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Simplicity versus Restraint in Music

Author(s): Malcolm MacKenzie


Source: Music & Letters, Vol. 5, No. 3 (Jul., 1924), pp. 270-271
Published by: Oxford University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/726787
Accessed: 07/11/2010 18:26

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SIMPLICITYversus RESTRAINTIN MUSIC

WE call the means whereby the senses find expression the arts, and
each branch of art is distinct in spite of obvious analogies. Critical
literature may amplify, explain, or even qualify, but mere words are
incapable of translating the real significance of a melody or a painting.
It is one of the limitations of literature that a common language must
be applied to arts so kindred and yet, by strange paradox, so remote.
Technical terms may be employed to characterise the actual means
of creation, but the achievement itself, an affair of colour or tone,
rhythm, or dynamic sensation, cannot be adequately told in words,
because each art is itself a language, a delicate impressionism.
Literature may not usurp the mission of the composer or the
painter, but it is none the less a means whereby folk seek to control
them. Criticism applies general terms sufficiently broad in their
meaning to embrace the vastness of the arts and not infrequently with
dire result. At a transitory period, when contemporary journalism
has established a vogue, fickle nature demands variety, and so in
natural reaction thought in terms of cathedrals pauses. The
splendour of a mighty grandeur extracted by written words inspires t;he
weakling, whose emulation of the colossal is a pitiable vanity, a very
ostentation, and then the reaction. Criticism often, as the swing of a
pendulum from extreme to extreme, demands simplicity-simplicity
in music, in all art, even in life itself.
This simplicity because it is merely a vogue is capable of the most
lamentable ostentation, even of utter vulgarity. Simplicity is conI-
fusing when advocated as a cult, even a little involved. Barrie,
making his own word-music, may call simple folk his " December
roses," but there are other blossoms, the white lily, and the full-blown
sun-flower. Simplicity in modern music need not be devoid of charm.
Plainness, freedom from artificial ornament, lack of subtlety on the
part of a composer and exponent may commend themselves. If the
endeavour be insincere it will niot carry conviction. Even absolute
sincerity may not sustain it if a natural tendency is not qualified by
a measure of restraint.
The only truly simple music is naturally expressed by simple
peoples. George Calderon, in " Tahiti," refers at length to the music
of the South Sea Islands. He touches upon its " straightforward
simplicity." He writes: " One does not get this vivid brilliancy
SIMPLICITYverms RESTRAINTIN MUSIC 271
withoutpaying for it in the loss of other qualities; for though tropical
beauty strikes as it were deeper notes than we are accustomedto in
our northern music, like a tune played on a longer keyboard,yet it
is a very plain and artless tune; it lacks those delicate shades and
chromatic nuances which our northern beauty crowds into its more
limited range. . . . their songs are shrill and wailing; their per-
fumes have a strong sour, memorableseverity in them. There is a
certain good natured fiercenessin their pleasure."
Opinionsdiffer, but absolute sincerity is the main characteristicof
the songs of the Serbian and the Albanian peasantry. The Serbian
songs are simple in their appeal. A discordantnote here and there
is distinctly Slavonic in its dramatic intention. I have, in remote
Serbian villages, heard music of an inspired character, primitive
fancies-songs of ardent love, doleful, but never subdued. The
Lithuanian minstrel is influenced in a degree by the melancholy of
Russia. He is more child-likein simplicity, more timid. His melodies
are drab, grey and hopeless. His doleful yearnings invoke pity.
The simple music of simple folk defies criticism. There is no
restraint, no lack of sincerity. " You must tell me what the clarinet
is saying in that exquisite passage," an effusive lady exclaimed to
Rimsky-Korsakof,who replied, " Madam, the clarinet says ' I am a
clarinet.' " Simplicity in music merely proclaims its simplicity;
restraint may proclaimthe artist.
MALCOLMMACKENZIE.

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