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FAMIUAR TALKS 
 ON MUSIC 
 
 MARY KIMBALL KUTCHIN 
 
J 1 •V' COI*YmaMT 1916 
 ^ ^MABY KIMBALL KUTCHIN 
 
 PRESS OF 
 
 JPRRE C. MURPHY 
 
 •S^N OIBGO. CAUFORNIA 
 
 '^t;?i V,- 
 
To THE Memory 
 
 OF 
 
 Maud Randolph 
 
PREFACE 
 
 As a member of The Wednesday Club of San 
 Diego, it devolved upon me to lead a class in 
 Musical Interpretation, during the season of 
 1915-1916. These five Familiar Talks on Music 
 are the result of the performance of my club duty. 
 
 The lecture on the Dvorak and Tchaikowski 
 symphonies was given at the request of the 
 Women's Board of the Panama-California In- 
 ternational Exposition, on Thursday evening, 
 April 20th, 191^ in the California Building, just 
 before the concerts of the New York Symphony 
 Orchestra, on April 22nd and 23rd. I have in- 
 cluded it here in compliance with the wishes of 
 many of my friends. 
 
FAMILIAR TALKS ON MUSIC 
 
 I 
 WHAT MUSIC IS 
 
 T IS difficult to speak of music with- 
 out indulging in platitudes, yet in all 
 platitudes is the germ of truth. But 
 when we say music is the universal 
 language we use a mere figure of 
 speech — a platitude without the usual germ of 
 truth — for, in the first place, music is not uni- 
 versal either as a practice or as an appeal, and, 
 in the second place, it is not a language. The 
 word language means with all races tongue or 
 speech, and in the production of music, per se, 
 the tongue is not used — merely the lungs or 
 bellows, the vocal cords or instrument, and the 
 pharynx or sounding board; the tongue (langue, 
 lingua, lengua) is the instrument of articulation, 
 and music is inarticulate. In that fact lies its 
 wide appeal — it means nothing to those who are 
 tone deaf, and all things to those who can hear 
 and recognize it. Tone deafness is the inability 
 to distinguish musical pitch, and to the tone 
 deaf there is consequently no difference be- 
 tween music and noise — the difference between 
 a musical sound and noise is merely a difference 
 in vibration. In music the vibrations are peri- 
 odic or regular, in noise the vibrations are non- 
 periodic or irregular; a slight difference in degree 
 to make such a great difference in kind. 
 Ethnologists say that song came before speech, 
 
 1 
 
FAMILIAR TALKS ON MUSIC 
 
 which means merely that inarticulate sounds 
 were made by our human ancestors before ar- 
 ticulate ones. That these sounds resembled 
 song or music is impossible. Prehistoric man 
 emitted his voice on different pitches, each ejac- 
 ulation having a primitive meaning, just as an 
 infant does at present. The infant expresses 
 quite a range of emotions in his primitive way — 
 hunger, pain, contentment, anger, pleasure; and 
 while all his ejaculations are inarticulate, they 
 are recognized by his mother, and perhaps to 
 her they mean music, but they hardly do to the 
 unprejudiced auditor. 
 
 It is a strange thing that the more civilized 
 man becomes, the more monotonous and less 
 musical his speech is. We actually now eliminate 
 all inflection, and English, the most generally 
 used of all languages, is at the sapie time least 
 agreeable and the flattest* to*i^en to — in other 
 ^ >• ViTDrds, the-YKHea^t musical. The Continental 
 peoples stfuipeak more or less musically; they 
 V use various degrees of pitch and a wide range of 
 "^ inflections; the Chinese language is said to be 
 largely a matter of inflection, the vocabulary be- 
 ing very small and each word having many 
 meanings, conveyed entirely by inflection and 
 pitch. These qualities give a force and color to 
 speech, altogether lacking in English. 
 
 Of course, the first music was produced by the 
 human voice. It is the original instrument and 
 man never has been able to improve on it; it is 
 still and always will be the most delicate and 
 beautiful of all instruments, and it possesses a 
 power of appeal to which even the tone deaf 
 are susceptible, although the fact that it is usual- 
 ly allied to words enhances its appeal to the un- 
 
 2 
 
WHAT MUSIC IS 
 
 musical. But it is the sound, not the sense, 
 which the musical crave. 
 
 Music, to those who love it, fulfils every emo- 
 tional need. Agitation is soothed by it, depress- 
 ed spirits revived; it can and often does move 
 us to tears, but it can also make us inexpressibly 
 happy. Its functions are the noblest of any of 
 the arts. The most lofty and universal of human 
 sentiments, love, religion, and patriotism, always 
 have invoked music to their aid. So natural an 
 impulse is music, that is, song, in the love of the 
 sexes that Darwin was led to believe that the 
 very origin of music is to be found in the love 
 calls of the half human progenitors of mankind. 
 This impulse has evolved into one of the most 
 finished and highly specialized arts, that of sing- 
 ing, a form of music which comes nearer to 
 being universal than any other expression of 
 emotion. It is the only form of artistic expres- 
 sion which any number of people can perform 
 in the same manner at the same time. This fact 
 makes it pre-eminently a social art — it draws 
 men nearer by animating them with a single 
 purpose. 
 
 All religious leaders appreciate this. Luther's 
 battle was half won when the people began to 
 sing the hymns of the Reformation. Is not 
 music the chief appeal of the Salvation Army ? 
 How many of the fallen and outcast are drawn 
 to listen and later to repent, and maybe even to 
 reform, by the appeal and power of its hymns ? 
 Every one who ever has joined in it realizes that 
 there is no stronger spiritual bond than congre- 
 gational singing. Much of the power of the 
 Catholic church is vested in the musical setting 
 of the Mass, a form of composition which has 
 
 3 
 
FAMILIAR TALKS ON MUSIC 
 
 appealed to all the greatest composers. For 
 centuries what knowledge there was in regard 
 to music as an art or a science was possessed 
 exclusively by the Church. It has become a 
 secular art only within the last four hundred 
 years, and in these few centuries that it has be- 
 longed to and been cultivated by the common 
 people it has developed more than in the thou- 
 sand years during which it was the ward of the 
 church. 
 
 And consider it as an adjunct to patriotism ! 
 Rarely has a great crisis arisen in the history of 
 any nation but that the pent up emotions of 
 patriotism, liberty and justice have found ex- 
 pression in stirring music. For example, noth- 
 ing helped more to promote the French Revolu- 
 tion than the * 'Marseillaise". It is still the rally- 
 ing cry of the French nation, as the "Wacht am 
 Rhein*' is of the German nation. Martial music 
 is as important in war as arms and munitions. 
 Its rhythm is irresistible; veterans recount 
 wonders of its powers; it banishes fear and wel- 
 comes danger; it even helps the soldier to die, 
 for it represents the call of his country. 
 
 Some one has said that in times of the greatest 
 trial music has its supreme function. Who can 
 think without a tear of the orchestra on the 
 'Titanic**, marshalled together, playing cheer- 
 fully and gaily as they went down to death ? Or 
 who can think without a thrill of a military band 
 leading its regiment into action and perhaps 
 annihilation? In such instances music reaches 
 its loftiest endeavor. 
 
 In the cause of peace its services are equally 
 effective. It wears off the rough edges of life 
 and toil; it is a safety valve for the grief-stricken 
 
 4 
 
WHAT MUSIC IS 
 
 heart; it penetrates all the recesses of our spir- 
 itual nature, for it is the one pure pleasure 
 allotted to man. Think how a cheerful song 
 eases labor, how an inspiring melody will restore 
 spent forces (in the ball room, for example!). 
 The reapers' strokes are stronger for the song 
 which accompanies them; the plantation negro 
 forgets the sun, the long hours, when he sings; 
 in fact he is made to sing by his overseer with 
 that end in view; even street laborers are feeling 
 the power of music when their implements 
 pound rhythmically together. 
 
 Song always has been an accompaniment to 
 seafaring; sailors from the remotest time have 
 sung at their work. The ancient Greeks had 
 their songs in honor of Thalassa, the ocean. 
 The Greek and Phoenician sailors sang just as 
 the Italian boatmen do at the present time. In 
 the days of the galleys the slaves at the oars 
 were forced to sing, that they might keep time 
 to their rowing. The Norsemen were great 
 singers of sea songs, and we still have a surviv- 
 al of this sea singing in the wonderful * 'chanteys" 
 known to all who sail the seas. The term 
 *'chantey" comes from the French word "chant- 
 er" and in its genesis this chorus of the sailor 
 was used to induce united physical effort among 
 a number of men, in the same manner that a 
 military march induces soldiers to keep in step 
 and makes them forget fatigue. The strong 
 rhythmic lilt of the chantey enables a handful of 
 men, working thereby in unison, to perform the 
 heaviest tasks of pulling and hauling, reefing 
 and hoisting sails, heaving the anchor, and 
 working the pumps. After the captain and his 
 officers, the most important member of the crew 
 
 5 
 
FAMILIAR TALKS ON MUSIC 
 
 is the chantey-man, who leads the seamen in 
 their choruses while at work. Steam is driving 
 the chantey-man and the singing sailor, just as 
 it is driving the sailing vessel, off the seas, and 
 soon these beautiful melodies threaten to be 
 lost if some effort is not made to record and 
 preserve them. 
 
 And think of music in the home! What an 
 influence it is in strengthening family ties. A 
 household in which music is a general interest 
 possesses one of the strongest social bonds, as 
 well as one of the greatest common pleasures 
 possible to it. It is a pity that music is not cul- 
 tivated more for its social influences in our 
 American homes. To hear it as one commonly 
 does in European families, where every member 
 sings, or plays a little on some instrument, and 
 where the enjoyment in it is so mutual, is to 
 realize our loss in not practicing it more gener- 
 ly in our homes. 
 
 And last but not least, consider music's po- 
 tency as an adjunct to health, as a therapeutic 
 agent! It has a direct and vital power over dis- 
 ease, especially mental and nervous troubles, 
 and is used more and more as an influence to 
 heal the sick. We learned this first when David 
 played to mad Saul and calmed him. Wise in- 
 deed was Plato when he taught that as gymnas- 
 tic exercise was necessary to keep the body in 
 health, so was music necessary to keep the soul 
 in health. 
 
 Music is an accompaniment to and expression 
 of every phase of human life. We might para- 
 phrase Shakespeare, who divided man's exist- 
 ence into seven ages, so we can divide music 
 into seven epochs of his existence. Who can 
 
 6 
 
WHAT MUSIC IS 
 
 imagine a mother who does not hush her child 
 with a lullaby ? Even though she cannot sing 
 or may be unmusical, she hums or croons over 
 it with a soothing influence nothing can equal. 
 This instinct the girl child repeats, a few years 
 later, with her doll children. Think of the 
 ebullient whistle of the small boy! It is a neces- 
 sary outlet of his energy. Then comes the age 
 of the musical game. Do we not all remember 
 "Ring around a Rosy," "London Bridge is 
 fallin' down," and "Here comes a Duke a-rid- 
 in'," and others of that care-free period? Fol- 
 lowing this comes the age of the dance, and then 
 the age of the tender passion, with the Serenade, 
 the Reverie, the Nocturne, the Love-song, and 
 the Rhapsodie. The dance form covers the 
 widest range of expression and includes besides 
 the community dances, the sentimental dances, 
 war dances and all ceremonial dances, the March, 
 which accompanies us through life. Were we 
 not all married to the strains of Wagner and 
 Mendelssohn, and are not the worldly eminent 
 accompanied to the tomb by Chopin and Handel 
 as a rule ? Music is a most poignant part of a 
 burial service as it is of a bridal service. It in- 
 tensifies our emotions as nothing else can. 
 
 These forms of which I have just spoken, the 
 lullaby, the game and the dance, are the basis of 
 all folk music, which is a national racial expres- 
 sion and one of the earliest art forms of a people. 
 
