the belief that for them only is the pure and high vision of truth, and that the world should look with their eyes and abide by their interpretation, is the folly of many of the wisest reformers. over-enthusiasm inflames the minds of such, and disturbs their sanity of judgment. the reformer in art is usually a philosopher pledged to some system into which, as into a mould, he pours at fluid heat his artistic imaginings. because no system of philosophy yet elaborated finds general acceptance, or because, as schopenhauer intimates, one discovers in any philosophy only what his capacity permits, our reformer will appeal chiefly to those whose minds are akin to his own.
for the comprehension of beethoven and his great predecessors, little more than a trained ear is necessary; but, for the comprehension of our latest composers, one must habituate himself to abstruse metaphysical thinking. to endorse wagner, both wholly and understandingly, one should assent to schopenhauer's theory of music. to endorse in like manner the attitude of strauss, one should assent to the ?super man? of nietzsche, and his crowning qualities ?evolved good and evolved evil.?
if, as whitman says, perfect sanity characterizes the master among philosophers, how can more than a cult accept that topsy-turvy of ethical values, that quack mixture of scientific materialism and comtism run mad, the system of nietzsche? it is probably that but for his ?beyond good and evil,? strauss, the foremost exponent of musical ultraism, would have hesitated at more than half-way measures.
in the morning, ere he attempted creative work, wagner was wont to say, ?if we could keep our hearts pure this day, untainted and untempted by the false values of the world, what visions of infinity itself were possible to us!?
surely the heart, indispensable to the creation of a masterpiece of art, cannot be stimulated by a philosophy brutal because without pity; a philosophy shallow because ignorant of the essential nature and ultimate end of what it deems mere weakness; a philosophy which would crush that symbol of weakness, the falling sparrow, and quench all love for the neighbor if in him appear no promise of ?super man.? now who is this ?super man,? this ideal of nietzsche and his tonal interpreter? is he not a being fashioned much after the model of what the race no more desires, to wit, the outworn gods of greece and rome? is he not an ideal compounded of mutually destructive qualities?
because of the serious shortcomings we have indicated, and because of others which will be pointed out, the art of strauss may never reach the highest levels; his chief office as composer, like that of whitman as poet, may be to explore a domain wherein the superlative genius of the future is to expand his ample powers. that genius, and in our opinion he only, can reveal the legitimate possibilities of sound. in his tonal creations the cacophonious, as well as the euphonious, must be employed in such way that every mood of man and every shade of human feeling shall be faithfully portrayed, and the world itself epitomized. his must be a sane equipoise, an unfailing sense of fitness, the consummate ability to adjust to a nicety, so that always the end justifies the means. already his predecessors in the great acknowledged schools have developed the art of euphony. it will be his even more difficult and exacting task to develop the art of cacophony, and fuse the two in such way that they over-picture not the totality of man and nature.
notwithstanding wagner's belief that instrumental music could not further develop unless fused with the sister arts of poetry, painting and dramatic action, the modern outlook discovers in the art of sound almost limitless possibilities as yet unrealized; but, judging from the past, the stupendous tonal edifice created by the coming master will not overshadow the erections of composers from bach to wagner.
still the divine mozart will turn us to the never-to-be despised beauty of form chaste and classic. still beethoven's temple of music will reveal that form's complete and glorious development and crowning. still at heaven's very gate will schubert, spontaneous and impassional lark, outpour the melody he learned beneath that temple's overhanging roof, or else in the sacred limits of its inmost court.
always we shall have with us those who in the name of progress turn the back on whatever is behind. ignoring aristotle's profound dictum that the real test of art is not originality, but its truth to the universal, these no doubt will ridicule as immature attempts, necessary to the adolescence of art, all that is greatest in german and italian music. in addition to these we shall have that class of temperamental individuals who, from the extravagant and bizarre, derive that thrill of rapture which they mistake for appreciation: however, these fickle followers of fads and fashions cannot be reckoned among the adherents of legitimate art. now as to the public, the great overwhelming body of the people; can they be educated to enjoy the new art of sound? will they not refuse, aye, obstinately refuse to appreciate cacophony however judiciously employed? a difficult question this unless one remembers that, as the race advances, the foremost, coming into new vistas of truth, bequeath to those next in line, and so on to the very rear, their own rare and high discovery.
