210 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XI. No. 267. 



only of Earopean music. Harmony came 

 in to help out the church music which was 

 slow and free from marked rhythmic effect. 

 The beginning of harmony is due to the 

 fact that men's voices were of different 

 calibre ; only intervals of a fourth and fifth 

 could well be tolerated in simultaneous 

 singing, and so the parts were doubled at 

 these intervals ; there is no reason for 

 thinking that this was offensive, as it 

 would be to us. " This doubling does not 

 imply a sense for harmony" (p. 95). 

 Slowly there came in a recognition of the 

 value of different consonances, of discords 

 and of interruptions of the voices. This 

 chapter unfortunately does not recognize 

 the important part taken by the organ in 

 the development of harmonic ideas ; the 

 Chinese have had slow sacred music and 

 voices of different calibre for thousands of 

 years, but have no harmony : the organ we 

 believe was the instrument that brought 

 about the development. 



In the following chapters Pure Choral 

 Music, Secular Music, Instrumental Music, 

 The Sonata-Form,and Opera are traced from 

 their beginning, with constant reference to 

 the aims and methods of the great com- 

 posers, and to their share either in enlarg- 

 ing the resources of design or giving ex- 

 pression to human feeling. The temptation 

 to quote at length is very strong. One 

 passage (somewhat condensed) from the 

 chapter on Modern Tendencies will give an 

 idea of the manner of treatment : Palestrina 

 without emotion embodies the most perfect 

 presentation of contemplative religious de- 

 votion. Bach * * * formulates a more 

 liberal and energetic type of religious senti- 

 ment, and foreshadows by his new combi- 

 nation of rhythm and polyphony the musical 

 expression of every sort of human feeling. 

 Beethoven expresses the complete emanci- 

 pation of human emotion and mind, and 

 attempts to give expression to every kind 

 of inner sensibility which is capable and 



worthy of being brought into the circuit of 

 an artistic scheme of design. * =i< * The love 

 of art for art's sake is at best a love of beauty 

 for itself. * * * This is inevitable at one 

 stage ; but humanity as it grows older in- 

 stinctively feels that the adoration of mere 

 beauty is sometimes childish and sometimes 

 thoroughly unwholesome ; and men want 

 to be sure that the human energies are not 

 sapped by art instead of being fostered by 

 it. After both beauty and expression have 

 reached a high plane men seek for strong 

 characterization, as in all the arts to-day, 

 and especially in literature. 



Finally, one more quotation somewhat 

 condensed may be commended to the care" 

 ful study of all who attempt to interpret 

 the music of strange peoples in terms of 

 European music. " Wagner's harmony is 

 the result of polyphony in great measure ; 

 he does not abandon tonality, but uses it 

 with quite remarkable skill and perception 

 of its functions ; in accompaniment of the 

 ordinary dialogue he is often very obscure 

 in tonalit}', just as J. S. Bach is in reci- 

 tative. For straightforward ideas he uses 

 simple diatonic figures ; for something speci- 

 ally mysterious, chords which belong to two 

 or more unassimilable tonalities on purpose 

 to create the sense of bewilderment, and a 

 kind of dizziness and helplessness which 

 exactly meets the requirements of the case. 

 If people's sense of tonality were not by 

 this time so highly developed such passages 

 would be merely hideous gibberish, and 

 they often seem so at first " (p. 356). 



III. 



"Wallaschek's book on ' Primitive Music' 

 takes us from the most extreme modern 

 position to the consideration of the begin- 

 nings and rude early manifestations of the 

 musical art. The first fifth of it is devoted 

 to a collection of explorer's reports on 

 savage music, little reference being made 

 to peoples who have developed a musical 