 Music is the chief national expression of two 
 of the greatest peoples in the world — of Italy, 
 that aristocrat among nations, former ruler of 
 the world, and of Germany, who seems to as- 
 pire to be its future ruler. 
 
 The distribution of impulses which form the 
 
 7 
 
FAMILIAR TALKS ON MUSIC 
 
 national art expression of a people is a most 
 wonderful thing. In some instances we can see 
 why the art impulses evolve as they do, acted 
 upon and determined by the life of the people, 
 by climate and situation. 
 
 That the Greeks should have produced the 
 greatest sculptors is due to their national life, 
 which brought the human body to its highest 
 state of perfection; but why, with their tremen- 
 dous art impulse, should they not have express- 
 ed themselves equally in color, too ? They were 
 surrounded by the same forms of nature as was 
 Italy, yet the Latins, at a much later period, 
 turned to painting as their national expression of 
 art; and it could scarcely be otherwise, with 
 their wonderful '*place in the sun," their match- 
 less geographical outlines and position, they were 
 saturated with form and color. But so were the 
 Greeks; why should not their expressions have 
 been identical ? 
 
 Then why should the Teuton impulse have 
 been toward music and the Anglo-Saxon toward 
 literature ? I am speaking of the main impulse 
 of each of these races. Each has produced great 
 men in all lines, but we think naturally of Greece 
 in relation to sculpture, of Italy to painting, of 
 Germany to music, of England to poetry. Why? 
 
 But music is our theme, and I spoke of Italy 
 and Germany as being the tjjo greatest nations 
 musically. They are indeed the aristocrats 
 among the nations,having produced some of the 
 greatest men in all the arts, but it is to Germany 
 alone that we must bow for the highest and 
 noblest expression in music. What other nation 
 has produced a Bach, a Beethoven, a Brahms, 
 a Schumann, a Schubert, a Wagner? Each of 
 
 8 
 
WHAT MUSIC IS 
 
 these men is supreme; no other country has pro- 
 duced a peer to any one of them. What was the 
 national impulse which produced them, for it was 
 no accident that they were born Germans? Gen- 
 iuses are the fine flowering of the nations which 
 produce them, but back of their individual great- 
 ness lie the emotional and intellectual experiences 
 of the race, focussed and crystallized thus for the 
 benefit and advancement of humanity. 
 
 The Musical Ilustrations for this talk were for the seven 
 musical epochs: 
 First— 
 
 Berceuse, Chopin 
 
 Second— 
 
 Rock-a- Bye-Baby 
 Third— 
 
 Group of Children's Songs 
 a Ten Little Injnns 
 b London Bridge 
 
 c Oats, Peas, Beans and Barley Grow 
 . d All Around the Mulberry Bush 
 e I put my right hand in, I put my right hand out 
 Fourth— 
 
 a Minuet .... Boccherini 
 
 b Mazurka .... Chopin 
 
 c Valse Chopin 
 
 Fifth— 
 
 Salut d' Amour .... Elgar 
 
 Sixth— 
 
 Norwegian Bridal Procession Grieg 
 
 Seventh— 
 
 March Funebre - • - Chopin 
 
 9 
 
FAMILIAR TALKS ON MUSIC 
 
 II 
 
 RHYTHM 
 
 HE basic elements of music in the 
 order of their importance are: 
 rhythm, melody, and harmony. 
 Rhythm is the basis of all music, 
 from the rude beating against a re- 
 verberating hollow tree, the stamping of feet, 
 the clapping of hands, the grunts and cries of a 
 savage people when performing any of their 
 ceremonials, to the highest development of our 
 most modem composititions. 
 
 Rhythm is an element of nature, and the whole 
 universe responds to it. The periodic move- 
 ments of the constellations must be rythmical or 
 the solar systems would be annihilated; the re- 
 turn of the seasons, the rising and setting of the 
 sun, the rising and falling of the tides, all are 
 rhythmical; the pulse of life is rhythm, for 
 rhythm is the pulsation of every kind of 
 movement and pulsation the rhythm of 
 everything that has life. It is therefore no strange 
 thing that man, 'when performing any recurring 
 movement, should naturally fall into doing it 
 rhythmically; he cannot avoid it, for rhythm 
 helps him, makes it easier, as it has a momentum 
 of its own. 
 
 The march is an evolution of the measured step 
 of warriors or priests, the dance is an evolution 
 of the measured movements of the body under 
 10 
 
RHYTHM 
 
 mental or emotional excitement, and the most 
 intricate modern musical rhythms have been 
 evolved from these primitive sources. 
 
 Walking is the most rhythmical exercise; the 
 free movement of the feet and legs, the relaxed 
 swing of the arms, and the regular inhaling and 
 exhaling of the breath, should produce balanced 
 physical rhythm. When this is not so, there is 
 something wrong with the organism; an un- 
 rhythmical gait is one of the surest symptoms of 
 a mental or physical defective. 
 
 Rhythm is simply balance, as necessary in the 
 physical sphere as in the mental and emotional 
 spheres; in music and poetry it is the balancing 
 of one strong beat or part against one or two 
 weak beats or parts. It is necessary to language 
 in the same sense that as a rhythmical arrange- 
 ment of inarticulate sounds (tones) produces 
 music, so a rhythmical arrangement of articulate 
 sounds (words) produces the cadences of prose 
 and poetry. 
 
 If the fundamental idea of rhythm is pulsa- 
 tion, the next idea should be order, for rhythm 
 brings order into every kind of movement. 
 When exemplified in the arrangement of matter 
 into visible objects, as in sculpture and architec- 
 ture and other plastic arts, rhythm is translated 
 into symmetry. Symmetry is one of the chief 
 requisites of a work of art; it is as necessary to 
 that art which appeals to the eye as to that which 
 appeals to the ear-as in music and poetry. Music 
 is chiefly indebted to rhythm for its order and 
 intelligibility, and consequently its power and 
 effect. 
 
 Melody and harmony spring directly from the 
 realm of tone — tone constituting the composer's 
 
 11 
 
FAMILIAR TALKS ON MUSIC 
 
 material as color constitutes that of the painter 
 and words that of the poet. But a succession of 
 tones with no rhythmical arrangement would 
 be as meaningless as a mixture of colors on a 
 canvas with no perceptible outline, or a succes- 
 sion of words with no inherent sense. To pre- 
 vent such incoherence in music is the function 
 of rhythm, which some one has termed "that 
 special power which raises the raw material of 
 sound into higher spheres and makes it the in- 
 telligent vehicle of the composer's idea." 
 
 What is rhythm, then? Simply, regular re- 
 curring accent; nothing more and nothing less. 
 We either accent one of two, or one of three 
 beats, and, while there are many kinds of com- 
 pound rhythms, they are all derived from these 
 two and always resolve themselves into these 
 component elements. 
 
 Doubie rhythm is the natural rhythm — rising 
 and falling, action and reaction, ebb and flow; 
 our chief voluntary and involuntary movements 
 are in pairs. We inhale and exhale; we walk, 
 and, having but two feet, we must do it in double 
 time — therefore all marches are written in double 
 time, usually four simple counts to a measure. 
 Sousa, the * 'March King", employed a com- 
 pound double time, two counts to a measure 
 and a triplet or three equal notes to a count, and 
 it is this rhythm which gives such an irresistible 
 swing to his marches. 
 
 Although double rhythm is the natural rhythm, 
 at one period (and a very long one, when music 
 was the ward of the Church) triple rhythm was 
 designated the perfect rhythm, because three is 
 the symbol of the Trinity, The sign used for 
 triple rhythm was the circle, symbol of perfec- 
 
 12 
 
RHYTHM 
 
 tion, and we have still a relic of this in our 
 modern sign for "common" or j time — the capi- 
 tal C, which stands for that rhythm. The 
 circle O was the symbol for perfect or triple 
 time, so for imperfect or double time the incom- 
 plete circle C, one with a segment cut out, was 
 used, and this gradually has been evolved into 
 the letter C. It is curious that the imperfect 
 symbol should still be used while the perfect 
 symbol long since has been discarded. Except 
 for this C, which students who are not bet- 
 ter taught imagine to be the initial letter of 
 "common time", we write all our time signa- 
 tures, which determine the rhythm, in numbers 
 — always two numbers, one above the other; 
 and their significance is invariably the same — the 
 lower figure stands for the kind of notes and the 
 upper figure stands for the number of those 
 notes (or their equivalents) in each measure. 
 
 Now, as rhythm is regular recurring accent, 
 there had to be a means evolved of locating that 
 regular recurring accent, and it was accom- 
 plished by the bar, a straight line drawn 
 perpendicularly across the staff to divide the 
 music into regular periods called measures. The 
 bar is the division, the measure is the period; 
 and all measures must be of exactly the same 
 duration, aUhough their content can be diversi- 
 fied inimitably. This makes musical metre infin- 
 itely richer than poetical metre, which latter has 
 but one positive length and one positive short- 
 ness in its syllables, while in music any note 
 may be "length", because it may be subdivided 
 or shortened many times; and any note may be 
 "shortness", because it may be doubled or aug- 
 mented many times. 
 
 13 
 
FAMILIAR TALKS ON MUSIC 
 
 As the bar shows where the measure begins 
 it determines the accent, which in all rhythms 
 falls on the first beat or count. We count one- 
 two, one-two, one-two-three, one-two-three; 
 never one-two or one-Avo-three or one-two- 
 three. 
 
 We have a wonderful device in music for di- 
 verting this regular accent and thereby produc- 
 ing unlimited varieties of rhythm, and that is 
 syncopation. Syncopation is simply the dis- 
 placement of the regular accent. 
 
 A syncope is an omission, a leaving out; a syn- 
 cope of the heart is the skipping of a beat. And 
 syncopation in music is the displacement of the 
 regular accent — not by skipping the count, which 
 is as impossible as skipping the second on which 
 the heart leaves out a beat, but by leaving out 
 the note on the accented count. In syncopation 
 of the heart, as in syncopation of music, time 
 goes on but the heartbeat or the note is left out. 
 There is this vast difference in the analogy, 
 however: the heart never recovers its lost beat, 
 but the musical accent is never lost; it is simply 
 displaced and must fall on the first ensuing note 
 following its regular omission. We can artificial- 
 ly place an accent on any beat or count of the 
 measure, and when we place an accent on an 
 unaccented part of the measure we produce syn- 
 copation. Syncopation can be produced in three 
 ways: by a rest, by a tie, or by a special accent. 
 If we omit a note and substitute a rest at the 
 beginning of a measure, the natural accent, the 
 energy of beginning, will have to fall on the first 
 ensuing note, no matter which count it falls on. 
 This produces syncopation by a rest. We can 
 tie the first note or notes (if they are the same) 
 
 14 
 
RHYTHM 
 
 in a measure to the last one in the previous 
 measure, and the effect is silence on the first 
 count or counts, giving the delayed accent to 
 whichever count has a note to it. This is synco- 
 pation by a tie. Then there is the special accent, 
 which can be placed arbitrarily on any unac- 
 cented note. This is the third way of producing 
 syncopation. 
 
 And now we are arriving at the point where 
 we begin with musical interpretation, which is 
 simply the proper observance of accents. Mu- 
 sical accents are of two kinds: grammatical and 
 musical. The former are metrical and rhythmi- 
 cal and have to do with the form; the latter are 
 emotional and aesthetic and have to do with the 
 content. 
 
 Music, the most direct translation of emotion 
 into consciousness in art, is as subject to form 
 as architecture. In the infancy and youth of its 
 development, one may say indeed to its full ma- 
 turity, music was the creature and slave of form. 
 
 Beethoven, the Titan among giants, poured 
 his immortal works into the forms he found, 
 although he moulded them somewhat to his 
 purpose. In Beethoven the union of content 
 and form in its strict classic sense achieved per- 
 fection; his matchless emotional intensity filled 
 the classic forms to their uttermost expression. 
 He left nothing further to say in the patterns he 
 so sublimely used. 
 
