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SYMPHONIC POEM (Symphonische Dichtung...
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SYMPHONIC POEM (Symphonische Dichtung, Tondichtung, Pobme symphonique, &c.) . This See also:term covers the experiments in a new See also:style of instrumental See also:music which first showed a coherent method in the twelve Symphonische Dichtungen of See also:Liszt. The term at See also:present implies a large orchestral See also:composition which, whatever its length and changes of tempo, is not broken up into See also:separate movements, and which, moreover, illustrates a definite poetic See also:train of thought that can be expressed in literature, whether it is actually so expressed or not. Thus the See also:form of the symphonic poem is the form dictated by its written See also:pro-gramme or unwritten poetic See also:idea; and so it is not every piece of " See also:programme music " that can be called a symphonic poem. See also:Beethoven's See also:sonata See also:Les Adieux, and his See also:Pastoral See also:Symphony, are, for instance, See also:works in which the poetic idea does not interfere with the normal development of sonata style required by the musical nature of Beethoven's material. See also:Great disturbances in musical See also:art have always been accompanied by See also:constant appeals to See also:external See also:literary ideas; and there is nothing peculiarly See also:modern in the present tendency to attack and defend the rising style of large indivisible schemes of instrumental music by unprofitable metaphysical discussions as to the claims of " See also:absolute music " against " music embodying poetic ideas." New art-forms are not See also:born mature, and in their See also:infancy their See also:parent arts naturally invite other arts to stand godfather. If the rise of the sonata style was not accompanied by as much "programme music" as the new art of the present See also:day (and as a See also:matter of fact it was accompanied by a See also:good See also:deal), it at all events coincided with highly Wagnerian discussions ' See " Syntagm. See also:mus." pt. ii., De organographia, pp. 72, 7~,, 178 (See also:Wolfenbuttel, 1618). II of dramatic music on literary grounds. What is certain is, firstly, that no amount of theorizing can prevent a musician from developing his musical ideas; secondly, that musical ideas are just as likely to be inspired by literature and other arts as by any other See also:kind of experience; and lastly, that, as musicians attain greater mastery in the handling of their ideas, their musical readiness soon outstrips their See also:powers or inclination for literary See also:analysis, at all events while they are working at the music. Hence the frequent ability of great composers to set inferior words to music which is not only great but evidently based upon those words. Hence the digust of great composers at even the cleverest unauthorized literary interpretations of their works. Hence, on the other See also:hand, the See also:absence of any See also:general classical attitude of vigorous protest against the use of music to convey external ideas. Be this as it may, we believe the importance of the symphonic poem to See also:lie not in its illustrative capacity, but in its evident tendency towards a new kind of instrumental art. It is not See also:mere See also:convention and See also:prejudice that has delayed the ripening of this art. Every classical art-form is made by the greatest artists to be a natural thing in every individual See also:case, no matter how artificial the conditions of the form become in See also:ordinary hands. In the highest classical art not even a thousand examples identical in form would really be examples of an art-form set up like a See also:mould for the material to be shovelled into it. In each case, however much the artist may have been helped by See also:custom, his material would have taken that shape by its own nature. A sufficient number of sufficiently similar cases of this kind may conveniently, though dangerously, be regarded as establishing an art-form; and most art-forms coincide to a striking degree with See also:practical and See also:local limitations, for in these a great artist can almost always find suggestions for the See also:character of his material instead of mere hindrances to its development. Thus art-forms become the vehicle for perfectly natural works in the hands of great artists, even when in the abstract they are highly artificial and conventional. But there is probably no case of an important art-form (and still less of a whole style of art) remaining productive in so artificial a See also:condition when the facts which made that condition natural are changed. The great works in such forms remain, and are thoroughly natural, for they See also:express their environment so perfectly as to recall it. It makes singularly little difference to the value of a great See also:work of art, in the See also:Kong run, whether its vividness is in the See also:light it throws on a remote and forgotten past, or on a living and actual present. When See also:Alcinous welcomes See also:Odysseus, on See also:hearing that he is an See also:honourable pirate and not one of those disreputable merchants, our See also:pleasure at the realistic glimpse of Homeric social distinctions differs from the pleasure of the Homeric See also:audience only in so far as our point of view is more romantic. But new art must, if it is to live, be produced, like the See also:classics, on conditions which the artist himself understands; and it is improbable that these conditions (if they admit of healthy art at all) will be of a less See also:common-sense character than those of older art. In the absence of musical criteria for a future art, perhaps the See also:analogy of See also:drama may be useful here. The See also:chorus of See also:Greek tragedy can by no stretch of See also:imagination be said to behave like a corresponding See also:group of persons in real See also:life. Yet the Greek chorus becomes natural enough when we realize the necessary material circumstances of Greek drama; indeed in the best examples it becomes the only natural (or even, in a certain religious aspect, realistic) treatment of a natural set of materials. In the same way we are taught that See also:Shakespeare's dramatic technique becomes perfectly natural when we realize his equally natural type of See also:stage, which was so constructed and situated in regard to the audience that scenery would obstruct the view just as it would in a See also:circus. But with the modern conception of a stage as a kind of magnified peep-show, with the audience looking into a painted See also:box, realistic scenery is inevitable; and with realistic scenery comes speech so realistic that the use of See also:verse and other classical resources is attended with dangers hitherto unknown. At the same See also:time the condition of the modern stage obviouslyapproximates far more closely to such an idea of the art of imitating human life by human speech and See also:action, as would most naturally occur to a common-sense mind at any See also:period. And it is probable that the final condition of an art will always tend to approximate to such an idea. In the same way it cannot be doubted that the sonata form, with its subtle See also:balance between See also:independence of form and interdependence of contrast, is far too artificial to be such a final form of instrumental music as would commend itself in the abstract to ordinary common sense. And we may look forward to a time, perhaps by the See also:middle of the See also:century, when the new and single continuous forms now adumbrated by the symphonic poems shall be the greatest forms of instrumental music, and shall need no literary crutches to make them intelligible. The pioneers of these forms at the present day frequently and sometimes justifiably claim that their music is intelligible apart from its " programme," but this is far from being so constantly the case that the symphonic poem can as yet be regarded as a mature kind of art. But when the mature art it foreshadows shall appear, then critics will need to See also:face the fact that its genuine achievements will outwardly resemble the immature efforts which led to them, while the spiritual resemblance to classical music will lie too deep for the recognition of any but those who have the courage to make the new art their own. The symphonies of See also:Mozart are in texture and phraseology See also:faT more like those of Philipp Emanuel See also:Bach than they are like the great works of See also: Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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