230 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



effect, no two ways of saying the same thing in music, and it is only 

 in the way the phrase is introduced and sustained by the harmony 

 that authors vary. We are speaking, of course, only of those passages 

 of the songs in which the emotions are exploded, for it is in these 

 only that the author, not caring to expend his force over the whole 

 phrase, aims to bring out his full meaning. From these comparisons 

 of emotions and intonations we are able to discover the physiological 

 reason of the correspondence between the note and expression. The 

 smaller intervals are congenial with indifference, monotony, doubt, 

 melancholy, and sadness ; the group of moderate intervals affirms oc- 

 cupation, pleasure, and desire, which grow more ardent as we approach 

 the extreme intervals ; and in these we look for the most intense feel- 

 ing. Melancholy sentiments involving diminished vitality, we might 

 naturally conceive them to be expressed musically by diminished in- 

 tervals, the compass of which requires little effoi't ; while earnest de- 

 sires, strong passions, and pleasant and happy feelings, being accom- 

 paniments of a more active vitality, provoke more vigorous expres- 

 sions ; and these expressions, by giving an outlet to the excess of 

 vitality, furnish one of the best means for calming violent passions. 



We add a few words on the nature of musical pleasure. It is 

 dependent on variety the essential condition of all pleasure, that of 

 the mind as well as that of the senses ; variety of ideas for the former, 

 variety of sensations for the latter. Nothing, in fact, is more incom- 

 patible with pleasure than monotony, even in agreeable things. The 

 feelings do not escape this general law ; and the cause of musical en- 

 joyment must be sought in the infinite variety of conditions of feeling 

 through which the rapid succession of musical intervals makes us pass. 

 In this, Ave do not speak of the merely material pleasure of the sense 

 of hearing, which may exist aside from all attention ; but of the stir- 

 ring up of the whole being by the emotions. To this enjoyment, 

 which exists parallel with the succession of sounds, should be added 

 the pleasure of the hearer's adapting his personal feelings of the mo- 

 ment to the general sense of the performed music : a theme marked 

 with melancholy will move a whole audience of thousands to sadness, 

 each person of whom will associate his feeling with some particular 

 object. This impersonality of the musical phrase and its adaptability 

 to individual feelings explain the taste of the masses for music, and 

 its power over them. The system of tones, by furnishing a kind of 

 stable basis for the undulating variety of musical sounds, effects in 

 music a union of the two chief conditions of pleasure variety in 

 unity. 



It is impossible to treat of music without speaking of rhythm, 

 which, without being an essential part of it, enframes it, sustains it, 

 and gives precision to its otherwise vague expression. The origin of 

 rhythm need be sought no further off than in the movements and 

 paces of men. Descartes finds it in the efforts of the voice in sing- 