 After him a change had to come, and it came 
 in the forms and in the content which changed 
 those forms. The Classic School culminated in 
 Beethoven. After him came the Romantic School 
 in which form became much more free. The 
 Sonata and Symphony began to be discarded. 
 
 15 
 
FAMILIAR TALKS ON MUSIC 
 
 Composers fitted the forms to their ideas and 
 invented new forms. Schubert invented the new 
 song-form, or Lied; Chopin and Schumann, the 
 new instrumental forms, the Nocturne, Reverie, 
 Intermezzo; Liszt, the new orchestral form, the 
 Symphonic Poem; and Wagner, the new opera 
 form, the Music-Drama. Thus music was re- 
 bom. We are now arriving at a formless age 
 and music seems to be declining as an art. But 
 even now, when the classic forms are entirely 
 discarded and each composer makes his own 
 moulds, music must still retain outlines — for in- 
 coherence is death to art — and these outlines are 
 still called form. 
 
 The class of ultra-modem composers who en- 
 dorse the present-day tendencies to elimination 
 of form as the triumph of feeling over conven- 
 tion, and thereby a closer approach to truth, 
 overlook the fact that adaptation of parts to a 
 whole is as much a condition of art as it is of 
 life itself. 
 
 Here I must give a short explanation of mus- 
 ical form, that you may have an idea of the 
 shape of a musical composition. 
 
 Musical compositions are divided into parts 
 called periods. A period in music is what a com- 
 pletely expressed thought is in grammar. A peri- 
 ed usually consists of eight measures, often one 
 or two more or less, but so frequently eight as 
 to make it the standard; two periods embody a 
 melody, usually. Almost all melodies, as most 
 people hear and comprehend them, are of the 
 sixteen-measure or two-period type, the first 
 period ending in what is called a half cadence, 
 the second in a complete cadence. These peri- 
 ods are divided in halves, called phrases, and 
 
 16 
 
RHYTHM 
 
 phrases are further subdivided into halves, called 
 sections. Sections usually consist of two meas- 
 ures, followed, figuratively speaking, by a com- 
 ma; two sections, or four measures, a phrase, 
 followed by a semi-colon; and two phrases, or 
 eight measures, a period, followed by a full stop. 
 
 What I have said on the subject of form may be well 
 illustrated by playing the following compositions: 
 Of the regular 16-measure, 2-period type, familiar exam- 
 ples are 
 
 John Brown's Body Auld Lang Syne 
 
 Nearer, my God to Thee Soldier's Farewell 
 16 measures, with coda or close of two extra measures 
 
 Sweet and Low 
 12 measures with 2-measure coda 
 
 My Country, 'tis of Thee 
 8-measure, 1 -period melody 
 
 Old Hundred 
 Examples of unusual rhythms 
 
 Studies in Forgotten Rythms - Arensky 
 Prelude in % time - Schuett 
 
 Prelude in G min. - - - Schuett 
 Second movement Pathetic Symphony - 
 
 Tchaikowski 
 
 Supplementary Studies in Rhythm Chopin 
 
 17 
 
FAMILIAR TALKS ON MUSIC 
 
 m 
 
 MELODY AND HARMONY 
 
 N OUR last talk, devoted to Rhythm, 
 we touched on Melody in regard to 
 its form. Now we will examine its 
 nature. A melody is a succession 
 of rhythmically arranged tones, dif- 
 fering in pitch, expressing a musical idea. The 
 relation of the tones to each other and to the 
 whole idea should be so consistent and logical as 
 to make the sequence seem inevitable and in- 
 separable. We realize this when we try to recall 
 a melody; each phrase recalls the succeeding one 
 and we feel how homogeneous they all are. It 
 is said that the power of a melody to haunt the 
 consciousness is a proof of our subjective mind. 
 Have we not all been distracted by a recurring 
 melody in our minds — dominated by it by day, 
 even waking up in the night mentally humming it? 
 It is curious that a melody, which exists in 
 time and not in space, one of the most evanes- 
 cent things in life, like a thought or an emotion, 
 makes the deepest impression on the conscious- 
 ness of any art form. We are able to preserve 
 it in, and evoke it from, the consciousness, whole 
 and with all its details, just as it is in fact. We 
 can hear it with our mind's ear, far better than 
 we can see in detail with our mind's eye a paint- 
 ing, a sculpture, or any form of plastic art, and 
 also far better than we can recall a poem or a 
 IS 
 
MELODY AND HARMONY 
 
 story, of which we usually retain only the idea, 
 not the form, unless we have memorized it. 
 And the reason lies in the fact that in music the 
 form and the substance are one, the matter and 
 the expression identical — in other words, we are 
 concerned with the thing itself and not with the 
 representation of it. It seems remarkable that 
 a direct presentation of life is so much more 
 telling than the most faithful or artistic r^-pre- 
 sentation of it can be. A melody is not a re-pre- 
 sentation of a thing, but the thing itself; hence 
 its power. If rhythm is the foundation of music, 
 melody is its soul, its most universally appealing 
 quality to the musically cultured and ignorant 
 alike. 
 
 Rhythm is a sub-conscious or sensuous impres- 
 sion, whereas melody is a conscious or intellect- 
 ual impression, but the union of the two is nec- 
 essary to produce music; for rhythm without 
 melody is motion without musical variety, and 
 melody without rhythm is musical variety with- 
 out order. 
 
 Melody in its infancy was a very simple thing, 
 of regular outlines and accents, so few and 
 evenly balanced that the mind could without 
 difficulty follow the design and receive an im- 
 pression of something definite and complete. 
 
 It is a remarkable thing that most melodies are 
 conceived in metrical form and outline, as was 
 explained in our talk on rhythm. The simple 
 melodies which have stood the test of years, 
 such as * 'Annie Laurie," ''Coming through the 
 Rye," "Last Rose of Summer," "Way down 
 upon the Swanee River," "Auld Lang Syne," 
 and countless others, are all of the regular eight 
 measure type; and probably never will be super- 
 
 19 
 
FAMILIAR TALKS ON MUSIC 
 
 seded in the affections of music lovers and never 
 will become old-fashioned, no matter how taste 
 in melody may progress or evolve. 
 
 Wagner contemptuously called these "tunes", 
 to distinguish them from melodies in which such 
 simple proportions are avoided. But these 
 * 'tunes" are the basis of all folksongs and hymns, 
 and of countless themes of surpassing beauty by 
 the greatest composers — without which music 
 would be poor indeed, and they have a power 
 of appeal altogether lacking in melodies of the 
 modern schools. 
 
 Melody has evolved from the monotonous 
 chanting of our remote ancestors (still the prac- 
 tice of barbarous nations), to the most lofty in- 
 spiration of a Schubert song. Melody reached 
 its flood tide in and immediately succeeding the 
 Romantic period. Schubert, Schumann, Chopin, 
 Brahms, Franz — these are the golden names in 
 melodic inspiration, and their period was also 
 the flood tide of German poetry. Gcethe, Heine, 
 Schiller, Herder, Chamisso, were uttering their 
 immortal lyrics, so perfectly adapted to song. 
 What more natural than that they should inspire 
 the immortal melodies to which they have been 
 set, a priceless heritage for an eternity of mus- 
 ical endeavor? 
 
 Up to the period of the Romantic School 
 musical metre was made to conform closely to 
 the poetical metre, so that a sixteen-measure 
 melody would fit a verse; the other verses, no 
 matter how varied their sentiment, were then 
 sung to the same melody, with no variation. 
 Mozart introduced slight changes in the accom- 
 paniment, and a coda, or tail, to vary the mo- 
 notony. This form constitutes the ballad. 
 
 20 
 
MELODY AND HARMONY 
 
 With Schubert and Schumann came the 
 "durch componiertes Lied", the "through com- 
 posed song". Of this form Schubert's *'Erl- 
 koenig" is a great example; although there are 
 eight stanzas, the music is composed to express 
 the sentiment of the poem all the way through; 
 the listener is not conscious of the song being 
 in verse; it is a drama, a tragedy; set to won- 
 derfully suggestive and dramatic music, enrich- 
 ing the poem beyond expression in words. 
 
 The "through composed song" is the chief 
 form now used, and the more dramatic and 
 complex the subject the more the appeal to the 
 modern song writer, with his amazing technical 
 skill. Richard Strauss, Hugo Wolf, and Carl 
 Lcewe, three of the foremost modem song 
 writers, compose wonderful songs from an ex- 
 pressive and dramatic viewpoint, but the major- 
 ity of listeners hear little if any melody. As 
 musical beauty lies in the melodic idea, the sim- 
 pler the idea the more definite the impression 
 produced; as the outline becomes more com- 
 plex the impression naturally becomes less 
 definite, and in modern melodies the average 
 music lover becomes lost in a maze of confused 
 impressions, and ends by failing to recognize any 
 melodic outline at all, and declares he doesn't 
 understand modern music. We often hear this 
 said by the untaught music lover of classic music. 
 The average listener doesn't understand popular 
 music, a march or a waltz, any better, but the 
 definite impression he receives makes him think 
 he does. 
 
 Spontaneity and freshness of musical inven- 
 tion are almost lost qualities; composers can and 
 do write highly colored, elaborate songs, but a 
 
 21 
 
FAMILIAR TALKS ON MUSIC 
 
 simple melody to touch the heart is the rarest 
 occurrence these days. If melodic invention, 
 however, seems to be in abeyance, composers' 
 minds are running riot in harmonic invention, 
 perhaps to atone for the paucity of melody. 
 
 Harmony is the last element to enter music 
 as an art, but it has made the most wonderful 
 strides of all, and it is impossible to prophesy 
 whither it will finally lead us. For over a thous- 
 and years the history of music was that of song, 
 at first in unison, then with the reluctant admis- 
 sion of one, two, three and more parts. With 
 these harmony was introduced, and we are still 
 making reluctant admissions to it and no doubt 
 will continue to do so to the end. Harmony 
 always has been a vexed and mooted question — 
 always has broken barriers and is still breaking 
 them and arrogating to itself combinations and 
 methods which would cause even Wagner to sit 
 up and rub his ears in wonder at what he heard. 
 
 Harmony is two or more tones sounded at 
 the same time. Music, as I have said, was orig- 
 inally song; instrumental music came later, as 
 instruments were invented and evolved. Song 
 at first was in unison; in primitive times, when 
 people sang together, the first change from the 
 unison was the octave; so the octave is the first 
 musical interval, evolved naturally by the fact 
 that men's voices are lower than women's— and 
 the men whose voices were deep sang the same 
 tones that the women did, an octave lower. 
 
 Our modern scale of eight tones has been 
 divided into twelve equal intervals called semi- 
 tones, the eighth tone being a repetition of the 
 first in a higher pitch and called the octave. The 
 eighth tone or octave seems to give the same 
 
 22 
 
MELODY AND HARMONY 
 
 sound in a higher pitch, owing to the fact that it 
 has twice the number of vibrations as the note 
 from which it is counted, one vibration in two 
 being synchronous with each vibration of the 
 lower tone. 
 
 The second interval to be adopted was the 
 fifth, which was found to have one and one-half 
 vibrations to one of the key note, or a propor- 
 tion of two to three, one vibration in three being 
 synchronous. The fifth being consonant with 
 the key note or tonic, it is equally consonant 
 with the octave of the key note, of which it is the 
 fourth below, and the vibrational proportions of 
 the fourth to the octave are as three to four, one 
 synchronous beat in twelve. In these three in- 
 tervals, the octave, fifth and fourth, the syn- 
 chronous vibrations occur much more frequent- 
 ly than in any of the others, making them con- 
 sequently more consonant in their effect, and 
 they are therefore called Perfect Intervals; all 
 the others, the second, third, sixth and seventh, 
 are called Imperfect. After long usage of these 
 combinations, empty to our modern ears, the 
 third, half way between the tonic and the fifth, 
 was admitted. This is one of the most important 
 intervals, as it determines the Mode, Major or 
 Minor; with it came its inversion, the sixth. The 
 seventh, very important from a melodic view- 
 point, as it is the "Leading Tone", which instinct- 
 ively leads the ear into the tonic, was the last 
 interval admitted; with it and its inversion the 
 second, our diatonic scale of eight tones, count- 
 ing the octave, was complete. 
 
