This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1920 edition. Excerpt: ... (the Pastoral) the words--' Mehr Ausdruck der Empfindung als Malerey' (More expression of feeling than painting). 1 This, it will be seen from a later chapter, is akin to Wagner's use of the 'Leitmotiv', or leading motive. he shows the play of one character on another, the gradual change of character, ...
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1920 edition. Excerpt: ... (the Pastoral) the words--' Mehr Ausdruck der Empfindung als Malerey' (More expression of feeling than painting). 1 This, it will be seen from a later chapter, is akin to Wagner's use of the 'Leitmotiv', or leading motive. he shows the play of one character on another, the gradual change of character, and so forth. It will be evident from this that the treatment of the musical themes of a piece of modern programme music is somewhat on the general lines of that of the themes of a sonata or symphony in its 'development' portion. In fact, it is obvious that for the technical ability to shape and reshape their musical material in such a way as to reflect the ever-changing play of emotions of a Symphonic Poem the composers of to-day are indebted to the earlier composers who practised such reshaping in the Air and Variations, in the 'episodes' of the Fugue, or in the ' bridges ' and 'development' of works in Sonata form. And it follows from this that the listener who can to some extent follow the process of reshaping in these simpler and earlier forms is prepared for a fuller understanding of the more complex music of the modern forms. He who has not the power of following such processes is probably best advised to read the literary programme of a Symphonic Poem, and give himself up to any vague poetical imaginings of which his soul is capable. It may be freely admitted that this chapter gives a by no means complete view of its subject. The same may be said of every chapter of the book, and the explanation, of course, lies in the fact that this is a book with a deliberately and carefully restricted aim--that of giving the plain man the irreducible minimum of knowledge necessary for the successful practice of his branch of the musical art--the...
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