622 



NATURE 



\Oct. 30, 1879 



organic remains contained in these strata, without being 

 at the time aware that I had twelve years previously 

 announced the same conclusions for all magnesian lime- 

 stones, and established them on chemical grounds." Ttie 

 italics are ours, for Prof. Ramsay's especial benefit. 

 The author concludes his last essay on the theory of 

 types in chemistry, with some good advice to a thought- 

 less-Sterry-Hunt-neglecting posterity : — " In conclusion 

 I have only to ask that future historians will do justice to 

 the memory of Auguste Laurant, and will, moreover, 

 ascribe to whom is due the credit of having given to the 

 science, a theory which has exercised such an important 

 influence in modern chemical speculation and research ; 

 remembering that my own publications on the subject, 

 which cover the whole ground, were some years earlier 

 than those of Williamson, Gerhardt, Wiirtz, or Holbe." 

 It is a pity that much good scientific work should be 

 encumbered by these vanities, and really much that is 

 objectionable can be compensated by the study of such 

 essays as those on the chemistry of natural waters, which 

 is admirable and suggestive. 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF MUSIC 



The Philosophy of Music. Royal Institution Lectures. 

 By W. Pole, F.R.S,, F.R.S.E., Mus. Doc. Oxon. 

 (London : Triibner and Co., 1879.) 



IT has long been felt by intelligent persons anxious to 

 possess some acquaintance with the scientific side of 

 music, that the technical works to which they have re- 

 course for the desired knowledge are unsatisfactory from 

 a logical point of view. We are acquainted with no work 

 on technical music which offers any reasonably intelligent 

 explanation of the basis on which its material is founded; 

 and a school has arisen, no doubt partly as a reaction 

 from the crude speculations and unsupported dogmatism 

 of many standard works, which refuses to acknowledge 

 anything beyond the mere acquirement of technical 

 facility in composition as a desirable object in the study 

 of the so-called science of music. 



The work of Dr. Pole appears to be intended as a 

 protest against this limitation. It is an endeavour to 

 make plain so much of aesthetic and physical acoustics, 

 and the rationale of technical music, as may enable the 

 musician to give some sort of intelligent [reason for the 

 faith that is in him. 



Dr. Pole's well-known musical attainments are a 

 guarantee for the soundness of the work so far as musical 

 technicalities are concerned. As to general questions of 

 evolution, the nature and objects of musical grammar, the 

 origin and nature of scales, and of the technical rules of 

 music, we think that this book leads the way among 

 English works, in a logical, or perhaps we had rather say, 

 in a common sense treatment of the subject. 



It is useless within the limits of this article to attempt 

 to convey any idea of the arguments employed. For the 

 most part the opinions of Helmholtz have been adopted. 

 Whatever may be the ultimate opinion as to the absolute 

 accuracy of these views, there can be no doubt that their 

 admission changes the fundamental study of music from 

 »n unmeaning dogmatism into a science. 



The first part of the work gives a sketch of the material 



of music, and forms a treatise on elementary acoustics. 

 The second part deals with the evolution of melody, the 

 history of the scale, melodic and harmonic relations, 

 rhythm and form. The third part is entitled " The 

 Structure of Music." Its most important items are the 

 history of harmony, and the discussion of its rules, com- 

 binations, and progressions. It concludes with a slight 

 notice of counterpoint. The characteristic of the book 

 seems to be that a good idea may be obtained from it of 

 a sound body of musical doctrine, comprising foundation, 

 history, and technique. 



We select two or three points for notice, as to all of 

 which we are not perhaps quite in accord with Dr. Pole. 



There is something yet to be said as to the difference 

 in the way in which the highly gifted musician and the 

 ordinary listener hear music. The observations on the decay 

 of counterpoint (p. 288) seem to want some notice of this. 

 It is more or less a waste of energy to write music in 

 many parts, all of which are made melodious at some 

 sacrifice of the harmonic effect, when not more than 

 perhaps one in a hundred listeners is capable of hearing 

 more than one melody at a time. We think that it is not 

 the power of writing counterpoint that has died out so 

 much as the will to write it. There can be no doubt thsit 

 the unpopularity of counterpoint is mainly due to the fac t 

 that the ordinary listener is unable to hear in it what the 

 highly gifted musician hears. The many simultaneous 

 melodies are quite lost on the ordinary listener. It is only 

 in the case of the greatest composers, whose principal 

 melodies and harmonies do not suffer by their attention 

 to the counterpoint, that works of this class attain any 

 popularity. Until the acquirement of the power of hear- 

 ing many simultaneous melodies is placed within the 

 reach of the ordinary listener by a suitable and wide- 

 spread education specially directed to this purpose, it is J 

 useless to look for a popular interest in counterpoint, which 

 shall encourage the composer to produce it. There is a 

 question how far it is possible for a person not naturally ] 

 gifted with the polyphonic ear to acquire it in perfection. 

 But there can be no doubt that systems of education are 

 possible which will do much towards advance in this 

 direction ; and that the direct cultivation of polyphonic 

 hearing and reading is the shortest cut towards the for- 

 mation of the true musician. 



There is an incompleteness in Dr. Pole's statement of 

 Helmholtz's explanation of consonance and dissonance, 

 which is important, as it affects the logical foundation of 

 this part of the work, which however forms but a sub- 

 sidiary portion of Dr. Pole's book. The point in question 

 has been discussed at large some time ago by Prof. Mayer, 

 Mr. Sedley Taylor, and others. It will be sufficiently 

 explained by quoting the summary of the principles which 

 Dr. Pole employs in the discussion of the examples of 

 chords, and also a passage from Helmholtz which contains 

 the considerations omitted. 



(Dr. Pole's book, p. 210.) "Now having given these 

 two data, velocity of beating, and strength of beating 

 notes, we may examine some of the binary harmonic 

 combinations of sounds, and see in what manner and to 

 what extent the partial tones, of which the sounds are 

 made up, give rise to the beating or harshness above 

 described." 



The following passage will show that another set of 

 data is required, namely, the law according to which the 



