Musical Analysis and Appreciation: A Critique of "Pure Music"

BY
MICHAEL McMULLIN
An analysis of musical form may have one of two purposes. It may be intended as an aid to musical appreciation or as a contribution to the science, or art, of aesthetics. These may be mutually inclusive to a large extent, but any analysis will probably have one of them as its main bias. In the one case we are chiefly concerned with what is the effect of a given piece of music, and in the other with why and how it has that effect. If, however, the aim is to aid appreciation, the method must be based on aesthetics, and at the present day, when this subject is hardly known, no such procedure can very well avoid being at the same time an original essay in aesthetics.

The average analysis with which we are presented is admittedly nothing of the sort; it is designed only as a comparison of the work in question with some abstract academic pattern, and it achieves neither of the two purposes mentioned above. It –also- seems to be universally assumed by critics that, besides making out a work to be to in some preconceived form or other, all they have to do is list the keys and modulations through which it passes and that this somehow reveals all there is to know about it. But the listener is no wiser, and it only reveals that the critic understands nothing as to its meaning and is confusing the means with the end. The meaning is contained in the form—that is, in the whole, and form is defined methodically. "Form is melody writ large", says Tovey—correctly; but he then goes on to discuss it as harmony writ large. He makes the point that tonality is self-evident, and it follows from this that all this analysing of it is superfluous. One comes more and more to the conclusion that most of the great works of music are simply not understood, except on a very superficial level; that Beethoven's symphonies, for example, for all their popularity and dramatic and stirring qualities, still to this day are not fathomed in their real significance. To arrive at such an understanding is not easy and demands much more time and concentrated effort than merely listing the technical means of expression; and it requires intuition. So to penetrate all the major works of Beethoven alone would be a very lengthy undertaking and almost beyond the scope of one person.
It can be asked on what basis and by what standards one is to assess such significance, and it will be objected that anything but a technical analysis must be purely subjective. The whole aesthetic process is the perception of meaning, and what meaning can there be in key-changes and the like? Art is an introverted form of perception and necessarily subjective, whereas the analysis of the mere means of expression is extroverted and materialistic. Art itself is a subjective expression, not in the sense of being purely individual, but in a collective sense and in the sense that its perception presupposes a subject as well as an object. As Jung says of subjective perception: "it means more than the mere image of the object", and "introverted sensation apprehends the background of the physical world rather than its surface". It is seeing things sub specie aeternitatis, and this is especially characteristic of the artist. "The bare sense-impression develops in depth, reaching into the past and future, while extroverted sensation seizes on the momentary existence of things open to the light of day". As we live in an extroverted age and society, there is an overwhelming prejudice in favour of the superficial.
It is the "translating of music into words", we are told, that is inadmissible; but of course any analysis at all is doing this, and all knowledge and science consists of translating things into words, in order to aid awareness and perception. It is the extraordinary fuzziness and confusion of thinking in this field, usually compounded by a strongly emotional attitude, that is so striking. Tovey, for instance, in many directions a perceptive thinker on music, when dealing with what he called "Absolute Music"—a favourite subject of his—falls into absolute confusion. "The real absoluteness of music", he writes, "lies simply in its untranslatability"—and, one might add, in its incomprehensibility, to most people. His real meaning is to object to foolish "programmatic" interpretations of music and, perhaps, to "programme music", in the sense of music depicting a literary scenario or a sequence of events—though all opera does this, especially his beloved Wagner. He may be objecting to "realism" and merely descriptive art, but, not understanding the process of symbolism, he calls this "absolute purity in art".

