Purity in Musical Art

An excerpt from the beginning of the first chapter:

ON THE CHORALE.

It has perhaps never been so generally acknowledged as at the present time that the groundwork of all true knowledge must necessarily lie in the historical study and acquisition of standard works that have come down to us. It is only by thus profiting by the lessons of others that fresh energy can safely be applied towards the advancement of truth. Acquaintance with the older masterpieces may also have the great negative advantage of convincing worthless pretensions of their futility, and of diverting them from the business of production to the quiet enjoyment and diffusion of the model works we have inherited from past ages. Men of real genius, like Plato, Raphael, and Shakespeare, are phenomena of extremely rare occurrence; but it has been theirs to sway generation after generation, and to exert a beneficial influence for thousands of years. Hence it is of all conceits the most pitiable for anyone to dispense with the study of the classics from confidence in his own powers, and so, in effect, declare that he considers himself on a par with the great spirits of bygone time. All our young men of education make it almost a point of honour to revert to the model authors of antiquity; and any one who was setting up for a painter would assuredly no more venture to pronounce the study of the works of Raphael, Michael Angelo, Van Eyck, and Dürer, to be superfluous, than would a youthful poet venture to come out with a new Iliad, or a new King Lear, without acquainting himself with the immortal works of Homer or Shakespeare. Hence in poetry, painting, and architecture, we now have a freshness and life which cannot but please, though it happens often enough that a want of genius and power causes the best intentions to fall short of the complete fulfilment of their aim.

It is in music alone that an arrogance, that disdains all history, is the order of the day, although the greatest masters of the period preceding our own showed us a better example. There was nothing on which Handel, Hasse, and Graun were more eagerly bent than on the thorough prosecution of musical study in Italy. They did not indeed follow the example of most of our professors, who take every opportunity of showing off with a few bravura pieces laboriously mastered, and think that classical taste is to be found among the audiences of the concert-room; but, whilst composing fine works, and offering them to the judgment of the public, they took care to study the standard works of others for themselves, and cultivated an intimate acquaintance with the most eminent masters. Sebastian Bach, again, who was prevented from travel ling, studied intently the works of other masters—Caldara, the immortal Venetian, being one of his especial favourites. Even Mozart, though his genius rendered him well nigh independent of others, yet held the chief works of his predecessors—those of Handel and Sebastian Bach in particular—in high esteem; and it is owing, primarily, to his edition of the '' Messiah'' that Handel's reputation has outlived an age of musical shallowness. But now, how utterly changed is all this! We see now an almost absolute reliance on individual powers, an unlimited amount of original composition, and, for the most part, a contemptuous disregard for what is called antiquated.