How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. - Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art by Henry Edward Krehbiel
page 34 of 278 (12%)
page 34 of 278 (12%)
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recession of blood from the face, or an equally sudden suffusion of
the same veins, a contraction of the scalp accompanied by chilliness or a prickling sensation, or that roughness of the skin called goose-flesh, "flesh moved by an idea, flesh horripilated by a thought." [Sidenote: _Origin of musical elements._] [Sidenote: _Feelings and counterpoint._] It has been denied that feelings are the content of music, or that it is the mission of music to give expression to feelings; but the scientific fact remains that the fundamental elements of vocal music--pitch, quality, and dynamic intensity--are the results of feelings working upon the vocal organs; and even if Mr. Herbert Spencer's theory be rejected, it is too late now to deny that music is conceived by its creators as a language of the emotions and so applied by them. The German philosopher Herbarth sought to reduce the question to an absurdity by expressing surprise that musicians should still believe that feelings could be "the proximate cause of the rules of simple and double counterpoint;" but Dr. Stainer found a sufficient answer by accepting the proposition as put, and directing attention to the fact that the feelings of men having first decided what was pleasurable in polyphony, and the rules of counterpoint having afterward been drawn from specimens of pleasurable polyphony, it was entirely correct to say that feelings are the proximate cause of the laws of counterpoint. [Sidenote: _How composers hear music._] |
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