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CLASSICAL ESSAY |
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by Ernst Mach
To a person accustomed to looking at things from the point of view of the theory of evolution, the high development of modern music as well as the spontaneous and sudden appearance of great musical talent seem, at first glance, a most singular and problematic phenomenon. What could this remarkable development of the power of hearing have had to do with the preservation of the species? Does it not far exceed the measure of the necessary or the useful? What can possibly be the significance of a fine discriminative sense of pitch? Of what use to us is a perceptive sense of pitch? Of what use to us is a perceptive sense of intervals, or of the acoustic colorings of orchestral music? As a matter of fact, the same question may be proposed with reference to every art, no matter from what province of sense its material is derived. The question is pertinent, also, with regard to the intelligence of a Newton, an Euler, or their like, which apparently far transcends the necessary measure. But the question is most obvious with reference to music, which satisfies no practical need and for the most part depicts nothing. Music, however, is closely allied to the decorative arts. In order to be able to see, a person must have the power of distinguishing the directions of lines. Having a fine power of distinction, such a person may acquire, as a sort of collateral product of his education, a feeling for agreeable combinations of lines. The case is the same with the sense of color-harmony following upon the development of the power of distinguishing colors, and so, too, it undoubtedly is with respect to music. We must bear in mind that talent and genius, however gigantic their achievements may appear to us, constitute but a slight departure from normal endowment. Talent may be resolved into the possession of psychical power slightly above the average in a certain province. And as for genius, it is talent supplemented by a capacity of adaptation extending beyond the youthful period, and by the retention of freedom to overstep routine barriers. The naiveté of the child delights us, and produces almost always the impression of genius. But this impression as a rule quickly disappears, and we perceive that the very same utterances which, as adults, we are wont to ascribe to freedom, have their source, in the child, in a lack of fixed character.
Excerpted from Analysis of the Sensations, by Ernst Mach |
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