The art of music. Vol. 01 (of 14) : $b The pre-Classic periods
History
The art of music. Vol. 01 (of 14) : $b The pre-Classic periods
Music -- History and criticism; Musicians
And the secret of expression in art in this
particular department is that the composer who has that very highly
organized faculty of perception of relations of colors uses just those
relations in their various degrees which intensify the susceptibility
of the human auditor to the quality of the ideas he wants to express.
In this field there is a very wide and interesting opportunity for
special study, as the average of color tendencies is a very striking
means of gauging the disposition and personality of composers. Thus
the stern, almost ascetic, colors of Brahms, varied by touching gleams
of tenderness and beauty, express his personality most exactly.
Beethoven undoubtedly changed his average of color as he developed
his personality. In his earlier works he was genial and bright, after
the manner of the sonata composers, and made use of the cheerful
coloring that suited a cultured and prosperous aristocracy. In his
middle period he became warmer and more serious; in his latest period
he was sometimes grim and fierce, sometimes deep and solemn, but often
tender with the depth of longing and the earnestness of his aspiration.
But who cannot read the character of a composer through his average
color scheme? The flighty, empty-headed trickster with his sparkling
piccolo and his gas-jet noises on violins, and the bombastic vulgarian
posing as a man of great feeling with his roars of blatant brass;
the oversensitized hedonist with his delicate subtleties, mainly in
transparent pearl-grays; and so on. We are almost inclined to forget
that it is all, or nearly all, a matter of relations; it is only not
a matter of relations when the music is false. When the composer does
try to make his effects by violence and what he supposes to be the
intrinsic power of tone-quality nobody is permanently taken in. That
the basis of color effect is relation is a thing man is learning every
day in the infinite variety of a gorgeous sunset and in the luxuriant
blaze of his own flowerbeds. Indeed, the principle of relativity in art
is nowhere likely to be more readily felt than in the matter of color.
It is more difficult to apprehend in matters of form and organization.
Yet it ought to be easy to perceive that the whole object of
organization is to put things in their right places. It is just as in
the color scheme: the effect of a work of art, as has been said before,
does not depend upon intrinsic interest of individual moments, but on
the relation of every moment to every other moment. If the relations
are false the impression is marred and the idea fails to carry
conviction.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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