Prescott journal. [volume] (Prescott, Wis.) 1861-1871, 1868-05-02
Musical Memory.

From the Leader iEnsiish.l
There is no recollection of which the
mind Is so tenacious az that of music. A
melody will be remembered to the close OF
the longest career and this melody will
act as a kind of light to illumine scenes
and events in the history of mans life,
which would have been otherwise lost in
the very darkness of time. 1t is strange,
however. that whilst the mind testifies this
tenacitv in so remarkable degree 1t
makes the most singular errorsin the time
in which it fancies it first heard the strain it
so well remembers. We have heard OF
popular composer being asked by an old
gentleman who wrote such and such
song. 81 am now seventy-two," confln-
ued the old gentleman; land / can recol-
lect my mother singing that very song to
me when was four years old" On being
told by the composer that 1t was his song,
and that it had not been written more tnan
fifteen years, the old gentleman energetl-
cally volunteered to bet hat that the song
was older than he was. In vain the COM
poser assured him that it was Impossible;
he had written the song, and he was only
forty-two himself. The old gentleman per-
sisted, bet the hat,-and lost.
Such instances of the mistakes OF men,
an explanation given this by some TO the
effect that there is a kind of youthfuiness
attaching itself to melody which the mind
pushes, as it were into its own lille, and
which, being caught hold OF by memory,
is antedated and regulated to period long
prior to the actual date of its composition.
We can quite understand this solution: IL
is possible to conceive tune so full oil the
very lust and blood of youthfulness as to
create a strong sense OF its own nature IN
the heart that il fascinates Then this re-
collection of the heart is caught up by the
memory of the mind after While, and
slowly made to recede to time liz our lille
more eongenial, we fancy, to the emotions
| inspired by the melody. Habit works oul
the rest of the problem.
There is another solution more weird
than this. 1t is in measure hit OF by
| Coleridge, when he saws: "lf we listen to
| a symphony of Cimarosa, the present strain
seems not only to recall but almost to re-
new some past movement, another, and
vet the same. Each present movement
| bringing back as it were, and, emhodying
the spirit of some melody that had gone
before, anticipates and seems trying &c
overtake something that IS to come.
Here is the subtler but truer conjecture o.
the cause of this mystery. Metempsycho
| sis would more emphatically settle the
question. Let each melody be supposed
to express some active emotion of the
heart; then the emotions of an existence
nrior to this might be found renewed in the
strains of some sublime composition. Bx
perience would vainly endeavor to attach
significance to the weird aud spiritual re
| membrance awakened by the melody; bu
some occult sympathy would detect II
/ IFS EXPRESSION the renewal OF an hitherto
| ,.,,lr.4s.~,-> &;~-Ae, should he living Owe
again a portion of life not rounded by the
years we can number; just in the same
way that the excavator will bring to ligh
sights and symbols of time so mistily
hidden in the beginning OF years as e
make us aware of more manifold exist
ence than we could dream OF, and will
which our affinity is purely spiritual.
Music, as the keenest interpreter of oul
hidden motives, misleads US as to the ma
| ture of the emotions which it inspires OF
awakens. Thoughts can be evoked from
the depths of consciousness and made tc
diffuse a light, revealing spiritual signs &c
which past sympathy attaches itself. We
| do not indicate by those familiar
strains which transport us back in fancy &c
the earlier periods of our present lives
This is the mere vulgar operations of fancy
and the hackneyed platitude of all writers
upon music who think to demonstrate the
power of the subject they discuss by such
an illustration. We speak of a far subtleI
and wagner sympathy than this. We speak
of the ineffable sympathy that attaches
| itself to the remote, either of the future OF
the past. We speak of that influence OF
| liquid melody upon the mind directing its
yearniug toward the coming or the reced.
ing; toward the coming in that sad beauty
OF hope which invites even as it recoils; to-
ward the Teceding in the desire TO battle
once again in the beautiful light that is dy-
ing out upon the black edge of the distant
past. The memory conjecturcd 10y music
takes the aspect of phantasm who
implores with outstretched and eyes
i'm which there is the light of foreknowl-
edge of all sadness. II is the mystic SYM
Dol of spiritual despair, refined by its own
spiritual beauty. There Is no joy in the
true memory of music, but sadness made
sweet and holy because it is inspired by
the purest spiritual sympathy, and has its
birth and death in melody.