Saint Paul weekly Minnesotian., 1859-01-01

able extent, Dut their metnOu Ol nOtatlou AaS
been lost 50 that we know but little of the
true character of their compositions. The
Romans borrowed their music from the
Greeks, and cultivated chiefly that which was
of martial character. The Emperor Nero
pretended to be great musician. When
about to put an end to his own execrable life
he cried, "What pity it is to kill so good
musician!'
After the christian era Music gradually i'm
proved until the ninth or tenth century, when
the organ became general in Italy, Germany,
and England. Harmony which heretofore
had scarcely been known, was now rapidly
developed. The invention ofthe opera in the
sixteenth century has chiefly contributed to
the splendor of modern vocal music. The
Italians particularly claim the credit of hav-
ing advanced vocal music to its present per-
fection; the Germans and the French that of
having given instrumental music its present
high development.
The pleasures of Music are peculiar, and its
powers as the highest language of the human
soul, wholly beyond the reach of description.
Sensible of the poverty of mere words to paint
its effects, the Greeks sought to symbolic
them in their beautiful mythology. The
stories of Orpheus, Amphion and Arion, are
well known. Nor do these statements seem
unworthy of credit, when we remember the
effects of music on the popular mind at Ia
ter day-of the simple but sublime religious
| songs of Luther, which were waited from the
church into the street, and thence like con-
tagion of celestial fire, borne on the voices Of
the people throughout the whole city, arous-
ing it's inhabitsnts to the highest state of re-
ligious enthusiasm-and of the songs of the
French Revolution which took such hold Of
the patriotic feelings Of the nation, as to raise
the popular mind to state of almost f.enzied
fury.
1t is the glory of the composer to have such
control over the materials of musical express
sion, that while he freely pours fourth the op-
ulence ofhis own soul, he can awaken in 9TH
] ers a like nobility of sentiment and emotion.
There is restless impulse in creative art to
gain adequate expression. The Poet cannot
j but pour forth his measured strains-the Ora
tor his grand and stirring thoughts the Ar
tist must paint, the Sculptor mould and carve;
so also, the true musician cannot but sing
Music is the fruit of his very being Genius
is substantially the same thing in all depart
ments of creative art; and those few who
produce great works are true benefactors Of
mankind.
| Music awakens or embodies those fond,
though fugitive and inexpressible emotions,
we all feel, but are unable adequately to put
into language And as it is often the secret
attraction of a book or poem, that it reveals
to us, caught in the delicate meshes of exquis-
itely woven language, fair and bright thoughts
of which we have had ravishing gleamsas they
passed our minds, but which we could not de-
tain, and which we suppose no other mortal
to have known so in music, the chief delight
is to meet with strains that awaken and seem
to express those fond, yet intangible emotions,
the charmed soul so longs to grasp and de.
tain.
We seem at length to have found, in
piece of music, something that speakes the
language of our heart. Who has not lain at
night, when the mighty shadow Of sleep was
upon the city, and ten thousand hearts beat
in rcpose--when the silent moonlight glanced
from stee,le and dome, and glded the far
winding river-and there had steal in upon
his hushed soul, strains of music that seemed
of celestial origin, and waited upon the soft
gales of Paradise-strains that dissolved the
soul in meeting sweetness, or seized it with
a ravishing delight, carrying it whithersover
they would-perchance back through the
past, thousand bright reaches in whose
streams long since passed, seemed in mo-
ment, with all their joys, to gleam before it
perchance into the golden future-or in very
intensity of sweet demonical possession, to
some hitherto unscaled heights of feeling,
from whence one seemed to survey and inher-
it all the kingdoms of the emotional world in q
moment of time?
All proper enjoyment Of poem, picture,
or a piece of music, is half reverie-the
mind is in passive rather than in an active
state, and yields itself up to be borne along
unrestrained upon the tide of emotion sug-
gested by what is before it. And in what
the mind can pass through and enjoy in the
| space of few seconds, when under the
powerful influence of music, for example, we
seem to catch some faint glimpses Of the un-
utterable mystery of our being, of the won
derful constitution of nature that has such
capacity for enjoyment, even in this imper-
feet state, and in the strange sensations we
experience have perhaps the most distinct FORE
shadowing Of joys that may be realized in a
higher and hOlier state of being
We might speak of the power of music to
soothe sorrows that nothing else can assuage.
How gently it speaks to the wounded spirit !.
What a world Of delight does it open up to
those .vhose:s!ghtless eyeballs roll in vain to
!hnd the:day7' Hoy. eyer where reason is
dethrono3:: and We: laoi: :Iros' the victim with
a strangs'hutnan sorrow as scarcely any lon
ger our fellow-a living body without soul
how even here does music sometimes prove
messenger from heaven to drive away the
pemon of confusion, and bring back, with the
soothing recoLlections of happier days, the
peace, the order of reasonable soul, the
kindlng light of the human face divine!
But if there be still word to add upon
this inexhaustible subject, let it be this: that
Music alone of all the Arts is divinely appoint