Music Lecture.

[A bstract of the concluding lecture in Mr. Gilman's course on the Psychology of Music, delivered at Sever Hall, Wednesday, March 4, at 7.30 p. m.]

VIII. EXPRESSION.Our discussion of the mental facts of which music consists has up to this point been confined to the sphere of the auditory perceptions. We have inquired into the sensational basis of music and have considered also the contribution of the imagination of tone to musical effect. But music is more than a fact of hearing; it is a power in the soul of the hearer. We can almost never listen to beautiful textures of notes without being moved and set dreaming by them. These effects upon the emotional and imaginative natures are often regarded as the element of essential value in music. We conclude on the contrary that the aesthetic worth of what may be called the acoustic content of music is in no wise inferior to that of its poetic expression. Significance can give no higher beauty to a composition than that to which it can attain as empty sound.

In seeking explanations for the immense power of music over the fancy and the feelings certain general reasons may first be noted why the perception of any measured combination of notes should be a source of excitement. Sound is in itself a stirring and rousing sensation; in its production the nerves are acted upon by a considerable mechanical force; the end organ of its perception is in closest proximity to the cerebral hemispheres; further, musical notes are to the nervous system comparatively unwonted experiences, and they are almost pure pleasures; finally, the textures of sound of which music consists force themselves upon the attention during considerable periods of time together; and moreover usually involve the strongly exciting characteristics of an exact and marked rhythm.

The more special effects of music upon the hearer may have a source in either association or suggestion. Being in itself moving and beautiful music is our companion at many moments of emotional exaltation, and has further some of its most important uses as adjunct to poetry and the drama. These applications are the source of countless associations of the most varied and powerful kinds.

Among the suggestions which enter into musical expressiveness the position of first importance must be given to those of movement, of the force involved therein and even sometimes of the form which it describes. Especially are suggestions of human movement bodily, vocal or spiritual, a powerful element in musical expression. According to this view of its origin, the main characteristics of the poetic effect of music are its intensity and its vagueness. While music has no definite poetic meaning whatever, it has an infinite poetic content.