The Imitator: A Novel

by Percival Pollard

"You are going to be absurd," she said, though her voice was hardly a rebuke.

"And wouldn't I have excuse," he asked, "for all the absurdities in the world! I want to be as absurd as I can; I want to think that there's nothing in the world any uglier than—you."

"And will you dine off that thought?"

"Oh, no; that is merely one of the condiments. I keep that in reach, while the other things come and go. I tell you: how would it be if we began with a bisque of crab? The tenderest pink, you know, and not the ghost of any spice that you can distinguish; a beautiful, creamy blend."

"You make it sound delicious," she admitted.

"We take it slowly, you know, religiously. The conversation is mostly with the eyes. Dinner conversation is so often just as vapid as dinner-music! The only point in favor of dinner-music is that we are usually spared the sight of it. There is no truth more abused than the one that music must be heard and not seen. When I am king I mean to forbid any singing or playing of instruments within sight of the public; it spoils all the pleasure of the music when one sees the uglinesses in its execution."

"But people would not thank you if you kept the sight of Paderewski or De Pachmann from them."

"They might not thank me at first, but they would learn gratitude in the end, A contortionist is quite as oppressive a sight as an automaton. No; I repeat, performers of music should never, never be visible. It is a blow in the face of the art of music; it puts it on the plane of the theatre. What persons of culture want to do is to listen, to listen, to listen; to shut the eyes, and weave fancies about the strains as they come from an unseen corner. Is there not always a subtle charm about music floating over a distance? That is a case in point; that same charm should always be preserved. The pianist, the soloist of any sort, as well as the orchestra, or the band—except in the case of the regimental band, in battle or in review, where actual spectacle, and visible encouragement are the intention—should never be seen. There should always be a screen, a curtain, between us and the players. It would make the trick of music criticism harder, but it would still leave us the real judges. Take out of music criticism the part that covers fingering, throat manipulation, pedaling, and the like, and what have you left? These fellows judge what they see more than what they hear. To give a proper judgment of the music that comes from the unseen; that is the only test of criticism. There can be no tricks, no paddings."

"But the opera?" wondered the girl.

"The opera? Oh, the opera is, at best, a contradiction in terms. But I do not waive my theory for the sake of opera. It should be seen as little as any other form of music. The audience, supplied with the story of the dramatic action, should follow the incidents by ear, not by eye. That would be the true test of dramatic writing in music. We would, moreover, be spared the absurdity of watching singers with beautiful voices make themselves ridiculous by clumsy actions. As to comic opera—the music's appeal would suffer no tarnish from the merely physical fascination of the star or the chorus ... I know the thought is radical; it seems impossible to imagine a piano recital without long hair, electric fingers, or visible melancholia; opera with only the box-holders as appeals to the eye seems too good to be true; but—I assure you it would emancipate music from all that now makes it the most vicious of the arts. Painters do not expect us to watch them painting, nor does the average breed of authors—I except the Manx—like to be seen writing. Yet the musician—take away the visible part of his art, and he is shorn of his self-esteem. I assure you I admire actors much more than musicians; actors are frankly exponents of nothing that requires genius, while musicians pretend to have an art that is over and above the art of the composer.... Music—"