SOME PHASES OF MUSICAL AESTHETICS 21 



though with this difference, that is has oftener been perverted as a 

 medium of mere personal gratification. 



But after all, this very phase of it is important to consider, for it 

 reveals something of the world's attitude toward it, and also something 

 of its influence on social life. Thus, paint never so perfectly in lan- 

 guage a picture of society dominated by the splendors of the court, 

 say of Louis XIV, that picture will remain incomplete without its 

 music; or, to state it otherwise, the music of that period is one of the 

 means by which the imagination can be stimulated and thereby a 

 closer relation be established between the past and present. Modern 

 instrumental music was then in its infancy, and hence the quaint, 

 graceful and even beautiful music of that time we are inclined to 

 consider as a mere embelHshment of social, and especially of court, Hfe, 

 rather than as an art to be seriously reckoned with. But we cannot 

 tell what was its influence on those who heard it and to whom no 

 dreams of a future Beethoven were granted. Perchance for them this 

 music, which seems too shallow to float our modern ideals, flowed a 

 mighty river toward the ocean of Infinity. 



The rise of the court style of music, especially in Germany, and in 

 its near related country, Austria, dates from the time of Bach's son, 

 Karl PhiHpp Emanuel, who was connected as a musician with the 

 court of Frederick the Great. While in one sense it culminated in 

 Beethoven, in another and deeper sense Beethoven soon burst its 

 fetters and asserted the brotherhood of mankind in defiance to royalty 

 and institutions. But if music is not a language, how is this possible ? 

 One explanation is this: If we note the contrast between Beethoven's 

 attitude and that of Haydn and Mozart, not only toward music but 

 toward the social and political conditions of Europe, we can reahze 

 how surely in the music of Beethoven we find less and less a mere 

 source of pleasant entertainment, and more and more a great inspira- 

 tion not to be influenced or dictated to by those conditions which for 

 centuries had ruled. 



Only the few greatest composers have had that strength of genius 

 which is able to defy the demands of their time and to live far in 

 advance of that time. And yet, if music is a universal art, why must 



