facts. If "Excelsior" considers the subject under discussion merely a question of taste, why not stop there, since de gustibus non est disputandum.

Still, there are one or two points which he does appear to confute, and we will look for a moment at these. For instance, he says, "the only possible result of a prohibitory Tariff of the 'Americus' but not American stripe, is to destroy the natural rights of men to buy and sell where they can do so to the best advantage, and as such is wrong Now no man has or ever had any right to buy or sell without restriction in a community any article, when his so doing would prove prejudicial to the interests of that community considered as a whole. This principle is recognized in all communities as sound law, and put in practice too, and that frequently to the detriment of the so called "rights" of individuals. As an instance, take the "restrictions" on the sale of liquor in New York; if Excelsior desires an audience in the defense of this principle, the rum dealers would lend him willing ears. And even if we were to consider the rights of men, pray whose rights are we to consider first, those of Chinamen, Englishmen, or our own? Why is it that every Englishmen, every German, almost every foreigner that comes to this country, is forever dinning in our ears this beautiful theory of universal freedom of trade? The Importers' interests are not the people's interests, the interests of aliens are not our own interests.

"Excelsior" has failed to show the faintest shadow of a reason why competition here at home on our own soil, will not have the same tendency to cheapen prices and thus benefit the consumer, as the unequal competition we should be obliged to maintain with foreigners were there no tariff to protect us, and he, moreover, ignores the fact that were the tariff withdrawn and our manufacturers compelled to suspend operations, as they inevi tably would be, all competition would be at once at an end and we should be entirely at the mercy of foreign manufacturers.

Fancying he has now discovered a flaw which will undermine my whole fabric, "Excelsior" has taken the illustration which I made use of from John L. Hayes' pamphlet, concerning the effect of various rates of duty on the article soda-ash, and by a series of arithmetical calculations he has proved to his own satisfaction that since a reduction in the tariff on this article from ten per cent, to four per cent. was followed by a reduction in the price from six to four and a half cents per pound, ergo, the abolition of the tariff on said article ought to have reduced the price still further. Perhaps it ought, but it seems it did not, for immediately soda-ash was placed on the free list, our manufacturers perceived that

the long race they had run with their English competitors for the control of the market here of this article, had come to a sudden termination, and that they (the Americans) had been vanquished. But, asks "Excelsior," how comes it the price was reduced when the tariff was reduced? Simply in this wise, the struggle was purely one of wealth and power to sustain a losing trade for a short time, in order, if possible, to drive out competition and thus eventually reap a rich harvest. The price of four and a half cents per pound was an abnormal one as the sequel showed it to be. And even if our manufacturers won the race says "Excelsior," would they not prove monopolists and make us consumers sweat for it? and what if they did, is it not better that our own countrymen should have the monopoly than for it to be held by foreigners? and is not the capital in our own country worth more to us than it would be in England? If we are to be ridden by monopolists, at least let them be our countrymen, and let the country at large derive what comfort it may in an indirect way at our expense. But as I have said before, there need be no monopoly whatever, nor would there be for any length of time.

Lest "Excelsior" should think the above explanation a little "far-fetched," I will give here an extract from a letter written by a large importing house in New York to their London branch a short time since, which came under my personal observation. It may also show him that not only I, but all Americans have good reason to dread "British Gold," of which he makes so light. It will be borne in mind that the writers of this letter were themselves foreigners, and firm sticklers for the doctrine of "Free Trade."

The letter is in regard to some samples of English white lead that had been sent to the concern in question in order that they might "sound" the market here and report

"Some large lots of white lead have been imported during the past year, but only the first shipment paid, as immediately afterwards the New York white lead people combined to reduce the price to such figure that importa tion became unprofitable. The white lead people here are rich and can stand losses, but the question in such a race is only who has the largest purse, and if the English manufacturers mean to get this market for white lead again, they may be able to do so by sending quantities here and selling the same for a year or so at a loss, when the American makers may come to an understanding with them."

Such then is the fashion in which our trade

is to be regenerated and made "free." From all such "freedom" of trade deliver us, Heaven!

kind

AMERICUS.

THE FRIEND.

VOL. 111.-JULY, 1868.— NO. 31.

BEETHOVEN'S NINTH SYMPHONY AND ITS ADMIRERS. A Musical Letter, by a Man of Limited Capacity.

BY DAVID FRIEDRICH STRAUSS, AUTHOR OF A "LIFE OF JESUS."

