Beautiful in Music

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1891. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER IV. Though, in our opinion, thejcJusLandJundameixtal task of musical, aesthetics consists jn^subordinating ^ jthe s_upremacy, usurped, by-the feel ings^..tQ_the^legitimate one ojlheauty--since the organ of pure contemplation, from which, and for the sake of which, the truly beautiful flows, is not our emotional, but our imaginative facultyj--yet the positive phenomena of the emotions play too striking and important a part in our musical life to admit of the question being settled by simply effecting this subordination. However strictly an aesthetic analysis ought to be confined to the work_of «rt ifg&lf, we should always remember that the lat^jSr^^cfonstitutes the link between two living factors; the whence and the whither; in other words, between the composer and the listener, in whose mTnaT~the workings of the imagination are never so pure and unalloyed as the finished work itself represents them. II Their imagina- . tion, on the contrary, is most intimately associated with feelings and sensations. The feelings, therefore, are of importance both before and after the completion of the work; in respect of the composer first, and the listener afterwards, and this we dare not ignore. Let us consider the composer. . During the act of composing he is in that exalted state of mind without which it seems impossible to raise the beautiful from the deep well of the imagination. That this exalted state of mind will, ^..con;:. ,: t .. poser's idiosyncrasy, tako ine :..frr ,v or< J': the nascent structure, nov r:vng f 1 V.ws :_ now subsiding into mere ripj lrs, with iU e ~.. ing an emotional whirlpool which .n!">t ..i'".. .h': powers of artistic inventin ; that r..i.r :.'.; again is at least as essertL' u . these are well-known princip^ef. of *ij C 'VV; ...