stranger, as it is to suggest that he is incapa- | rival; and I have known various persons, ble of understanding a joke, or to venture whose sole power of perception lay in a on a pun in a mixed company. delicate musical sensibility, scarcely at all cultivated, do homage to its power at the first hearing.

The love of music, again, and the capacity for appreciating it, show themselves under very variable conditions. The power of A question then naturally arises as to the feeling, loving, and criticising the master- source of the gratification thus experienced pieces of the great writers is frequently in listening to or performing musical sounds associated with an utter incapacity for in their innumerable varieties. Is it simply learning to play or sing with tolerable skill. a matter of study and association and habit There are people whose ear for tune, when that makes one composition appear good to listening to the performance of others, is in one listener and bad to another? Or is a high degree sensitive, and who are yet there a certain real and definite difference not only unable to sing in tune themselves, between good and bad music, which correbut are unable to tell whether they really sponds to the difference between good and are or are not singing in tune. There are bad poetry, and good and bad oratory and others whose natural musical capacities have prose writing? Is it, again, simply a matter never been cultivated either by study or of taste, resulting solely from a peculiarity by the hearing of good music, who yet are of physical organisation, that makes one instinctively attracted only by the compo- person like Handel better than Haydn, sitions of the great writers, and even by Beethoven better than Mozart, and the those which are as a rule only understood Gregorian Tones better than Lord Mornby good musicians after a considerable ington's popular chant; just as one person amount of study. This is notably the case likes blue better than green, or scarlet betwith several of the later writings of Beetho- ter than yellow or crimson; or―to descend ven. It is notorious that a large number to more absolutely corporeal sensations of educated musicians never thoroughly as an Englishman likes English cookery and enter into and enjoy these extraordinary a Frenchman likes French cookery? Or, compositions, while of those who do com- on the contrary, is music actually what it is prehend them and rank them among his often rhetorically called, a language; not noblest masterpieces, very many only ar- only capable of being employed with various rived at this conviction after long familiar- degrees of skill and originality, but a disity, and after training themselves to under- tinct reflection of the personal character of stand them by renewed critical studies of a composer, taken as a moral and intelthe development of his genius in his first and lectual whole? I say, "what it is often second periods. Still we occasionally meet rhetorically called," because there are few with persons of genuine natural musical subjects on which it is so easy and so comsensibility, but of little or no training, and mon to talk and write not only rhetorical prepared by no large acquaintance with though somewhat vague sense, but pure Beethoven's earlier works, who are yet at rhetorical nonsense, in which the speaker or once taken captive by many portions of writer, not having any meaning to express, these later wonders, and who perceive in unfortunately does not adopt Lord Chatham's them none of that fragmentary, crude, and suggestion to the miserable gentleman in the abrupt character of which they were once House of Commons, when he advised him to almost universally accused. Take, for in- say nothing whenever he meant nothing. stance, the principal melody in the last great movement of his Choral Symphony, upon which it is stated that he bestowed extraordinary labour, touching and retouching its brief phrases for several days together, and at length bringing it to the full perfection that he required with enthusiastic delight. Nevertheless, M. Fétis, one of the most accomplished, capable, and unprejudiced of musical critics, can see neither beauty, nor grandeur, nor musical fitness in this now celebrated theme. Yet to myself, and to multitudes more, it is one of the most ravishing of melodies, and combines grandeur, simplicity, and grace with that passionate intensity in which Beethoven is without a

At first sight there is undoubtedly a good deal to be said in favour of the view which deprives music of all claim to be regarded as a species of articulate language, which has its own peculiar but by no means arbitrarily chosen instrumentality for the expression of ideas. It has no instrument corresponding to the words of written and spoken language. Words, whether in their written or spoken form, represent certain special separate ideas which everybody employs with a more or less correct appreciation of their force. When a man talks of love, nobody supposes that he means anger, though the single word "love" is susceptible of all sorts of various modifications of