The alternative to realism is not "absolute art", the choice not being between meaninglessness and photography.
Thinking is not usually a very differentiated function among writers on music, and we still hear repeats of that absurd dictum: "Music has no meaning outside of itself'. As I have pointed out elsewhere, this is only a confused way of saying: "It has no meaning". This has been attributed to Stravinsky and Hindemith, and if this is correct it may apply to their music. On all sides we hear praises of "the purely musical", contrasted with that diabolus in musica, the "extra-musical"; but nobody, it seems, has stopped to think what "purely musical" means, other than a mere pattern. Even a pattern cannot help having some meaning outside of itself, on one level or another, to be perceived as a pattern rather than chaos. Art, however, is the use of patterns to express a higher meaning, which in music is obviously extra-musical. Tovey uses the analogy of the taste of a peach, to show untranslatability into words, and others have used whisky for a comparison with music. They are referring here to pure sensation, whereas art is both emotional and intellectual—it is feeling and thinking, and intuition, as well as sensation. The sensation is simply the means of art. In addition, art uses a medium ok rhythmic sensation, which has nothing whatever to do with peaches or whisky. Most philosophers of the "purely musical", and certainly Tovey, allow that music expresses emotions; but emotions are just as "extra-musical" as quails, thunderstorms and so forth (though by some obscure juggling with reason Tovey manages to allow Beethoven's famous, or notorious, pastoral quail). An "absolute" emotion, without any source or object, without any reason d'etre, would be absolutely meaningless, like absolute music; but this has nothing to do with interpreting Beethoven's Hammerklavier Sonata as "the biography of Joan of Arc", emotions are subjective value-judgments, and one is not likely to get very emotional over the niceties of musical technique or to feel "triumphant" (a word that should once and for all be banned from musical criticism) about a mere return to C major. Alfred Einstein, writing on Schubert, uses the expression "purely musical", meaning in this case melodic, lyrical or in the feeling dimension, which is indeed the main emphasis of much of Schubert's instrumental music as opposed to his songs, which are primarily dramatic (often very lyrical as well) and would have to be disqualified by the purists if they had any regard for logic. Emotions have to have some application to life, even as an attitude to life envisaged under certain conditions, that itself implies an interpretation and a meaning, or is symbolic. Until this can be grasped and applied one's reaction to music may be vaguely pleasurable but lacking in depth and significance.

Tovey is at pains to discount Beethoven's inconvenient remark that he always had in mind a picture (Bild) when conceiving music, on the grounds that Bild means "idea". This could then be taken to mean that he had an idea of, say, the relation of C sharp minor to E flat or perhaps a new way of resolving a chord of the 9th. But if Tovey had been a creative artist, rather than a theoretical musician and a composer of notes, he would have known that Bild means "picture" and that Beethoven was referring to the conception of music against a simultaneously imagined—or perhaps actually seen—visual background, symbolizing the mood of the conception. Nothing is conceived in vacuo—or nothing that means anything and is not itself vacuous. This does not mean in the slightest degree that the music is a "description" of that picture, any more than Monet's Water Gardens or Cezanne's Montagne Sainte Victoire paintings are descriptions of the scenery or travel brochures. If Tovey had been able to write Elgar's cello Concerto, he would not have been thinking of problems of tonality or counterpoint. There is no doubt he could have written it technically— perhaps better; but his inability to conceive pictures would have deprived him of the imaginative and poetical qualities that are the inseparable ingredients of such works.

Tovey extols the power of "Bach's glorious chromatic harmony ... to arouse in us the sense of repentance and conviction of sin"—a very extra-musical kind of association. He is familiar with Schweitzer and Pirro on Bach's musical figure-symbolism and calls their work scholarly; but he does not think through the implications of it for all music, being content to evade the point with vague concepts such as a work of art's "digesting its materials". But a moment's thinking, clear of the fog of obstinate prejudice, reveals that the symbolism of figures exists whether or not this is made explicit by association with verbal texts and also that the champions of the "purely musical" consistently should, but do not and cannot, disqualify, all vocal music, all symphonic poems, all impressionism and the like, ultimately all music. But if music means anything, they will reply, one must not attempt to say what it is. The symbolism of figures is very basic to all higher musical forms, and one could, and should, devote a large treatise to studying it—a thing I once intended to do. Fugues are essentially concentrated studies of figures, and their in-depth understanding depends upon understanding these figures—that is, upon developing a more conscious understanding. Short pregnant figures have, as a rule, implications on a fairly obvious level that are instinctively and unconsciously understood and are well illustrated in the afore-mentioned analyses of Bach's cantatas; and a fugue has many other kinds of aesthetic effect. But there are much less obvious levels of meaning, which require a cultivated awareness, and sometimes their significance is quite unconscious, on a deep and archetypal level, sometimes depending on intellectual associations and sometimes quite cryptic or enigmatic— for example, the motif B—A—C—H and its possible variants, such as G sharp—A---F-—E. We get into a realm here that is comparable with numerology and Kabbalistic symbolism and entirely outside the imaginative range of most musical theorists. Certain figures and their derivations tend to recur in the works of Beethoven, and there are many musical works besides fugues the key to the meaning of which is the understanding of a figure—one could cite Mozart's C minor piano Concerto. In the C major Concerto, K. 503, this figure is reiterated and emphasized in the development section of the first movement in a conspicuous way (see Ex. i). This is not "purely musical", as though the notes were picked out of a hat or composed like a twelve-note row, but the figure has a meaning, even if it is not consciously articulated in words, but felt or unconsciously, even vaguely, apprehended. To refuse to think about this, or develop a deeper insight into its meaning, is to let the deeper message of music fly over one's head.

