MUSIC.
SOME MUSICAL ANTICIPATIONS.
Di a former article in these columns an effort was made to indicate the trend of modern opera. But opera, though the most impressive, is not the only branch of the art which has a future before it. Indeed, to borrow the remark applied to a precocious statesman, opera, or at any rate Wagnerian opera, might be said to have a great " future " behind it. For the moment our purpose is to supplement that survey with some observations on the other forms and manifestations of the art, the holiday season being perhaps a good opportunity for indulging in speculations of a somewhat otiose, if not precarious, character. For the annals of music abound in danger signals warning off the rash intruder from the paths of prophecy. To go no further back than the last fifteen years, how often have we been told that Italian opera was utterly dead before the transient, though none the less genuine, triumphs of the young Italian school—and let it net be forgotten that nowhere did the music of Mascagni cause a greater furore than in Germany—while within the period named a writer in one of our leading reviews confi- dently announced the bursting of the Wagner bubble. It has been reserved for France—the scene of the historic fiasco Of 1861—to furnish the most fanatical contingent to the ranks of the Wagnerolaters, and for Verdi in his old age to effect the conquest_ of precisely those fastidious critics who were re- pelled by the crudity-and coarse-fibred strenuousness of his earlier manner. Music, in short, is an art that abounds in so many disconcerting surprises and unexpected reversals 9f public opinion, that one would need the buoyancy of Mr. Baxter to undertake the rOle of prophet in regard to its future development. Mr. Wells, however, has taught us a more ex- cellent way of indulging in this tempting if temerarious pastime. He does not call it prophecy or prediction, but judiciously employs the less invidious term "anticipation,' which we have accordingly borrowed from the ingenious author of the articles now appearing in the Fortnightly. Another justification or excuse for hastening to indulge in the pleasures of musical prospect is of an almost personal nature. No more confident anticipation can be pronounced than that in the not very dim future musical critics, as we understand the term, will cease to exist. For one thing, they are out of keeping with the entire spirit and temper of a democratic age. The method of plebiscite—already occasion- ally employed for the selection of programmes—must inevit- ably supersede the judgment of a possibly prejudiced individuaL Engagements will be determined, not by favour- able notices in the Press, but by the votes of the paying audience, and thus a simple class list with figures arranged opposite will supersede the vague and emotional verbiage of the impressionist writer. Another reason for the speedy dis- appearance of the musical critic is to be found in the urn- endurable strain placed upon his physique by the labours of concert-going in the season. It does not conduce to longevity to attend three concerts in one afternoon and two on the same night. The vital statistics of the tribe may not perhaps clamour for legislative interference, as in the case of lead-workers, but they are not encouraging to would-be centenarians in search of a profession. Lastly, there remains the intellectual exhaustion imposed upon the unhappy writer who, with a vocabulary borrowed largely from other arts, is, with the best of intentions, inevitably condemned to the wearisome task of ringing the changes upon the same epithets of praise, from faint to fulsome, or of censure, from mild dis- paragement to caustic severity. Musical critics are neces- sarily past-masters in the art of periphrasis, and it would be unfair to withhold a tribute of admiration from the ingenious scribes who have devised such impressive synonyms as "the Bayreuth Colossus" for Wagner and "the unfortunate Brabantian nobleman " fer Telramund, who describe Elsa and Elizabeth as "these limpid ladies," or who have eulogised Mr. Henschel as a "heaven-born Mephistopheles." But in most cases the limits of ingenuity are soon reached, and to go on saying, week in, week out, that Miss Blank gave" an unexcep- tionable rendering," or that the part of Elijah was "safe in the hands of" Mr. Black, can hardly fail to lower the vitality and impair the self-respect of those who are condemned by
the exigencies of the case to resort, to the constant use of ready-made phrases. On politieal, physical, and intellectual grounds, then, the extinction of the inusical critic is inevitable, and fifty years hence he will, with the dodo and the lamplighter, be relegated to the limbo of the obsolete. -
.Attempts to forecast the future are mostly influenced by the tastes or temperament of the forecaster. The wish is father to the anticipation, and one must therefore sedulously endeavour to correct one's automorphic standpoint by a sym- pathetic regard for the aspirations of others. Was it not Mendelssohn who humorously defined the musician's idea of heaven as a place in which there were always strict. tempi and the wind instruments never dragged ? The remark is at any rate suggestive, in that it indicates the steadily increasing importance attached in the world of music to the orchestra. The number of highly cultivated musicians at the present day whose conception of the highest flights of the art takes no account of the human voice is not only larger than it has ever been before, but it is likely to become a much larger section yet of the musical community. But to argue from this to the ultimate total supersession of the human voice as a factor in musical representations involves something like a belief in a revolutionary change in human nature. The voice, with all its limitations and imperfections, will always remain an incomparable instrument from its unique alliance with human speech, emotion, and passion. But as a vehicle for the display of mere execution it is already in great measure obsolete. The singers at the present day who can render the aria di agilita endurable can probably be numbered on the fingers of one hand, and it is extremely improbable that in the next generation any successors of Madame Patti and Madame Melba will exist at all. For one thing, no modern composer of note writes bravura music any longer for the voice. All their efforts in this direction are devoted to the orchestra, where the most elaborate and intricate font are can be combined with a richness of harmony and a wealth of colouring alongside of which the Rossiuian vocal bravura sounds thin and ineffectual. Orchestral pyrotechnics can be infinitely more exciting, brilliant, and astonishing than the most audacious flights of the most accomplished Soloratur- siingerin. But in regard to the evolution of vocal music, the most intelligent anticipation is that which is best prepared to take into account. the possible swing of the pendulum. The second Lord Motmt-Edgcumbe, in his delightful "Reminiscences of an'Old-Amateur," origins lly published anonymously in 1824, writes pessimistically on the decadence of great voices in the first two decades of the nineteenth century. Between the years 1805 and 1825, with very few exceptions, there was an alinost total dearth of great singers, and then emerged Pasta,
Grisi, Sontag, Alboni, Lablache, Rubini, Mario, Rouconi,—such a galaxy of vocal talent as the world has perhaps never known before or since. But in any case the main trend of modern music is in the direction of securing impressive results by relying—to borrow the terminology of economics—on collectivism rather than individualism. The tyranny of the prima donna assoluta is past, and the value of ensemble and of efficient co-operation— the first ethasPictions example of which was afforded by the German Opera Company, headed by Schroder-Devrient, which visited London in the year 1832—is increasingly recognised in every department of music, from the accompanying of ballads to the organisation of our great provincial Festivals. One need not, therefore, anticipate the ultimate extinction of great voices, but that there will be fewer great vocal gymnasts seems an expectation that may be safely included in the most cautious of forecasts. On the one hand, composers no longer enc6urage thein; on the other, the intelligent public no longer makes them objects of special idolatry.
