668 MUSIC 



of the most mixed quality. Sometimes even divinely beautiful, and 

 at others grossly repulsive. Sometimes vibrating with human love 

 and tenderness, and sometimes redolent of the most nauseous vulgari- 

 ties of the opera. But in either case the style was mainly governed 

 by the attitude of mind to which the composers intended to appeal. 



Conspicuous difference of style is induced by different conditions 

 of presentment. This is obviously the case in respect of music which 

 is associated with words, and music intended to be performed without 

 them. , In music associated with words it is absolutely inevitable that 

 the mood and expression of phrase and figure and melody and har- 

 mony, and even of form, must be in close and intimate relation with 

 the words. The more perfect the instinct of the composer for the 

 musical equivalents of the sentiments expressed by the words, the 

 more perfect will be the style; and the more perfect the invention 

 which can dispose of the ingredients in an effective and original man- 

 ner, the more complete the work of art. The composer has the moods 

 and details of expression supplied him, and the hearers understand 

 the music through its relation to the words. But in music that is 

 intended to be performed without words the composer is himself an- 

 swerable for the moods he presents, and he has to find inherent justi- 

 fication for every bar he writes in some artistic, intellectual, emo- 

 tional, or aesthetic principle. To write music for instruments in the 

 style of vocal music is doubly fatuous, for it is not only inadequate on 

 the grounds that instruments can do so much more than voices, but 

 that the absence of words leaves it entirely without ostensible reason 

 for existence, when there is little or no intrinsic interest in the work- 

 manship. 



Even in the various departments of word-wed and wordless music 

 there are infinite shades of variety of style. The music of the the- 

 atre absolutely demands a method and style different from that ap- 

 propriate to vocal music of the concert room, and from the style of the 

 domestic art song. The dramatic music of the theatre gains both ad- 

 vantages and disadvantages from its associations with scenery and 

 action. For, while the mind is distracted in one respect, and pays no 

 attention to artistic qualities which would be prominent in a quartet 

 or a symphony, it is helped in others which would be out of place in 

 instrumental music. The listener would probably miss the develop- 

 ment of figures and the subtleties of abstract design if he attended to 

 the drama, but would be quick to feel the intention and purpose of 

 progressions, harmonies, resolutions, and successions of keys which 

 would be unintelligible, without the words, but become vividly effective 

 from the situations with which they are associated and the develop- 

 ment of passion which they portray. In songs which are not intended 

 for the theatre, the qualities and methods used in quartets and son- 

 atas are much more appropriate, because the mind is less distracted 