The same applies to the unfolding and metamorphoses of melody that constitute form, but the terms in which it is analysed discourage any idea of development or continuity of meaning. Often "bridge-passages" and the like are logical continuations or completions of the first melody or extensions or workings-out of it, and, in any case, such terms can arise only from a senseless and mechanical attitude to music, and they should be abolished at once in the interests of any true appreciation of art. "First and second groups" are a slight improvement, but Tovey is quite right here, and each work of art is an individual case and cannot be fitted into an abstract pattern.

It is only when the meaning of the musical symbolism, and particularly of melodic figures and the form as a whole, is understood, or divined, or felt, that the emotional content can be related to anything, or interpreted, or even its quality be truly discerned and that it, too, can make sense. Otherwise an arbitrary, preconceived and—in the most superficial sense—subjective emotional content can be imputed to the music, very often on the assumption that events in the composer's life must produce directly related effects in his music. Beethoven is particularly subject to this fallacy, and some people are always ready to see "sorrow", "grief, "despair" or "heart-break", whereas his music is singularly free from merely personal emotions, which would in any case be of no consequence to the listener but rather an embarrassment. Here the scepticism of the "pure music" school is fully justified. Sometimes one can see how certain melodies can be interpreted in this way, if desired; but they could also suggest something quite different, and critics often contradict one another flatly in this respect. A particularly striking example is the comparison of comments by Joseph de Marliave on the Adagio of the Harp Quartet, op. 74, in which he sees an "agony of grief, "bitterness and despair that beset his whole life", with those of Joseph Kennan, writing later: "a lovely piece of music, relaxed . . . Tender, and at the same time slightly remote in emotional quality . . ". (It seems to me that Kennan has got it right.) The expression of emotions for their own sake has no relevance to art, but the emotional dimension is that of evaluation of experience (the symbol) in terms of universal human significance, transcending the personal. In the end the level on, which one understands music depends entirely upon one's own level of mental and spiritual development.

Art is an expression of spiritual meaning, and its function is to aid such development—to be a revelation, or to illumine; to translate the material world and show it, in the context of a higher reality; to heighten or transform our awareness. Its function is not just to excite, soothe, express emotions, arouse sympathy, to describe, conjure up, "recollect in tranquility", nor in general to express or confirm our already existing prejudices, our egotistical and myopic view of the world and of ourselves.' Therefore the aim of analysis should be to bring out or point to the ultimate meaning or to help the listener respond to it. The ultimate meaning, like spiritual illumination, is certainly not something that can be put adequately into words, and it has to be perceived on a higher level than that of verbal concepts; these concepts, nevertheless, are the common currency and, if used correctly, can help to attune and orientate the listener and to alert his perception. Thinking is an indispensable function, whether in the creation of or response to a work of art—or in the use of language—and language can be made to correspond to perceptions, as everything corresponds, on all levels of a cosmic hierarchy.

It is just the perception of correspondences (intuition) that constitutes meaning, and that can be aided by the judicious use of words. A musical work that seems unfathomable can be made all at once intelligible and meaningful, provided that the listener is capable of experience on the required level. There is, of course, a hierarchy of levels of meaning, as of correspondences, and one can perceive a work of art on any one of these levels or on all of them—assuming that it is an integral work of art and embodies them all. But works of art also can have more or less meaning on different levels and can be reflections of greater or lesser wholes. It is defining these levels of meaning and the corresponding levels of appreciation that should be the concern of analysis.