. The detachment of music from other arts is in no respect more signally displayed at the present day than in its emancipation from the tyranny of the short-cut. In every other department of art and letters the dominion of the snippet is supreme. But in music the tendency is all the other way,—Wagnerian operas, immense programmes, hour-long symphonies (just twice the length .of. Haydn's), bigger, louder, and more complicated works, and in general that cult of mammoth dimensions to which an American critic has given the expressive nickname of " Jurabomania." Various questions are suggested by this state of affairs. Will compositions grow huger "and more noisy 'still? ':Will the craze -.for orgiastic sonority lead to the invention of newer and more powerful instruments, and encourage composers in the production of more inflammatory and explosive masterpieces ? Here again the limits of human endurance must ere long be reithed, while: the. 5711 thus of reaction are already observable in the cult of viols, harps. chords, and the less stimulating 'instruments of a bygone age. On the other hand, the views of those sensational physiologists who predict for the civilised man of the future a still further falling away from the savage standard of Sight and hearing would incline one to believe that it will- be necessary to resort to still greater dynamic intensity of ex- pression to stimulate the blunted senses of our remote descendants. In this context one is led to consider another most important aspect of the music of the future,--its cost of production. If the popularity of •orahestral cOneerts with bands of not less than a hundred performers contihues, and, as is inevitable, the payment of orchestral players is steadily enhanced by the adoption of Trade-Union principles, how is the ideal of cheap good music to be realised? One can only observe that the resources of. science may be, eventually called in to improve or enhance the acoustic properties of large buildings in such a way as to render possible audiences of. five instead of one or two thousand persons. AlOso that some of us may live to see 'the adoption of mechanical means on a large scale for the reproduction of orchestral music. The incursion of these ingenious devices into the domain of piano- forte music, if we are to believe the testimony of some of the greatest performers on that instrument, bids fair seriously to imperil the prestige of the virtuoso. In this cOnnection, again, we may note that there seems to be little doubt that in regard to scenic accessories the, cinematograph is likely to play an important part in operatic representations of the future.' Indeed, it has been asserted, that experiments have already been made in Germany with a view to the solution by this means of that locus desperatus of modern stage- management,—the WalkUrenritt in Die The greatly increased, and probably increasing, number of women taking part in musical performances of all sorts, and their claim to admission to our professional-orchestras, are factors in the musical situation of such wide-reaching import- ance that they cannot be adequately discussed in a general article. The invasion of these musical Amazons is no doubt only a part of the Feminist movement, but it is worthy of note that so able though pessimistic a critic as the late Anton Rubinstein took a most gloomy view of the effect of the spread of this influence. In his treatise on "Music and its Representatives," published nine years ago, he wrote :— "Le nombre va toujours en augmentant des femmes qui executent ou qui composeut ; mettant it part le chant, dans lequel elks atteignent use veritable superiorite, j'y decouvre un algae nouveau de la decadence de notre art. 11 manque aux femmes deux qualites principales, pour rexecutien comme pour in composition : de la subjectivite et de l'initiative. Dans l'execution, lea femmes ne peuvent s'elever aUclessus de l'objectivite .(l'imitation); ii leur manque, pour la subjec- tivite, le courage et la conviction." Rubinstein, however, had not a little of the Oriental in his natnre,. and, on the other hand, at least one very.able modem conductor has expressed his complete confidence in the competence of female instili. mentalists to take their place in first-rate orchestras.
We may note in conclusion that the attainment of the highest musical accomplishment by the entire community Would have one very curious result. If every one were able to read a full score as every one now reads a new novel, there would beno, pressing need for performance at all. In a world whose inhabitants were all brain, like Mr. Wells's Martians, the highest musical pleasure could be enjoyed in perfeetailence. C. L. G.
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