 These seven tones of the diatonic scale, each 
 with its sharp and flat, constitute the material of 
 which music is composed. They are named after 
 
 23 
 
FAMILIAR TALKS ON MUSIC 
 
 the first seven letters of the alphabet, and under- 
 lie the realm of music as the seven primary col- 
 ors underlie the realm of painting. 
 
 It seems a wonderful coincidence that the 
 music scale should be composed of seven 
 tones, and the color scale of seven colors; seven 
 is indeed a potent as well as mystic number in 
 these two arts. 
 
 Beautiful melody and harmony have been pro- 
 duced with these tones, and for centuries they 
 have been the chief material with which com- 
 posers have dealt. Now these diatonic composi- 
 tions sound crude to our ears attuned to modern 
 chromatic harmonies, just as pictures painted in 
 the primary colors seem crude to our eyes ac- 
 customed to modern chromatic coloring. 
 
 Music is developing more and more along 
 chromatic lines, (the chromatic scale being all 
 semitones) harmonic combinations are becoming 
 closer, their outlines vaguer. Composers 
 are experimenting with and adopting overtones 
 and fundamental tones in their harmonic combi- 
 nations, producing exotic effects undreamed of 
 a century ago. It is as though they were try- 
 ing to express themselves in half tints; while 
 painting seems to be becoming more direct, to 
 be reverting to the drawing and coloring of the 
 earliest infancy of the art. 
 
 But to revert to harmony: An interval is the 
 difference in pitch between two tones — we start 
 from any tone and call it our tonic or keynote; 
 the tone above is its second, the tone above that 
 its third and so forth, the eighth tone is the 
 octave and the tone above that the ninth, and so 
 on indefinitely, as long as we keep the same 
 tonic. Before Bach conceived and adopted 
 
 24 
 
MELODY AND HARMONY 
 
 Equal Temperament, the pitch of these tones 
 was quite uncertain, as it was impossible to get 
 instruments in tune, and when they were so as 
 nearly as possible, according to the system that 
 prevailed before Bach, only a few keys could 
 be utilized. To explain one of the chief difficul- 
 ties, the difference in pitch between any tone 
 and the whole tone above or below it is nine 
 commas, or subdivisions; it is actually five com- 
 mas from C to C sharp and five also from D to 
 D flat, so that C sharp and D flat are of different 
 pitch. Therefore, if an instrument were tuned 
 in sharps, the keys in flats were horribly out of 
 tune, and vice versa. This of course was true 
 only of instruments with fixed tones, like the 
 organ and piano, but they were the most im- 
 portant then, just as they are today. 
 
 Bach conceived the perfectly simple but truly 
 wonderful idea of dividing the diatonic scale of 
 seven tones, each with its sharp and flat, making 
 twenty-one semi-tones, into a chromatic scale of 
 twelve equal semitones, as it is today, and will 
 be tomorrow and ever after. In this way, the 
 flats and sharps are interchangeable on the piano 
 and organ and other keyed instruments. This is 
 called the Tempered Scale and Bach wrote a 
 series of wonderful preludes and fugues in all 
 the major and minor scales, to afford practice in 
 all the unfamiliar keys, calling the collection 
 'The well-tempered Clavichord" (Clavichord 
 was what the piano was called in his day), and 
 it was the first time that such chromatic pieces 
 were possible on a keyed instrument. This 
 method of tuning is called "Equal Tempera- 
 ment" to distinguish it from True Temperament, 
 which latter has a wonderful quality entirely 
 
 25 
 
FAMILIAR TALKS ON MUSIC 
 
 lacking in the former because it is true, whereas 
 the former is expedient. 
 
 True temperament is what gives such great 
 charm to string music and to unaccompanied 
 part-singing; the players and singers naturally 
 fall into true temperament; when they are play- 
 ing in D flat for instance, they lower all the in- 
 tervals and sing in flats, and not in sharps too. 
 All string instruments play naturally in true 
 temperament if the players have a true ear, and 
 it is no joke when the piano is sometimes de- 
 clared to be out of tune with the singer or in- 
 strumentalist it accompanies — it is out of tune 
 not only then, but always. 
 
 The basis of our system of harmony is the 
 Common Chord or Triad, i. e., a note with its 
 third and fifth; this common chord may be 
 Major, Minor, Augmented or Diminished, but it 
 is a triad just the same. In the major and minor 
 forms it produces a feeling of repose, and in all 
 save the works of the ultra-modern schools it is 
 the natural close, on the tonic, of every musical 
 composition. The common chords on the tonic, 
 and on the fifth (called the dominant), and the 
 fourth (called the sub-dominant), fix a key or 
 scale, because they contain all the notes of that 
 scale to which they belong; these three chords 
 will also furnish an accompaniment to any sim- 
 ple melody, which may wander around in the 
 scale as it will, but should always conclude on 
 the tonic chord. 
 
 A startling innovation in modem music is the 
 elimination of the key signature and therefore 
 any relation to a tonality. It is like building a 
 house without walls or supports; to my mind it 
 is not music, any more than a house can be a 
 
 26 
 
MELODY AND HARMONY 
 
 house without supports. It is bad enough when 
 the modern composer refuses to return to his 
 tonic when he is finished, it is like failing to 
 return home; but it is not so bad as breaking all 
 the ties that bind him to home and becoming 
 forever a wanderer on the earth, as the modem 
 composer is becoming. 
 
 The self-expression music affords has degen- 
 erated into license and has no longer a reason 
 for being. Music is an art to enrich life, to make 
 it better. If it has no deep message from a mus- 
 ical view-point, it should have from a decorative 
 view-point; this latter is the only message the 
 moderns seem to have; their patterns, their de- 
 signs are wonderful, elaborate and intricate; so 
 masterly that techniqe is the end in itself, and 
 for that admirable, but the ultra-modems do not 
 even offer that excuse. They discard pattern 
 and design, even technique; what they write 
 vapors or storms along, much like "a tale told 
 by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying 
 nothing." 
 
 The illustrations for this talk were: 
 
 Annie Laurie Comin' through the Rye 
 
 Last Rose of Summer 
 
 Old Folks at Home Auld Lang Syne 
 Auf Fluegeln des Gesanges Mendelssohn -Liszt 
 Etude Op. 10, No. 3 - - - - Chopin 
 Nocturne, Op. 37, No. 2 - - - Chopin 
 Song from Sea Pieces - - - MacDowell 
 
 Humoreske Dvorak 
 
 Intermezzo Eb. Op. 117 - - Brahms 
 
 Variations and Fugue on a Handel Theme Brahms 
 
 27 
 
FAMILIAR TALKS ON MUSIC 
 
 IV 
 
 WHAT MUSIC MEANS 
 
 OW often do we hear the assertion 
 *'I know nothing of music," and 
 how often is it made in an appar- 
 ently boastful spirit, as though it 
 need not be a subject of regret. 
 Such an assertion indicates a deeper ignorance 
 than is apparent, for it not only indicates a lack 
 of musical knowledge, but it also betrays ignor- 
 ance of the important fact that music has a seri- 
 ous claim on the intelligence. 
 
 In no other art is such ignorance tolerated. 
 People who boast of any mental culture are pre- 
 sumed to be cognizant of what is greatest in the 
 arts and sciences; at least they should know 
 what the great achievements are, and many use 
 the catch words and technical phrases with some 
 familiarity. This at least is expected of them, 
 but their ignorance of the art of music is in very 
 many cases profound. 
 
 Distinguished men of letters often reveal this 
 ignorance in an astonishing degree. Schopen- 
 hauer, who knew so much of the nature of 
 music, knew little of the art, and had execrable 
 taste. George Moore, by many considered a 
 literary authority on musical matters because he 
 has written several, socalled, musical novels, 
 makes statements quite at variance with the facts 
 and discourses vaguely regarding his unsound 
 
 28 
 
WHAT MUSIC MEANS 
 
 musical theories. And there are many others 
 who expose a lamentable ignorance of a subject 
 on which they do not hesitate to expatiate. 
 
 The reason lies in the fact that music, the most 
 appealing of the arts, and at the same time the 
 most democratic, is, like the drama, commonly 
 used as a recreation and pastime by all classes; 
 and those who regard it as such never seem to 
 consider that it is of any intellectual profit, or 
 that it can demand any serious mental applica- 
 tion. But it has its deeply intellectual side and 
 requires close application and serious study for 
 one to become even an intelligent listener, much 
 more to become an intelligent performer, and 
 most of all to become a composer. 
 
 Now what is meant by the listener who as- 
 serts that he does not understand music ? What 
 does he want ? Does he expect a definite story 
 or picture, something with a limited meaning 
 which can be explained in words ? Words are 
 symbols which have been evolved by association 
 with certain objects and concepts until the people 
 using them agree that they shall stand for them, 
 but there are no tones or combinations of tones 
 which have been, or ever will be, adopted as 
 symbols of thought or perception. Language 
 defines and limits — music cannot define and does 
 not limit. When appealed to by tone alone we 
 are transported to a boundless sphere, where 
 our imagination is quickened and we can trans- 
 late any meaning into the sounds we hear. 
 
 John Addington Symonds says truly, "The 
 sphere of music is in sensuous perception; 
 music, dealing with pure sound, must always 
 be vaguer in significance than poetry which deals 
 with words. We cannot fail to understand what 
 
 29 
 
FAMILIAR TALKS ON MUSIC 
 
 words are intended to convey — we may very 
 easily interpret in a hundred ways the message 
 of sound. If music reaches the thinking faculty 
 at all, it is through the fibres of emotion. But 
 emotion, when it has become thought, has al- 
 ready lost a portion of its force, and has taken 
 to itself a something alien to its nature. There- 
 fore the message of music can never be rightly 
 translated into words." 
 
 And Walter Pater says, * 'Music is the true 
 type and measure of perfected arts, because it 
 presents no words, no matter of sentiment or 
 thought separable from the form in which it is 
 conveyed to us." 
 
 But if music presents no words or definite 
 ideas to us, it is full of suggestion and this sug- 
 gestion is of many kinds — of rhythm, of pitch, 
 of motion, of sound, of timbre, of tone color. 
 
 The most naive form of suggestion in music 
 is the imitation of sounds in nature: the singing 
 of birds, the rushing of winds, the rustling of 
 leaves, the trickling of water, the rolling of thun- 
 der. These are familiar things, as are the sug- 
 gestion of approach by increase and of with- 
 drawal by decrease of tone volume. 
 
 The influence of recurring sounds and rhythms 
 has something almost hypnotic in its suggestion. 
 It is the basis of the appeal of the military march; 
 men instinctively move forward to it, just as the 
 feet of one who loves dancing move involunta- 
 rily to the lilting strains of the ballroom. This 
 has an analogy in poetry. Poe's *The Bells" 
 and *'The Raven", and Tennyson's 'The Lady 
 of Shalott" are notable examples of this form of 
 suggestion. 
 
 Then we have the suggestion of figure or de- 
 
 30 
 
WHAT MUSIC MEANS 
 
 sign: the whirring of the spinning wheel, the 
 rocking motion of the cradle song, the rolling 
 movement of the barcarolle; all composers have 
 used similar figures to suggest these things. A 
 spring or fountain or rivulet is suggested by 
 rapidly running scales and arpeggios. 
 