meaning. When he speaks of walking, or portion, is a movement called a minuet. In running, or flying, it is impossible to suppose the lists of popularly accepted sacred music, that he wishes to convey an idea of sitting too, there are not a few pieces which most of still. He may speak with rapid utterance, the English music-loving public delights in as and yet be discoursing about repose or sleep, being truly pure, elevating, and " Scriptuand be perfectly sure of being understood. ral;" and yet it turns out that these are nothEven when he aims at conveying ideas of a ing but airs from Handel's operas, adapted to more abstract and metaphysical kind, he Biblical words, and sung in all simplicity in may speak to listeners who have some churches and cathedrals, and in Sabbatarian sort of clue to the meaning he wishes to reading-rooms on Sunday evenings, when convey. If he employs the term "analogy," nothing but "Sacred Music is considered in a room full of chance acquaintances, lawful. How can music, it is asked, be any probably a good many would think he thing more than a mere sensuous gratificameant simply "likeness," but no one would tion of the ear, when the same melody which think he meant absolute "difference." And is a charming love-song, as "Dove sei, amato all this, because spoken language is nothing bene," on the stage, proves an edifying sacred more than a vast collection of articulate song in the shape of "Holy, holy, Lord? sounds, which the whole race who speak it and when an air, sung to the words "Lord, have agreed to associate with certain defi- remember David," proves quite as delightful nite ideas. In musical sounds, on the con- in its original shape, as "Rendil sereno, in trary, whether those of melody or harmony, the opera of Sosarmes? Then, too, there are nothing of this kind exists. There are no those curious adaptations of Roman Cathodefinitely agreed upon successions or combi- lic hymn tunes to Protestant purposes which nations of sounds which necessarily recall are so popular in this country. If there is certain clearly understood ideas to the mind. a flagrant contrariety between an operatic We cannot express love by a major third, love ditty and a verse from the Psalms, what or anger by a minor third, or describe the is to be said for the innate truth of expresskies by arpeggios, or gardens and fields by sion of hymn tunes that do duty equally a diminished seventh. The means by which to the satisfaction of singers as expressions musical combinations are made to express of the Catholic doctrines of Transubstantiaanything at all are so subtle and difficult to tion and the worship of the Virgin Mary, handle, that it is only to the sympathetic and of the extremest Lutherianism and Calunderstanding that their existence can be vinism of Dissenting congregations? made comprehensible. To the ordinary Low Church and Nonconformist compilaobserver their various qualities seem a pure tions of hymn tunes, few are greater favourhypothesis, and to have no objective ex-ites than the melodies known as " Tantum istence whatsoever.

In

Ergo," "Alma," and "The Sicilian Mariner's Hymn." Yet their original words are as utterly Roman in their meaning as any hymns in the Missal or the Breviary. And the latest popular adaptation is the oddest of all. In Dr. Monk's "Hymns, Ancient and Modern" is a tune which, with an amu

Further, it is not to be denied that vocal music, when stripped of its words, loses that precise definitiveness of meaning which appears to be its great charm when sung by a competent performer. The music itself is said to have no real meaning of its own, because it is incapable of conveying precise in-sing appropriateness, is termed "Innocents," tellectual conceptions without the aid of articulate speech. So, again, it is argued that there is no appreciable difference between sacred and secular music, and that it is by mere conventionalism that some compositions are called religious, and others non-religious. What is the difference between sacred and secular music, we are asked, except that one is grave, slow, solemn, and apt to fall into the minor key? Strip it all alike of its words, and nobody can tell which pieces are fit for the church and which for the concertroom. The very phraseology of musical terms, we are reminded, betrays the inherent unmeaningness of all music. Handel's oratorio Samson is certainly a sacred composition, but here, in its introductory instrumental

which is nothing more or less than a somewhat vulgar "Litany of the Blessed Virgin." very popular, like a great deal of other bad music, among English Catholics. Seeing, then, that one may go any Sunday into a London Anglican Church, and hear a congregation singing with delight a half-dancing sort of a tune to a Calvinistic "Olney hymn," and then cross the street and listen to the same strain sung with equal gusto to the invocation, "Sancta Maria, ora pro nobis," with what reasonableness can it be contended that music is anything more than a pleasant succession of sounds, destitute of all real expressiveness of their own, and waiting to be galvanized into temporary life by the addition of some sort of words, operatic

or theological, Papistical, High Church, or ultra-Protestant?

