SOME PHASES OF MUSICAL AESTHETICS 3 1 



"touches upon the domain of the seer and prophet" in comparison 

 with all other music. 



We must recognize that though music is a universal art it is con- 

 stantly changing. The music which, so far as we can now know, 

 was a part of the luxury of the brilHant Hfe of seventeenth-century 

 European monarchs, is forgotten to all but the few who from time to 

 time open these dusty volumes of the past. One by one all but a 

 few of the symphonies of Haydn and Mozart have been crowded to 

 one side by later compositions, which in turn may pass into oblivion. 

 No hand can stop this onward march of humanity, be it progress 

 or retrogression. Whether like the noblest writings and poetry of 

 the ancients the greatest music will survive, or whether, as fade the 

 pigments of the painter's canvas, not the music of the past but the 

 response to that music shall become dimmed and another music of 

 which we cannot prophecy shall alone awaken that response — who 

 shall say ? So awful is this problem that the musician instinctively 

 turns from it in his love for his art as it now is, and asks again the 

 question. What is this strange, incomprehensible art which in 

 an unknown language has voiced the joys and sorrows of the 

 world, and yet lends itself to the mere idle entertainment of that 

 world? To the few and to the many must come at times the 

 thought so beautifully expressed by Jean Paul Richter when he 

 exclaimed : 



O Music! Thou who bringest the receding waves of eternity nearer to the 

 weary heart of man as he stands upon the shore and longs to cross over! Art 

 thou the evening breeze of this hfe or the morning air of the other one ? 



This is an age when the virtuoso type of musician, whether com- 

 poser or performer, possesses a dominating influence. The thoughtful 

 musician can but hesitate, for this very reason, to look upon it as a 

 golden age. In the history of every art the period of extreme vir- 

 tuosity, of excessive refinement, has prophesied if not actually marked 

 the approach of its decline — and sincerity is no longer its "informing 

 spirit." Wilhelm Ambros, over fifty years ago, wrote in his Die 

 Grenzen der Poesie und der Musik: 



