Johnstown High School - Spectator Yearbook (Johnstown, PA)

Page 7 text:

SPECTATOR 5 work finds explanation and reason in groups and combina- tions of numbers. Everything in music may in the final analysis be reduced to figures and explained by the positive laws of accoustics and mathematics. So music may, in the ultimate analysis, be proved to be a language, an art, and a science. But music, like a language, an art, and a science, must be understood to be appreciated. The appreciation, and consequently the enjoyment of music, depends to a great extent upon the ability to see and understand what a composer has tried to express, just as appreciation of history, art, prose or poetry depends upon the ability to understand it. Today the trend of music study is strongly towards appreciation rather than theory, a broadly cultural study being of more value than a working knowl- edge of the subject. The appreciation and study of music stands for as much mental development and general culture as the study of any other subject, for as Cicero has said, all the arts are ,connected and bound together by a certain tie of relationship, the nine Muses were one family, which is as much as to say, a knowledge of one is a knowledge of another. Unlike a novel or a play, music, except in its lighter forms, does not depend upon the unraveling of a plot for its interest, but does depend upon the expression and spirit with which it is produced. The opera, for instance, must stand or fall upon the character of its music and the way it is performed. Often the music is of such a nature that it must be heard again and again before its true value can be appreciated by any save musicians. Thus it follows that an old opera is much more likely to please than a new one, for it must be confessed that taste for opera is not altogether natural. It must be cultivated, and cultivation must be based on familiarity. The great majority wait eagerly to hear Miserere from Il Trovatore, the Soldier's Chorus from Faust It is such numbers that make successes, not be- cause they are better music, but because they are better known.

Page 6 text:

4 SPECTATOR Musical Appreciation Russell Marsden '14 Music is a language, an art, and a science. Music is a language posessing an intensity of expression and power of communicating emotion to which no spoken language can attain, however perfect it may be. Like all other languages it has its own special literature of an ex- treme richness and variety. The composer is an author of the same ranks as a man of lettersg the virtuoso singers and instrumentalists are interpreters like the reciter of reader, one makes use of words, the other of sounds, but their aim is the same,-to excite or produce emotion, or, at least, to captivate the intellect. Music is a universal language for it harmoniously relates all the sensations of life. Moreover, music, like all other languages, is affected by the progress of civilization during the different periods and the needs of different countries and ages. Music is an art, the most subtle, the most ethereal, and the most fleeting of all arts. The artist fixes on his canvas representation of the most beautiful works of nature in colours that last for unlimited time. The sculptor produces in marble and bronze many of the most beautiful works of art, even the poet finds words in his language as the fixed and ready-prepared elements for his work. The musicialn alone seems to work in the void and with the void. Sounds, extinguished almost as soon as heard and of which memory alone remains, these are his materials and with these he must charm the ear, interest the mind and elevate the soul. His art may be likened to poetry, for the composer creates with sounds as the poet creates with words, also it may be likened to painting, for coloring, that is orchestration in music is not unheard of. Music is a science, for as Gounod says, there can be no .art without science, and quotes the whole race of masters to prove it. It is a science of mathematics in the highest de- Agree, for after all that which goes to make up a musical

Page 8 text:

X 1 6 SPECTATOR There is no subject of more vital interest than education. In education no subject is of more interest than the stand- ing of the so-called cultural studies. I . So much attention has been recently given to industrial and manual subjects that prominent educators are every- where sounding a warning against too much of the utilitar- ian in education, to the minimizing of the, cultural. Of 'all cultural studies, music, next to reading, is most valuable and useful and it being a language, like all languages, it must be learned by hearing. Our musical tastes are in the making from earliest childhood and just as a child hears language about him from birth and thus learns to speak it, so our tastes for music are developed and influenced from youth by the class of music which we continally hear. As a child who has been reared by parents who speak perfect English, also uses good language, so we who have been in constant touch with good music, also appreciate the better class of it. It is a curious fact that the musical experiences of a child seem to be in part an epitom of the musical history of the race. We know that the ancient Greeks held music in high esteem, but music with them included history, lit- erature, poetry and the dance. The earliest music was that of the savage mother to her babe as mothers have used it since the world began. , Then came the rude instruments of percussion, the drum or tom-tom. The child passes through this stage in early years with his rattles and desires to pound with everything he gets his hands on. Then came horns and pipes, the child is faithful to analogy in his whistles and tooting horns. History next gave us the strings, the lutes, the lyres, and harps, which improved have come down to us. The child imitates the sound of these instruments with his voice and if he is permitted to hear these instruments quite fre- quently, he imitates their rythm in motions. On this account, namely that our musical senses and tastes are in the development in youth, and that music is of divine essence, for singing is as natural to men as is speech, and that all the arts, of which music is one, tend to