A new phase in the development of the symphony appears in César Franck, whose musical lineage reaches back over the whole range of symphonic development and beyond. His spirit is mediæval. In his one symphony rhythm plays a lesser part, and one feels the music to be quite withdrawn from the vivid movement of life, and to live in a realm of its own. Franck was one of those rare spirits who remain untainted by the world. His symphony is a spiritual adventure; other symphonies are full of the actions and reactions of the real world in which their composers lived. This action and reaction always depends for its expression in music on the play and inter-play of rhythmic figures. Franck’s symphony broods over the world of the spirit; his least successful themes are those based on action.
III. CHAMBER MUSIC AS AN INTRODUCTION TO SYMPHONIES
My object in writing all this about the form and substance of the symphony, and in drawing comparisons between it and the novel or poetry, has not been to lead my readers to understand music through the other arts, for by themselves such comparisons are of small value. I have dwelt on these common characteristics of the arts because they exist, because they illuminate each other, and at the same time because they are too little considered. The only way to understand music is to practice it, or, failing that, to hear it under such conditions as will permit a certain opportunity for reflection. We are incapable of understanding symphonic music chiefly because we have so little practice in doing so. An occasional symphony concert is not enough. How shall this difficulty be overcome? There is a natural way out, and it consists in what is called “chamber music.” A piece of chamber music is a sort of domestic symphony. A string quartette, a pianoforte or violin sonata, a trio, quartette, quintette, etc.,—these are all little symphonies; the form is almost identical, the same devices of rhythm, melody, harmony, counterpoint, and so forth, are employed. In chamber music paucity of idea cannot be covered up by luxury of tone color; everything is exposed; so that only the greatest composers have written fine music in this form. Now, if in every community there were groups of people who played chamber music together, and if these would permit their friends to attend when they practice, the symphony would soon find plenty of listeners. Such rehearsals would give an opportunity to hear difficult passages played over and over again; there would be time for discussion, and, above all, for reflection. Every town and village should have a local chamber-music organization giving occasional informal concerts. Under these circumstances a sympathetic intimacy would soon be established between the performers and listeners and the music itself. The inevitable and indiscriminate pianoforte lesson is an obstacle to this much desired arrangement. Some of our children should be taught the violin or the violoncello in preference to the pianoforte. Then the family circle could hear sonatas for violin and pianoforte by Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, or Brahms, and would accomplish what years of attendance at symphony concerts could not bring about. Chamber music has the great advantage of being simple in detail; one can easily follow the four strands of melody in a string quartette, whereas the orchestra leaves one breathless and confused. The practice of chamber music by amateurs would be one of the very best means of building up true musical taste. I cannot dwell too insistently on the fact that the majority of those people who do not care for such music would soon learn to care for it if they had opportunities to listen to it under such conditions as I have described. The argument proves itself, without the evidence—plentiful enough—of individuals who have gone through the experience. Furthermore, by cultivating music in this way, we should gradually break down some of the social conditions which now operate against the art. If we all knew more about it and loved it for itself, we should give over our present adulation of technique. We should put the performer where he belongs as an interpreter of a greater man’s ideas. By our uncritical adulations we place him on far too high a pedestal.
IV. THE PERFORMER AND THE PUBLIC
I have spoken of certain social conditions which affect music unfavorably. There has been always a certain outcry against music because of its supposed emotionalism. The eye of cold intelligence, seeing the music-lover enthralled by a symphony, raises its lid in icy contempt for such a creature of feeling. The sociologist, observing musical performers, wonders why music seems to affect the appearance and the conduct of some of them so unfavorably. The pedagogue, who has his correct educational formula which operates like an adding-machine, and automatically turns out a certain number of mechanically educated children, each with a diploma clutched in a nervous hand—he tolerates music because it makes a pleasant break in diploma-giving at graduation time, and because it pleases the parents. The business man leaves music to his wife and daughters and is willing to subscribe to a symphony orchestra provided he does not have to go to hear it play. Now, if the sociologist would put himself in the place of the singer, who, endowed by nature with a fine voice, is able, on account of a public indifferently educated in music, to gain applause and an undue source of money, even though he has never achieved education of any sort whatever—if the sociologist would but think a little about sociology, he would perhaps finally understand that he himself is very likely at fault. For it is very likely that he knows almost nothing of this art which is one of the greatest forces at his disposal. He is, perhaps, one of the large number of persons who make musical conditions what they are. Public performers are the victims, not the criminals. We must remember of old how disastrous has been the isolation of any class of workers from their fellows.
I have referred in this and in the preceding chapters to certain unities in symphonic music—in its several elements of rhythm, melody, and harmony, and in the whole. I have said that every object is unified in itself, and that it is a part of a greater whole. In this sense a symphony is a living thing; every member of it has its own function, and contributes a necessary part to the whole. But is not this equally true if we carry the argument into life itself and say: Here is a thing of beauty created by man; it is a part of him—one of his star-gleams; can he be complete if he loses it altogether? Can his spirit hope for freedom if he depends on his mind alone? Is the satisfaction of intellectual or material achievement enough? Would he not find in music a realm where he would breathe a purer air and be happier because he would leave behind him all those unanswerable questions which forever cry a halt to his intelligence? Moral idealism is not enough for the spirit of men and women, for, humanity being what it is, morality is bound to crystallize into dogma. The Puritans were moral in their own fashion, but they were as far away from what man’s life ought to be—under the stars, and with the flowers blooming at his feet—as were the gay courtiers whom they despised. Intellectual idealism is not enough, because it lacks sympathy. We all need something that shall be entirely detached from life and, at the same time, be wholly true to it. Our spirit needs some joyousness which objects, ideas, or possessions cannot give it. We must have a world beyond the one we know—a world not of jasper and diamonds, but of dreams and visions. It must be an illusion to our senses, a reality to our spirit. It must tell the truth in terms we cannot understand, for it is not given to us to know in any other way.
FOOTNOTE:
[12] The reason for this is one to which I referred in the chapter on “The Opera”—namely, that a work of art must not overstrain the capacities of those human beings for whom it was intended.