character, the effect would be simply ludicrous. The emotions expressed must be more or less identical with those attributed to the despairing Jephtha, although, no doubt, the circumstances which are supposed to arouse them may be varied. Or try the experiment of adaptation upon the Ave verum of Mozart, or the concluding phrases of the Recordare in the same composer's Requiem, or on the last song in Beethoven's Lieder Kreis, or on his An dir allein, that sacred song in which he expresses the emotions of religious penitence and exultation with the same extraordinary intensity with which Mozart expresses those of adoration, love, and hope in the Ave verum and the Recordare. In all these, any attempt at the adaptation of different words will only serve to show the perfect fitness of their melodious cadences and the progresssive harmonies for embodying the ideas which the composers had actually present in their minds. And it is the same with such almost purely instrumental movements as the "Amen" chorus with which Handel closes his Messiah. Here we have a fugue of by no means brief duration, worked up with all the resources of counterpoint, and the only syllables the singers utter through its entire length, are those of the word

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In arguing, then, in defence of the inherent and true expressiveness of musical sound, it is, in the first place, necessary to say what is thus meant, and how far it can be adequately described as an actual language, corresponding to, and expressive of, the intelligent and emotional nature of man. That it possesses, apart from some accompanying words, the definiteness which attaches to articulate speech, is not to be maintained. Those who contend for its wonderful and unapproachable powers of expressing and influencing the feelings, are often misled into confounding force and depth with exact distinctness of intellectual conception. Seeing and delighting in its capacity for producing effects unattainable by other means, they claim for it an attribute to which it cannot pretend. It must be fully admitted that the ideas and emotions that are called into vivid action by the music of the greatest masters are less distinct in their outline, so to say, than those which are expressed by spoken words, and in their own peculiar range, by painting and sculpture. If we take the most powerfully expressive pieces of dramatic music, and sever them from the words which they were written to express, it can- Amen," which is repeated again and again not be denied that they would, to a certain with interminable variations of spinning out, extent, suffer as exponents of human feel- as it appears to the non-musical ear, entireing, human thought, and human character. ly without any sense at all. Yet, in reality, Yet, on the other hand, they have a real the artistic propriety and the fulness of meaning of their own, which it would be as meaning of this fugue are as perfect as its absurd to deny, as to assert that laughter, contrapuntal skill. It is long, and it reas such, is not the expression of enjoyment. peats the one word "Amen" again an Take, for example, the following, which are again, because it is the concluding moveamong the greatest masterpieces of writers ment of a long work, in which each idea in of different periods. The" Che faro," from the whole narrative of the life and death of Glück's Orfeo, is a song scarcely to be sur- Christ is developed at considerable length. passed in the intensity of its tragic pathos, To say " Amen" once, or to prolong its rewhich is felt even by those who scarcely un- petition only through a few bars, would be derstand a word of Italian. To those who do out of proportion to the previous treatment understand it, the appropriateness of every of the detailed portions of the whole work. phrase is manifest, and its effect is propor- The " Amen " chorus is thus simply an extionately increased. But to adapt any other pression of the gratitude and joy with which words which should convey ideas not prac- the devout mind contemplates the conclutically corresponding with the original, and sion of the sufferings of Christ and the comshould yet be felt to be a natural vehicle for mencement of his glories in heaven. The the music, would be an impossibility. If they word " Amen" is a mere conventional vedid not express emotions substantially the hicle for expressing the thoughts that absorb same with which the half-maddened husband the Christian intelligence; and, as the comis supposed to watch the lifeless body of the poser exerts his utmost powers in working striken Eurydice, the musical sounds would up his melodious theme till he attains the strike one as inappropriate and unmeaning. unrivalled climax (at the sixth bar from the Take next another masterpiece of tragic pas- end), it seems as if the mind could bear no sion and pathos, Handel's "Deeper and deep- more, and exhausted with exultation, suber still," with the song " Waft her, angels," to sides at once into repose and silent thought. which the recitative leads up; if these won- Here and there, indeed, it must be confessderful notes were sung to words dissimilar ined that even the greatest writers may set

