Some of the composers of the present day appear to be pursuing adventure in a definitely intellectual spirit comparable almost to that of the mediaeval Netherlanders. Their admirers often seem to be somewhat at a loss to expound their music to the uninitiated. They draw our attention to various technical ingenuities and they insist, no doubt justly, on the entire sincerity of the composers. As regards sincerity, it is a virtue with which art has no concern. As regards technical ingenuities, we have learned too many lessons from the past. There are many devices which look quite amusing on paper, but which in practical performance pass unnoticed. To this the composer may reasonably reply that the perception and enjoyment of technical ingenuities in performance is a matter of practice and experience; there is no reason why he should compose music for fools. Ingenuity is by no means a quality to be despised; there are innumerable moments in the works of Purcell, Bach and Mozart at which technical ingenuity has brought about some peculiarly poignant expression of beauty. Constructive skill—and this is what is really meant by the musician’s technical word form—is what makes music an art; and constructive skill has to be attained by study and experiment. It is desirable too that listeners should be trained in its appreciation, not so much by books and lectures as by the actual experience of hearing.
The composers to whom I have alluded assume in their hearers a long experience of music in general and also something of that habit of mind previously mentioned which tends to regard music less as a series of actual sounds than as a series of relations between sounds. It may be called a mathematical conception of music, and, like mathematics, it soon comes to deal with irrational quantities. It is an interesting question how far the human mind can advance in this direction. To certain temperaments music of this type is definitely repulsive; but they often feel no less repulsion towards mathematics and philosophy, studies which have been closely associated with music from very early times. We must however beware of being misled by superficial criticism into supposing that the understanding of such musical complexities requires a practical knowledge of mathematical or philosophical technicalities. In the scientific study of musical æsthetics there ultimately arise problems which bring all three branches of learning into contact; but in common practice they do not affect either the composer or the listener. There are writers on music who make use of a philosophical jargon to conceal their incapacity for clear thinking; but the truly philosophical habit of mind aims, if but with rare success, at lucidity.
The practical value of this “mathematical” system of composition lies not so much in its employment of technical devices which were practised some five hundred years ago, as in its new method of handling them. It was a great moment in the history of music when someone first discovered that two different tunes could be sung simultaneously and thereby produce harmony. The artistic result of this proceeding depended on two factors which had to be brought into relation—the interest of each tune considered by itself, that is, the driving force which made it perceptible as a continuous tune, and, secondly, the satisfaction derived from the consonance of the two voices where it happened to occur. At one period the interest of the tune predominated, at another it was sacrificed to the interest of consonance. Both interests are however subject to changes of value in the course of time. It is clear enough that such composers as Purcell, Bach and Mozart were deeply interested in the problem of exploiting these two interests, and of finding out how far the driving force of a tune could induce the listener to put up with dissonant harmony. We can see now, at this distance of time, that they positively increased the value of the harmonic interest by the way in which they deliberately tortured the ear of the sensitive listener of their own time. Our ears have become not less but more sensitive to dissonance, more able at any rate to discriminate between varieties of it. But, as I have already indicated, this preoccupation with harmony and with relations between sounds has led to an indifference towards the actual sounds themselves, and the loss of interest in the actual sounds has certainly brought with it a diminished appreciation of melody. This is clear, not from the complaints directed against the unmelodiousness of modern music, but from the common inability to appreciate the emotional force of melody as it was conceived by composers of two hundred years ago and more, composers who undoubtedly were intensely preoccupied with pure melodic expression.
Certain modern composers are devoting themselves to the same fundamental problem that interested Purcell, Bach and Mozart—how far the inherent force of melody can carry the listener over the obstacles of dissonance. It is not for me to attempt to measure the force of the actual melodies which they write. This force, too, is curiously complicated by problems involving various qualities of sound. The harshness of a dissonance may be mitigated or aggravated according to the instruments which produce it, and modern musicians are devoting much care to the minuter shades of what are sometimes called “colour-values.” The name is misleading, like all expressions which tempt the reader to apply to music the critical methods appropriate to painting. It has been suggested that music is now moving towards a phase in which “colour-values” will be the principal means of expression. The experiment may be tried, and it may well contribute something useful towards the stock of artistic material. What this movement really signifies is nothing more than a subtilization of already recognized harmonic values, for from the point of view of acoustics it is impossible to draw any clear distinction between what is perceived as a “tone-colour” and what is perceived as a “chord.”