Natural Law: Its Influence on Modern Music

Author(s): Marion Bauer

Source: The Musical Quarterly , Oct., 1920, Vol. 6, No. 4 (Oct., 1920), pp. 469-477
Published by: Oxford University Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/737974

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The Musical Quarterly

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THE MUSICAL OUARTERLY
VOL. VI OCTOBER. 1920 NO. 4

NATURAL LAW: ITS INFLUENCE ON

MODERN MUSIC
By MARION BAUER
IS there a power inherent in Music itself, or is its influence the
result of our own mental attitudes, of our cultural experi-
ence, and of our aesthetic development? In other words, is
our modern musical expression a case of self-hypnotism or has it
developed along legitimate lines of evolution?
One may demand a more precise explanation of the writer's
use of the word "power." Is this "inherent power" occult, spiri-
tual, emotional, or vibrational? The only answer possible at this
point is, that no two people hear sound alike, any more than
they react alike emotionally; consequently the occultist senses
occult power in Music, the aesthetician sees the working out of his
pet theories of the Beautiful, the True and the Good, according to
the age in which he happens to live; the pedant scratches down on
his blackboard all the digressions from the rules dictated by the
masters, and recognizes no power save that of form and formula;
the extremist denies the power of all existing rules and makes
rules for himself; the reactionary sees only degeneration in modern
works, and claims that "creative power" in music ceased just
wherever he consciously or unconsciously failed to react to musical
impressions; and the great army of the untrained respond to
the emotional power of rhythm with much the same instinct that
existed in primitive man.
It seems incredible, however, that for a period of five hundred
years, we have been ruled arbitrarily by the common chord of
C major, unless there be a fundamental principle behind it. As
Harold Bauer, whose intellect is as keen as his piano playing is
profound, once said:
This three voice chord is doubtlessly a part of the same idea, that is
symbolized in the trinity in religion; the triangle in geometry; the soul,
mind, and body of philosophy; the occult three-fold principle of unity,
469

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470 The Musical Quarterly
variety, and multiplicity. But after all there is something finite and
complete about the C major chord, like the old idea of a personal God-
Jehovah; while the new harmony with its unresolved dissonances, its
indefiniteness and its limitless progressions, expresses the growth of
ideas, the development of mankind; dimly, vaguely, it reveals the IDEAL
of Divinity, of world without end.

This same idea is expressed by the occult philosopher, Franz

Hartmann, who says that every form in nature has a three-fold
constitution, every symbol a three-fold meaning, every perfect
act is a trinity. To constitute a complete act three factors are
required: the motive, the will, and the performance. There is
nothing in nature that has not its mathematical laws; the actions
of the law of periodicity have long ago been observed in the
vibrations producing light and sound, and through experiments
in chemistry it has been recognized that all so-called simple ele-
ments are only various states of vibrations of one primordial ele-
ment. Differences, therefore, in the finite world, are differences
of function and of the ratio of vibration, not of substance or matter.
Granting for the sake of argument that this be a fact,
demonstrable by experience rather than by logic, we then may
assert that the musical scale reduces itself to a single tone which
generates the overtones through different speeds or rates of vi-
bration; the diatonic scale of to-day is an arbitrary man-made
affair, with a scientific foundation, and is subject to countless
variations; but the only scale, or chord as it is called by some,
that exists in Nature is the harmonic series, and, although it can
be explained scientifically, we cannot tell WHY it is, any more
than we can account for gravitation or ether. To Pythagoras
we owe not only the harmonic series, but through occult as well
as scientific studies, he learned the relation of color and sound,
and he constructed a scale with mathematical precision to conform
not only to the solar spectrum, but to correspond with the planets
and also with the seven planes of "Earth's geometrically con-
structed sphere." We must not lose sight of the fact that
Rhythm is Nature's means of carrying Principle to its infinite
manifestations, reacting on us as forms, sounds, motions.
To parallel the generic tone embodying overtones even beyond
the point of being perceived by human ears, there is the compound
solar ray consisting of visible colors, the heat ray known as the
infra-red, and the actinic ray called the ultra-violet. What have
heretofore been designated as the Newton primary colors,-red,
yellow, and blue, correspond in the Pythagorean scale to the
C major triad (c-e-g), and if we wish to push the analogy over the

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 Natural Law: Its Influence on Modern Music 471

border of logical deduction into the field of imaginative specul

we may infer that all the tones of the scale may be drawn f
the C major chord, much as the secondary colors of the p
are produced by the mixture of the primaries.
This relation of sound and color has eluded its pursue
throughout the centuries, and is to-day a source of intere
experiments, as is shown by the late Scriabin's work, "Promet
That definite conclusions as to its practibility can be reach
still a question. Symbolically and sesthetically the relation
exists, and we may some day be convinced that it has actual
in teaching absolute pitch and sight reading through assoc
of idea, or better still, through a positive vibrational corresp
ence.