 The suggestion of pitch is a very strong one. 
 When vibrations become excessively rapid they 
 cease to be sound, and become light. This all 
 composers feel, and we get the suggestion of 
 light and space from our highest musical sounds, 
 and of mystery and obscurity from our lowest 
 ones. Chopin so wonderfully exemplifies this 
 in his well known Funeral March from the B 
 flat minor Sonata. Sadness and gloom are in- 
 troduced in the opening phrase, there are slight 
 bursts of hope, of relief from grief and depres- 
 sion as the phrases ascend, but the impression 
 throughout is one of profound sadness. How 
 wonderful the contrast with the heavenly melody 
 of the middle part! Here hope and light come 
 out tenderly and radiantly, the effect being pro- 
 duced by the high pitch of the melody and the 
 diaphanous web of the simple accompaniment. 
 
 Then timbre has unlimited powers of sugges- 
 tion, the timbre of different instruments — as we 
 associate the horn with forests and hunting, the 
 flute with pastoral scenes, and the drum and fife 
 with martial movements. The trumpet has a 
 language of its own in the army, the reveille, 
 the call to arms, and taps which is sounded 
 always at the close of day and also over the 
 graves of soldiers as a farewell. 
 
 Modern tone color as exemplified in the mod- 
 ern orchestra, with its multitude of different in- 
 struments, was a quality not possessed by the 
 
 31 
 
FAMILIAR TALKS ON MUSIC 
 
 classic writers. As I have said before, Beetho- 
 ven's was the last word in the symphony and 
 the sonata. There have, of course, been great 
 symphonies and sonatas written since: Schubert, 
 Schumann, Brahms, and others have written 
 them, but Beethoven towers above them in that 
 his were all masterpieces. Of tone color in its 
 modern sense, however, he knew very little; 
 the time was not ripe and he did not have to ex- 
 periment for new ways of musical expression. 
 Those who came after him did, among the first 
 being Franz Liszt and his contemporary Hector 
 Berlioz, called "the father of the modern or- 
 chestra". The latter was not a great composer 
 but he devised all sorts of orchestral combina- 
 tions, producing wonderful new effects and set- 
 ting orchestration on a new level, where, in the 
 hands of the modern school, it is becoming the 
 end and not the means of producing music. 
 Strauss, Debussy and others of the new men, 
 revel in exotic combinations. They play on the 
 orchestra as a great virtuoso plays on his special 
 instrument, and they produce the most wonderful 
 effects in tone color. 
 
 Up to Wagner's time writers seldom used 
 violins in more than two parts, whereas Wagner 
 divides them into as many as fifteen. Flutes, 
 oboes and clarinets were used in pairs: Strauss 
 used them in four parts. They say Strauss re- 
 quired every man in an orchestra to be a virtu- 
 oso — he makes no concessions to the technical 
 difficulty of the instruments or performance; 
 as Wagner made no concession to the human 
 voice, treating it simply as a means of expres- 
 sion, so Strauss does his instruments. Although 
 Strauss and Debussy create astonishing tonal 
 
 32 
 
WHAT MUSIC MEANS 
 
 effects with their compositions for orchestra, 
 these are so much the result of tone color that 
 when these compositions are reduced to a piano 
 arrangement, they have a tenuous, almost an 
 empty sound, because the original effect is in 
 the manner of presentation, not the matter pre- 
 sented. This over-elaboration of manner, this 
 super-accentuation of technique, is always a bad 
 sign in art, as it betrays the paucity of real in- 
 spiration. 
 
 Of course, technique there must be, the great- 
 er the better, that a creator's ideas may be pre- 
 sented in the best possible manner, but it is apt 
 to, indeed already largely has, become the end 
 and not the means. In this respect music seems 
 to be declining as an art. It is the history of all 
 art that it has its rise, growth and decline. As 
 mentioned in a former paper, each nation has 
 had its great national and racial art expression. 
 Can we think of a contemporaneous sculptor to 
 compare to Phidias, a painter to compare to 
 Raphael, a poet to compare to Shakespeare, a 
 musician to compare to Beethoven ? Music, the 
 oldest of the arts, was the youngest to mature. 
 She has passed her apogee, and judging by her 
 achievements, so wonderful in the short period 
 of their occurrence, it hardly can be hoped that 
 she can duplicate them indefinitely. But if art in 
 all its forms be in its decadence, there is hope 
 in the knowledge that the artistic impulse never 
 dies; it is coincident with human progress. 
 
 But to return to musical suggestion. Wagner 
 war the first composer to use a definite form of 
 suggestion by musical characterization. He called 
 it the Leitmotiv, or leading motive. Every char- 
 acter in his music drama was designated by a 
 
 33 
 
FAMILIAR TALKS ON MUSIC 
 
 musical phrase (I am using the term in its music- 
 al, not its metrical sense); this was its leading 
 motive and every time that character appears, 
 is heard or alluded to, his leading motive is an- 
 nounced by the orchestra. He went much fur- 
 ther with this idea and attached Leitmotiven to 
 objects and concepts, as well as persons, as the 
 *'Rheingold" motive, and the * 'Power of Expi- 
 ation" motive in the "Nibelumgen Ring", the 
 * 'Eucharist" and "Faith" motives and the 
 "Good Friday Spell" in "Parsifal". It is a mar- 
 velous system that he invented, but so elaborate 
 that it requires not only great mental effort to 
 recognize the leading motives when they are 
 heard, but also prolonged study to learn to rec- 
 ognize them. To do this is one way to learn to 
 understand music. 
 
 Music was a quality, by the way, which was 
 denied to Wagner's great music dramas when 
 they were first produced. Naturally his system 
 did away with much of the old architecture of 
 music, strict metrical form, but his genius was 
 such a vital one that it substituted matter for 
 formal manner, and some of the most wonder- 
 ful music ever written was composed by Wagner. 
 But his neglect of form was such a reproach to 
 him by his contemporaries and was really so 
 largely a matter of ignorance of counterpoint, 
 that he seriously took up its study rather late in 
 life and afterwards wrote the "Mastersingers of 
 Nuremberg", which is considered by many to 
 be his greatest opera, and in which he displays 
 an exhaustive knowledge of strict counterpoint. 
 The overture to this opera is a wonderfully fine 
 example of counterpoint and is a masterpiece of 
 melodic and harmonic beauty as well. 
 
 34 
 
WHAT MUSIC MEANS 
 
 In spite of his contempt for "tunes", Wagner 
 occasionally lapsed into them. There are several 
 in his earliest operas, "Die Feen" and "Rienzi". 
 We are all familiar with one in "Lohengrin", 
 the Wedding March; this is in regular eight- 
 measure periods and conforms to every requis- 
 ite of a popular tune, and it is meant to be one, 
 being a striking expression of Wagner's fine 
 sense of the fitness of things musical. This caus- 
 ed him to make the bridal chorus express 
 itself in its own idiom, folksong; and he wrote 
 for it a march which might well be a real folk- 
 song, and of such melodic appeal that it has been 
 adopted as the regulation recessional in all wed- 
 ding ceremonies, as the Wedding March from 
 Mendelssohn's music to the Midsummer Night's 
 Dream has been adopted as the processional. 
 
 Wagner's Leitmotiv has become a generally 
 used musical device and is a powerful ally for 
 suggeston, as it gives the opportunity to relate a 
 musical phrase to a definite object; it cannot 
 mean that object, but by association therewith 
 it suggests it, but only that particular object and 
 not the class. Wagner uses a number of love 
 motives in his music dramas, but the love mo- 
 tives in the "Nibelungen Ring" bear no musical 
 relation to those in "Tristan and Isolde", prov- 
 ing that the motive cannot be derived from and 
 has no relationship to the thing itself. 
 
 Schopenhauer says in his "Opus Magnum", 
 "The World as Will and Idea", that music alone 
 is the sole presentative art, like life itself a direct 
 expression of the will. All other arts are r^-pre- 
 sentative, re-presenting something the human 
 experience knows, in other words they are imi- 
 tative. No painter, no sculptor, no writer, can 
 
 35 
 
FAMILIAR TALKS ON MUSIC 
 
 possibly present anything on canvas, in clay or 
 in words, which has not been seen, or imagined, 
 or experienced — if not in his own, at least in 
 human experience; the painter or sculptor can 
 visualize beauty more perfect than we perhaps 
 have ever seen; the poet can describe emotions 
 more exquisite than we have ever experienced, 
 or horrors more monstrous than our imagina- 
 tions have perhaps ever conjured, but their com- 
 ponent parts we all know and recognize. So 
 though they idealize or magnify, what they pro- 
 duce must be within the ken of human knowl- 
 edge, and the symbols must be comprehended 
 to make any appeal. 
 
 It is not so with music. It speaks to us direct- 
 ly, and is not limited by human experience, for 
 it has nothing to do with it on its objective side. 
 Music cannot be made to mean anything but 
 music, and when it has to be served with a glos- 
 sary, in the manner of the modern composer, it 
 is quite outside its function. You cannot de- 
 scribe anything with music, or inspire it with 
 any meaning but its own. As some one has truly 
 said, "its center of gravity must lie within itself." 
 
 Schumann says "where a youth of eighteen 
 hears a world famous occurrence in a musical 
 work, a man only perceives some rustic event, 
 while the musician probably never thought of 
 either, but simply gave the best music that he 
 happened to feel within himself just then." 
 
 Music is first of all an art of expression, the 
 noblest given to man, but it expresses charac- 
 teristics, qualities, emotions, moods, not tangi- 
 ble things. It can express grandeur, nobility, 
 charm, tenderness, gayety, humor, sadness. 
 Happy is the composer, like our own MacDow- 
 
 36 
 
WHAT MUSIC MEANS 
 
 ell, whose imagination enables him to affix a 
 title which will carry with it the suggestion of 
 mood desired for its hearing. This awakens ex- 
 pectation and stimulates the imagination — the 
 listener puts himself in the attitude of receiving 
 the mood suggestion called forth by the compo- 
 sition, but his mind may call up pictures, associ- 
 ations, emotions, never dreamed of by the com- 
 poser in relation to his piece; and this after all 
 is the true message and meaning of music — it is 
 composed in unconscious sympathy with uni- 
 versal feeling and emotion, and for this reason 
 is enabled to speak to each one of us after our 
 own heart and bring us the message we desire. 
 
 Musical illustrations: 
 
 Pan's Flute .... Godard 
 
 To a Wild Rose - - - MacDowell 
 To a Water Lily - - - MacDowell 
 Scotch Poem - - - MacDowell 
 Hexentanz .... MacDowell 
 To a Vanishing Race - - Cadman 
 
 Warum Schumann 
 
 Barcarolle Whitney 
 
 Spinnerlied • • - Mendelssohn 
 
 Stimmung SjcEgren 
 
 Morgenwandrung - - - Sjoegren 
 
 Lotus Land Scott 
 
 Feuerzauber - - Wagper-Brassin 
 
 37 
 
FAMILIAR TALKS ON MUSIC 
 
 V 
 
 INTERPRETATION 
 
 USIC is unique as an art; existing 
 as it does in time and not in space, 
 it has to be evolved from time and 
 silence with each performance, at 
 the end of which it dies. Thus eve- 
 ry musical composition must be reborn, before 
 it can live, except on the printed page, where 
 unperformed it is a dead thing. 
 
 The symbols standing for it, the notes, imply 
 movement, but they do not move and they can- 
 not be translated into or by any other medium. 
 No matter how great our powers of description 
 we can give no idea of the effect of music; it has 
 to be performed and heard before the music 
 lover can respond to it. 
 
 Think then how dependent it is upon a medi- 
 ator; no other art, not even the drama, is so at 
 the mercy of those who interpret it. Drama can 
 be read and its power and effect realized in great 
 degree by the reader, but only the specially ed- 
 ucated can even approximate such results by the 
 study of the printed page in music, and then it 
 is a very barren pleasure. 
 
 As music lives in reproduction and enters ful- 
 ness of life each time only through its rebirth, 
 it is entirely the creature of its mediator. This 
 should put a heavy responsibility on its inter- 
 38 
 
INTERPRETATION 
 
 prefers, who should serve music as a goddess, 
 with the best there is in them, for she is an art 
 to uplift man, to enrich his life, and expand his 
 soul. 
 
