HOW TO LISTEN TO MUSIC.* THE title of this book
cannot fail to awaken eager hopes in the breasts of many of those " untaught lovers of the art " for whom it is expressly intended. On every hand men and women are to be found who are sadly conscious that while music does afford them some very genuine pleasure, their enjoyment of it is of an unintelligent and passive, if not merely sensuous, order, falling far short alike in quantity and quality of that which is received by their instructed neighbours. Now and then, indeed, they may affect to solace themselves and those of their acquaintances who are in like case with them by reflecting that " really musical people " detect so many faults even in performances which are admittedly high-class, that although no doubt they also hear a great deal more to admire than do the rest of the world, on the balance of pains and pleasures there is not very much, if anything, to be set to their credit. But even while they cherish thoughts, or utter phrases, to that effect, they know only too well how false and vain is any such glossing over of the poverty of their own aesthetic equipment.
They recognise, in their hearts and minds, that there is some- thing essentially unworthy in being content, if they can improve upon it, with that kind of enjoyment of a concert of first-rate music which corresponds to the state of mind of the person who lounges for a vacant hour amid the delicious sights and scents of a well-stocked garden, without knowing, or caring to know, one tree or one flower from another. They recognise that if to conceive and reproduce those combinations and sequences of sound which, even superficially attended to, are full of charm, men of genius have given their lives, and men and women of talent, sometimes of genius, are daily devoting their best powers, there is certainly a claim upon the hearer to do something more than sit idly by while the stream of melody and harmony flows past him in all its strength and beauty. They see, moreover, quite clearly, that the neglect of this claim is inevitably punished by a heavy loss,—the loss of a large part of the meaning of the manifold messages which the great composers have striven to convey to their fellow-men. How should it be otherwise, when the average concert-goer does not under- stand, even in the most elementary fashion, the character of the work in which musical composers have been en- gaged, not to mention the laws, so to say, of the language in which they have spoken, as received, and sometimes as modified, by them, or, even in a general way, the nature of the instrumental machinery at their disposal P To the multitude of " untaught lovers " of music, among whom a sense of the distinctly unsatisfactory character of their present position is, we believe, widely spread, there addresses himself Mr. H. E. Krehbiel, with the present volume of "Hints and Suggestions." Mr. Krehbiel, as Sir George Grove tells us in a strongly worded recommendatory preface, "is recognised as the leading musical critic of the United States " ; and, coming with such credentials, he uses language which cannot fail to excite sanguine anticipations among the class which he has in view :—
" There is," says Mr. Krehbiel, "something so potent and elemental in the appeal which music makes that it is possible to derive pleasure from even an unwilling hearing, or a hearing unaccompanied by effort at analysis ; but real appreciation of its beauty, which means recognition of the qualities which put it in the realm of art, is conditioned upon intelligent hearing. The higher the intelligence, the keener will be the enjoyment, if the former be directed to the spiritual side as well as the material. So far as music is merely agreeably co-ordinated sounds, it may be reduced to mathematics and its practice to handicraft. But recognition of design is a condition precedent to the awakening of the fancy or the imagination, and to achieve such recognition there must be intelligent hearing in the first instance. For the purposes of this study, design may be held to be Form, in its primary stages, the recognition of which is possible to every listener who is fond of music; it is not neces- sary that he be learned in the science. He need only be willing to let an intellectual process, which will bring its own reward, accompany the physical process of hearing."
• How to Listen to Music: Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art. By Henry Edward KrehbieL London: John Murray.
This sounds almost too good to be true. That it is in the power of any of us to whom a good concert, or opera, or oratorio gives real pleasure and refreshment, to make our- selves worthy of being called intelligent listeners is, we will frankly acknowledge, a good deal more than many of us would have ventured to hope. But if the principal musical critic in the United States says so, with the endorsement of the Nestor of musical literature in this country, it would be presumptuous, even in those who are most conscious of the depth and extent of lay ignorance of music, to refuse to accept the comfort thus authoritatively offered. Let us see what are the kinds of subjects by practising their intellects upon which any well- disposed concert-goer can become an intelligent listener. In the first place, there is a discernment of some or all of the leading features of the music performed in respect of melody, harmony, and rhythm, and the exercise of memory upon them with a view to their recognition whenever they appear in any of the various guises in which the fancy and learning of the composer may dress them. In this connection our author observes that "it is not necessary for 2. listener to follow all the processes of a composer in order to enjoy his music, but if he cultivates the habit of following the principal themes through a work of the higher class, he will not only enjoy the pleasures of memory, but will frequently get a glimpse into the composer's purposes, which will stimulate his imagination and mightily increase his enjoyment." It is, we take it, the cultiva- tion of the habit just indicated which the analytical pro- grammes corn monlyprovided at good instrumental concerts are intended to facilitate. And no doubt many of us—we speak for the unlearned—have often been helped thereby. Yet, if we are frank, must it not be confessed that, over and over again, within a abort time from the commencement of a move- ment from a sonata or symphony by one of the great masters, we have lost the clues provided for us, and after a few shame- faced and futile attempts to observe at what part of the pro- gramme book our better-instructed neighbours were looking, have abandoned all hope of recovery, and relapsed into a condition, possibly of passive enjoyment, but of certain humiliation P So it is, and it may be asked whether Mr. Krehbiel's "Hints and Suggestions" throw any absolutely new lights on the methods by which the recurrence of such depressing experiences as those we have just mentioned may be obviated. We can hardly say that they do, but the fault, if such it be, lies not really with Mr. Krehbiel, but with the constitution of human nature.