Any fragment of music, in so far as it is artistic expression, must be an expression in three dimensions, as it were, or, put another way, a process in three simultaneous phases. If we call these dimensions or phases lyrical (melodic), dramatic and symphonic or epic (formal), we may call the corresponding effects produced emotional, immediately active or suggestive (sense-perception) and intellectual. As music will at any time be acting simultaneously in all three manners, so in appreciating it we shall be doing so emotionally, through reference to experience or suggestively, and intellectually or ideologically at the same time. Nevertheless, though in appreciating art we cannot be doing so except in three dimensions, one of the first two phases may predominate in any art form or in our manner of approach to it, and a perfect balance between them is achieved only in the highest art of classical periods. In the latter case we have an emotional and dramatic content fully present, but also fully organized, in the interests of form, which embodies the intellectual content but which cannot exist except in terms of the others. Therefore the highest development of form means also the greatest degree of integration and the most perfect balance.

Form, however simple, is always present, and between the form of a single melody and the most complex symphonic forms we have a gradation of organization in which the intellect plays an increasing part. This does not mean that there is any question of deliberate intellectual calculation; but the intellect is brought more and more into play in the organization of the larger forms. These forms also require a greater intellectual effort in apprehending them. In a plain melody the form is so simple that it can be grasped with little or no conscious effort. A melody is a form that is predominantly lyrical—that is, the emphasis is on the melodic line, which is the vehicle of emotional expression, and the form exists mainly in terms of the rhythmic rise and fall and the logical development of this, or in the emotional curve.

A melody also has a dramatic content, by which it acquires various associations. This is contained in suggestive details of melodic movement, helped perhaps by the title or words of a song—for example, spinning songs, cradle songs—and in the colouring of the voice or instrument that reproduces the melody. Different types of melody suggest different things or environments, and such associations play a part in all enjoyment of music. An unsophisticated person will enjoy only a tune that has familiar associations. Where the melodic idiom is unaccustomed and is connected with things or regions about which he knows nothing—for all idioms arise, not purely by accident, but as a reflection of particular circumstances—the music will be meaningless to him. Enjoyment depends upon the ability to imagine something with which the emotional expression of the tune is connected, and the range of possible enjoyment depends upon the extent of one's imaginative experience. Folk-music is always a lyrical expression, or an emotional interpretation, of a particular environment. That is to say, in being a poetical expression it links the environment with human life and destiny and gives it meaning in terms of human (subjective) values. When the environment is very dominant in the life of the people, and they have a long tradition, it naturally has a corresponding influence in the music, which becomes thereby all the more poetical or lyrical—witness the extraordinary beauty of the Hebridean melodies collected by Kennedy-Fraser, the songs of a people isolated in the midst of the Northern seas.

The environmental factor is partly associated with the quality of feeling expressed in melody, which one might call mood, and which is expressed in certain melodic intervals and, in general, by the character of the modes. But it is, above all, connected with melodic figures. Figures merge the melodic or emotional with the dramatic and are the means of poetic symbolization in melody. In the Hebridean song called Sea Longing both these means of expression conjure up the affective rhythm of the sea (see Ex. 2). These words mean "Heavy my sadness . . .“ and are associated with a figure suggestive of the slow swell of the sea or the lapping of waves on the shore, the rhythm of this figure persisting throughout this phrase and throughout the whole first part of the melody (12 bars), emphasizing the monotonous rhythm of the sea. In the second repeat of Ex. 2 the third bar and the fourth are varied as shown in Ex. 3, giving a still more realistic effect of waves lapping.
hi art-songs such tone-painting through figures is, of course, greatly expanded through the medium of the instrumental accompaniment, and this effects the transition to the purely dramatic realm of instrumental colouring and the enormous possibilities of development of this phase. The development of this element in Schubert's songs is what marks his greatness as a song-writer, much more than in his instrumental music, in which it is much less developed. Einstein writes of "the rustling accompaniment" throughout the song Im Walde, which one may compare with the refrain in Yeats's ballad The Madness of King Goll:

They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, 
 the beech leaves old.

The refrain has the same function as Schubert's accompaniment, which, it cannot be repeated too often, is not a description but a symbolization and is dramatic, constituting the central phase of the aesthetic process. As such, instrumental symbolism of the same kind plays an increasingly important part in the development of purely instrumental music and is an essential element in all music.

