The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-09-04

SdShoO, WnlCn musicians uecldIt eoulu the third note in music, or the shrill whistle of the bobwhite, which, like the voice of the fife, Is heard above every other instrument of the band, or the croonings of the wood dove, which the California Indians used to call "majella whose song by day and by twilight both to mate and young was one continuous whispering of Here lovei Love, here! Here lovel Love. herel" Oh, the beauti- ful voices of the blending harmonles heard In the choruses of the woods! Who can ever listen to them and not find symbol of mans spiritual beauty? Tn tune with the infinite!'
 "ln Tune With the Infinite"
 But what. according to the law of sound, do we mean by being fin tune with the infinite? l went hunting some time ago. As I lay in a dugout by water hole, hidden by the leaves, waiting for the birds to come down to drink, I asked my self these questions: What is music? Why is 1t that all these voices of the woods have such a wonderful influence over me? Why does not the harsh call of the flshmonger hawking his food at my city door, or the deep voice of the foghorn on shipboard off the banks of Newfoundland or the rasp of a saw or the whining cry of a spoiled child ens chant me as now do the voice signalings of the pheasants, which I can now see way off under wonder trees, or the chirp of the swallows flying over my head, the beautiful sounds that come to my ear as the harpists of the winds finger the long, slender vines as though they were harp strings? I know that some of the repellent cries l have heard from the fishmonger Richard Wagner has reproduce ed in his matchess operas l know the deep voice of the foghorn rolls and thun- ders and swels and die away in the oh of ter. l know the rasp of a saw can be- come part of lullaby or of a martial march. Then why are not these different sounds at all times pleasing to my ear?
 In order to answer the questions I made a study of the laws of musical sound Dudley Buck, the great American compos- CT, taught me that sweet music was merely a succession of combinations of sound arranged with such connection and mutual relations as to express to the ear some distinct form or train of thought and awaken certain corresponding emo- tions" He told me that music Is thought expressed In sound, even as a great paint Ing is thought expressed in color. A tumble of colors is a daub, not picture. A riot of sounds, promiscuously pushing and Jost''ng each other, even as the stronger limbed members of a stampeding mob knock down and trample upon the weaker Is merely collection of discords.
 
 are marshaled together In harmonious unity" that we have music. So when I began to know what true music meant then l said to myself: 'Yes, yes; now know what Ralf Waldo Trine means when he speaks of man being 'in tune with the infinite" Man in himself may be so dis tracted by sin as to be like a discord in music. His voice in nature may be so discordant by reason of his corrupt con- dition as to rend the ear as does the shrill cry of the vender on the street But when his nature is redeemed his voice falls ito the right place in the song of ere alton and of Moses and the lamb and becomes harmonious and melodious By the sweet voices of the woods blending in perpetual harmonies can you not catch the meaning of my text when King Solo, mon declares God hath made and will continue to make, according to the laws of music, everything "beautiful in It's timer
 Thought Expressed In Sound.
 The symmetries of straight lines and curves In sculpture and architecture also form analogies for mans spiritual beau ty. Wandering among the famous build ings of Europe, I find, that architectural- ly. great building has a symmetrical un- ity, just as a perfect statue is chisseled after the physical formations of a per feet man. Many years ago there was exhumed from the buried ruins of old Rome marble leg, broken from off one of the statues of old. That broken fragment is still preserved in the Vatican. Michael Angelo as sculptor, used to study that leg by the day, the week. the month and the year, "because," said the great Italian master, 'I consider that piece of stone the most perfect forma- tion of physical anatomy ever carved by the chisel of man" So symmetrically 1ArfA fha 1fv,au tho 1( great group of stautary be that when you look at some of the best examples of sculpture in the Louvre, the Vati- can or the British museum the figures almost seem as though their lungs are breathing and their lips are ready to speak.
 Now, the symmetrical laws observed in true sculpture are also found to exist in true architecture. A great builder like Christopher Wren did not start in to erect St. Pauls cathedral at haphazard. Every part of the walls the dome and the capstone were carefully and harmon iously designed and property proporton- ed before one spadeful of dirt was dug out of the heart of mother earth to ex- cavate the cellars of London's architectur- al pride. And the wonderful part of the masterfully designed buildings of Eu- rope Is how deceptive they are as to their size when first seen by the human eye
 
 at Rome lifting itself towards the skies or the spires of the Cologne cathedral like the uplifted forefinger of an orator pointing heavenward or the roof of the Milan cathedral peopled with myriads of saints and apostles carved in stone, the lengths and breadths and the heights of those structures rarely impress the tourist at first Why? Because all are in perfect symmetrical proportion. A truly great building Is "multitudes of stones arranged in unity" It Is thought ex- pressed in stone, as a painting Is a thought expressed in coiors. or as music Is thought expressed in sound.
 Now, as true architecture is beautiful thought expressed in the curves and lines of the roof and the walls and the foundation stones of building. I would go one step further in my subject. would say to the designers of the great Episcopalian cathedral now being built in New York city: "Oh. architects. of what material are you building these walls? Where are to be found the mighty beams to hold up wonder roof?" Then these architects take me down into the quarries. and amid the dust and the dirt see the mighty rocks being hewed out. Then they take me to the foundries where the steel beams are being moulded Then they take me out into the forests where the great tree trunks are being dragga1 70 the sawmills. Then they say