The Philosophy of the Beautiful (Volume 2)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1893 edition. Excerpt: ...while Painting has depicted it in realistic colours. The characterisation or record of evil, in such magnificent creations as the Divina Commedia, Paradise Lost, or Faust, has familiarised us with those alien elements which many a lyric has even tried to glorify; but this is impossible in Music. While some poems seem almost to be the inspiration of Ahriman in conflict with Ormuzd, Music--at least in its greatest compositions--is invariably on the side of Ormuzd. It cannot be enlisted in the service of Ahriman.1 1 Jud Browning's account of Rubinstein's playing. See Musical Record (July 1878). 1 See, however, an opposite opinion expressed in Thibaut's Ueber Reinheit der Tonkunst. I am also aware that many think that Wagner has proved the very reverse of the thesis I maintain; his Tristan being said to be distinctly immoral in its effect, and Berlioz's Faust no less so. It is the opinion of many musicians and critics that Music is not monopolised by Ormuzd, that morality is brought into it by association--itself being a vehicle of non-moral dynamics--and that biasphemy, cruelty, treachery, etc., as well as their opposites, have all been conveyed by it--especially by Wagner. The question has not been fully discussed. The use of the word composition leads to the further remark that great composers seldom put together the elements, which we subsequently analyse. By immediate and intuitive synthesis they reach the one within the many. Thus Mozart wrote: I do not hear in my imagination the parts successively. I hear them, as it were, all at once (gleich alles zusammeti);1 and he tells us that the subsequent committing of his thoughts to paper--or the writing out of the notes in score--was simple enough. It is said that he could pursue the...