For Every Music Lover / A Series of Practical Essays on Music

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ustrated in the world's acknowledged masterpieces of literature. Every work read or studied, they decided, should be carefully weighed, measured and analyzed, and should be judged solely by th

hor, or its value as a record of what many minds and hearts of an entire epoch have thought, felt and desired. The learned professors were so deeply concerned with what they considered the demands of strict scholarship that they lost sight of the spirit which animates ev

t tones, exclaimed: "Where hath the soul of literature fled, its vital part? If we are to trample upon our impressions the best that is within us will be chilled. Of what avail is education if it d

he critical faculty is keenly alive to-day, but musical criticism, shorn of its better part, musical appreciation, can never lead to the insight requisite for true musical interpretation. Observation and percept

res the utmost activity of all three souls. The more we are, the broader our culture, the more we think, feel and know, the more we will find in music. Dr. Hiram Corson, commenting on Browning's words, says the rectification, or adjustment of what Is, that

l see, hear and feel much that utterly escapes those whose best faculties have been permitted to lie dormant, or become petrified. The interpreter of music must have vital knowledge of th

t, a performance may fail to move the listener, because it lacks warmth and glow. Only they can make others feel who feel themselves, but sentiment is apt to be confounded with sentimentality unless it is guided by a scholarly mind. The more feeling is spiritualized with tho

into his consciousness, demanding undivided attention for its logical development. With infinite care he molds and groups the musical factors which are his working forces, and of which he has both an intuitive and a practical knowledge. The manifold forms he fashions all combine for on

ncentration. It demands consecration. The composer thinks and works in tones, in an ideal realm, far removed from the realities of the external world.

ual character of every interval, chord and chord-combination, every consonance and dissonance, every timbre and nuance, and every degree of phrasing and rhythm. He must have so complete a

m their slumbers in his own bosom that a responsive echo may be found in the bosoms of the listeners. A most ingeniously constructed music-box, with the presentati

ementary laws governing both the human organism and the phenomena of sound, and may become familiar to any one who is capable of study. In the same way the established canons of musical expression, observed by t

logically connected, all tending to form a perfect whole. The profusion of harmonic, melodic, dynamic and rhythmic changes it brings forth invests it with a meaning far beyond that of w

inant seventh is heard, the educated musician knows that a solution is demanded. The unspoiled ear and taste instinctively feel something unfinished,

her voice and her singing, was deluded into a belief that she was destined to shine as a star on the operatic stage. She consulted the famous ba

tive prima donna to have uppermost in her mind the grand passion, she replied, in a sentimental tone, "Love!" Promptly Karl Formes sounded the solution to the chord. "There is your answer," qu

and heart before it is attacked by fingers or voice. In that case it would be analyzed as to its form, its tonal structure, its harmonic relations, its phrasing and rhythms, and its musical intention would become luminous. The int

ed. For obvious reasons, all musical interpretation is expected to imitate song as closely as possible. The human voice, the primitive musical instrument, in moments of excitement, ascends to a higher pitch, increasing in intensity of tone as it sweeps upward. C

that feeling which draws its object into itself has a more tranquillizing movement, that especially when the possession of the object is assured, appeases itself in equable onward flow toward the goal of a normal state of satisfaction. The emotional life is an u

or a melody. Where there are several voices, or parts, as in a fugue, each voice denotes its appearance with an accent. Every daring assertion hazarded in music, as in speech, demands special emphasis. Dissonances need to be brought out in such prominence that they may not

ty in what is termed phrasing, which he regarded as the real beginning of greatness in a performer. Phrasing

ain the harmonic and other causes which determine the tempo of a musical composition, as well as those which make slight variations from it admissible. Among o

tivity on reading these, and will find it difficult to heed the manifold requirements of musical expression and delivery, of which a few hints have here been given. A musical composition i

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e an atmosphere whose influences may compel an average audience to sympathetic listening. A good plan for the artist is to be surrounded in fancy with an audience having sensitively attuned ears, in

to feel what we do not; the indolence in exercise necessary to obtain the power of expressing the Truth; or the presumptuous insistence upon, or

avoided, or conquered, by the p