Beethoven and His ForerunnersMason, Daniel Gregory
History
Beethoven and His Forerunners
Mason, Daniel Gregory
Beethoven, Ludwig van, 1770-1827; Music -- 18th century -- History and criticism; Music -- 19th century -- History and criticism
In the second place, music has what we call expressive value.
Feelings, of surprising depth and variety, it can arouse in us, by
inducing, through the contagiousness of rhythm and melody, tendencies
to make those bodily motions and vocal sounds which are the natural
accompaniment of our emotions.[4] These tendencies, of course, remain
incipient; they do not discharge in actual movements greater than the
tapping of the foot in “keeping time” and a slight contraction of the
vocal cords; but even this faint organic commotion suffices to arouse
those vivid feelings with which we listen to expressive music. It is
worth while to note further that these feelings are in themselves
necessarily most general and undefined, hardly more than moods of
animation, excitement, apprehensiveness, solemnity, or depression.
Their particular coloring is always imparted either by words or titles,
or by the associations of the individual listener. On that very fact
depend both the poignancy and the variety of musical expression.
The third and highest value of music is its æsthetic value, or beauty.
This value, which springs from the delight we take in perceiving, or
mentally organizing our sensations and ideas, is precisely analogous
to the æsthetic value of the other arts, as, for example, the beauty
of sonnets and other highly articulated poetic forms, of well-composed
pictures, of finely-proportioned sculpture, of symmetrical and
harmonious architecture. It depends, in general, on the perception of
unity in a mass of various impressions, and is but one example of a
type of satisfaction we are capable of finding in all the departments
of our experience. Wherever, confronted by many objects, sensations,
thoughts, or feelings, we are able to gain a sense of their coherence,
inter-relation, and essential oneness, we get the characteristic
æsthetic value. To win it is the highest success we know. To perceive
unity in the bewildering complexity of our experience, is to possess,
in the realm of knowledge, truth; in the realm of practice, character;
in the realm of art, beauty. Moreover, since perception is a far more
active, self-directed process than either sensation or emotion, which
are in large degree passively suffered, its contribution to our mental
life has for us a deeper charm, a more far-reaching significance, than
that of any other faculty. Beauty transfigures all elements that may
coexist with it in the mind. In the intellectual sphere, for example,
we understand far more deeply the phenomenon when we know its species
and genus, and “science is but classified knowledge.” In practical
life, all the little every-day events, the petty pleasures and pains,
take on, when we view them in relation to a conceived unity in our
characters and destinies, a new significance. Similarly in music,
values of the first two species, sweetness of sound and emotional
expressiveness, can be transfigured by formal beauty; there is no
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