How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. - Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art by Henry Edward Krehbiel
page 4 of 278 (01%)
page 4 of 278 (01%)
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[Sidenote: CHAP. III.]
_The Content and Kinds of Music_ How far it is necessary for the listener to go into musical philosophy--Intelligent hearing not conditioned upon it--Man's individual relationship to the art--Musicians proceed on the theory that feelings are the content of music--The search for pictures and stories condemned--How composers hear and judge--Definitions of the capacity of music by Wagner, Hauptmann, and Mendelssohn--An utterance by Herbert Spencer--Music as a language--Absolute music and Programme music--The content of all true art works--Chamber music--Meaning and origin of the term--Haydn the servant of a Prince--The characteristics of Chamber music--Pure thought, lofty imagination, and deep learning--Its chastity--Sympathy between performers and listeners essential to its enjoyment--A correct definition of Programme music--Programme music defended--The value of titles and superscriptions--Judgment upon it must, however, go to the music, not the commentary--Subjects that are unfit for music--Kinds of Programme music--Imitative music--How the music of birds has been utilized--The cuckoo of nature and Beethoven's cuckoo--Cock and hen in a seventeenth century composition--Rameau's pullet--The German quail--Music that is descriptive by suggestion--External and internal attributes--Fancy and Imagination--Harmony and the major and minor mode--Association of ideas--Movement delineated--Handel's frogs--Water in the "Hebrides" overture and "Ocean" symphony--Height and depth illustrated by acute and grave tones--Beethoven's illustration of distance--His rule enforced--Classical and Romantic music--Genesis of the terms--What they mean in literature--Archbishop Trench on classical books--The author's definitions of both terms in music--Classicism as the |
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