Phonograph Monthly Review, Vol. 1, No. 5 (1927-02)

196 The Phonograph Monthly Review he train up a new school of performers to meet his requirements but he is responsible for the whole body of educational literature which we have described. He has become one of the great educative forces of mankind. In view of his importance in educating man- kind up to his level it is believed that a brief outline of his own musical education will be help- ful. While we do not have to go through his struggles to enjoy his product, a knowledge of his background does help, and I mean musical back- ground, not romantic or biographical, of which there is a plenty. In the enjoyment of music there are various factors to be considered. In the first place musical works make an impression as pure sound. And it were a pity if music ever got away from this elementary but vital power. The glamour of public performances exerts a powerful sway on the strongest of us. Certainly, merely as a social habit, the attending of concerts may be vigorously commended as over against tendencies to isolation or less inspiring forms of recreation. Undoubtedly many persons are interested in the work as a product of a powerful or mysterious personality. Many tarry with details of execu- tion when they might be concentrating on the beauties of form or texture. Indeed for many performers and listeners all works of art seem to exist only to allow virtuosos to show themselves off. In our own day we must take good care that art does not become simply an excuse for adver- tising some favorite commercial product. How Beethoven strove against insincerity! There is a tendency always for get-rich-quick methods in music too. To expect to have the secret revealed in one lesson. Just as it is un- desirable for children to skip classes in school, so the listener should seek gradual and perpetual enlightenment. If is important to grow into Beethoven and keep on growing. Neither to expect to grasp him at first sight or to compre- hend all at once. As a means to getting a better insight and enjoyment, follow the main steps in Beethoven’s own musical development and try to concentrate on the musical rather than on biographical or literary matters. Music indeed hath charms to sooth the savage breast, but that is savage music. It is as ridicu- lous to take the Sultan of Zulu or the Shah of Persia and expect him to enjoy a complete sym- phony as it would be to expect an occidental to understand oriental art at first sight. There is too much disposition to condemn art that does not make an immediate appeal. The more complex art grows up in response to a need for an art that will absorb the powers of the beholder or listener for a longer length of time. The periods or sections that constitute a sym- phony taken by themselves are not harder to comprehend than a single folk song, but it is their swift succession that bewilders the listener who cannot take it all in at once. There is no disgrace in not understanding or enjoying symphonic music, the real disgrace is in -- ... ■- - .. ^n)6V decrying it as a legitimate product of the human imagination. Just as the phonograph industry has been trying to lengthen the capacity of a record, so composers have sought to provide pieces that were not merely a scrappy succession of tunes but that were logically made and which a mind musically trained might profitably spend some time on. There is plenty of short-winded music in the world for all possible occasions and there need be no quarrel because some people can con- centrate their musical attention longer than others. But it is as unreasonable to force large sym- phonic forms on minds ill-adapted for them as for those minds to question its legitimacy. Tol- stoi’s revolt against art was a source of deep trouble to Holland, his disciple. But, did not the symphony in Beethoven’s day and milieu meet the requirements which Tolstoi set up as desirable in Tolstoi’s own generation and locality? That the conditions under which the Beethoven’s music envolved did not find a parallel in Tolstoi’s life is not sufficient to condemn it! Some people think Beethoven is altogether re- sponsible for his great music. It does not detract from him to say that his music is what it is, because of the teaching he received and from other influence of his time. True his symphonies stand out as a “Great nine-pointed peak from the mountain range of Beethoven’s works” but all mountains have their foot-hills. Just as Beeth- oven in composing went through a process of education so his listeners must. It may be con- scious or unconscious. As was natural his father was his first teacher and his first instruction—not pursued without tears—was concerned with violin and keyboard. Later followed instruction on the organ—he actually held a position as organist—and he came under the influence of Neefe. So much of his education was of course self-education that it has been customary to minimize all the outside influences. It is important to know that he did not invent the sonata or symphony or any of the great forms he utilized and that while it was not a question of simply filling up moulds already at hand, he confused the pieces he did and in the way he did greatly because those forms were fashionable in his day! It is a fact that he was understood in so far as he remained within the moulds and it was only in his expansion of them that he could not be followed by his contempor- aries. Now, Neefe was not simply an organist but he was a composer of distinction. Beethoven lived in a musical atmosphere and the influence of Neefe was important. Although Neefe had been a pupil of Carl Phillip Emanuel Bach the influ- ence of the great Sebastian was still powerful enough for him to train the young Beethoven on the Preludes and Fugues of the Well Tempered Clavichord. But the forms of J. S. Bach are not the ones Beethoven followed. Very little of Bach was published and Beethoven probably did not