in the comprehensive art of sound, the euphonious epitomizes the major, better half of man and nature. from this it appears that the cacophonious must epitomize the minor, baser half. why, heretofore, was this half well-nigh denied tonal utterance? was it not largely from the old and inadequate theological conception which made the existence of evil an abortion of the divine plan?
conceding the answer implied, and granting that the attitude of the time is one of invitation, let us consider certain factors necessary to the realization of the art of sound.
orchestral music and orchestral accompaniment, as understood by bach and handel, betray a paucity of resource and a lack of color then inevitable. since that era of small beginnings, and in late years especially, orchestral instruments both numerous and valuable have been invented, and the capacity of brass and wood-wind much enlarged and their quality greatly improved. desirous of utilizing to the utmost all additions and improvements, orchestral composers sought effects the most novel both in solo and in symphony. as result the orchestra grew from infantile to gigantic proportions and capabilities. thus was produced a full, flexible and characteristic means of expression, one peculiarly suited to the speculating and philosophizing musician who, already due and now appearing, added his contributions to those productive of a rounded art.
in examining the factors which make for strauss and his works, we shall find that his native originality could never have raised him to what he is, and that the art of sound would still be an undiscovered one, had not chopin already exemplified, most eloquently, the flexibility of the laws of chromatic progression, and had not wagner, that great emancipator, stricken from musical form the cramping bonds of a narrow convention.
if, as we contend, the minor half of dual man and nature has legitimate place in all art, then let the musician beware lest, as final impression, he make evil seductive, and so identify himself with decadence as have those who denounce in every form of art any purpose consciously moral; those in fact who announce as their dictum, ?art for art's sake.? when for specific ends the musician weaves around evil a flowery spell, he somehow should make us feel that death and corruption lurk in every petal of those all-too-enticing blooms.
moreover, when by means of cacophony he lays bare the true nature of evil, he should avoid an excess which would identify him with the moral pervert whose delight is in the abnormal. let him understand that in this world's great school where, only amidst the lure of opposites, character can be formed and wisdom gained, the true office of evil and the secret of its permission is that eventually its inner hideousness will turn from itself, forever, those who, through ignorance of the essential nature of evil, have yielded to its manifold seductions.
of all arts, music is accredited to be the highest and purest. the supreme art of the beautiful, it rests on a mathematical basis. its notes and intervals and chords progress in compliance with defined, or at least definable laws corresponding to the great laws which, moving with mathematical precision, brought order from chaos and so created the world. concerning the art of sound, this problem confronts us; what are the laws if any which govern the ugly? or, to put it differently, to what extent does the ugliness of evil correspond to chaotic conditions?
if what the composer would depict is not governed by mathematical law, then is he warranted in the use of unresolved and unresolvable dissonances. judged by this rule, debussy has perhaps so transgressed that a wiser generation will pronounce his efforts to be a passing phase of ?stheticism. but the difficulty of determining just what is, or is not governed by mathematical law, must lead to a deal of error ere we attain the true art of sound.
to illustrate the vast unlikeness of method in the descriptive instrumental works of the classical and those of the ultra-modern school, two examples will suffice. the representation of chaos in haydn's ?creation,? gave to the composer full opportunity for every liberty of harmony and form tolerated in his time. now, while a rather frequent use of the diminished seventh chord lends to this composition somewhat of needed vagueness, still there are no modulations to distant keys, no abrupt transitions, no unresolved or unresolvable discords, no consecutive perfect fifths, and, in fact, there is nothing in the chord progression which the critic of to-day would deem daring or even unusual for, always and wholly, the harmonic scheme conforms to conventional rules. here and there is somewhat of concession to established musical form, for, in this picture of chaos, the employment of anything radical either in form or harmony, would have provoked censure the very harshest and even have proved the author guilty of the unpardonable sin of producing what could never be called music.
with this attempted realism of haydn, compare now that portion of ?don quixote? wherein strauss delineates the gradual and complete disordering of the mind of cervantes' hero. wholly sure of his novel method, one, by the way, peculiarly adapted to the subject, strauss avails himself of every conceivable liberty of tone and form. euphony and cacophony mix in an astounding realism, while the rational sequence of sanctioned form gives way to the illogical and wholly fantastic, in fact the chaos of dethroned reason.
