The theories of the earlier musical philosophers of the nineteenth century were not so unlike these legends as they seemed at the time. These men had a limited historical outlook and were inclined to discredit, when they did not ignore, the music preceding that of Palestrina, just as the historians of painting before Ruskin’s time tended to regard all Italian painting before Raphael as mere experimental bungling. To these earlier philosophers music was a thing discovered rather than a thing evolved. In their view music had always existed in a sort of secret treasure house instituted by a beneficent creator for the edification of men. All melodies and harmonies were piled in there awaiting the explorations of musicians. The explorations were undertaken by the ‘inspired’ artists, those who had been endowed with finer ears and more daring imaginations. All musical history was a story of the development of music from its imperfect state among the primitives to its perfect state with Beethoven. This description may be exaggerated, but it is certain that the earlier theorists considered music as a self-existent thing, with its own laws and its own principles of beauty—laws and principles which must be discovered by the elect among artists instead of being evolved by the peoples. As to the impulse to song and to artistic creation in general they laid it to that mysterious thing, ‘inspiration.’
Schopenhauer’s theory has a modern ring and is excellent poetry even though it can hardly rank as science. He says that while the other arts—painting, sculpture, and architecture—represent the Idea, which is the reflection of the Will, music represents the Will itself. It is pure energy, the nearest thing that exists among men to the essence of reality.
With Darwin all this kind of speculation changed and the theories of musical origins became more a matter of biology than of music. Darwin traced the impulse to song to the love-making of animals and primitive man. He showed how in Nature beauty is continually being made the adjunct and servant of love—how the bird sings or the insect dances to attract its mate. Many theorists have sought to explain the whole of art as originating in the sexual impulse. But in this theory, as in all, there are data on both sides of the question and the explanation is interesting rather than valuable.
Herbert Spencer pursues the same biological line. But he traces the impulse to song from the surplus of energy in living things. Nature, as we know, is prodigal, producing thousands of eggs or seeds where she expects only scores of insects or plants to grow. And so she gives to each living thing more energy than is needed to keep it alive and healthy—or at least more energy than is needed all the time. With this surplus of energy something must be done. And that something among men is art. When a wild rose-bush is put in rich soil it grows a double rose and a larger one. And so, when a man has a little more than enough for his material needs, he attempts to decorate and beautify his surroundings. To Spencer the typical example of nascent art is the child who dances out of pure joy of life. But others object to this, saying that this dancing of the child (and all similarly spontaneous art) is lacking in the very quality which makes art—namely, discipline and control. It is selection and control, they say, which makes any work of art more than a mere daub of color or conglomeration of sounds.
Certainly the biological theories have not satisfactorily explained the second great element in artistic creation—the impulse to refinement. We have seen that once our typical folk-song was invented by the Roumanian peasant woman it could not stay as it was, but had to take new forms, changing continually, and, as we see it, usually for the better. What is it that makes men dissatisfied with a crude, formless melody and desirous of making it regular and organic? Perhaps it is no more than the impulse to play which children show when they arrange pebbles in new and strange shapes on the sand or savages when they daub their faces with new colors of war-paint. Again the surplus of energy? Perhaps. Perhaps when people have become familiar with their primitive melody they notice a peculiar turn of the phrase and take pleasure in seeing what they can do with it in the way of repeating it and inventing contrasting phrases. At any rate, there it is, this impulse to refinement, more mystery for the theorist and more entertainment for the music lover.
On the whole, these theories probably err in trying to simplify the case too much. More likely music has not one simple cause, but many interacting causes. Like every individual man whose ancestors are a multitude, song must be the result of many, many causes.
VI
We have been speaking chiefly of the folk-song, the fountain of all vocal music. But the art-song, that is, the song for a solo voice with instrumental accompaniment, which is quantitively but a small part of vocal music, is the special study of this book. For convenience we date the beginning of this art-song from Schubert, regarding the song writers who preceded him as mere experimenters. Accordingly, at the time of the writing of this book the art-song, one of the four or five great divisions of modern music, is hardly a century old.
It is, of course, a somewhat arbitrary division that separates the art-song from song as a whole. The arbitrary division is justified by its convenience. Schubert may fairly be said to have infused a new spirit into song writing and most of the songs written by established composers since his time have been written in his spirit. So we find an extensive and remarkably homogeneous song literature, the product of the last hundred years, which in its form and intent separates itself from the folk-song. The songs on the boundary line are few. The songs before Schubert which give any evidence of this recent spirit are hardly to be found at all. It is as though a new god had descended from the skies and taught a new kind of art to his creatures.
What is this distinction we draw between the folk-song and the art-song? The superficial elements of contrast are apt to be misleading, for, while most folk-songs are simple, many art-songs are simple, too; and, while many art-songs are irregular and peculiar, their irregularities are rarely so great as are to be found in the earlier folk-songs. The distinction must be sought in the spirit of the songs. It becomes more eloquent the more we study the two sorts. It forces us continually to seek further back for the true character of each, so that at last it seems as though we needed two different souls for the singing of them. The folk-song speaks for man in the mass; the art-song speaks for man the individual. For the folk-song, let us always remember, was composed not by an individual, but by a mass, each member of which may have contributed one or more of its beauties. If it had sung of a joy or sorrow which belonged exclusively to its original singer, it would have held no interest for other people and would have died with its composer. Those folk-songs were, of course, most popular which spoke for the interests and emotions of the greatest number of men. We can justly say that those folk-songs are greatest which sing of the things that are common to all men in such a way that they can be understood by all men. But in the composition of the art-song precisely the opposite influences are dominant. The composer, if he is to make his mark in the art world, must not write exactly like other composers, but must distinguish his work in some way. He must call attention to himself or his work by writing in a style that is not quite like anybody else’s. Fashionable or critical audiences will pay little attention to the man who seems merely to be repeating what a greater man has written before him; these audiences continually crave a novelty or a sensation. Everything forces the conscious composer in these days to be as personal as possible. His song then expresses the feelings of one individual in one particular style.