 Musical interpretation is more than a repro- 
 ductive art, it is almost creative, and for two 
 reasons: first, in that it brings the composition 
 to life again, and, second, in that the performer 
 is not alone concerned with transmitting the in- 
 tention of the composer, he adds to it a message 
 of his own — for music above all others is an art 
 of self-expression. 
 
 In every human being self-expression is a ne- 
 cessity, so we always get a musical composition 
 colored by the performer: a real case of "a bit 
 of nature (human nature!) seen through a tem- 
 perament", but not always **a work of art", 
 very often not! This is a slight alteration of 
 Zola's celebrated dictum that "a work of art is 
 a bit of nature seen through a temperament". 
 
 Music, of all the arts, most exposes what is or 
 is not in its interpreter; as it is the most intimate 
 form of self-expression, its truth or falsity is felt 
 at once. 
 
 Emotion is the one moving thing in human 
 intercourse. It is the quality felt in all great na- 
 tures, and when possessed by the musical artist 
 is fortune's richest gift. With emotion and in- 
 telligence the artist can travel far; where these 
 are allied to talent and perseverence, the result 
 is almost genius. It would be very difficult to 
 determine which of these qualities is most nec- 
 essary to the artist, but surely emotion is the 
 sine qua non. 
 
 If interpretation be a form of self-expression, 
 it must be properly restrained and directed or it 
 
 39 
 
FAMILIAR TALKS ON MUSIC 
 
 may easily become license; the rules governing 
 musical interpretation are as strict as those gov- 
 erning composition, and, if not observed, the re- 
 sult will be caricature. Judging by results, they 
 seem to be little understood and still less observ- 
 ed by many performers; but they are so simple 
 of comprehension that even a child can appre- 
 hend them and they should be thoroughly taught 
 with the other rudiments of music. 
 
 They embrace three cardinal principles, each 
 of them having innumerable applications. First, 
 in importance, as before stated in the paper on 
 rhythm, is the correct observance of accents; 
 second, the proper modification of the tempo; 
 and third, a complete dynamic control. These 
 are the mechanical means of musical expression 
 and will cover every example. A whole volume 
 might be written on each of these subjects, but 
 we will consider only the chief aspects, begin- 
 ning with the most important, that of accents. 
 
 As before said, accents are of two kinds, 
 grammatical and musical. Grammatical are 
 rhythmical and metrical. Rhythm must be so 
 marked that the listener always can find himself 
 in the measure; if he wishes he must be able to 
 say **what I hear is in double or triple time and 
 here is the second or third beat". He should be 
 able to do this, because the performer marks the 
 rhythm for him by accenting the first beat al- 
 ways, not dominatingly but insistently. The first 
 requisite of good musical performance is correct 
 rhythm. 
 
 The next class of grammatical accents is metri- 
 cal. The musical divisions must be marked, the 
 sections, phrases and periods separated and in- 
 dicated, so that there is a metrical contour em- 
 
 40 
 
INTERPRETATION 
 
 bracing the rhythmical contour. In this way we 
 get long flowing lines, or short broken ones, as 
 the metrical content demands. 
 
 The second class of accents, the musical, is 
 much more complex and embraces a very wide 
 range. First of musical accents are those of the 
 phrase. The phrase in music corresponds to the 
 sentence in language; it is a musical sentence 
 and music is made of phrases; these have to be 
 delivered intelligently and the only way of doing 
 so is by accents. 
 
 Phrasing is evolved from song, which in turn 
 is evolved from speech; so a phrase should not 
 be longer than a sentence which can be repeated 
 in a breath. The first note of a phrase should 
 be marked by an accent and the last one unac- 
 cented. This is a general rule, subject to excep- 
 tions, of course. All the notes contained in the 
 phrase should be delivered smoothly and con- 
 nectedly unless otherwise indicated; if the phrase 
 is a long one, it should have dynamic variety. 
 The repetition of a phrase should always be va- 
 ried, either louder or softer, never the same. 
 But, no matter what the length of the phrase, 
 even if only two notes, the first must be accented, 
 the last unaccented. 
 
 The singer phrases with his breath, the violin- 
 ist (or other player of a stringed instrument) 
 with his bow, and the pianist with his touch. 
 
 Phrasing is the very essence of artistic musi- 
 cal performance and renders the musical ideas 
 intelligible, as punctuation makes clear a literary 
 work. While the language of music is not defi- 
 nite in literary meaning, it is in musical meaning 
 and it must be studied by the interpreting artist, 
 until he can express its inmost sentiment and 
 
 41 
 
FAMILIAR TALKS ON MUSIC 
 
 convey it to his auditors. When he can do this, 
 then and then only is he a real interpreter, one 
 in whose hands a musical composition is safe, 
 
 Liszt writes bitterly in one of his letters as fol- 
 lows, and he expresses the feelings of all com- 
 posers who have the fate of their musical chil- 
 dren, their compositions, at heart: "The poet, 
 the painter or the sculptor brings his work to 
 completion in the quiet of his atelier, and when 
 it is completed there are publishers to circulate 
 it, or museums in which it may be exhibited; 
 no mediation is necessary between the art work 
 and its judges. The composer, on the other 
 hand, must have recourse to interpreters who 
 are often incompetent and indifferent, and make 
 him suffer by reason of a rendering that is per- 
 haps true to the letter, but utterly fails to reveal 
 the thought of the work and the genius of the 
 author." 
 
 He speaks of a rendering perhaps true to the 
 letter, but failing to reveal the thought of the 
 work and the genius of the author, and this is 
 unfortunately true in many cases. Many musical 
 performers are concerned solely with the notes; 
 if they can be correctly delivered at approxi- 
 mately the right speed, the responsibility of such 
 performers is discharged. This reminds me of a 
 little verse — 
 
 With patience and practice 
 
 Little Alice at last, 
 Has learned to play 
 Both correctly and fast. 
 This would seem to have been the motto of a 
 pianist who ranks high in the world as a techni- 
 cal player, yet who very often fails to reveal the 
 thought of the work or the genius of the author, 
 Moriz Rosenthal, one of the greatest technicians 
 42 
 
INTERPRETATION 
 
 the piano has ever had; he is such a wonderful 
 performer that he actually cfeforms musical 
 works. They are not difficult enough properly 
 to demonstrate his technical resources, so he 
 enhances their difficulties a thousand fold; like 
 Leopold Godowski, who plays two Chopin 
 etudes at once, one with each hand, to show 
 what mere trifles they are! I heard Rosenthal, 
 however, give the most ravishing performance 
 of Chopin's '^Berceuse", the lovely figuration 
 of which, so difficult for most pianists, was for 
 him mere child's play, and as it requires no 
 deep amount of sentiment but a vast amount of 
 technical finish, he plays it perfectly. 
 
 It is not the artist who talks with his fingers, 
 however, that the public takes to its heart, but 
 the artist who speaks with emotion; who tells 
 you of what he has in his own heart. Emotion 
 controlled by intelligence, so the performance 
 strikes the happy medium between objective and 
 subjective; around which dissimilar styles criti- 
 cism has always raged. 
 
 Must the composition or the performer be the 
 dominating element ? I lean to the subjective 
 side, feeling that the personality of the repro- 
 ductive artist must influence the composition; he 
 should pour his new wine into the old bottles to 
 make them fresh and sparkling again. 
 
 It was my good fortune to hear the greatest 
 representatives of these two opposed schools of 
 piano playing, Rubenstein and von Buelow, in 
 the same season, and never shall I forget the 
 impressions they produced in me. Rubenstein 
 was so temperamental, so virile, so magnetic, 
 that he made everything which he played fairly 
 glow; it was as though the composition were 
 
 4a 
 
FAMILIAR TALKS ON MUSIC 
 
 created warm and palpitating before your gaze, 
 or rather in your hearing. He swept one along, 
 so that there was no disposition to criticism, al- 
 though he offered many techical opportunities 
 for it 
 
 Von Buelow, on the other hand, had every 
 effect planned and nothing was left to inspira- 
 tion; all was studied and finished, but cold — 
 there was little room for criticism; the pleasure 
 was intellectual, in a thing almost perfectly done 
 from the artistic standpoint; but with Ruben- 
 stein the pleasure was emotional and elemental, 
 to me far the greater. Of course, a perfect bal- 
 ance between the two is the neplus ultra, but it 
 is almost an impossibility. In my judgment 
 Josef Hofmann and Fritz Kreisler come nearest 
 this perfect balance in their playing. 
 
 I believe the majority of art and music lovers 
 prefer the subjective style of performance, and 
 that is the reason the world remains so conserv- 
 ative in its art tastes. Its education has been slow; 
 it grows to love the things it knows; and in mus- 
 ic, certainly, it is content to listen to practically 
 the same compositions, season after season, 
 with a change of artist. It is again like the drama: 
 the lover of Shakespeare knows every word of 
 his **Hamlet'*, but he wants to hear it again and 
 again for the new interpretation given it by the 
 actor. So with music, it is what the interpreter 
 can put in the old compositionsthat themusiclover 
 wants to hear, what new accents he has to offer, 
 to revert suddenly to our almost forgotten topic. 
 
 We were dealing with the accent on the first 
 note of the phrase. It is an artistic touch to ac- 
 cent and slightly retard on the highest note 
 or climax of the phrase; this is a much abused 
 
 44 
 
INTERPRETATION 
 
 trick in singing. Then we always accent a disso- 
 nance; the stronger the dissonance, the stronger 
 the accent, as though to prove it true despite the 
 way it sounds. Ultra modern music, so largely 
 composed of dissonances, is liable to reverse 
 this rule, and make it necessary, in order to 
 avoid a most explosive style of performance, to 
 accent the infrequent consonances! 
 
 Aesthetic and characteristic accents are almost 
 impossible to tabulate; they are directed by taste 
 and judgment and can only be taught as they 
 arise in the course of study. 
 
 The subject of characteristic accents embraces 
 such a wide range that it cannot be fully treated 
 here. Characteristic accents are national and in- 
 dividual. Almost every civilized country has its 
 national melodies in the form of songs and 
 dances. While most of these melodies have re- 
 mained local, many of them, particularly the 
 dances, have been appropriated by the great 
 composers and introduced into general musical 
 literature. The notable traits of these melodies 
 are their rhythms and certain distinguishing ac- 
 cents which make them nationally characteristic. 
 We cannot call this characteristic element for- 
 eign, because music is cosmopolitan, yet it is so 
 distinctly racial that one familiar with the char- 
 acteristics of such melodies readily recognizes to 
 what nationality they belong. For example, most 
 of us can recognize Scotch, Hungarian or Span- 
 ish rhythms. 
 
 The waltz, for instance, is thoroughly Ger- 
 man, the mazurka essentially Polish; both are 
 written in triple rhythm, but how different the 
 effect, owing to their characteristic accents. We 
 have the rhythmical accent in both on the first 
 
 45 
 
FAMILIAR TALKS ON MUSIC 
 
 beat, but in the mazurka we have also a strong 
 accent on the third beat, alternating with one on 
 the second at the end of a period; this gives it a 
 very different character and removes the lan- 
 guorous undulating effect which waltz rhythm 
 produces. 
 
 The rhythm of a barcarolle is invariably in }• 
 measure, but Tchaikowski has written a beau- 
 tiful barcarolle in 7 measure. Such a change of 
 rhythm would be impossible in dance forms, for 
 the rhythm in these must accompany and be the 
 measure of the rhythmical movements of the 
 body, from which it springs. 
 
 The great composers who have employed 
 dance forms have treated them so freely that 
 they have become artistic dance forms, ceasing 
 to be dances in the popular sense. Such are the 
 dances of Bach, the minuets of Mozart and 
 Beethoven, the waltzes of Schubert, the mazur- 
 kas and polonaises of Chopin; these are ideal- 
 ized dances for the artistic taste, very different 
 from the dances of Strauss and Lanner and 
 Waldteufel, which are for the masses. But who 
 shall say the **Beautiful Blue Danube" of Strauss 
 is not beautiful music, one of the loveliest 
 waltzes ever written ? 
 
