The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-04-24
soME WORDS oN MUSIC.

Under the above caption the Musical Courier of April 2oth in an editorial an- swers an article on color in music whion appeared in The Advertiser. As the Musical Courier is considered the most important musical journal in the world its editorial opinion on the subject will be of deep i, terest to the music circles of Montgomery.
 The Musical Courier says:
 Under the heading of Color in Mu- sic" the Montgomery Advertiser re- gently printed an editorial which calls for some disintercsted comment The bcdy of he editorial deals with qucs- ton which has been often discussed IF The Musical Courier, and the Southern writer sums up his views as follows:
 What is to be the end of using such words as "colcr" and the like to describe certain effects of music? We read that no one s1rpasses so and so,' a musician, in ''coloring'; that his ''coloring is "tc cu. in her execution; a violinist fiddles with color" The composer knows what color is, of course. and the 'ooloring'' of wegner is compared with color of the artists skin or of his hair, he critic Is telling us something about music We saw the other day in high class weekly periodical an estimate or the music of Richard Strauss. His Don Igfxote'' i've are there told of a musical composition. let the reader remember) "has a depth and tenderness Of comedy, a ripe and enlightened humanity, vigor and truth of characterization, which are nothing less than Shakespearean." Plain people would call this bosh. For our selves we can only inquire in an humble spirit how some bars or music can ex- fsf. {rff nf VI Srakespeares writings, how ripe and enlightened humanity, such as Lord Shaftesbury's for example, can be mani tested by orchestral strains. and how character. like Sancho Panza's, for i'm stance can be expressed by flutes. vtolins, violincelli, oboes, horns, bassoons, clarf- nets, trombones and drums? This speaks ignorance to the music lover; at least. to arts, poetry, painting, sculpture and arr chitecture for words and images to de- scribe the emotions that fill his bosom when he listens to strains he likes. The mild word in music; all the devotees will understand what it means and they will have gone out in search of new fields of objectives and nouns to conquer. We movement in Smiths 114th symphony will be found an exact likeness to the dome of the capitol or may be the spire of St. Johns Church. We have known sonata composed to Powers Greek Slave and q cadenza to a ragged urchin munching apples while he cast stones in a stream. We are. of course, flinging our own musical terms about somewhat loosely. We have no idea what a concerto" is, for instance. but we claim the right to blunder about and misuse musical terms in retort upon the swelling, bursting mu- sic lover who spews out adjectives of length. breadth and thickness, of height and depth of every dimension in space, of the moral and the immoral, the true, the beautiful and the good to make you understand-what? Nothing more, than that he felt good down to the bottom of his boots
 Why does not the musical critic invent some words to describe his wonderful sensations and leave alone good old words like 'color." that have fixed, sem siblc Interpretation. We love music. O. dear, yes, but we believe there is a good deal of humhuggery in many quarters Ill trying to put this love into words
 The point s well made that 'humoug- gery' is practiced in certain quarters where writers try to put into words their musical impressions. The Advertiser edl- tor probably has been reading the New York daily newspapers this winter. Small wonder that he is confused. Why does not the musical critic invent some words to describe his wonderful sensations?" Faith. man. because the musical critic never invents anything and never feels wonderful sensations. Have you ever seen the sodden species?
 The Musical Courier often has called attention to the limited and stale phrase ology of musical criticism, and in our own columns we have tried always to get away as far as possible from the over- worked and conventional critical forms end formulas. Our late editorial on this subject. "The Cant of Criticism has been copied extensively in the newspapers of America and Europe. and we make bold to say that we have already noticed a decided improvement in the tone and style of daily newspaper writing on mu- sic It is not such an easy matter to break away from the words and images of all the arts" The ''plunder'' to which The Advertiser editorial refers is not confined to music alone. The other arts, too. have been guilty of the same offense, and this interborrowing or technlcal terms has come to be an integral part of all kinds of art criticism. For in- stance it is quite permissible nowadays in painting, to speak of "tone" in picture, "composition,'' key" minor mood" and harmony; and to charac- terize a canvas as symphony, sseherzo.n a "nocturne" or something similar And why not? The ability to understand a picture is as rare as the ability to understand classical music, and since both these arts are properly supposed to be practiced flor the people and not only for the elect few, why not try to bring the beauties of music and uainting home to the lay mind by ap- pealing to 1t with words and images which represent a tangible something. easy to understand? The word color is not misused in making musical com parison, for more than one scientist has proved that sound and color are related. Some investigators have even tried to identify a certain color with each tone in our. scale, and we know that Beethoven had a theory of his own regarding the relation of the cardinal colors and the principal musical keys. Most certainly