The Treatment of Music by Novelists

Extract

In July last a special meeting of The Musical Association was held to welcome a party of distinguished American musicians who were visiting these shores; and at that meeting we had the pleasure of listening to a paper by Professor Waldo Pratt, of Hartford Theological Seminary. The subject he chose to speak upon was “The Isolation of Music “; no doubt you have now read Professor Pratt's thoughtful and suggestive paper, which appeared in our last volume of Proceedings. He complained of the neglect of music in popular and even scholarly thought, and he made an eloquent appeal to those occupying positions of authority in the educational world to accept music as a regular and necessary branch of education; and further, he sought to demonstrate the natural affinities of music with literature. I was unable to accord complete agreement with the picture Professor Pratt drew of “The Isolation of Music,” and have given my reasons for this elsewhere. His view was no doubt correct enough so far as the United States are concerned, but in this country a great deal is done for the encouragement of music. The State pays nearly a quarter-of-a-million a year for the tuition of music in our normal public schools, and we have other important agencies at work; but nothing of the kind is yet found in America. Whether we shall ever attain to the wisdom of the old Greek philosophers, who recognised the great value of music as a factor of general education, and indeed carried their theory into actual practice, we cannot tell; but I believe if such should ever be the case, and the subject be properly taught, that then we shall no longer be offended by the way in which music is too commonly referred to by professional novelists and others, who garnish their writings with allusions to music more or less wrong, and for the most part ridiculous. The novel writer often introduces the regulation gush about music, and eulogises the art in high-flown terms replete with lofty sentiments; and then, proceeding to technical description, he (or she) makes ridiculous mistakes, which show that the writer does not possess sufficient interest in the art to master terms and details which may not unfairly be called commonplace.