 Now a few words regarding individual accents. 
 Music as an art recognizes two kinds of music, 
 artistic music, the production of the artist, and 
 national music, the production of the people. 
 Artistic music appropriates and amalgamates in 
 itself the productions of every country, and 
 therefore having no geographical boundaries is 
 universal. 
 
 The greatest composers rise above their na- 
 tionalities and belong to a universal brotherhood, 
 
 46 
 
INTERPRETATION 
 
 but they always retain individual characteristics, 
 so that their compositions are stamped with their 
 style, but not their nationality. Only one com- 
 poser of the first rank has retained his nationali- 
 ty in his musical speech, Chopin, and it is this 
 very characteristic which constitutes his greatest 
 charm; his characteristic accents spring from his 
 nationality. 
 
 Schumann's accents, on the other hand, arc 
 individual; he employed syncopation and synco- 
 pated rhythms more freely than any other great 
 composer. This makes certain of his composi- 
 tions unnecessarily difficult; for if a syncopated 
 rhythm be persisted in regularly and long 
 enough, it loses its effect and falls on the ear as 
 a regular rhythm. This is the case with many of 
 Schumann's syncopated passages; they are 
 written against the designated rhythm, but have 
 no syncopated effect except for the poor per- 
 former, who must count one rhythm while play- 
 ing another. 
 
 Tchaikowski has taken a fling at this idiosyn- 
 crasy of Schumann in his * 'Original Theme and 
 Variations", Op. 19. He has marked one varia- 
 tion *'Alla Schumann" and has given it the time 
 signature f- when the content of each measure 
 throughout is two quarter notes. This little sar- 
 casm is much appreciated by the many pianists 
 who have struggled with Schumann's obscure 
 rhythms. Some of Tchaikowski 's later editors 
 have substituted the 7 signature in this variation, 
 perhaps feeling he or they might be accused of 
 a serious error; thus Tchaikowski's witticism is 
 lost and "Alia Schumann" is robbed of its sting. 
 
 In turning from the subject of accents to the 
 two other principles of interpretation, the modi- 
 
 47 
 
FAMIUAR TALKS ON MUSIC 
 
 fication of the tempo and dynamic control, 
 there is much less to be said; not that their ap- 
 plications are less general, but because they are 
 more variable, and therefore less subject to rule. 
 They can be much better illustrated by example 
 than by precept. 
 
 Regarding the accelerando and retardando it is 
 diffiult to give many definite rules. One is, how- 
 ever, always to retard in approaching an initial 
 phrase of a subject or melody; another, always 
 to retard in approaching a fermate ^ (pause) that 
 the cessation of movement be not too abrupt. A 
 retard during a modulation before a change of 
 key in a piece, is usually a good musical effect; 
 to retard the climax of a melody is another. In 
 works of the earlier schools, including those of 
 Bach, Handel and their contemporaries, a re- 
 tard, a general broadening toward their close, is 
 necessary to their style. The musical ear seems 
 to require a slight retard on a complete cadence, 
 with which most compositions of these schools 
 conclude. Leschetizky had a wonderful maxim 
 in his teaching of rhythm, which alone would 
 stamp him a master of style. It was the finest 
 principle I learned from his inspiring instruc- 
 tion. He would say again and again to his pupils: 
 **You can never come in too late on the first beat 
 of a measure, but you can almost always come 
 in too early." He meant, in other words, that a 
 slight retard at the end of every measure pro- 
 duces the effect of perfect rhythm; just as the 
 slight curves in the seemingly straight lines of 
 classic architecture produce the impression of 
 perfect straightness. Retarding, with its impres- 
 sion of poise and repose, would seem, from the 
 number of examples of its use that I have ad- 
 
 48 
 
INTERPRETATION 
 
 duced, to be more essential to interpretation 
 than accelerating. The latter produces the im- 
 pression of stress and excitement and is very 
 frequently a necessary and brilliant effect, but 
 from its very nature it is often a matter of im- 
 pulse and caprice arising during performance, 
 and therefore cannot be so well tabulated. 
 
 Schumann has marked the first movement of 
 his beautiful Sonata in G minor to be played "as 
 fast as possible", yet throughout the movement 
 occur the directions, "faster" — "still faster"! 
 A study of this sonata movement should furnish 
 a good example of the usage of the accelerando. 
 
 Tempo rubato (robbed time) embraces both the 
 retardando and accelerando and should, when 
 rightly employed, produce balanced rhythm. It 
 was introduced by Chopin in his piano playing, 
 and is a necessary factor in the proper interpre- 
 tation of his compositions. It means the robbing 
 of time from one part of a measure, section, 
 phrase or period, to give it to another. Tempo 
 rubato is the prerogative of the artist alone; its 
 abuse is the distortion of rhythm, but its legiti- 
 mate and discreet use is one of the finest aids to 
 musical interpretation. 
 
 Retarding is always used to express a calming 
 down, just as accelerating denotes agitation. 
 When we wish to play very softly we involun- 
 tarily retard, the slowness adding to the effect; 
 and the converse also is true, as, when we wish 
 to play very loudly we play more slowly, there- 
 by increasing the impression of force. 
 
 Here we have the union of our second and 
 third principles, tempo modification with dynam- 
 ic control; but the union of all three principles is 
 so inextricably fused that it is a most difficult 
 
 49 
 
FAMILIAR TALKS ON MUSIC 
 
 matter to dissociate them and enlarge upon them 
 singly. 
 
 Dynamic control is one of the chief elements 
 of technique, and therefore of mechanical ex- 
 pression, and it is the regulator of all accents 
 and degrees of force in performance. The rules 
 regulating the crescendo and diminuendo are gov- 
 erned by the context, but a general rule is to 
 increase in volume in an ascending passage and 
 to decrease in a descending one. Leschetizky was 
 very strict about this in all studies, and it gave 
 the Czemy etudes (Leschetizky was a pupil of 
 Czemy and taught his etudes unceasingly) the 
 most lovely and undulating outlines; they sound- 
 ed like beautiful pieces instead of the dry studies 
 most pupils resolve them into. Of course, very 
 often the reverse is a beautiful musical effect, to 
 increase in volume with a descending passage. 
 Color is lent to musical performance by variation 
 in dynamic force, and this is the most grateful 
 means of giving variety to an interpretation. 
 
 But as I have said before, all this can be illus- 
 trated much better by example than by precept. 
 In fact it is very difficult to talk about it thus. 
 In teaching, however, it is the easiest thing in 
 the world; every phrase, almost every note, 
 furnishes an example and can be made expres- 
 sive by the rules of interpretation, which I have 
 reduced to three general ones, more or less 
 elucidated. 
 
 For an art which is so elusive (intangible per- 
 haps is better), 1 have had a great deal to say, 
 and 1 can only hope, in saying it, that I have 
 helped to make a few things clearer and perhaps 
 to enlarge your vision along the most beautiful 
 
 50 
 
INTERPRETATION 
 
 and soul-satisfying lines given us by either art 
 or nature. 
 
 Musical Illustrations: 
 
 Long flowing metrical lines, 
 
 Melodic - - - Gluck-Sgambati 
 
 Short broken metrical lines, 
 
 Loure Bach-Heinze 
 
 Accents against the rhythm: the syncopated episode 
 
 from the last movement of the Schumann Concerto, 
 
 in which the accents and therefore the effect are in 
 
 double time, while the rhythm is written in triple time 
 
 Improvisation - - Edward MacDowell 
 
 Lento Cyril Scott 
 
 Valse-Caprice - - - Cyril Scott 
 
 Reverie - - - Richard Strauss 
 
 Intermezzo - - - Richard Strauss 
 
 Poeme . . . . Zdenko Fibich 
 Reverie Margaret Ruthven Lang 
 
 Prince Charming Mrs. H. H. A. Beach 
 
 Fireflies - Mrs. H. H. A. Beach 
 
 51 
 
FAMILIAR TALKS ON MUSIC 
 
 TWO SYMPHONIES 
 
 AD Mr. Damrosch searched through 
 the entire literature of the Sympho- 
 ny he could not have found a more 
 striking contrast than in the two 
 works he has chosen for his con- 
 certs at our Exposition next Saturday and Sun- 
 day. This contrast is all the more remarkable 
 in view of the fact that both composers are of 
 the same race, (the Slav,) both have drawn their 
 thematic material from folk music, both have 
 chosen the same key, E minor, and there are 
 marked similarities of construction. 
 
 Each of the symphonies comprises four move- 
 ments, instead of the customary three, and the 
 first movement of each is preceded by a slow 
 introduction. Instead of the usual two subjects 
 in a movement, each of these has three princi- 
 pal themes. And both symphonies are dominat- 
 ed, perhaps haunted is a better word, by the 
 chief theme of the first movement. These are 
 mere accidental coincidences, however, and serve 
 even better to exemplify the great musical and 
 emotional contrast of the two works. This wide 
 divergence in the treatment is due to the indi- 
 vidual temperaments of the composers, which 
 are strongly reflected in their works. 
 
 As music is the most intimate and revealing 
 form of self-expression, a musical composition 
 if it be true, sincere, (and good music is always 
 52 
 
TWO SYMPHONIES 
 
 true — that is the measure of its worth) if it be 
 true, it must be the reflex of the composer. 
 
 Tchaikowski and Dvorak were contempora- 
 ries, two of the foremost composers of our time. 
 Both were great symphonic writers, with a mas- 
 tery of all the resources of orchestration, of tone 
 color, of languishing melody, of thematic devel- 
 opment, of polyphonic writing, of all those qual- 
 ities so necessary to great symphonic construc- 
 tion ; and in these two noble works they achiev- 
 ed masterpieces. 
 
 Tchaikowski has taken for his principal theme 
 a Polish folksong; but Dvorak has gone far afield 
 and adopted our native American music, as he 
 calls it, our plantation melodies, for his theme. 
 Dvorak spent a number of years in the United 
 States as Director of the National Conservatory 
 of Music in New York City, and during his res- 
 idence in this country he made a deep study of 
 these plantation songs, declaring that they were 
 the basis of our real folk music, if we developed 
 any; and that the melodies of our Indians were 
 not, Charles Cadman and others to the contrary 
 notwithstanding. 
 
 Some one has profoundly observed that a con- 
 dition akin to bondage is necessary to produce 
 folk music. Those nations in which the lower 
 classes have been the most downtrodden, like 
 the serfs and peasants of Europe, have produced 
 the most beautiful folk music, as though they 
 had found solace in song for the loss of freedom 
 and happiness. This is true of the negroes, who 
 are essentially a musical race, one which might 
 much more truly produce a racial music than 
 our aboriginal Indians, who are not musical. 
 
 Tchaikowski, who is typically Russian, was 
 
 53 
 
FAMILIAR TALKS ON MUSIC 
 
 sensitive, pessimistic, even morose and morbid, 
 and these qualities are wonderfully portrayed in 
 his symphony; while Dvorak was a true Bohe- 
 mian, a native of a small village near Prag, 
 temperamentally light-hearted and sunny tem- 
 pered; so while his compositions may be some- 
 times sad and plaintive, they are never tragic or 
 filled with unutterable woe, as are Tchaikowski's. 
 
 Now a word on the symphony per se. It is art 
 in its loftiest expression, like the tragedies of 
 iCschylus or the architecture of the ancient 
 Greeks; it is the acme of musical composition, 
 and is built on architectural lines in strict form, 
 and like every manifestation of art is an evolu- 
 tion. It was brought to perfection by Beethoven 
 in its classic form, but all composers, great and 
 small, have been tempted by its possibilities for 
 musical and technical expression. Although the 
 modem form is much freer, there are still unal- 
 terable rules governing its composition, which 
 we will briefly consider. 
 
 A symphony is a sonata written for the orches- 
 tra and consists of at least three movements, or 
 sections, in contrasted keys or rhythms. 
 