Figures are the melodic form of the dramatic or symbolizing phase. A figure has not a definitive meaning: it is symbolical. But one can discuss its symbolism and reveal some of its many levels and implications, as one discusses any other symbol—for example, the Cross, Prometheus, alchemical or astrological symbols. An analysis should be designed to develop an awareness of musical symbolism and should keep in mind that the whole point of music lies in the giving of meaning to the extra-musical. We find that the more meaningful, or highly developed, the form as a whole, the more it tends to be dominated by a short figure, or the more dramatic the melodic content must tie, and it tends to become more contracted, or reduced to short figures of pregnant dramatic or symbolical content. The melody is supported by its vertical extension into harmony, it is multiplied in counterpoint, and these possibilities are enormously increased by being combined with the possibilities of orchestration. With these means of expression the formal and intellectual development may become highly complex, and the epigrammatic significance of a melodic figure or a certain instrumental implication may be the key to the idea on which the whole form is built. The form is not appreciable at a glance; it exists as a combination and succession of concise ideas, each of a definite melodic and instrumental colouring, and its understanding depends upon an analysis of these.

The famous four-note figure of Beethoven's fifth Symphony is a good example, the understanding of this figure, that so monopolizes the first movement, is to understanding the Symphony. By this I mean its deeper understanding, together with all its implications, psychological, historical and occult. One has to go much further than "Fate knocking on the door", though this meaning is true on one level; but what is "Fate", and what does this imply at that juncture, or this one? "Fate" is only a vague word to most people, and this is more than Fate; and who was Beethoven, this messenger of Fate? Later we find a still more obscure four-note giving rise to three string quartets.

It follows that a full appreciation of the higher forms depends upon being very much alive to the effects of suggestion and colouring in music—of multi-level correspondences—and upon being aware of the various means through which these are obtained. Even an elaborate musical work, however, may be enjoyed on various levels, and the appreciation of music follows the same gradation between the melodic and the formal, or between the emotional and intellectual, as the development of the art itself. In the case of educated persons, but non-musicians, the enjoyment of "classical" music on the melodic level requires only a certain familiarity with musical idiom, acquired from listening. As they acquire this, they will instinctively appreciate more and more of the suggestive effects they encounter, until they reach a stage where they obtain a maximum of instantaneous enjoyment of the music as it proceeds and where the form as a whole is felt as a satisfying rhythm but not more. Appreciation on this level is still mainly emotional, and although the dramatic content is sufficiently understood to afford pleasure and to make the melodic line comprehensible as such, a formal and technical grasp of the whole does not enter into it. One could call this appreciation on the immediate level, the immediate emotional level and immediate dramatic level, on the level of immediate enjoyment, without being conscious of significance or of the formal implication. It is undoubtedly the level on which the vast majority of music lovers enjoy their music and on which probably even those who pretend to go further listen to a great deal of music, most of the time. Music on this level is purely a relaxation, and it is certainly a great temptation to allow oneself to be carried along emotionally, phrase for phrase, without taking the trouble to examine each part in relation to its formal context or •- making the concentrated effort of imagination that is required for full understanding. For performers this tendency is dangerous, if not fatal, and many meaningless performances are due to a failure to grasp the sense of the whole. But for the listener this kind of enjoyment is excellent as far as it goes, and many might well feel content to go no further; but it is a long way from a true understanding of art and all that that implies. Sometimes music is very soothing to one's immediate mood and tunes one in to a higher level of feeling; one has a heightened sensitivity, not only to the music, but to anything one happens to be contemplating, or reading. In this way one has a spontaneous insight into the real meaning of music, though still on the immediate level, without thinking.
On the dramatic level, apart from obvious cases of tone-painting accompanying verbal texts, or clearly indicated in the title, we get into the realm of confusion and obscurity already discussed. And yet the obvious cases are so common that one would think that they would clarify the others by implication. They cannot be ignored, or dismissed as "programme music". Here the dramatic phase is dominant; instrumental colouring, and through it the symbolization of the world perceived by the senses, is the most "differentiated" function, to put it in Jungian terms. One could characterize music or composers according to Jungian typology, by the dominant dimension—or superior function, as it would now be called—and this would be classed as the "sensation" type. The melodic or predominantly lyrical would then belong to the "feeling" type, and music where the formal element is the most conspicuous, such as fugue, would be of the "thinking" type.

