The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1892-05-31
WILL THERE BE AN AMERICAN
SCHOOL OF MUSIC!

Mr.. w. w. Gilchrist in the American
Art Journal discusses the question
whether there is to bea distinctive Amer
lean school of music, and concludes that
as art is pre-eminently the language ofthe
emotions a distinct emotional character
has been held to this time to be an essen
tial factor in the production of a distinct
art. But for the establishment ola school
this character, it has been claimed, must
be national, not individual.
National character of the emotional
order has been the product of isolation,
| tradition, romance, superstition; and
these originated and developed upward
from the masses So the art that was
national received its inspiration from
those qualities which were common to
the masses in that particular nationality.
Upon these premises, and which we
must concede analysis proves to be sound,
the essayist concludes that while geo.
graphically isolated we are not so III the
matter of intercourse with the Old World
So from isolation we cannot hope to de-
velop a school of art all our own since
more than any other nation we draw to
| ourselves varied immigration.
Have we traditions, romance or super
stition? We must agree with Mr.. Gil
christ that we have not. With us all is
hard, stern fact, with no romance except
such as clings about the realities of wars
Of the most cruel order and bloodiest
character, and about a chivalry OF which
there is the air of but little romance.
! Such of the romantic and superstitious as
attaches to our history relates to the
negro on the one hand, and that is not
American; to the Indian on the other,
and that is barbarous.
We have not then the elements or in
spirations out of which other national
schools of art have been created. Yet,
with Mr.. Gilchrist, we hold to the belief
that real progress comes often when and
and from whence least expected. Art.
now the language of the emotions, may
find field for manifestations upon plains
other than those which have been the
forum of its activity in the past Out of
the hard and practical we may reason
ably evolve an intellectual and a spiritual
condition that will demand art as me-
dunn Of expression, and especially music
art as the highest form of language ex-
preston.
Mr.. Gilchrist thinks that this may re-
suit from the death of the principles
upon which art expression, as outlined
in the beginning, is builded. That is to
say, the death of the national and the
| growth Of the universal. Assuming,
what he might have asserted as a fact,
| that no school of art is perfect that in
| each there is defect, and in each some
thing that might well be engrafted into
all Others" the possibility is open for a
universal school of art in music, for it is
his belief that the past essentials enume-
rated for the production of emotional
characteristics, national and district, are
not the only factors capable of creating
school.
| The art of the future, then, may be built
upon universal sympathy, upon love and
truth, and receive its inspiration from
what is universally sympathetic, lovely
| and true, and without regard to nation
atty, rather than from that which is
merely romantic, superstitious and
largely untrue.
| Mr.. Gilchrist holds that the national
school of art is confined and imperfect
always, because peculiar; that Beethoven
Rossini, Auber, are not great because
German, Italian or French; but are
great in spite Of it-great in that which is
common to all, and weak just so far as
!. they are hampered by inherited tradi-
tons of nationality.
! So, as isolation by intercourse is dis
appearing; superstition receding before
reason, and tradition fading in the light
of universal sympathy, the probabilities
OF q universal school of music art