Abstract
IT would seem that Science, like History, may at times repeat itself: for in this bright little pamphlet we have a revival of the Old World controversy, which dates from the days of Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, and Euclid. The author takes, however, for its text, a somewhat declamatory and ad captandum modern passage from the Revue de Paris, which declares, with an emotional warmth totally uncalled for under the circumstances, that harmony is not a science, and that music is an art, “but a divine art.” To appreciate thoroughly the question in debate it is necessary to go back to the sense of the original Greek words—áρμōνία and μōɛσίκη. The former means “mathematical agreement”; the second “artistic culture.” It is with their “second intentions,” or acquired and more limited meanings, that we now have to deal. Is music, in the English sense of the word, which no wise differs from the Italian, an art or a science? It is clearly both; but the art, μōɛσίκη so far predominates in public acceptance and cultivation over the science, μōɛσίκη, that the latter is, and has been for many centuries, in danger of succumbing altogether. Indeed, though excellently begun by Euclid in his “Sectio Canonis,” it remained all but unadvanced until the recent researches of Helmholtz. It is to Aristotle that we owe the general test by which to distinguish an art from a science; a test so satisfactory and so neat, that it produces the effect on the mind of a mathematical demonstration; a form of proof which is too often only a roundabout way of restating a self-evident proposition. Aristotle said that art at its best only works by “rule of thumb”; and states that τέχɛη is governed by rules. When these rules are found to rest on recognised laws, the art becomes an ɛπιστημη, or science. This observation, made two thousand years ago by the shrewdest of all shrewd observers, remains as true and as fresh as on the day when it was promulgated. To no branch of human learning does it apply with such force and directness as to music. For perfection in this art has always been, is now, and must continue to be, confined to a few sensitive, delicate, finely-strung natures, “which differ from those of their fellow-creatures in possessing a peculiar technical power and organisation such that they instinctively reproduce, and as it were consonate to the musical conceptions of other minds. In all other respects they may be self-indulgent, unbusinesslike, unpractical; even, as indeed not uncommonly they are, over-sensitive and disagreeable. Types of this class are Beethoven, Cherubini, Mozart, Weber, and Berlioz. In them, in fact, the full development of artistic perfection has eaten up all other good qualities, and left no time or inclination for what Plato calls” the practice of virtue. “The world at large, secretly conscious of its special inferiority, and always willing to discharge itself of an unwelcome responsibility, too commonly looks upon these exceptional natures as representing the whole, and not only the artistic and executive side of music. But the other exists notwithstanding; and its fuller cultivation will tend much to restore the balance so disturbed. In this respect the little book of Dottore Crotti has special value. It deals with the foundation of rhythm and of music, and with the strange and hitherto unexplained emotional difference between the major and minor scales, which in the Italian are prettily and correctly named Gaia and Triste respectively. The ratios of musical in tervals and their combination are fully treated, and with some features of novelty, especially as concerns their physiological effects on the ear. The great fact, so much forgotten in this century since the brilliant jigs of the Rossinian school have become popular, that it is the bass, and not the treble or melody, which is fixed and fundamental, is stated with abundant emphasis, and distinction is made between the characters of repose and of movement in different kinds of music. The assumption that the scale is founded principally on the fractions representing the major and minor tones with only a simple semitone of 16/15 seems hardly sufficient to meet theoretical requirements; but otherwise there is much of interest comprised within the 55 pages of which the pamphlet consists. It has the merit, moreover, beyond the his torical point already noted, of bearing out its title of “acoustico-physiological,” and of adverting to the mental or receptive side of musical impressions more than occurs in some modern treatises.
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
STONE, W. Music and Science 1 . Nature 29, 198–199 (1883). https://doi.org/10.1038/029198a0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/029198a0