 The first movement is almost always a fast 
 one, often preceded by a slow introduction. This 
 movement introduces the chief themes to be 
 worked out and is built usually on two principal 
 themes. In the classic symphonies these themes 
 are called the subject and counter subject, but now 
 we allude to them as the first, second, and third 
 subjects because often they bear little relation to 
 each other. These are announced early and 
 treated in various ways, until the movement 
 reaches the exposition or development stage, 
 when the composer brings to bear all his techni- 
 
 54 
 
TWO SYMPHONIES 
 
 cal skill in presenting the themes under every 
 possible guise. Often this working out section is 
 so elaborate and intricate that the average listen- 
 er entirely loses the thread of the movement and 
 is hopelessly at sea, until its close brings the re- 
 capitulation of the principal subjects in the key 
 of the tonic. The exposition of the first move- 
 ments of both symphonies under discussion is 
 unusually long and elaborate, that of Tchaikows- 
 ki in particular being very prolix and involved. 
 This also is the case with his last movement. 
 
 The second movement of a symphony is a 
 slow one. Its themes can be evolved from those 
 of the first movement, or they can be of entirely 
 new material; but in the working out section it 
 must bear a relationship to the whole, as must 
 the succeeding movements. 
 
 When there are more than three, the third 
 movement is often a dance form, a minuet. In 
 the Tchaikowski it is a waltz, (the only one I 
 know in a symphony) a form in which he is es- 
 pecially felicitous. Or it may be a musette, with 
 a drone bass like a bagpipe; or a scherzo, a piece 
 of musical humor. Dvorak has chosen this form. 
 This third movement is developed like the pre- 
 ceding ones. 
 
 These middle movements may be in sharply 
 contrasting keys to the others, but the last move- 
 ment, almost invariably a quick one, must be in 
 the key of the first. In this way, by means of a 
 key or scale, we establish a musical home whence 
 we start out on our adventures, which may lead 
 us into strange and remote places; but at last we 
 must return and thus round out our musical 
 composition and give it a sense of homogeneity 
 
 55 
 
FAMILIAR TALKS ON MUSIC 
 
 and completeness, for a work of art must be one 
 thing and not a collection of various things. 
 
 The symphony is the noblest expression of 
 absolute music, as distinguished from program 
 music, which simply means descriptive music. 
 Absolute music is becoming almost a lost art. 
 Composers are leaning more and more on litera- 
 ry subjects as props for their feeble utterances, 
 seeking thus to give a meaning which music can 
 never have. So we have symphonies and sym- 
 phonic poems written on every conceivable sub- 
 ject, from Shakespeare's tragedies to "Thus 
 spake Zarathustra", in which Richard Strauss 
 is credited with expounding the entire Nietsche- 
 an philosophy! The center of gravity is thus re- 
 moved from the musical composition where it 
 belongs and lodged in the literary subject where 
 it has no place. 
 
 Music cannot have a definite meaning; its very 
 nature prohibits such a possibility, but it is capa- 
 ble of infinite suggestion, which can often be 
 indicated by a title or a motto. 
 
 Very happily these two symphonies possess 
 such indications, and they are all that are need- 
 ed to put us into the proper receptive mood for 
 their message. 
 
 It is known that Tchaikowski wrote his later 
 symphonies with a program in mind, but a sub- 
 jective not an objective program. They were to 
 him the expression of his subjective moods and 
 for this reason reflect so essentially the man and 
 his nature. This great symphony in E minor is 
 adjudged by leading critics to be the ripest fruit 
 of Tchaikowski 's genius, but its composition 
 filled him with distrust — not only during its con- 
 ception and composition, but even after its suc- 
 
 56 
 
TWO SYMPHONIES 
 
 cessful production. He writes to his brother 
 Modeste at the end of May, 1888: "I have not 
 yet begun to work excepting at some correc- 
 tions. To speak frankly, I feel as yet no impulse 
 for creative work. What does this mean ? Have 
 I written myself out? No ideas? No inclination? 
 Still I am hoping gradually to collect material 
 for a symphony.'* In June he settled down to 
 earnest work and writes in that month to Mad- 
 ame von Meek, to whom he dedicated his fourth 
 symphony, "I am dreadfully anxious to prove 
 not only to others, but also to myself, that I am 
 not yet played out as a composer. Have I already 
 told you that I intend to write a symphony ? 
 The beginning was difficult; now however in- 
 spiration seems to have come. We shall see." 
 On August 26th the symphony was finished and 
 it was produced in November at a Philharmonic 
 concert in St. Petersburg, under Tchaikowski's 
 leadership. In spite of its undoubted success, 
 Tchaikowski writes Mme. von Meek in Decem- 
 ber: ''After two performances of my new sym- 
 phony in Petersburg and one in Prag, I have 
 come to the conclusion that it is a failure. There 
 is something repellent, something superfluous, 
 patchy and insincere, which the public instinct- 
 ively recognizes. It was obvious to me that the 
 ovations received were prompted more by my 
 earlier work and that the symphony itself did not 
 really please the audience. The consciousness 
 of this brings me a sharp twinge of self-dissatis- 
 faction. Am I really played out, as they say ? 
 Can I merely repeat the changes on my earlier 
 idiom ? Last night I looked through our sym- 
 phony (the fourth, the one dedicated to her). 
 What a difference! How immeasurably superior 
 
 57 
 
FAMILIAR TALKS ON MUSIC 
 
 it is! It is very, very sad!" Yet four months later 
 he was able to write: *'l like it far better now, 
 after having held a bad opinion of it for some 
 time." How strange this seems to us, when it 
 has taken its rightful place as one of the greatest 
 modem symphonies, and the composer's most 
 inspired work. It is dedicated to Theodore Ave 
 Lallement of Hamburg. Tchaikowski relates the 
 following in his diary of 1888: *This venerable 
 old man, over 80 years of age, paid me great 
 attention. In spite of his age and infirmity, he 
 attended two rehearsals and the concert. Herr 
 Lallement candidly confessed that many of my 
 works were not at all to his taste, that he could 
 not endure my noisy instrumentation and dis- 
 liked my use of the instruments of percussion. 
 For all that he thought I had in me the making 
 of a very good German composer. Almost with 
 tears in his eyes he besought me to leave Russia 
 and settle permanently in Germany, where clas- 
 sical conventions and the traditions of a high 
 culture could not fail to correct my faults, which 
 were easily explainable to his mind by the fact 
 of my having been born and educated in a coun- 
 try so unenlightened, and as regards progress, 
 so far behind Germany. I strove my best to 
 overcome his prejudice against our national sen- 
 timents, of which moreover he was quite ignor- 
 ant, or knew them only through the speeches of 
 the Russophobist section. We parted good 
 friends." 
 
 It is just this national element which gives the 
 Russian school its great force, vitality, and orig- 
 inality, which has given music a new impetus 
 and produced a leaven very necessary for the 
 emasculated state it was being led into by com- 
 
 58 
 
TWO SYMPHONIES 
 
 posers who had little to say, and an attenuated 
 way of saying it. This very strength, almost 
 brutality, of the Russian school is its power. The 
 Russians have found something new to say, and 
 a large, vigorous way of expressing it. 
 
 This great Tchaikowski symphony is built on 
 a theme which constantly recurs in all four of 
 its movements and is called its motto. Ernest 
 Newman says of it, "The gloomy, mysterious 
 opening theme suggests the leaden, deliberate 
 tread of fate", and its sombre influence is felt 
 all through the work; even in the waltz we do 
 not escape it. Tchaikowski 's pessimism and 
 brooding melancholy never leave him and in all 
 his compositions we feel and are influenced by 
 these qualities. Beside this motto, which is the 
 chief theme of the symphony, there are two oth- 
 er subjects, and these three form the basis of a 
 most elaborate and ingeniously worked out first 
 movement. 
 
 The second movement also has three themes, 
 the first a wonderfully beautiful melody. This 
 has traces of the fateful motto, especially toward 
 the end. 
 
 The third movement, the waltz, has two sub- 
 jects; the waltz proper and a light staccato coun- 
 ter subject, with reminiscences again of the mot- 
 to. The last movement has a long slow intro- 
 duction, passing into the main theme marked 
 Allegro vivace and later into a broad sonorous 
 march, and at the end it reverts to the motto 
 once more and we hear again "the leaden delib- 
 erate tread of fate" and feel its inescapability. 
 
 The Dvorak symphony bears the title "From 
 the New World", and we feel the freshness and 
 life of a new world in its opening phrases. It is 
 
 59 
 
FAMILIAR TALKS ON MUSIC 
 
 full of our real American contribution to music: 
 ragtime; for syncopation is the very essence of 
 its numerous themes. Syncopation is one of the 
 oldest devices in music for diverting the regular 
 accents all rhythms demand, and has been used 
 by all composers; but it remained for us to make 
 a cult of it, and the result of our distorted 
 rhythms is ragtime. Ragtime may be a natural 
 result of our overstrained nervous mode of life, 
 but it is an artificial growth, designed to put 
 more snap into the music of the masses, by its 
 irregular, spasmodic, jerky accents. The negroes 
 are originally responsible for our present out- 
 break of ragtime, for syncopation is a natural 
 element of their great musical gift, and it has 
 gradually been absorbed by American song and 
 dance music writers and elaborated to the point 
 of license. Our present addiction to unrestrained 
 ragtime is a positive vice, but in the hands of a 
 master like Dvorak even ragtime becomes a 
 thing of beauty. Most of his themes are synco- 
 pated and they sparkle with vivacity and move- 
 ment and have the true folk music ring. Dvorak 
 is without doubt the most eminent folk musician 
 of all the great composers. He shows such sym- 
 pathy with and delight in the simple tones and 
 rhythms of popular utterance, and in this New 
 World symphony he has used them for the high- 
 est purposes of art. 
 
 After the slow introduction, we have the chief 
 theme, a bold and syncopated one, which reap- 
 pears throughout the work. This is immediately 
 followed by a short answer, then a second theme, 
 almost a jingle, and then a third syncopated 
 theme. These he weaves into a beautiful first 
 movement. This is followed by the slow move- 
 
 60 
 
TWO SYMPHONIES 
 
 ment, which begins Largo with a wonderfully 
 plaintive and yearning theme, which might be a 
 negro love song; following this comes a quicker 
 episode, the second theme, which gives way 
 again to the first, which brings the movement to a 
 lovely close. 
 
 The third movement, a rollicking Scherzo, is 
 built on syncopated themes, three of them, and 
 has a sort of trio. In this movement we have 
 numerous reminiscences of the chief theme of the 
 first movement. In fact it haunts us all through 
 the symphony, as Tchaikowski's motto haunts 
 us through his. In this way, the sense of 
 homogeneity is preserved throughout, and we 
 feel the unity of a composition. 
 
 In the last movement, Allegro con fuoco, we 
 have a riot of folk tune and dance. The first 
 theme is essentially negro with its flat seventh, 
 and it has a march rhythm, another resemblance 
 to the Tchaikowski. The second theme is rather 
 plaintive, but it is soon swallowed up in the 
 swing of the movement, when suddenly we hear 
 a new theme, but an old tune, "Three Blind 
 Mice". This finale is a gorgeous piece of or- 
 chestral writing, filled with catchy melody, ele- 
 vated to the plane of true symphonic art. 
 
 When Dvorak comes to the development 
 periods in his symphony he reverts to his own 
 national idiom, and we get a result of American- 
 ism tinctured with Bohemianism or vice versa, a 
 really curious mixture, which nevertheless ful- 
 fils the formula of beautiful music. For after all 
 music has no boundaries, no limits of nationality 
 or geography. All peoples call it the universal 
 language; its message is for the whole world, 
 and the world is fortunate that in its priceless 
 
 61 
 
FAMILIAR TALKS ON MUSIC 
 
 heritage of musical endeavor it possesses these 
 two great symphonies of Dvorak and Tchai- 
 kowski. 
 
 62 
 
 
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