echanical way, were
known by the designations of tempo: allegro, adagio, andante,
etc.--those "senseless terms," as Beethoven himself says. Beginning
pre-eminently with Berlioz, composers have had more highly cultivated
imaginations, much more to say; and the wider range of emotion
resulting therefrom has necessitated differences of form and
treatment. A frequent misconception on the part of the layman is that
worthy music should be so constructed that the hearer be spared all
mental exertion. As long as it was certain that a composer would
present just so many themes in a prescribed order and treated in the
routine fashion, listening to music was a comparatively easy task.
Since Berlioz, music has made ever greater demands on the hearer; who
only when his receptivity is of an equal degree of cultivation with
the creative power of the composer, can grasp the full meaning of the
music. The first step, therefore, toward an appreciation of Berlioz is
to recognize the peculiar, picturesque power of his imagination,
which was of an entirely new order, and may be called musico-poetic in
distinction from purely musical activity. This form of double
consciousness is equally necessary on the part of the hearer. As
Debussy, the modern French composer, so well says, people often do not
understand or enjoy new music because it differs from "une musique"
_i.e._, from a conventional and unvarying type which they have in
their mind. The real effect of Berlioz's "_Carnaval Romain_" Overture,
to take a simple example, is to complement and intensify the mental
picture which any well-read person--or better still, any one who has
actually visited Rome--will have of this characteristic incident in
Italian life. If the work be considered merely as abstract music,
notwithstanding the stimulation and delight caused by the rhythmic
vitality and by the orchestral effects, the real poetic purpose of the
composer remains unfulfilled. This peculiar quality of Berlioz was
partly the result of his fiery excitable temperament and partly the
reactive effect of the environment in which he found himself. What an
amazing group in Paris (beginning about 1830) was that with which he
was associated! De Musset, de Vigny, Liszt, Rossini, Meyerbeer,
Balzac, Dumas, Chopin, Heine, Delacroix, Gericault: young men
representing every art and several nationalities, all under the lead
of Hugo, that prince of Romanticists; their object being--revolt from
conventional s