[Footnote 135: The instinctive nature of this tendency is shown by the
fact that it persists even in sleep. Thus Weygandt relates that he once
fell asleep in the theatre during one of the last scenes of _Cavalleria
Rusticana_, when the tenor was singing in ever higher and higher tones,
and dreamed that in order to reach the notes the performer was climbing up
ladders and stairs on the stage.]
[Footnote 136: See, especially the attractive book of André Pirro,
_L'Esthétique de J. S. Bach_ (1907), and also Albert Schweitzer, _J. S.
Bach_ (1908), especially chapters xix.-xxiii. 'Concrete things,' says
Ernest Newman, summarising some of these results (_Nation_, December 25,
1909), 'incessantly suggested abstract ideas or inward moods to Bach, and
_vice versâ_. He would time after time use the same musical formula for
the same word or idea. He first suggests the external concepts of "high"
and "low," as other composers have done, by high or low notes, and motion
up or down by ascending or descending themes. But Bach correlates with
the outward, objective thing a whole series of things that are purely
subjective. Thus moods of elation or of depression are to him the mental
equivalents of the physical acts of going up or down. So he gives us a
whole series of ascending themes to words that express "mounting" states
of mind, as it were--such as pride, courage, strength, resolution--and
descending themes to words that express "declining" states of mind--such
as prostration, adoration, depression, discouragement, grief at sin,
humility, poverty, fatigue, and illness. For the two sets of concepts,
internal and external, he will use the same musical symbols. To represent
the physical concept of "surrounding," again, he adopts the device of
a circling or undulating theme. A crown or a garland suggests the same
idea to him, so for this, too, he uses the same kind of theme. But
the correspondence goes still further; for when he comes to the word
"considering," he uses the same curving musical symbol once more--his
notion of "considering" being that of looking round on all sides. Again, a
word of purely external signification that suggests something twisted will
have an appropriately twisted theme. Then come the subjective applications
of the theme--the same disordered melodic outline is used to express a
frame of mind like anxiety or confusion, or to depict the wiles of Satan.
Careful study of the vocal works of Bach, and especially of the cantatas,
has revealed a host of these curious symbols.' The whole subject, it may
be added, has been briefly and suggestively discussed by Goblot, 'La
Musique Descriptive,' _Revue Philosophique_, July 1901.]
[Footnote 137: T. Piderit, _Mimik und Physiognomik_, 1867, p. 73.]
[Footnote 138: J. Cleland, _Evolution, Expression and Sensation_, 1881.]
[Footnote 139: Féré, 'La Physiologie dans les Métaphores,' _Revue
Philosophique_, October 1895.]
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