We have been brought up on the Pythagorean t

tones, and up to the present time there has bee
about it. Primitive music was composed largel
and the octave, then the fourth and the fifth we
were the basis of the school of Organum. Grad
triad made its appearance, and following the triad
of harmonics is the minor seventh (b flat in the s
is the fundamental, or generic tone); but it is simp
the major seventh (b natural) and the ninth (d) ar
the physical ear more quickly than the minor
triad (c-e-g) is struck and b and d are pressed s
strings will respond sympathetically and will be h
distinctly than b flat, if it be pressed silently in
The reason for this is obvious-b and d, being th
fifth of the dominant, respond more readily to the
does b flat which is considerably removed fro
responds to g as freely as g does to c, etc., etc.
Harold Bauer tells us that Debussy at one tim
with the idea that his hearing was defective b
not hear the C major triad without the nin
troubled him exceedingly until he proved to his s
physical existence in the tone, of the third and f
inant, after which, he used the chord he heard, u
and evolved many combinations which we look
distinctively Debussy. The whole tone scale is n
development of this overtone of the fifth repeate
the "added second" that Debussy has made almo
is only this overtone expressed concretely.
It is also related of Debussy that when he w
Evreux, he was tremendously interested in the chi

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472 The Musical Quarterly

near-by, and would spend hours listening to the over

he heard sounds which do not exist to the ears of the aver
goes without saying, for many of his compositions gi
this statement.
Alfred Pochon of the Flonzaley Quartet says that Strawinsky
has the keenest sense of hearing of any one he ever knew:
He hears things of which we have no consciousness at all. He
does not write with the intention of seeking bizarre and original harmonies,
he merely puts down on paper what he actually hears, and the result
is entirely different from that of others. For example, we were sitting
at the edge of the lake at Morges, Switzerland, one evening when there
was not even a ripple across the water, all was very quiet, very still,
but for an occasional sound of a bird or a distant voice, and Strawinsky
asked, 'Do you hear the lake?'
Pochon said that he heard nothing at all, but Strawinsky,
distinctly heard TONE produced by the vibration of the water.
In the same way he also hears countless overtones in a bell. To
him they are not mathematical calculations, but sounds actually
perceptible to the ear, which he reproduced so exactly in one
of his sketches for string quartet, as to make us hear the bell
through the medium of strings.
Of all the composers designated as ultra-modern, Scriabin
has probably made the most profound studies of the physical
and psychical possibilities of tone. He heard and accepted the
"upper partials" as foundation for chord building, and he made
an ARBITRARILY CHOSEN CHORD as his point of departure, using
it logically throughout a composition, and giving it consonant
significance regardless of its dissonant effect upon ears trained to
accept the triad as the model, or the symbol of consonance. An

analysis of his "mystic chord" shows that he has em-

ployed the 8th, 11th, 14th, 10th, 13th, and 9th overtones from
the generic tone C, and has grouped them in fourths. The
"mystic" quality lies in its effect upon those who gave it the name,
rather than in its origin.
It is difficult to believe that so actual a thing as tone has no
definite borders, that it is not merely a question of pitch, nor of
intensity, but has to do with the recording power of different
ears, due doubtlessly to the nervous sensibility of individual cases.
It is almost impossible to make the non-musician believe that
hearing can differ in any great degree in people, none of whom

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 Natural Law: Its Influence on Modern Music 473