YOU

mie wrong.

(Translated from the German for THE FRIEND, by J. H. SENTER.)

OU shake your head at the strange title; you consider it unnecessarily modest, you say, and you think it affected. We understand ourselves; but you it seems, do not yet know me, for now you are really doing Since a certain occasion, I have been given to understand, so often and so plainly, how narrow I am in musical matters, that for a long time I have believed it myself. The occasion? Well! It was at a musical Soiree. Conversation about Beethoven's ninth symphony, which had been brought out a few days before. Admiration, rapture, from all sides, ages, sexes, in all forms and tones. My silence must have struck my neighbor, a famous virtuoso, unpleasantly. "You, too, admire our greatest master's last and first?" he asked me, quite pointedly. "So they call it," I replied, during a perceptible stillness that the question of the virtuoso had occasioned. "So they call it," I said, and nothing more; but since that "So they say," my musical narrowness has been agreed upon by all the musical people of our circle. Truly, it is a terribly simple answer to such a question to say, "So they say," then keep quiet. Many times since then, like a good Swabian, I was about to say, I have gone over in my secret thoughts what I ought to have expressed aloud to the company; that is, a thorough discourse upon the subject. Would you like to have it?

When some years ago, so I am accustomed to begin my sermon,-Frank Liszt brought out the Ninth Symphony, in the Beethoven Festival, at Bonn, it was still something of a curiosity in Germany. Up to that time it had

been performed but a few times on account of its difficulty, and it had found few admirers on account of its strangeness. Listeners wearied in the gloomy labyrinths of the first movement, found themselves surprised by the demoniac leaps of the second, and scarcely had they begun to thaw out in the soul-full lament of the adagio, when they were sprinkled by the base recitative in the fourth movement as if with water; a horror from which not even the Song of Joy could help them recover; but they had to take it with them to their homes and beds. Horrible! And they had counted on such a surpassing enjoyment.

Since then, indeed, the state of affairs has become quite different. Our orchestra leaders have learned to surmount, or get around, the difficulties of the gigantic work; our public has become accustomed to its oddities. The ninth symphony is liked has to a certain extent become popular. At least it is sure to fill the concert halls every time. At the entrance of the human voice after three and half parts of instrumental music, where, ten years ago, one's hair stood on end, now hearts open. The deep symbolism which is said to be hidden in this opening—that only in men and with men can the solution of all troubles ripen-Feuerbach's homo homini Deus— the key to the riddle of the ninth symphony, has become since then a common-place which the youth whispers in his mistress's ear. And while among the Illuminated, there has been for a long time no doubt that Beethoven in this work surpassed himself, and opened to music a path till then unsus pected, the great public also persuades itself into a particular fondness for it, because no one likes to be excluded from the number of the Illuminated.

And now, after this revolution in the musical taste of Germany, and even of the world, what will you say if I must confess myself to be one of those who have learned nothing and forgotten nothing? Not forgotten that fatal sprinkling, and not learned to make use of the key which is thrust into your hand with the concert programme, to help you understand this very point. Will you still talk of excessive or affected modesty?

God pardon the teacher who made me learn, at school, half of Horace by heart! For to that cause I owe it, that in this matter, this verse keeps sounding in my ears: Humano capiti cervicem pictor equinam. And however low I may sink myself by saying so, I must say, that if the enormity of the ninth symphony can be justified by that formula, then in my opinion, the God with the dog's head, or the bull with a human head, can be justified as works of art. For have not they, too, their deep symbolism? And are they any the less for that monsters? Here, then, I take my stand: by reference to a symbolical meaning a work of art, so far as I can see, is proved to be simply significant, possibly deeply significant, but by no means beautiful; and in a work of art, not even excepting the most excellent, beauty still remains the fundamental necessity.

