Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Musical Discourse - From the New York Times

Musical Discourse - From the New York Times

Aldrich, Richard

Paperback

General Music

Currently unavailable to order

ISBN10: 1406739073
ISBN13: 9781406739077
Publisher: Dodo Pr
Pages: 312
Weight: 0.88
Height: 0.70 Width: 5.50 Depth: 8.50
Language: English
MUSICAt DISCOURSE From The New York Times By RICHARD ALDRICH OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS LONDON HUMPHREY MILFORD NEW YORK TORONTO MELBOURNE CAPE TOWN BOMBAY 1928 COPYRIGHT, 1028 BY O SOftl UNIVERSITY PRESS AMERICAN BRANC D. B. UPDIKE, THE MERRYMOUOT PRESS, BOSTON PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA am deeply indebted to Adolph S. Ochs, Esq., pub lisher of The New York Times, for permission to use in this book matter that has appeared in that jour nal and to A. H. Fox StrangzvayS Esq. editor of Music and Letters for permission to use matter published in his periodical. RICHARD ALDRICH Contents PROGRAMME MUSIC 3 FOLK-SONGS IN AMERICA 56 AT THE BACK OF SOME DEDICATIONS 73 WAGNER AND BRAHMS ON EACH OTHER 85 THE BEGGARS OPERA 103 SHAKESPEARE AND MUSIC 126 THE MODERNIZING OJ BACH 148 USURPATIONS OF THE BALLET 160 SCHUMANNS CHILDREN 168 BERLIOZ TO-DAY 183 CAMILLE SAINT-SAENS 202 JENNY LIND AND BARNUM 218 ADELINA PATH IN AMERICA 242 FRANZ KNEISEL 266 HENRY EDWARD KREHBIEL 282 THEODORE THOMAS 293 JVIiasioal Discourse PROGRAMME MUSIC modernists announce several changes that they are intending to introduce into musi cal art. Some of them will have naught to do any more with emotion or, indeed, with expression of any sort. By others programme music is no longer to be tolerated it is dead. Both these innovations are revolutionary. From its earliest days music has meant emotion, of one kind and degree or another. Also there has been an effort, more or less groping and, till its systematization in recent years, more or less tentative, to make music express what is now called a programme to make it represent some thing outside of itself what the romantic musi cians of the last century were pleased tocall tiie poetic idea. As Michel Brenet remarks in a study of the origin of descriptive music, the first musi cian who anticipated the exclamation of Correggio, Anch io sono pittore is lost in the crowd of his unnamed colleagues of the Middle Ages. Yet the ex pression of something outside of itself seems really alien to the nature of music. Musiccalls up and estab lishes moods it suggests things that are not to be expressed in words. It embodies emotions, passions, longings, aspirations, inward states of mind. It touches the deeper things, also the lighter things of 8 Musical Discourse life and human experience. But it does so in its own way. It speaks its own language and this is not the language of description or narrative or anecdote not even the language of poetry. But this effort at exterior expression-that has persisted so long in the aims and ideas of musicians has presumably some basis in the art or in its reaction upon listeners. There was much talk in the France of the earlier eighteenth century about truth and the imita tion of nature in music. Essayists and critics uni versally agreed that the imitation of nature was the sole aim and object of music. Musicians, especially composers, were somewhat less certain of it but there were innumerable pieces in the French litera ture of the harpsichord and violin in the first half of the eighteenth century wherein composers assid uously pursued the imitative path laid down for them. Those who imitated defectively, or who made no attempt at imitation were severely criticised. In strumental music offered something of a problem to the doctrine of the imitation of nature, so it was generally set down as something inferior. How was itpossible to enjoy music that in itself represented nothing The words of Fontenelle have become fa mous Senate, que me veux tu In the latter half of the century the ground was shifted and Rous

Also in

General Music

View All