Music and Its Masters

by O. B. Boise

Although these ancient scientific treatises afford no clues to the actual spirit and form of contemporaneous musical utterances, they do bespeak the presence of interest and respect. As I have shown, this condition was of no service in China, but as the Egyptian and Greek people and culture were of a quite different substance and mould, we may safely infer that their efforts were important features in this preparatory era.

The light which we are enabled to throw backward over the line of musical evolution is drawn from the following sources: 1, the nature of music itself, and the first purposeful use of its germs; 2, its present condition among barbarous peoples; 3, profane history of ancient Egypt; 4, its development in pace with that of the Aryan race; and, 5, Biblical references (to which I shall devote a separate chapter).

NATURE OF MUSIC

It is a gross misconception to regard music as merely a "concord of sweet sounds," for that would be a barren art which had no contrasting features. Much great music is not beautiful, for it may be tragical, sombre, or may voice any of the moods incident to life. Euphony was doubtless one of the last developed qualities, for it springs from joy, love, or reverence. We must look among the coarser emotions for the germ which was first used in tone expression.

In that prehistoric time, at the beginning of what might be called soul tenantry, man, whether created or evolved, being the first of his line, had no fruits of human experience to guide him, and his emotional status could therefore have differed little from that of the higher grades of soulless creatures. We learn from history that since it began its annals animal nature has remained virtually unchanged, whereas man, because possessed of a higher grade of intellect and a definite recognition of Deity, in one form or another, has refined and broadened the scope of his impulses and understanding. As it is the first subjective, and not objective, manifestation of tone expression that we are seeking, we cannot do better than to scan this feature of animal life.

Such manifestations result from the sequential co-operation of emotion, reason, and impulse. Animals have their growls, roars, and trumpetings of anger and defiance, and many of them have forms of expressing affection, but these latter are acquired through experience, whereas they instinctively appeal to agencies outside themselves for relief from pain or want, employing means the efficacy of which they recognize. If we turn to humankind, we find that the new-born babe will express its desire for food long before it becomes responsive to its mother's endearments.

I, therefore, assume that pleading was the first purposeful, premeditated form of tonal communication, and, consequently, that it was the nucleus about which experience and culture have gathered such ample resources. (This term, tonal communication, applies equally well to our formulated art, for music is invariably addressed by its creator to some intelligence, whether it be a person, the world, or God.)

This first developed element has never relinquished its prominence, for it is the mood which most often pervades the composer's tone pictures. We find it depicted, as prompted by each and all phases of human insufficiency, appealing to appropriate sources for relief,—the oppressed entreating the tyrant, the lover the object of his affection, and the finite world, prostrate before Infinity, pouring its hopes and aspirations into the Divine ear.