power, and almost rapturous enjoyment is as striking in both of them, as is the difference between their modes of treatment and the instrumentality by which the same result is attained. It is impossible to hear and understand either of them, and yet uphold the theo

music to words for which it is so ill-adapted | with the final movement in Beethoven's lastthat it gains considerably by the substitution written pianoforte sonata, the wonderful Op. of others quite different in character; a fact CXI. The feeling of intensity, exultation, which, however, confirms my argument, though at the expense of the composer himself. For example, there is a song of Handel's in his opera Etius, which in the Italian original is simply narrative, and of a pastoral and trivial kind. When Dr. Arnold hashed up a species of oratorio out of the great mas-ry that all the meaning of music lies in the ter's operatic works in general, he took this same "Nasce al bosco" and set it to the noble words of the Psalmist, "He layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters," &c., and the result is a splendid song, in which the music is perfectly expressive of ideas which none but a very great writer could worthily embody. The recitative usually sung with the adapted song is said to be Arnold's own, and is so excellent, that for its sake, and in acknowledgment of his skill in the conversion of the air from a pastoral ditty to a magnificent religious hymn, some portion of his barbarous proceedings may be, perhaps, condoned.

Those critics who insist that the meaning of music entirely depends upon the words which it accompanies, should be further referred to one or two examples of purely instrumental works, in which a distinct intelligent sentiment is so irresistibly felt that there can be no two opinions as to what the music means. And I will take first the two men who both stand in the highest rank as composers, but whose modes, as artists, of expressing themselves were singularly unlike. It would be difficult to name two masters of the art in whom the systems upon which musical sounds are employed as a vehicle for thought and feeling were more dissimilar than Mozart and Beethoven. Mozart was one of the greatest contrapuntists that have ever lived; while in Beethoven the contrapuntal faculty was but feebly developed, though as an original and imaginative harmonist it is scarcely an exaggeration to say that he is without a rival.* Listen, then, to the finale in Mozart's" Jupiter" symphony, in which an orchestral movement of the utmost brilliancy is planned in the form of a fugue, and carried out on a scale and with a success simply marvellous; and then compare it

For the sake of the general reader it may be as well to add, that by counterpoint is meant the development of a melody by the (apparently) independent movement of the various voices or instruments, each repeating and modifying the melody in its own way, all in combination producing a harmonious whole; while by harmony, as such, is meant simply the progression of combinations of sounds in agreeable and expressive sequences. A fugue exhibits the most elaborately planned form of contrapuntal treat ment; an ordinary psalm or hymn tune is a specimen of mere harmony.

words. In their very identity of expression, too, the personal characters of the two men are revealed in the clearest light. In the utmost height of the excitement of his climax, Mozart's tendency to serenity, sweetness, and enjoyment is vividly felt; while from the simple announcement of his slowly moving theme, up to the agitated trills in which Beethoven's excitement culminates, we are ever conscious that with him repose was the result of the forcible control of passionate emotion.

As for the popular notion that there exists an essential difference between secular and sacred music as such, it is as superficial as it is untenable. It is as unreal as the corresponding theory that religious emotions and ideas are the product of one set of faculties, and secular feelings and knowledge the product of another set. Love is love, and joy is joy, and hope is hope, whether the objects which arouse them are Divine or human; and they therefore express themselves in similar language, whether spoken or sung. The idea that religious music is in its nature unlike all other music, is of a piece with the preposterous but equally prevalent belief, that when we speak on religious subjects, especially when men are preaching from a pulpit, it is proper to adopt a conventionally solemn tone of voice, and to use a conventional cast of phraseology. Of course, as there are certain ideas and emotions which never enter into acts of religious worship or meditation, so there are certain varieties of musical expression which would be out of all character in sacred composition. Everything of the nature of frivolity, for example, is utterly out of character and senseless in religious music. But after excluding all such ridiculous incongruities, the fact remains that there is absolutely no difference in style between the sacred and the secular works of the great masters. The madrigals of Palestrina are like his masses and motets; Bach's fugues for the clavecin are just like many of the choruses in his "Passion Musik" and his masses; were it not for the words, nobody conld say whether any one of Handel's songs belongs to an oratorio or an opera;

the Agnus Dei in Mozart's First Mass is to a great extent like the Dove sono in his Figaro; and so with all the rest of his works, and those of still later writers. And for the reason just stated, that human emotions are identical in their nature, though of course varying in their intensity and combinations, whether the outward objects which excite them are Divine or human.