is deaf. It is much the same as trying to explain color to

is color blind, or absolute pitch to one, tone deaf. This
mean to infer that those who have absolute pitch have
ears than those who have not; the one is a case of co-or
between mind and ear, the other, of recording on a more
highly adjusted instrument.
The human being is born to-day with much more deve
sense perceptions than were his primitive fore-fathers, jus
child has a much larger vocabulary before passing the
baby talk than the mature cave-man ever needed. We
dren of the age which produces us, and this particular peri
of great complexities not the least of which is modern ha
But the ear is tremendously elastic in its adjusting pow
a public is soon educated, or at least accustoms itself ra
new combinations of tone.
The fact that a child studying music can play the same false
tone over and again without being disturbed by the dissonance
shows how rapidly the ear forms a habit for unusual combina-
tions. This same idea is borne out in a statement made by
Iwan d'Archambeau, 'cellist of the Flonzaley Quartet:
To show you how the human faculties adjust themselves, I may
say that when we first played the Ravel Quartet it contained difficulties
that appeared impossible to overcome until we tried the Hugo Wolf work.
Then Ravel seemed simple; in turn, the difficulties of the Reger Quartet
simplified Wolf, and the Schoenberg! Well-Schoenberg would make
anything seem easy by comparison! With each work we have to learn
a new technic of expression. After having studied the Schoenberg work
as we did, we know the idiom in which it is written and another work
from the same hands would be less difficult to get hold of. In the same
way the Debussy Quartet meant the mastery of an entirely new technic
for the instruments, but now we have learned Debussy's idiom.

Many artists are trying to prove that there is an emotional

response to color apart from form, and the question arises whether
tone per se produces a similar reaction. Is it tone as sound, or
its juxtaposition to other tones that produces its effect on the
sympathetic nervous system? Would tone separated from rhythm
produce emotional reaction, providing that it were tone in the
abstract, and not a cry of pain, or the expression of some other
mental state? With the primitive, rhythm so obviously was the
receptacle which carried melody, and melody developed so spon-
taneously through rhythmical means, that it still is a matter of
conjecture what in music makes the appeal to the greatest number,
-melodic content or rhythmic outline? No fixed and hard rule

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474 The Musical Quarterly

can answer this last, for man approaches the primitive not only
in his moments of creative activity, but in his objective reactions,
also; and one might safely assert that the untutored listener re-
sponds to obvious rhythms that may easily be reproduced in
bodily movements, while the trained musician is annoyed by the
banality of those rhythms and seeks his satisfaction in the melodic
line, accepting the rhythm as a means to an end. However,
one must not lose sight of the fact that there is a MODERN rhythm,
and that modern rhythm has influenced modern tonal effects,
and vice versa. The outlying characteristic of modern rhythm
is that it is different from those forms which have gradually de-
veloped since man consciously used music as a means of emotional
expression; and it has evolved into a more complex web. Has
the development of the harmonic system caused a similar de-
velopment in rhythm, or have the complexities in the scientific
world, the problems of the social world, caused us to live at a
higher rate of vibration which is reflected in the rhythm of music,
and through rhythm in the melodic and harmonic line?
In addition to the recognized rhythms of duple and triple
divisions, and the irregular groupings of five, seven, and sometimes
eleven beats to the measure, as the Russians have presented them,
modern music may also be described as being MULTI-RHYTHMIC
and POLY-RHYTHMIC. "Multi-rhythmic" refers to the constant
shift of metre as it is found, for example, in Cyril Scott's com-
positions,-two measures of 4, one of 4, three of 4, two more of -,
etc., etc. "Poly-rhythmic" music employs simultaneously three
or four kinds of rhythms as Florent Schmitt does,- 6, , 4, to
say nothing of more complicated combinations, used, as it were,
contrapuntally. (See Cyril Scott's "Prelude Solennelle" and
Florent Schmitt's "Sur un Vieux Petit Cimetiere".)
Clive Bell, in his illuminating little book called "Art," speaks
of the artist's "Passionate apprehension of form." The musician
perceives form, then he traces a resemblance between what he sees,
and what he knows; secondly he makes a story; thirdly, he asks
himself whether the relation of color in his perceptions of natural
forms is as he would like Nature to be; fourthly, he seeks sat-
isfaction in an abstract sense that is aesthetic. When he reaches
this point he is ready to do away with the first step, so ultimately
it is true to say that apprehension of form is the most lasting thing
in art. With Schoenberg, his sense of form is his outstanding
characteristic, influencing his harmonic treatment and his melodic
line. To the eye, his music presents a series of arabesque figures
that could be worked into a design; this may be due to the fact that