In the not so obvious cases—that is, of instrumental music without a title alluding to the outside world—the dramatic dimension is always present but may be more or less differentiated. This depends quite largely on the period. Many works of the twentieth century designated merely as "sonata" or "symphony" are just as much or nearly as much tone-painting as those explicitly labelled as such by the composer; but here it has to be intuited by the listener. Sometimes this is easy, but sometimes not, and here the perceptive critic may be needed. In the symphonies of Shostakovich the tone-painting is usually self-evident; but in a work like Sibelius's Sonatina for violin and piano it is exceedingly subtle and somewhat of the same order as that of Beethoven's E flat Quartet, op. 127. One might hit on the right context, or "scenario" (Bild), by chance, but when one does it is very clear and quite magical in effect. Nearly always such works are simply not understood, on any level. What we are here referring to as the "dramatic" content might also be called the "poetical" element in music; but words such as "lyrical" and "poetical" are commonly used very vaguely, without being understood in any clear sense, and these two words tend to be interchangeable. We have already defined "lyrical" as belonging to the melodic line and the expression of feeling, and so "poetical" can be taken to refer to the colouring and the associations of sense-perception—scene, associations of nature, real or imagined—that go with it. In the most typical "romantic" music the poetical tends to be prominent, with the emphasis on the "feeling" component, or the lyrical, while "impressionist" music emphasizes the perception. All art, however, has to be poetical in some degree, which is implied in the intrinsic meaning of this word as much as by Beethoven's statement about a Bild. In other words there must be a concrete image to act as a symbol and carry the meaning.
The main difficulty comes in relation to music of the Sonata period, which is generally referred to as "classical", to compound the confusion. In fact, this period is dramatic and comes after classical, on the way towards romantic; that is, it is midway between thinking (form) and feeling (melody or lyrical). This is fully perceived by Tovey, who said: "music after the time of Bach became inveterately dramatic". He also said: the essence of the Haydn-Mozart styles is even more dramatic than the operatic reforms of Gluck—in fact the dramatic power and concentration of purely instrumental music in the sonata style far transcends anything that even Wagner could put upon the stage.

Here the word "dramatic" is used in a somewhat different sense from that in which we have been using it up to now, or it acquires a different role. Instead of "sensation", it takes on the meaning of action, and contrast—or the conflict between two opposing principles. Perhaps this is the meaning it must take when coming between classical and romantic, rather than thinking and feeling—the meaning of conflict or revolution, and this is the introverted aspect of the dramatic principle, or its aspect in the historical context. This is indeed the commonly understood sense of the word. However, the emphasis on action is the link with our use of the word "dramatic" as a general term for the middle phase in the symbolic process, since it is the sensation that sets up the action: Subject Object Universal, and it is the sensory medium in art (in music, sound-waves) that is the active agent. One can also say that the confrontation between opposites is what produces awareness (sensation), and opposite electrical charges produce a spark (action). Thus this period is dramatic in a more "abstract" sense than that of the tonal dimension as such—a more theatrical sense, though it must be pointed out that the sense in which we were using it before, of tonal symbolism of experiences of the outside world, or tone-painting, also includes very dramatic effects in both senses, such as thunder and lightning (Sibelius's fourth Symphony), the breaking of great waves (The Oceanides) or the appearance of the Forest God (Tapiola); and the word "theatrical" has the implication of "scenery" as one of its associations. It can be noted that all the words borrowed from, or referring to, one of the other arts and applied to music—poetical, painting and drama—refer to this element of the active or concrete, while the word "musical" applied to poetry, or sculpture, has the same implication.

In the instrumental music of the sonata period the element of tone-painting is minimal, because thinking in general is tending to become less concrete and more rational—a reaction towards the concrete came with the symbolist and impressionist movement. The eighteenth century was a period of maximum artificiality and affectation in many respects, and a "return to nature" came, not only from Rousseau, but with the influence of oriental art. Schubert was probably the turning-point in Viennese music, although Beethoven, so extremely dramatic in one sense, was becoming increasingly so in the other. Opera, however, afforded an obvious medium in which the eighteenth century could manifest its dramatic character in both senses. One could say that the eighteenth century was dramatic in a formal way rather than in a lyrical or "poetical" way, though figure symbolism was an essential element in the dramatic interplay of themes and instruments. In any case the string quartet, the most characteristic medium of the period, does not lend itself to poetical tone-painting so much as to polyphony, with its formal implications.

