SOME PHASES OF MUSICAL AESTHETICS 27 



express the experience of a moment — a recorded mood so to speak — but 

 is the artistically finished results of months or years of technical work 

 in perfecting a composition which to the public seems an "inspiration." 

 This is cited as an argument against Hanslick by an eminent English 

 theorist, Sir John Stainer, who during the last two years of his life 

 was professor of music at Oxford University. It is almost incom- 

 prehensible how so ''learned a musician" as Stainer could have over- 

 looked so fatal a blunder as Spencer's, however good the intention 

 of the latter as explained in Stainer 's succeeding quotation from the 

 same source: "In its bearings upon human happiness, this emotional 

 language which musical culture develops and refines, is only second in 

 importance to the language of the intellect, perhaps not even second 

 to it." The musician can at least be thankful that Spencer's intentions 

 were good, and that he was at least a friend and not an enemy. If 

 the scientists have so misunderstood music, may not the musicians be 

 forgiven if, at times, they exhibit an ignorance of science ? 



Before leaving this part of the subject let us note that if these 

 problems of mere tone or of a simple melody are so difficult to explain 

 in the language of science, how shall we hope to explain the gorgeous 

 tone colors of the orchestra, the vast proportions of the symphony 

 and above all the musical personaHty of the composer, which asserts 

 itself through this unexplainable medium of musical sounds ? All 

 men and women can, in at least a limited sense, understand what may 

 be called the tedmique of the poet, the painter or the sculptor. I am 

 not speaking of his inspirations or of the higher flights of his genius, 

 but of the process of his actual work, i.e., in the case of the painter, 

 his reproduction on canvas of that which already exists to the physical 

 eye. But for the composer there is no guide in this sense. At his 

 command, from out the realm of silence Sound steps forth. But he 

 cannot will it thus or thus by the magic of his creative power. Wag- 

 ner^ well defines this distinction when he writes: 



If a plastic artist be compared with a musician [composer], the diversity 

 referred to is obvious; a poet stands between the two in such wise that as far as 

 he is consciously constructing he leans toward the plastic artist, whilst he comes 

 in contact with the musician in the obscure region of his unconsciousness. 



' Essay on Beethoven. 



