"
The lesson conveyed by these words may with equal propriety be applied
to the field of music. Viewing certain current tendencies the cultured
musician is often moved to wonder where the soul of music has fled. The
critical faculty is keenly alive to-day, but musical criticism, shorn of
its better part, musical appreciation, can never lead to the insight
requisite for true musical interpretation. Observation and perception,
intellectual discernment and spiritual penetration are essential to gain
insight into a great musical composition until its musical ideas, the
very grade and texture of its style, are absolutely appropriated.
In his "Death in the Desert," Robert Browning tells of the three souls
that make up the soul of man: the soul which Does; the soul which Knows,
feels, thinks and wills, and the soul which Is and which constitutes
man's real self. Appreciation of music requires the utmost activity of
all three souls. The more we are, the broader our culture, the more we
think, feel and know, the more we will find in music.
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