20 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 



what is called a new philosophy or a new religion is generally not so much a 

 creation of fresh ideas, but rather a new direction given to ideas already current 

 among contemporary thinkers. 



It is unnecessary to say that these words are as true when applied 

 to the history of an art as to that of a philosophy or a religion. Indeed 

 Buckle's emphasis of the importance of statistics in estabhshing 

 historical principles appHes with equal force to the history of music, 

 the only question being, What are those statistics, and where are they 

 to be found ? In music as in the other arts the most vital truths are 

 contained within the art itself, but who shall define the relation of 

 those facts to the individual, to the nation and to those centuries 

 which have measured the vast extent of some of the great epochs 

 of art ? 



When Hegel defined music as "the most subjective of all arts," 

 he recognized its true nature, at least so far as it may be subject to 

 philosophical or scientific investigation. If sound does not exist 

 until it is, as it were, translated to our consciousness through the me- 

 dium of the physical ear, may we not likewise assert that music by the 

 same process is music only after being thus translated it becomes in 

 turn retranslated into intellectual or emotional concepts? But, as 

 we shall see later, this conclusion leads to mere speculation, which 

 has often in the past wandered far from the truth by this frequent 

 confusion of cause and effect. 



If we begin with the definition by Helmholtz, that "the con- 

 struction of scales and of harmonic tissue is a product of artistic 

 invention, and by no means furnished by the formation or natural 

 function of the ear, as it has hitherto been most generally asserted," 

 we can develop a series of scientific statements which will lead to a 

 better understanding of the material basis of the art of music. First, 

 however, let us briefly examine some of the phases of the history of 

 music. The composer is a child of his own generation — perhaps 

 even more so than the poet. The music of each epoch bears the stamp, 

 musically speaking, of that epoch, even in the matter of national 

 characteristics, and in this sense like architecture it records in its 

 own peculiar manner much of the inner life of men and nations, 



