A Popular History of the Art of Music

MP3 Audio CD. A Popular History of the Art of Music

INTRODUCTION.


I.

The name "music" contains two ideas, both of them important in our
modern use of the term: The general meaning is that of "a pleasing
modulation of sounds." In this sense the term is used constantly by
poets, novelists and even in conversation--as when we speak of the
"music of the forest," the "music of the brook" or the "music of
nature." There is also a reminiscence of the etymological derivation
of the term, as something derived from the "Muses," the fabled retinue
of the Greek god Apollo, who presided over all the higher operations
of the mind and imagination. Thus the name "music," when applied to an
art, contains a suggestion of an inspiration, a something derived from
a special inner light, or from a higher source outside the composer,
as all true imagination seems to be to those who exercise it.

2. Music has to do with tones, sounds selected on account of their
musical quality and relations. These tones, again, before becoming
music in the artistic sense, must be so joined together, set in order,
controlled by the human imagination, that they express sentiment.
Every manifestation of musical art has in it these two elements: _The
fit selection_ of tones; and, second, the _use of them for expressing
sentiment and feeling_. Hence the practical art of music, like every
other fine art, has in it two elements, an _outer_, or technical,
where trained intelligence rules, and teaching and study are the
principal means of progress; and an _inner_, the imagination and
musical feeling, which can indeed be strengthened by judicious
experience in hearing, but which when wanting cannot be supplied by
the teacher, or the laws of their action redu