The Relation of Music to Mental Progress - E-book - Multi-format

This book treats of the relation of music to the mental progress. The music of a people may be considered in direct relation to their supersensuous natures. From this point of view alone, strongly marked differences may be noted; for, by comparing modern Italian music with German, it is at once seen that the latter is developed more highly in an intellectual sense. Our modern music is styled a new art, chiefly because it requires advanced mental powers of a special kind on the part of composers and auditors.
Instead of being a succession of monotones, it is a complex web of many tones, that the hearer must analyze to understand and enjoy... It is interesting to consider the birth of a new art, and gratifying to note that our modern civilization is marked by so rare an event. We need not, therefore, lament that at the Renaissance no specimens of Greek music were forthcoming; for these might have influenced the early composers, whose special duty it was to strive to express the new thought and feeling of the time, and of the Latin and Germanic races, not of Greeks or Orientals.
When the mental sleep of the dark ages passed to the waking dream or semi-consciousness of the middle ages that led to the complete awakening, there was great productive activity in all branches of art...