Now, the general function of music may be stated in a single word—to be beautiful. It is the one art in which no human being can raise the false issue of a direct ethical influence. It allows absolutely no scope for the confusion of thought, which, on one side, brought Madame Bovary into the law-courts, and, on the other, has taught the British public to regard as a great religious teacher the ingenious gentleman who illustrated the Contes Drolatiques. Of course, all contemplation of pure beauty is ennobling, and in this sense music may have the same indirect moral bearing as a flower or a sunset or a Greek statue. But of immediate moral bearing it has none. It means nothing, it teaches nothing, it enforces no rule of life, and prescribes no system of conduct. All attempts to make it descriptive have ended in disaster: all attempts to confine it to mere emotional excitement have ended in degradation. Grant that nations and individuals of imperfect musical experience have not advanced beyond the emotional aspect: that Plato had to prohibit certain modes as intemperate, that governments have had to prohibit certain melodies as dangerous. In almost all such cases it will be found that the music in question is vocal, and that more than half the stimulus is due to its words or its topic. Considered in and by itself, the ultimate aim and purpose of the art is to present the highest attainable degree of pure beauty in sound.
For the fulfilment of this purpose, the first and most obvious requisite is an entire command over materials and method. Nothing is more ugly than palpable failure: nothing more likely to destroy confidence than an appearance of uncertainty or vacillation. In many of our so-called popular song-tunes, we can lay our finger on some place where the composer was in evident difficulty: where he inserts an awkward or irrelevant phrase, because, like an unskilful chess-player, he can only extricate himself by breaking his design. Again, in ill-written harmony, we shall often find poor or hollow chords inserted, not because the composer wanted them, but because he could find no other way of resolving their predecessors. Of course, it will sometimes happen that a great, though imperfect master will stray from his appointed domain, and wander for a moment in unfamiliar territory. The fugue in Dvořák's Requiem is conspicuously unsuccessful, but it need not affect our estimate of the 'Dies Iræ' or the 'Recordare Jesu pie.' We only feel it a pity that the artist who can do such magnificent work in his own style, should be forced by convention into a manner for which he has no aptitude. In structure the first movement of Chopin's Pianoforte Trio is as badly drawn as some of the later Correggios: but the error, though more fundamental than that of Dvořák, only circumscribes the master's province, without overrunning it. We remember the circumstances under which the Trio was written, and turn aside to the Études and the Nocturnes. One genuine success in art is enough to outweigh a thousand failures: but the difference between failure and success remains unimpaired.
At the same time, it is most important that we should recognise the necessary limitations to which musical expression is subject. It is idle for us to go about lamenting, like the fool in Rabelais, that 'there is no better bread than that which can be made with wheat.' Our scale is notoriously a rough approximation in which only certain types of melodic curve are possible. Our harmony is often reduced to a choice between two incompatible alternatives: the striking chord required by the context, or the smooth progression required by the parts. In such cases the test lies ready to hand. Is the material difficult? Let us see how the great masters have treated it. Are the options mutually exclusive? Let us see which of them makes for organism of structure and general effectiveness of function. We have no right to pass final criticism on any detail of a work until we have heard the whole: and even then our judgment must depend on some knowledge of precedents and parallels. The chief danger of 'a little learning' is its predisposition to intolerance.
If unskilfulness be the death of style, cleverness is among the most insidious of its diseases. Nothing in all literature is more exasperating than that 'cult of the unusual word' which arises now and again as a periodic fashion. Whether it take the form of the sham-antiquarianism which has been happily nicknamed from Wardour Street, or of an ostentatious acquaintance with the by-ways of the dictionary, or of the unsynonymous synonyms of the country journalist, it is in equal measure the sign-manual of euphuism and affectation. No doubt the unusual word may have a perfectly legitimate employment. It may carry a metaphor, it may complete a rhythm, it may make a point of colour: and in all such instances it is justified by the purpose that it achieves. But if it is merely unusual, it had far better be left out altogether. We do not think very highly of a verse-writer who invariably says 'quaff' instead of 'drink,' because 'quaff' is poetical and 'drink' is commonplace.
The same is true of musical euphuism. A recondite chord is of absolutely no value in itself; its whole worth depends on its purpose and its context. A fresh twist in the shape of a melody is only beautiful if the preceding curve leads up to it. For instance, we appear to be passing, at the present day, through a period of feverish activity in the invention of new cadences. Now a new cadence in the hands of a master like Brahms or Parry is a delight, for, with all its novelty, we feel that it is the logical outcome of the passage from which it springs. It is only necessary to quote the close of the first stanza in the Schicksalslied or of the 'Sacrificial Chorus' in Judith, or the brilliant practical joke of the 'Æschylus Motif' in the Frogs. Again, the new cadences of Grieg and Dvořák are always charming, because they are in exact harmony with the chromatic style which is natural to those two writers. But when inferior composers attempt the same thing, they only produce results which are crude and incongruous, or, at worst, make their exit on a mechanical epigram, in which the head of one platitude is appended to the tail of another. Indeed, self-consciousness is only a more subtle form of unskilfulness. The 'clever' artist is like the enchanter's servant in the old story, possessing just enough magic to raise the spirit, but not enough to keep it under control.
It now follows to consider more directly the manner in which the influence of Music is exercised. And first, we may notice that the art, as appealing primarily to the ear, necessarily involves a fixed continuity in time, and so, in a sense, is always throwing our attention forward to its issue. The conditions under which we apprehend a picture, and those under which we apprehend a melody, are entirely different; the former enables us to follow the constituent parts in any order we choose, the latter binds us to a settled and irreversible sequence. Indeed, so firmly is this law established, that we are notoriously incapable of recalling the most familiar tune backwards, and are even in some straits to recognise a fugue-subject when it appears 'cancrizans,' as it does, for instance, in the Finale of the Hammerclavier Sonata. Hence a great part of the effect of Music is prospective, and depends upon the particular way in which it rouses and satisfies an attitude of expectation.
This method may roughly be classified under three heads. First, the Music may give us precisely what we should naturally anticipate; in other words, it may suggest some coming resolution or cadence, and proceed to it at once without interruption. Everyone remembers the æsthetic damsels, in Mr Du Maurier's picture, who 'never listen to Mendelssohn, because there are no wrong notes.' They were unconsciously enunciating an important piece of scientific criticism. For Mendelssohn never disappoints, and never surprises; his style flows on as placidly as a level stream in a pastoral country, and the hearer floats down it with no effort of intelligence, with no expectation of adventure, knowing that even beyond the distant bend there will be the same overhanging willows, and the same intervals of sunny meadow, and the same rippled reflections of an April sky. Hence, of all composers, Mendelssohn appeals most intimately to audiences that are untrained or inexperienced; and hence, also, critics, who are anxious to acquire a cheap reputation, usually begin by expressing contempt for him. The best of his lighter work is as charming as that of Miss Austen; and it is only now and then that we feel inclined to say—as Charlotte Brontë said after reading Emma—'I don't want my blood curdled, but I like it stirred.'