No more in respect of music than in respect of any other art can we expect that genuine appreciation, and the know- ledge on which it is based, are to be acquired without genuine and often-repeated effort. Mr. Krehbiel has not a royal road to show us to the intelligent enjoyment of music, and there- fore we may confess to having experienced a certain amount of disappointment on reading his book ; but that was really because the hopes excited by its seductive title, and perhaps by some of its earlier phrases, were unreasonable. Mr. Krehbiel, it is true, does not show us a royal road ; but he does give reason for believing that by the patient pursuit of a perfectly practicable path we may arrive at a very considerably higher level with regard to the appreciation and true enjoyment of music than that at present occupied by a large number of concert-goers. He makes us feel that it is worth while not to give up the hope of becoming more in- telligent listeners because we have often lost our places in an analytical programme or in the score of a piece that was being performed, but that, on the contrary, we must stick to it, as, if we are young, we should hope to stick ourselves, or, if we are middle-aged or elderly, should wish our sons to stick to the efforts necessary for becoming passable swimmers, riders, or shots. Farther, he not only encourages us to believe that by frequent going to good concerts, and steady, not fitful, use of the aids there available, we may acquire some real insight into the mind and purpose of the composer as, ao to say, an art designer, but also affords useful sug- gestions as to other lines of quite practicable observa- tion and study by following which we may obtain results that will materially contribute towards our understanding the aims, the difficulties, and the achievements of the writers and the performers of good music. Thus Mr. Krehbiel describes the composition of the modern orchestra, indicates, with illustrations in several cases, the construction of the principal instruments and the general character of the effects they are able to produce, and sketches the functions of the conductor. All this leads the way to a chapter with the title "At an Orchestral Concert," in which the general structure of symphonies is analysed in an interesting and instructive fashion, and useful remarks are also offered on other musical forms both more modern and more ancient. Again, in the chapter headed " At a Pianoforte Recital " it is pointed out that "the factors which present themselves for con- sideration " in that connection—" mechanical, intellectual, and emotional—can be most intelligently and profitably studied along with the development of the instrument and its music." And Mr. Krehbiel goes on to show how the character of the music now performed on the pianoforte and composed at various dates is related to the condi- tions of the instruments at the disposal of the respective writers. In his chapter on " Opera," though interesting, Mr. Krehbiel tends to be discursive and anecdotic. Taking his book as a whole, however, and judging it from the point of view of those for whom it is written, we think it deserves a cordial welcome, both for the encouragement it gives as to the possibilities of the development of intelligent appreciation among ordinary music-lovers, and for the aids which it sup. plies towards such development. If the man who makes two blades of grass grow where one grew before is a public bene- factor, so certainly must he be reckoned who, as we think may well be the case with Mr. Krehbiel, succeeds in stimu- lating the growth of capacities among his fellow-creatures for one of the highest forms of human enjoyment.
One word more may be offered to our brethren of the musically unlearned. Mr. Krehbiel's book contains some very just observations on the functions of the newspaper critic in regard to musicians on the one side and the public on the other. But if the unlearned wish, as they well may, to qualify themselves in some humble measure to form inde- pendent judgments of the music they hear, they will proceed from the work we have noticed to such books as Mr. W. H. Hadow's admirable Studies in Modern Music. Therein they will find luminous and helpful discussions of the principles of musical criticism and the outlines of musical form, and they will be cheered by the author's opinion, coinciding with that of Mr. Krehbiel, that while "in Music it is essentially true that admiration grows as knowledge grows,' it is equally true that knowledge itself lies open to the attainment of all honest endeavour."
Previous page
