Music has been, I suppose, a gradual growth, subject to the law of evolution; as nearly everything, with the possible exception of theology, has been and is under this law.
Music may be divided into three kinds: First, the music of simple time, without any particular emphasis—and this may be called the music of the heels; second, music in which time is varied, in which there is the eager haste and the delicious delay, that is, the fast and slow, in accordance with our feelings, with our emotions—and this may be called the music of the heart; third, the music that includes time and emphasis, the hastening and the delay, and something in addition, that produces not only states of feeling, but states of thought. This may be called the music of the head,—the music of the brain.
Music expresses feeling and thought, without language. It was below and before speech, and it is above and beyond all words. Beneath the waves is the sea—above the clouds is the sky.
Before man found a name for any thought, or thing, he had hopes and fears and passions, and these were rudely expressed in tones.
Of one thing, however, I am certain, and that is, that Music was born of Love. Had there never been any human affection, there never could have been uttered a strain of music. Possibly some mother, looking in the eyes of her babe, gave the first melody to the enraptured air.
Language is not subtle enough, tender enough, to express all that we feel; and when language fails, the highest and deepest longings are translated into music. Music is the sunshine—the climate—of the soul, and it floods the heart with a perfect June.
I am also satisfied that the greatest music is the most marvelous mingling of Love and Death. Love is the greatest of all passions, and Death is its shadow. Death gets all its terror from Love, and Love gets its intensity, its radiance, its glory and its rapture, from the darkness of Death. Love is a flower that grows on the edge of the grave.
The old music, for the most part, expresses emotion, or feeling-, through time and emphasis, and what is known as melody. Most of the old operas consist of a few melodies connected by unmeaning recitative. There should be no unmeaning music. It is as though a writer should suddenly leave his subject and write a paragraph consisting of nothing but a repetition of one word like "the," "the," "the," or "if," "if." "if," varying the repetition of these words, but without meaning,—and then resume the subject of his article.
I am not saying that great music was not produced before Wagner, but I am simply endeavoring to show-the steps that have been taken. It was necessary that all the music should have been written, in order that the greatest might be produced. The same is true of the drama, Thousands and thousands prepared the way for the supreme dramatist, as millions prepared the way for the supreme composer.
When I read Shakespeare, I am astonished that he has expressed so much with common words, to which he gives new meaning; and so when I hear Wagner, I exclaim: Is it possible that all this is done with common air?