On the thinking or intellectual level, corresponding to form, we are concerned of course with the meaning of the form as a whole and with the relation of its parts, and this cannot be taken in immediately but has to be contemplated in retrospect. It requires reflection. Also on this level must be included a more intellectual type of symbolism that depends upon ideas and associations of ideas. A good example of this would be the complex world of associations of Beethoven's Missa solemnis, involving theological, liturgical, scriptural and spiritual concepts as well as musical such questions as instrumentation referring to Masonic symbolism, as Mozart. In such a case we cannot do without an analysis and an elucidation, which in this instance has been excellently provided by Wilfrid Mellers Beethoven and the Voice of God. Included in this category must be the associations of particular keys, established by tradition or initiated by G major, "the key of blessedness in Bach and Beethoven" (Mellers), or A flat, with "traditionally benign associations". A careful study and analysis is no less necessary in a purely instrumental work of highly integrated formal development, which applies to late Beethoven generally or even to much middle-period Beethoven, particularly the symphonies. We have already referred to the Fifth, and a work arising from a short symbolic figure is liable to have much deeper implications than can be perceived on the surface. These may even be unconscious to the composer and may need to be referred to concepts of depth-psychology to be understood. In the Baroque formal (Classical) period—and where form is fully dominant there must necessarily be an adequate development in the other dimensions—poetical and figure symbolism tends to be more conscious, as we have seen in Bach. It goes without saying, we hope, that we are referring to a vital and creative development of form and not to "formalism" or "form" for its own sake.

A formal analysis can be useful only inasmuch as it clarifies the meaning of a work; in other words, it should be an interpretation. Knowing whether a movement is in orthodox "sonata form" or variation, rondo or other form might help us to orientate ourselves, but not very much. Schubert's Death and the Maiden Quartet might provide a good example. Alfred Einstein has helped us for a start by suggesting that the Quartet as a whole is on the theme of Death—the theme, or rhythmic figure, from the song that is developed in the slow movement, and ending in the finale with a "Dance of Death", or a "Tarantella of Death". The first movement opens with an energetic theme (a), or "group", followed by a lyrical version of it ((b)second subject?). After this, however, a third theme (c) is introduced, and this alone is elaborately developed and dominates the whole movement (see Ex. 4). There is then a recapitulation of this whole schema. This scarcely fits in with "Sonata Form"—how unfortunate! But then again, how unlike

"Sonata Form" is the first movement of Beethoven's seventh Symphony! This leaves us completely at sea. But merely to have these sections labelled as this or that ''subject", in this or that key, leaves us no wiser as to their significance. We need some guide to the meaning and context of these phrases and to how they are related to the test of the work—to the following movement's theme der Tod, for example. We can refer to the string Quintet in C written in Schubert's last year, which also very dearly anticipates death and has similar formal features in its first movement. The exceptional "beauty" of the slow movements of both works, in spite of Death, is what most immediately impresses us; the word "beauty" implies meaning, immediately but usually vaguely perceived. Einstein here quotes to good effect Lessing, who associated the idea of beauty with "rightly comprehended true religion". If alongside this, and contrasted with it, there is also a theme of despair in the last works of great artists, it is not despair at death but despair of this world, at the folly of one's fellow humans and the seeming uselessness of addressing oneself to them—or an awareness, as Albert Schweitzer wrote in his autobiography, "of having been born in a time of the spiritual downfall of humanity". The Quintet especially seems to express this—or the despair of a spirit imprisoned in an alien world of materiality. This is particularly brought out in the third movement with its contrast between a heavy dance—a worldly dance?—and the extraordinarily dark middle section, expressing a profound weariness of the world. The finale seems to be another dance of death, finishing with a dropping note on the cello giving an effect of emphatic finality.

The psychological implications of such interpretations are of course different for different people, and it may be that the case just discussed would be really significant only to a person in a position to experience something of the kind. Nor does an analysis or interpretation have to be exactly what was in the mind of the composer himself, who may have been unaware of many of the implications of his work; or these may appear in a different form to people living in a different age or environment. The act of composition is not the same as the act of receiving or interpreting. This does not mean, however, that one may impute to the music something that is not there or something quite arbitrary; but it means that one is dealing with symbols. An aesthetic interpretation does not imply that the music represents something but that something represents (it—that "Nature imitates Art" rather than the converse. A critical interpretation, moreover, should have value as a creation in itself, for, like. art, it is the expression of a Weltanschauung. History, philosophy or art criticism is always an interpretation and therefore itself an expression of a particular outlook, for a particular purpose, not an "objective" description of an absolute reality that does not exist. At present we are concerned, as Spengler wrote, with "a new kind of metaphysics, for which everything, whatever it may be, has the character of a symbol". Symbols are of the nature of archetypes, indicated thus by Jung: Contents of an archetypal character (refer to) something essentially unconscious. In the last analysis, therefore, it is impossible to say what they refer to. Every interpretation necessarily remains an "as-if". The ultimate core of meaning may be circumscribed but not described.

