CHAPTER XIII - MODERN TENDENCIES

Summary

Beethoven stands just at the turning-point of the ways of modern art, and combines the sum of past human effort in the direction of musical design with the first ripe utterance of the modern impulse—made possible by the great accumulation of artistic resources—in the direction of human expression. After him the course of things naturally changed. In the art of the century before him formality was prominent and expression very restrained; in the times after him the conditions were reversed, and the instinct of man was propelled to resent the conventions of form which seemed to fetter his imagination, and began his wanderings and experiments anew in the irrepressible conviction that every road must lead somewhere. A new artistic crisis had been passed, similar to the crises of Palestrina and Bach, but implying a still greater organisation and a richer accumulation of actual resources than was available for either of the earlier masters. All three crises represent a relatively perfect formulation of human feeling. Palestrina without emotion embodies the most perfect presentation of contemplative religious devotion. Bach, more touched by the secular spirit, and fully capable of strong emotion, formulates a more liberal and energetic type of religious sentiment, and foreshadows, by his new combination of rhythm and polyphony, the musical expression of every sort of human feeling.