the decision of our court had been delayed and not facilitated by the average advocate, and that the productivity of our garden had never been increased by the ministrations of professional gardeners.
Nevertheless, printed criticism has a momentary influence. We do not necessarily surrender when confronted by criticisms at variance with our own ideas, but the undue weight with which printed matter is endowed often causes even expert opinion to waver, protest to the contrary as it may.
Printed news is not always authentic, nor are printed opinions on finance, political economy, sports, weather, etc., infallible, although usually written by specialists; but these matters, being material, adjust themselves, and their editorial short-comings seldom do irreparable harm; whereas our sensitive art, the elements of which are emotional, and the supersensitive organisms which are blessed with art productivity, are less capable of recovering from the shock incident to misconception and misrepresentation.