Makcu 16, 1883.] 



• KNOWLEDGE 



157 



HOME MUSIC. 



By Thomas Foster. 



MANY regard with unmixed satisfaction the develop- 

 ment of musical taste during the last quarter 

 of a century or so in this country. Our music-loving 

 public now attend concerts and hearken to music which, 

 twenty or thirty years ago, would have had few attrac- 

 tions for them, and would ha\e attracted few hearers. 

 Young ladies thirty years ago were content to play little 

 beyond operatic music or the simpler kinds of classical music 

 Now they aim at compositions of the highest class, and 

 speak with contempt of such simpler music as their mothers 

 played. Men (wlio, by the way, are much more musical, in 

 general, than women, though the fact is absurdly over- 

 looked in our system of education) are smitten with the 

 same ambition. It is a condescension for your average 

 amateur to turn from Bach to Mozart, or even to 

 Beethoven. He will work with lissome fingers — thougli 

 not always quite so accurately as he imagines — through 

 some composition of the great Sebastian's which only a 

 few of the very finest musicians could interpret ; and 

 when his hearers, weary of what is really very fine music 

 very inefficiently plajed, ask for something more within his 

 powers of execution, he will in his heart revile them as 

 having low musical tastes, and with his tongue express his 

 contempt by asking whether they would rather have a 

 galop, a waltz, or a polka. 



I believe that the musical development to which I have 

 referred has not been altogether beneficial. It might have 

 been. Its purpose was excellent. If music were not, un- 

 happily, learned and practised too often only for display, 

 and not for love, the lessons which our amat«ur musicians 

 have been able to learn, the higher music which has been 

 rendered for them by the ablest living exponents in our 

 public concerts, would have done a great deal of good. But 

 unfortunately our present system causes thousands to 

 " learn music " who have no music in their souls, and there- 

 fore are unable even to know how remote from music is 

 their rendering of the masterpieces of our great musicians. 

 They will sit down and play on a perfect instrument, with 

 perfect mechanical accuracy (though this is not common), 

 the " Moonlight Sonata," or the " Sonata Pathetique," or 

 CTen a fugue of Bach's, and give less pleasure, even to those 

 who, being really musicians, know and understand the 

 beauty of the great masterpieces of classical music, than 

 would be given by a girl of ten or twelve playing feelingly 

 and truly some simply arranged air of Bellini's or 

 Donizetti's. 



The fault I have to find with the home music of our day 

 is that though not one person in five has real musical power, 

 and scarce one woman in ten, almost every girl is taught 

 to play, and — wliether from love of display on her own part, 

 or on the part of her parents — every girl who is so taught 

 continues to learn until she has attacked and (so far as 

 fingering is concerned) has mastered the finest works (for the 

 piano) of the great composers. The fewthat are really musical 

 must go with the rest, and unless their musical talent is 

 very marked indeed, their love of music is literally ground 

 out of them in the constant effort to play what is beyond 

 their powers. When they should be learning to play with ex- 

 pression and feeling some simple, touching melodies, they are 

 carried on to weary practice at brilliant fantasias. When 

 they have acquired sufficient facility of execution to deal 

 with such pieces successfully — that is, so to master all diffi- 

 culties of mere execution as to be able to play with 

 feeling, and to bring out the composer's real meaning — 

 they are taken on to music still more difficult, and with 

 deeper though also higher significance. And so from lesson 



to lesson, always a little beyond their strength, until, when 

 they reach the greatest development which their teachers 

 can impart, they iia\ e passed through ten or twelve years 

 of musical training during which they have scarcely once 

 had an opportunity to master more than the mere physical 

 execution — tlie depth and passion, the joy and pathos of 

 the music they have worked at remaining utterly unknown 

 to them. 



If this system ruins the musical aptitude even of those 

 who have music in their souls, what must be its natural in- 

 fluence on tliose who have little or none 1 Girls become 

 players of the piano, who, if their teachers had had any 

 sense, would early have left the piano alone — as certainly 

 nine out of ten of our most skilful executants ought long 

 since to have done. When "a little music " is asked for, 

 these unmusical key-ticklers are the first to be called on 

 to perform — an admirable word for what they do. In 

 former times, when home music was desired, those only 

 played who loved music and possessed musical aptitude — 

 which means more than mere love of music, just as the 

 power fitly to read or recite poetry means more than the 

 mere power of appreciating it. In those days we heard 

 much more music of the simpler sort than we do now. 

 There were few brilliant executants. But I think our 

 home music was sweeter and better, even in the musician's 

 sense, than what wc hear now. There are many who play 

 with wonderful dexterity and precision very difticult 

 music, music which is indeed very beautiful, only it re- 

 quires a musician to bring out its beauty, and they are only 

 well-practised fingerists. That many of these brilliant 

 players have no real musical power might be readily shown 

 if they were ready to stand the test Set before them 

 some simple but beautiful passage, presenting no difficul- 

 ties whatever, so far as mere execution is concerned, 

 but so full of sweetness that properly rendered it 

 would move the heart of every hearer, bring tears to 

 the eyes by its pathos, rouse the soul by its fire, or stir 

 yet deeper emotion by its solemn grandeur. If they can 

 be brought " to plaj' such an easy piece," so unworthy of 

 their skill, you shall be surprised to find how utterly com- 

 monplace and unmeaning the noblest composition is when 

 played without musical feeling. You may then try another 

 experiment. Take a very simple air indeed, not very deep, 

 not impressive at all, but light and gi-aceful. Ask one of 

 these unmusical, but most skilful, pianists to play it, and 

 you will find it utterly worthless ; then (or on another day, 

 lest you hurt anyone's feelings) ask a real musician, whose 

 power to render the most difficult music does not interfere 

 with his power of appreciating the beauties of simpler 

 compositions, to play the selfsame pieces. As you enjoy 

 the graceful movements of the lighter music, and as your 

 soul thrills responsive to the joy or pathos, the fervour 

 or solemnity of some simple but beautiful composition, you 

 will learn what real music is, and how far these fall short 

 of being musicians who have mere ttchtiique without 

 feeling, mere manual and digital dexterity without true 

 musical capacity. 



My subject has its serious side. The pleasures of life 

 are not so numerous that wc can well aflbrd to lose any of 

 them, still less those which are among the best and purest. 

 Home music, even of the simplest sort, may be made a 

 source of great pleasure, if music is aimed at, and not 

 mere display of manual skill* To the tired worker, 



* It is a misfortune tfiat eo much of tlio music written for young 

 players — operatic fantasias, variations on simple airs, and bo forth 

 — is written for display rather than for trne musical effect — dis- 

 play of the composer's cleverness, as well as to give the learner 

 opportunity to acquire and display executional dexterity. Some of 

 the arrangements referred to exhibit the most remarkable insensi- 