I know well how greatly I prejudice myself in an age which, after succeeding so i in leaping over historical boundaries on the field of politics,

seems anxious to pour out its wrath upon traditional limits in the domain of art, when I appear circumscribed by the old border-line which the historical development of music has drawn between vocal and instrumental music. Besides its pure form, the latter certainly is found also as an accompaniment and introduction to the first, just as in a historical picture human figures may be surrounded by a landscape. Instrumental music, as preparatory to vocal music, may be treated either as an introduction, that is, it arouses the state of mind which on the entrance of the human voice is immediately exposed and unfolded,—I mention especially, by way of example, the introduction to the Messiah, with its sad tones, as a preparation for the "Comfort ye, Comfort ye my people;" or it is an overture, that is, it expresses, after the manner of pure instrumental music, the same contents that the opera or oratorio represents in the manner of dramatic or lyric vocal music, including the immediately accompanying instrumental music. Examples of this sort it is unnecessary to quote. All these are forms and associations that are justified by the nature of the case. That instrumental music may, but vocal music may never, serve as accompaniment, is explained by the same circumstances as the other, that the human voice used as introduction to a piece of pure instrumental music would be a monstrosity; that is, from the greater definiteness that belongs to vocal music from its dependence upon words, and from the immediate expressiveness that it acquires from the organ of the human voice.

Now in the case of the ninth symphony, instrumental music, it is true, as we have allowed to be admissible, precedes vocal music; but neither as introduction nor as overture, (which, moreover, considered even externally, may not be greater than the word to be introduced). Not as overture; for it does not in its way comprehend the contents of the following vocal music. On the contrary, it contains nothing at all of the contents, it merely seeks and strives after it. And yet it can just as little be considered an introduction; for it does not simply prepare the way for a first vocal movement, whch is afterwards unfolded in a series of movements and situations, but on the other hand itself runs through a series of movements and moods, to which the song coming in at the end is related as only one mood more.

Pure instrumental music, especially the symphony, starts from this premiss: the circle of human feelings and moods that are necessary to a complete work of art, made up of different parts, may be expressed, without the co-operation of the human voice, by the mere co-working of different instruments. On the other hand, vocal music starts from the counter supposition: that, as human feeling is inseparable from thought, and its natural organ is the human voice, its full musical expression, also, is possible only through the human voice in union with words. Both premisses are correct in their proper place, and the musician may, as he chooses, take his stand on the ground of either: he may, in different productions, change from one to the other; but in one and the same work he may not, unless he would destroy its unity. When

the composer of an opera introduces his opera with an overture, he says to us, as it were: "Behold! the work that I am about to bring before you in a dramatico-musical form I can exhibit to you, before the raising of the curtain, in a purely musical representation; but the proper body does not come till afterwards." The opera composer, therefore, in the overture, by no means leaves the stand-point that vocal music (with accompaniment) pre-supposes as the true one. On the other hand, Beethoven, in the ninth symphony, places himself at the outset at just the opposite stand-point. He begins with the instrumental music as earnestly, deeply and perseveringly as if it were the organ best adapted to exhibit in itself all the contents of his feelings; then, at the end, to throw it aside, and grasp after the human voice as the only sufficient organ for his purpose. Sufficient for what? For the full expression of human feelings in general? No! For the expression of one kind of feeling he evidently finds instrumental music quite sufficient-viz., the painful, in all their forms and colors; but for the expression of the other class of feelings-the joyful-it does not seem to suffice, but here the help of the human voice is indispensable. This assertion allows to the human voice, in connection with words, too much and too little. No! not merely joy-pain even -only the human voice can express in all its depth and intensity; but so far as instrumental music can express the one it can express the other. No vocal Deus ex machina was needed to loosen a knot tied by pure instrumental music, else why is not such a deus missed in the same master's C minor and A major symphony?

To illustrate the relation of vocal and instrumental music, I have instanced above the connection of historical and landscape painting. Now, I would call to mind the attitude of painting in general to sculpture. The latter presupposes that the manifold beauty and significance of the human body can be represented, without color, by mere bodily form. Painting says: "No! I will rather renounce bodily form than have color taken from me." Here, also, both are right. Both may prove their premisses in different works of art; but in the same work of art they certainly cannot be demonstrated. What should we think of an artist who should prepare the legs, body, breast, and arms of a figure of colorless marble, but who, when he came to the head, should say: No! that will not do: I must color the head." Undoubtedly we should think the man had gone mad. But is not this precisely the case with the ninth symphony?

Therefore, then (it makes no difference now, and so I prefer to make a clean breast of it), that fatal impression, whenever the bass in the fourth movement strikes in with its recitative-an impression that I cannot conquer, and that makes me ask myself: "Have I gone mad, or the music?" It amounts to this, that here the work of art changes its centre of gravity with a jerk, and so seems bound to overset the hearer also. And Beethoven, of all men, who is so incomparably stronger in composition for the orchestra than for the human voice, who, especially in the concluding chorus of one