He refers to an "unconscious core of meaning" as characteristic of the archetype and says that an interpretation must provide "an adequate and meaningful connection between the conscious mind and the archetype". Here one could substitute the word "symbol" for "archetype", and this applies precisely to the interpretation of music.
Infinite grades of interpretation are possible, and music consists of a complex of symbols that are both created and perceived intuitively. There is a difference between intuition and imagining something that is not there; one might quote Spinoza: "He who has a true idea knows that he has a true idea and cannot doubt the truth of the thing perceived". One can also quote this passage from Schopenhauer,' which-I take from Jung: "... the idea conceived and reproduced in a work-of art ... appeals to each man only according to the measure of his own intellectual worth". Aesthetics is an analysis of the process of symbolism by which one may orientate one's perceptions and clarify one's thinking. We have distinguished three phases in this process in music and called them Lyrical, Dramatic and Symphonic. The Lyrical is subjective, in the sense of referring to the individual. It is connected with space, and the past, and death. To quote Spengler: "und zugleich fuhit es sich als einzelnes Wesen in einer endlosen, ausgedehnten Welt"; and: "enthullt sich die Weltangst als die Angst vor dem Tode, der Grenze, den Raume". Lyricism essentially expresses: "... die Feindschaft zwischen Seele und Welt"; "Deshalb wird die junge Seele sich plotzlich ihres einsamen Menschentums in mitten aller Verganglichkeit bewusst". This accounts for the melancholy feelings and minor modes of so much that is most typically lyrical and for Schubert's feeling that all music is sad, since he himself was a lyricist above all. The Dramatic is objective, in the sense of referring to the outside world as perceived by the senses, or the object of perception. We have discussed three aspects of the Dramatic: the tonal, or the immediate sound-sensation, and the effects this can have or what it can symbolize; the secondarily concrete, by association with the external world (i.e. by imaginary or indirectly experienced sense-data: memory); and drama by the conflict of opposites. In all cases it is the awareness of the individual of the immediately external. Thirdly, the Symphonic or Formal phase refers to the Universal and carries the essential element of meaning, linking the individual, through concrete experience, with the whole and thus answering the lyrical sense of isolation. One could well call these three phases thesis, antithesis and synthesis, for it is an exact correspondence. In music the formal dimension might also be considered in three aspects, the first contrapuntal (the direct synthesis of separate ideas), the second the level of indirect ideas (depending on memory associations) and the third that of the total meaning in a historical, philosophical or religious sense, and this level corresponds with the universal need, in the deepest psychological sense, for a religion. In the highest developed forms we achieve the greatest feeling of integration, which in Jungian psychology is called individuation, and a fugue of Bach has been called "a shadowed and hieroglyphical image of the whole world".

There is a school of thinking nowadays, which, in line with the popularity of Eastern philosophies, compares Western music unfavourably with Eastern, and this shows an extraordinary aesthetic naïveté as well as a seeming incapacity to appreciate Western music—in fact, it confirms our suspicion that very few people do appreciate it except at the most superficial level. In this case Eastern music will not help them, any more than Eastern philosophy, but will only encourage a Neptunian dissolution, for we are now at a different stage of evolution, which requires discrimination, and development in the thinking dimension. The cult of oriental forms is a return to the past, and in the case of music it is like comparing a Rembrandt with a cave-painting. An understanding of aesthetics would make it clear that Indian music, for example, is developed overwhelmingly in the tonal dimension, and no matter how intricate the rhythmic subtleties, or the subdivisions of the scale, it is virtually undeveloped in the thinking dimension. Its melodic, tonal and rhythmic effects are all on the level of immediate sensation and belong to an earlier, vitalistic stage of humanity, that of Shamanism and magic. While it is true that we now have to re-develop the degree of sensitivity or even spirituality that was natural to that earlier stage, it is on a different level, and when we have done to we shall be able at last to understand the music of Palestrina, Bach, Beethoven and our other native prophets, who point to the next age, not the previous one. We now have to become full individuals, which means fully defined and developed in form. In music this is possible with our infinitely greater technical and instrumental resources; but music is far ahead of collective humanity.