It should not be forgotten, too, that the various stages by which the present condition of the musical art has been developed, practically correspond to the varieties of articulate languge, whether past or present. All languages are not equally perfect as instruments for the embodiment of idea and feeling. Greek and Latin, English and French, Italian and German, all have their characteristics, their merits and their defects. So it is with the forms which have prevailed in the musical art during the last three centuries. The musical forms of today, as wrought out by Beethoven and Mendelssohn, are as unlike those of Palestrina and Di Lasso, as Greek is unlike Latin, or German unlike French. The intervening forms, again, which may be taken as attaining their highest perfection in Handel, have a character solely their own; and, like the several varieties of articulate languages, each stage in musical development is especially adapted for the perfect expression of some one class of thoughts or emotions. The English tongue has a wonderful power for poetic and oratorical expression, but who would think of ranking it with Greek or with French as a vehicle of scientific expression, or with German as a language of sentiment? And thus in music. It was not alone the genius of Palestrina, but the musical forms of the time, which make his works and those of the other great masters of the sixteenth century the most purely spiritual music in existence. At the same time, not only those forms, but the forms of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, were inadequate to the production of the gorgeous splendour of the orchestra as developed in the nineteenth century. The highly cultivated and sympathetic musical intelligence enjoys every school, and finds in its works a true and natural expression of its thoughts and sensibilities; just as Homer, and Sophocles, and Horace, and Dante, and Goethe, and Molière, are the cherished companions of the highly cultivated Englishman.

In every musical school, too, there is that other capacity to be recognised which is to be noted in every spoken language. The personal character of the writer displays it

self in the works of a great composer as distinctly as those of a writer in ordinary prose language. The peculiarities of the man Mozart are as clearly revealed in his music as in his letters and in the records of his life. It is the same with Beethoven; the same with Mendelssohn; the same with Handel and Haydn. In Handel's writings there is to be found the expression of every human passion; but it would be ridiculous to pretend that the tenderness, the sweetness, the mingled joyousness and sadness, which are almost always present in combination in Mozart, are to be found prominent in the universally gifted Handel, who even in his lightest moods impresses us with a sense of force and power. It may seem, perhaps, a whimsical notion; but yet it is hardly extravagant to add that in Handel, as in Shakspeare, we seem to be in company with a prosperous man. That the two men were prosperous in the trade of money-getting, and, wonderful to add, as theatrical managers, is a fact which everybody knows, and which ought ever to be enforced on the attention of those prosaie people who imagine that there is a sort of incompatibility between the gifts of genius and a capacity for business. However, this much, I think, cannot be denied, that as nobody would ever imagine, from their works, that either Shakspeare or Handel were unfortunate, melancholy men, so nobody would ever imagine that Beethoven was the reverse; or, again, that Weber was a thriving, jovial man of the world, or that Rossini waged a fruitless struggle for bread and for health. In the great Sebastian Bach's writings, too, I see the revelation of the peculiarities of his history, as distinguished from that of his great contemporary. Fiery passions, with their conflicts, find no expression in any of the works of the quiet, contented, domestic musical director of Leipsic. Even in the most jubilant and triumphant bursts and climaxes in his Mass in B minor, -the noblest mass ever written, and by a Protestant, too, the clear, bright, genial, and self-possessed nature of the man is still manifest; and he goes on pouring forth his streams of brilliant, interlacing harmonies with a fertility and a sense of enjoyment that bespeaks at once a mind at ease and an imagination as exuberant as it was powerful and well-instructed. Altogether it seems to me as impossible to deny that musical sound is a voice speaking from the mind, as that the written styles of Addison and Macaulay, and the spoken style of Johnson, were the natural products of the peculiarities of their several characters.

J. M. CAPES.