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 Natural Law: Its Influence on Modern Music 475

he is an ultra-modern painter as well as composer, and is evide

working out the problem of form, through two mediums.
The modern methods of extension and condensation of in
tervals (for example, of the augmented octave as Strawin
uses it, of altered chords, and of elided cadences), the doing a
with laborious processes and replacing them with a terse
graphic style, the use of abbreviated themes and motives,
cutting out of unnecessary details are simply the result of the
in which we live, and are reflected in all branches of literatu
art, in fact in commercial life as well as in musical compo-
sition. We are coming to a realization of the part played by
the imagination,-that one image at a time fills the brain, and
on that we concentrate. We no longer ask for concrete images,
we prefer to interpret symbols according to our individual degree
of mental and spiritual development.
There is something that passes analysis in the means composers
use in producing a completed work. The individual viewpoint is not
always understood, in fact with the ultra-modern, one might say,
it is never completely understood. On this subject Harold Bauer
said:

We listened to Strawinsky's little sketches for string quartet and

enjoyed them hugely-as a musical joke. But would it not be amusing
if Strawinsky had not intended them for a joke! Busoni thought Schoen-
berg was playing jokes, too, but we know that Busoni was mistaken
and that Schoenberg has used arbitrary means of expressing abstract
emotion, in all seriousness, and an analysis of his piano pieces, opus 11,
shows a logical consistency and a unity of purpose that are very satis-
fying especially when we keep his intention in mind.

Beethoven revealed something of his creative process in his

sketch book,-no theme, no motive was too trivial to be put down,
but the amount of reconstruction, of elimination, of polishing and
refining that went on between the first appearance of the ideas
and the finished product is colossal! Truly unbelievable! Tschai-
kowsky, on the other hand, resigned himself to the barbaric
moment of creation and did not subject his works to Beethoven's
refining process.
Again to quote Bauer, who discussed this subject with me
at length,-
At one time I felt that Beethoven's system of investing certain
chords with a definite physiognomy was all wrong. Certain chords
always meant certain things to him, and he felt they must mean the same
to the hearer, that is, something quite definite. He held with Bach
the theory that the diminished chord had a certain emotional quality,
a disintegrating idea. I see now the reason for his system and I cannot

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476 The Musical Quarterly
believe that the common chord will ever change,-the common chord
supposing definite fulfilment, and the diminished seventh, precisely
the reverse,-the two extremes. Each chord has definite intention and
varying significance, and music that has value must adopt a similar
system, which represents or symbolizes a certain emotional state. Of
course one must take into consideration that the diminished chord stands
as a type and has been subject to alteration, just as the common chord
may be major or minor or even arbitrarily altered, but there must always
be repose and agitation, as there can be no definite and permanent
value without contrast.
Now comes the question-how far are we guided in our appreciation?
Has the common chord something inherent of repose and power or have
we agreed upon a convention with the composer? We are looking for
a starting point, for a fixed point in space. If a composer tells us with
authority,-'This is your fixed point in space,' we will not resist him very
long; our judgments are formed by habits, our ears are trained rapidly
to accept new sounds. What is complete? Major needs minor
and minor needs major, so the moderns use the two modes together
and we accept it. There must be a point of repose,-a fixed point in
space, and radiating influences. When the fixed point is establishe
the other suggests itself, otherwise there would be no movement.
We have always spoken without question of the "develop-
ment," or the "evolution" of music until recently the statement
was challenged by a student of the science of vibration who re-
marked that there was no such thing as the "evolution of music;
that it never evolved, but had always existed as Absolute in space
This opens new vistas for speculation. Music, then, is a Reality
a manifestation of Infinity, depending on Man's personality, on
his keenness of perception and sensitiveness to impression fo
translation into tangible form. An analogy might be drawn
between Music and forces of nature such as electricity or radium
which have always existed, waiting to be liberated or enchaine
by Man.
If we accept this hypothesis, then our question is answered-
there is an inherent power in music of which we have touched
only the outer rim, and as man's perceptions become more highly
sensitized, more of the "Music of the Spheres" will be disclosed
to us, and the music of the future may bear much the same re-
lation to what we have already wrested from Nature, as wireless
telegraphy bears to our first crude experiments with poles and
wires.
Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Wagner, Debussy, Scriabin, Schoen-
berg, Strawinsky, are results,-spontaneous results. Science
explains the process, accounts for their individual development
after they have produced their work, but behind the phenomenon
of sound and the laws of form and order, stands the cause which

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 Natural Law: Its Influence on Modern Music 477

no scientist, philosopher or creative worker has been able to defi

Tagore says that Science eliminates from its field of research t
personality of creation and fixes its attention only upon the medium
of creation. It is the medium of finitude which the Infinite
Being sets before him for the purpose of self-expression.....
Our law is the law of the universal mind which is the instrument
of finitude upon which the Eternal Player plays his dance music
of creation.

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