The San Francisco call., 1908-04-06


80 know what I like" is one OF
the examples of bromide state
ments expounded by the fam
tastical Burgess-and it makes a good
text
If appreciation for music depends
upon an intimate knowledge of the
laws which govern its construction then
the best judges of music should be those
who know most about 1T and the
best and most reliable opinions would
be written by theorists and peda-
gogues. That this is not the case is
notoriously true. The ability to ana
Iyze a composition is a worthy mental
asset; by no means does it confer the
chief requisite of valuable opinion
good taste.
AS though an appreciation OF beauty
depends upon intimate acquaintance
| with the sciences which give II tangible
| and material form AS a matter or ract.
| who understands music3 Who Is there
that has even given hnal dennition
! of art; one that will include all the
essentials and exclude all the non
essentials? Tolstoi in one Of his late
works takes the definitions handed out
by the great philosophers and riddles
| them. Not one Is fawless; and then, as
though to complete the list or mac
curacies, propounds theory and sets
forth a definition OF his own which Is
as patiently inadequate as any he had
made fun Of a definition which de-
| clares art to be the issue Of morals and
| religion.
who was 1t that first gave Gluck. the
reformer OF French opera, comprehen-
| sive appreciation7 Everybody knows
In Nf hA
embassy in Vienna He was merely an
amateur unfamiliar with the exact sci
ence of music and caring little for the
dogmas that pronounce against consecu-
tive fifths. He had an intelligence broad
enough to understand and soul Dig
enough to cry aloud for the newly found
smasher of pedants' traditions Through
him Gluck got a hearing for one Of his
choicest works, 'Iphigenie-" Marie An
toinette was another amateur, whose
station lent power to her preferences,
that understood the music of Gluck-
But the learned in music, whose names
are but a memory now, decreed that
Gluck had no melody In his little ma
ture, and no refinement nor elegance
They said his modulations, which did
not square with their paper music, were
clumsy, his harmonies harsh and dis
agreeable, and that his product was
utterly incoherent
Tristan" by the mighty Wagner
was cast aside as an unplayable and
. impossible work after IT had been re-
hersed in Vienna 81 times, before the
combined forces of the harmony thec-
rists; but the mad king. ignorant of the
teachers theories. understood the mod
ern Gluck. Wagner's fight against
! pedantry is made immortal in his
"Meistersing Walther'S struggles
: against the prejudice and 'book learn
ing'' of the mastersingers is vivid
presentation of Wagner's frantic ef-
forts to gain the ear of the learned
Hans Sachs is but the personi6catIon
of the musically untutored public from
which Wagner's first applause came
AS Sachs understood Walther's song, Sc
the people. unlearned in counterpoint
comprehended the nobility of Wag-
ner's genius
Nearly every theorist whose learned
works on counterpoint and compost
ton are still text books in Germany
l went into something like fury over
the music of Wagner. This one said
IT was too bad that he'd dismiss pu-
: pill who coundn't write better four part
J. harmony IN a years study; another said
the composer was mad, and his music
maddening; and so on. To this day the
new things of Wagner are not ac-
!. counted for in the German schools. The
one whose judgments of music are
based upon a purely technical basis
should remember that music was suns
t before text books were written; songs
4 | preceded scales, inspiration is still fal
ahead of theory, and the first listener
to be thrilled by the first song was ar
amateur. not a pedant. The great
5 | works of the tone masters are not the
. | result of conscious and self-righteou:
application of defined laws; but come
I as the echo of an inner instrument
r whose harmonies the inspired composer
: pens as he hears them.
O Later the theorist. If he be wise. in
: corporates the newly opened country
I In his map of known things, and then
: as 1t happens. proceeds to build new
O fences and calls the inclosure classi'
t ground. BY and by another inspireS
a one comes along. breaks through tn
: pickets of the pedants and there Is a ter
{. rible fuss, but the people flock alont
). through the broken palings while tn
e pedagogues mourn that their fences
S are torn down and heap imprecation
e on the daring soul of the one who ha
n ventured to blaze a trail into nev
: country. And so it has gone and vii
! go.
8 Even Haydn. creator as he himsel
l. was, couldn't understand Beethoven
and condemned, for instance, the thir'