is a very complicated matter and far beyond the scope of this book.
There are many people who fear that if they acquired a knowledge of
the structural principles of music they would lose all their pleasure
in it. They are confirmed in this belief by finding that persons who
are learned in the science of music undoubtedly lose pleasure in much
that satisfies the emotional requirements of the uninitiated, and may
in some cases appear to have lost pleasure in hearing any music at
all. The fear is groundless. The character and quality of the pleasure
may change, and undoubtedly does change as a result of ripening and
decaying age; but no one, even among those who detest all modern music,
however sadly he may say _si vieillesse pourrait_, would admit after
personal experience that the essential joy of music was destroyed by
knowledge.
In default of knowledge, the “emotional” group of music-lovers,
eagerly desiring to find some significance in the music which they
hear, often try to translate it into some other language with which
they are more familiar. Some listeners maintain that music gives them
positive sensations of colour. There are many who in listening to music
consciously construct pictorial images. Others will seek to interpret
it as meaning something that could be expressed in terms of literature.
Experiments have generally shown that when a number of listeners are
asked to give their impressions of the same piece of music agreement
hardly ever goes further than to such vague indications of character as
the composer himself might give in his conventional Italian directions
for performance, except in cases where the composer has deliberately
set out to evoke some literary or pictorial image or has employed
some well-worn conventional device for the awakening of familiar
associations.
The psychological process of musical creation has hitherto eluded
all scientific research. No satisfactory result can be obtained from
comparing the recorded utterances of the composers themselves as to
what induced the composition of their works or what they intended to
express in them. People who are inclined to interpret the music which
they hear in literary or pictorial terms are naturally attracted
by definitely descriptive music, and readily produce evidence in