The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1876-06-15
Music and the Age.

MUSIC ana the age
Modern music Is the last great legacy
which Rome has left TO the world 1t is
also remarkable as q distinct product Of
Christian civilization, Christianity end
ed ~ producing that peculiar passion for
I self analysis, that rage for ths anatomy
| OF emotion, which was almost entirely
unknown to the ancient wuTlL The life
Of the Greek was excee dingIy simple and
objective. His art represented the phys
zeal beauty 10 which he delighted bat
the faces of his statues were usually
/ without emotion. His poetry was the
| expression Of strong rather than subtle
/ feeling. He delighted IN dramas with
but few characters, and with hardly any
plot. He could have but little need of
! music to express his emotions 3, for they
could be adequately rendered by sculp-
ture and recitation Ancient Rome, in
It's best times, had no sympathy with any
/ kind of art; to conquer and to make laws
for the conquered was her peculiar mis-
sion Still less than Greece could she
stand in need of special language for
her emotione, which were of a simple,
austere. and practical character, and
found in the daily duties of the citizen
life a sufficient outlet Of expression
Christianity first revealed the sancrity OF
the individual life deepened the chan
nels of natural feeling, and unfolded ca
pacities of emotion which strOve In vain
for any articulate expression. But Chris
tianIty had to pass through several stages
before she met with Music.
The active missionary spirit had FIRST
to subside and be replaced by the otiose
and contcmplative meod, before anything
like desire for an art-medium of express
sion could make itself felt IN ChrIsten-
dom. Is was in the peaceful seclus ion
Of mOnastic life that this desire first arose
| The monks created modern music From
being intensely active the genius Of Chris
! tianitY beca me intensely medItativa and
| interpretive. Tha deyotee had time to
/ examine what was going on within him,
TO chronicle the different emotional at
mosPheres of his ec5tacy, to note the
eattons and depressions of the religious
life, the velocity Of its aspirations, the
| intensity Of It's enthusiam the complex
! ST. uggle for ever going on betN cen the
| spirit and the flesh, and the ever-chaug-
ing proportions and forms which one AID
the other assumed. Oat Of these cxper-
fences at length arose the desire for art
| expression. Gothic architecture sup
| piled one FORM and the Italian schools CT
painting another; but already the key
| GOte of a more perfect emotional Ian
guage had been struck, which was des-
tined to supply an unparalleled mode Of
| utterance, both for the church and the
world. Su3h language wouli be valu-
able exactly in proportion to the com
plexity of thought and feeling and the
desire for it's expression. The fusion of
the church and the world at the time of
the reformation was at once the type and
the starting-pOint of al those mixed and
powerful Influences which char3 cterize
what we call IN odern civilization, and it
is remarkable that the sceptre Of music
should have passed from fallen Rome to
free Germany just az the time when
Rome showed herself most incompetent
to understand and cope with the many
sided spirit of the age, which Germany
may be said TO have created.
If we were now asked roughly to de-
fine what we mean by the spirit Of the
age, we should say the genius Of the
| nineteenth century Is an aualYzing and
a recording genius There is hardly any
thing on earth which Gmshe-the very
/ incarnation of modern culture-na5 not
done something towards analyzinG and
recording. Scientific research has taken
complete possession of the uneEplOred
regions Of the physical world, Kant and
its of the pure reason. Swedenborg set
the fashion for giving law and system TO
the most abnormal states of human con
| s3iousness. There is not an aspect Of
nature, or complication of character, or
contrast of thought and feeling, which
has not been delineated by modern nov
elists and painted by modern artists,
whilst the national poets Of Europe,
/ whether we think Of Goethe, Heine, Lam
artine, De Musset, or our Owu living
pOets-TennYsOn and BrOwning-have
all shown the strongest disposition to
probe and explore the hidden mysteries
of thought and feeling, to arrange and
re arrange the insoluble problems of life,
which never seemed so insoluble as now,
to present facts with all their by-play.
to trace emotion through all It's intricate
windings, and describe the variations of
the souls temperature from It's most fiery
heats to It's most glacial intensities.
If | were asked to seleot two poems
most characteristic of the emotional ten
denotes Of this age, ! should select the
In MemOriam' and the Ring and the
, B9ok'-for in both these works the in
Prospective tendency aud the restless en-
deavor 70 present, with minute fidelity,
an immense crowd of feelings with some
thing like a symphonic unity of effect,
eliminate.
Art, literature, and science are all re-
dundant with the same analytical and
emotional tendencies.
Is it wond erful that such an age should
be the very age in which music, at once
an analytical science and a pure art me-
dunn OF emotion, has, with a rapidity
like tkat of sculpture in Greece or paint
ing in italy, suddenly reached its highest
perfection
Music is prominently the art Of the
nineteenth century, because it Is IN su-
preme manner responsive to the emotion
al wants, the mixed aspirations and the
passionate seIf-c0nsciOusnes5 Of the age.
II Selected.
Attorney General Pierrepout has been
appointed Minister II IEngldnd IN Place
of Schenck; Judge TAFT has left the
War Ofice. to'accept the Attorney-Gen-
eralship; and Don Cameron Of Pennsyl-