not restricted to the voice or to any instrument, or even to
our sharps, flats, and naturals. Through stress of emotion the
sharps become sharper, with depression the flats become flatter,
thus adding poignancy to the declamation. Being unfettered by
words, this emotion has free rein. The last element, as I have
said, is extremely difficult to define. It is declamation that
suggests and paints at the same time. We find hardly a bar
of Wagner's music in which this complex form of music is not
present. Thus, the music dramas of Wagner, shorn of the fetters
of the actual spoken word, emancipated from the materialism
of acting, painting, and furniture, may be considered as the
greatest achievement in our art, an art that does not include
the spoken word called poetry, or painting, or sculpture,
and most decidedly not architecture (form), but the essence
of all these. What these aim to do through passive exterior
influences, music accomplishes by actual living vibration.

XXI

SUGGESTION IN MUSIC

In speaking of the power of suggestion in music I wish at
the outset to make certain reservations. In the first place
I speak for myself, and what I have to present is merely an
expression of my personal opinion; if in any way these should
incite to further investigation or discussion, my object will
in part have been attained.

In the second place, in speaking of this art, one is
seriously hampered by a certain difficulty in making oneself
understood. To hear and to enjoy music seems sufficient to
many persons, and an investigation as to the causes of this
enjoyment seems to them superfluous. And yet, unless the
public comes into closer touch with the tone poet than that
objective state Which accepts with the ears what is intended
for the spirit, which hears the sounds and is deaf to their
import, unless the public can separate the physical pleasure
of music from its ideal significance, our art, in my opinion,
cannot stand on a sound basis.

The first step toward an appreciation of music should be
taken in our preparatory schools. Were young people taught
to distinguish between tones as between colours, to recognize
rhythmic values, and were they taught so to use their voices as
to temper the nasal tones of speech, in after life they would
be better able to appreciate and cherish an art of which mere
pleasure-giving sounds are but a very small part.

Much of the lack of independence of opinion about music arises