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Music Talks With Children

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<h2 id="id00212" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER IX.</h2> <h5 id="id00213">WHAT WE SHOULD PLAY.</h5> "But blessings do not fall in listless hands."—Bayard Taylor. We already begin to understand what the classics are. Year by year as our interest in the beautiful increases, we shall gain more definite knowledge about classic art. That which is classic will begin to announce itself in us. Our own choice indicates our taste but does not always indicate what is best for us. And one of the purposes of art is to improve the taste by setting before us the finest works; in these, by study, we find beauty with which we are unacquainted. Thus we enlarge our capacity for it. Because we are born with taste unformed and untrained you can at once see the reason for gradually increasing the tasks. They are always a little more difficult—like going up a mountain—but they give a finer and finer view. The outlook from the mountain-top cannot be had all at once. We must work our way upward for it. Hence you will observe in your lessons that what was once a fitting task is no longer of quite the same value because of your increased power. But about this especially we shall have a Talk later on. When one has heard much music of all kinds, one soon begins to understand that there are two kinds commonly chosen. Some players choose true music with pure thought in it, and do their best to play it well after the manner called for by the composer. Their aim is to give truthful expression to the music of a good writer. Other players seem to work from a motive entirely different. They select music which is of a showy character, with much brilliancy and little thought in it. Their aim is not to show what good music is, but to show themselves. The desire of the first is truth, of the second is vanity. Now, as we examine into this, and into both kinds of music, we discover much. It proves that we must work for the best; for the truthful music, not for the vain music. As we get better acquainted with true music we find it more and more interesting—it keeps saying new things to us. We go to it again and again, getting new meanings. But the showy music soon yields all it has; we find little or nothing more in it than at first. As it was made not from good thought but for display, we cannot find newer and more beautiful thought in it, and the display soon grows tiresome. True music is like the light in a beautifully-cut gem, it seems that we never see all it is—it is never twice the same; always a new radiance comes from it because it is a true gem through and through. It is full of true light, and true light is always opposed to darkness; and darkness is the source of ignorance. From all this you can now understand the quaintly-expressed opinion of a very wise man, who said: "In discharge of thy place, set before thee the best example."[35] That means whatever we strive to learn should be learned from works of the best kind. In the beginning, we cannot choose wisely the best examples to set before ourselves; therefore it is for us to heed what another wise man said: "As to choice in the study of pieces, ask the advice of more experienced persons than yourself; by so doing you will save much time." [36] You thereby save time doubly. Later on in your life you will have no bad taste to overcome—that is one saving; and already you know from childhood many classics, and that is another saving. What we learn in childhood is a power all our lives. You can see plainly, now, that both in the choice of pieces and in the manner of playing them, a person's character will come out. We saw in the last Talk how character has to come out in writing. Only a very common character would select pieces written entirely for a vain show—of rapid runs, glittering arpeggios, and loud, unmeaning chords. Worse than that, such a choice of pieces displays two common people,—three, in fact: A composer who did not write pure thought from the heart; a teacher who did not instil good thoughts into the pupil's heart; and yourself (if really you care for such things) who play from a vain desire to be considered brilliant. A player who devotes the mind and the hands only to what a meaningless composer writes for them is not worthy of any power. With our hands in music, as with the tongue in speech, let us strive from the beginning to be truthful. Let us try in both ways to express the highest truth we are able to conceive. Then in art we shall, at least, approach near unto the true artist; and in life we shall approach near unto the true life. Every mere empty display-piece we study takes up the time and the opportunity wherein we could learn a good composition, by a master of the heart. And it is only with such music that you will, during your life, get into the hearts of those who are most worthy for you to know. Out of just this thought Schumann has two rules now very easy for us to understand: "Never help to circulate bad compositions; on the contrary, help to suppress them with earnestness." "You should neither play bad compositions, nor, unless compelled, listen to them." We now come to a really definite conclusion about the compositions we should play and to an extent as to how we should play them. The heart, the mind, and the hands, or the voice, if you sing, should unite in our music; and be consecrated to the beautiful. Consecrate is just exactly the word. Look for it in your dictionary.[37] It comes from two other words, does it not? Con meaning with and sacer meaning holiness. Thus devote heart and head and hands with holiness to the beautiful. This is very clear, I am sure. It is also worth doing. "With holiness" describes how to play and really what to play. A composition which has been born of a true man is in thought already consecrated. He has heard it and felt it within himself. Daily you must get closer and closer to these messages and meanings. And are they not already more luminous to you? And do you remember what we said luminous means? <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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