Musical Genius--Evolution and Origins of a Concept

Author(s): Edward E. Lowinsky

Source: The Musical Quarterly , Jul., 1964, Vol. 50, No. 3 (Jul., 1964), pp. 321-340
Published by: Oxford University Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/741019

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 MUSICAL GENIUS - EVOLUTION AND
ORIGINS OF A CONCEPT*

By EDWARD E. LOWINSKY

WE ARE living in an age in which musical and technical develop-

ments suggest the possibility that mathematical formulas and
computer machines or "chance"I may take over essential areas of musical
creativity. "Total organization" or "chance" are two sides of the same
process. Both rule out the free act of creation that we ordinarily associate
with the nature of genius. At the same time we observe a deflation of
the idea of genius. In a recent book the Italian architect Leonardo Ricci
wrote: "if we say we no longer believe in genius, this does not mean only
the genius of the past. It means also that we no longer believe in the
possibility of our being geniuses ourselves."' "A future civilization, the
civilization of Anonymous (20th Century), will be a civilization without
heroes, without geniuses, without paladins, without gallery-gods."3
This, then, is an appropriate time for the historian to examine the
concept of genius, the concept of creativity as we have known it, and
to ask whence it came.

One might suppose that the concept of musical creativity is as old as

musical creation itself-speaking, of course, of musical creation in an
* The present paper was prepared for and read at the symposium on "Creativity"
on May 4, 1962, arranged by the University of Rochester in commemoration of the
fortieth anniversary of the Eastman School of Music. A revised version of this paper
was read in Chicago at the Fall meeting of the Midwest Chapter of the American
Musicological Society on Nov. 10, 1962.
1 What I mean by "chance" is not the same thing that Professor Janson described
in his brilliant paper on "Chance and the Creative Process in the Visual Arts,"
read at the same symposium. Professor Janson's "chance" is a happy accident that
the artist uses and integrates into his own vision. What I mean is chance, pure and
simple, taking the place of spontaneous invention and artistic vision.
2 Leonardo Ricci, Anonymous (20th Century), New York, 1962, p. 80.
3 Ibid., p. 83.
321

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 322 The Musical Quarterly

advanced civilization.4 Nothing could be further from th

as we shall see presently. The opposite of the concept
the concept of art as a craft; the corresponding person
genius and craftsman.
Nowhere have these two opposites been contrasted mo
in Wagner's Die Meistersinger. Walter is an idealization
messer a caricature of the craftsman. Walter personifies
creativity rests on inspiration, and whose inspiration s
imaginative mind and a generous and sensitive heart, op
enthusiasm. Beckmesser's art rests on the pedantic obse
worn rules. His pedantry is at home in a small, petty, s
equally incapable of noble emotions and of the flight of
these two extremes stands Hans Sachs, his roots in t
mastersingers, but his heart and mind open to Walter's
art, in which, he confessed,
No rule would fit, and yet
no error could I find.5

The opposition between conventional rule and fresh inspiration, the idea
that the genius, unlike the mere craftsman, can transcend rules without
committing errors, and that in doing so he can make new revelations,
is a leitmotif in the history of the concept of musical genius.
What is the origin of this concept? Oddly enough, in modern dic-
tionaries of music the term is hard to find. In 19th-century dictionaries
it occurs frequently, but without historical references. Historians of ideas
have written on the concept of genius in general. Edgar Zilsel's admirable
book on Die Entstehung des Geniebegriffes,' for example, left music com-
pletely out of consideration. Music historians have not yet dealt with the
SImportant characteristics of an advanced musical civilization are a rational
system of pitches, rhythm, and consonances, as well as methods of transmitting music
from one generation to the next.
5 "Kein' Regel wollte da passen,
und war doch kein Fehler drin." Act II.
6 Tiibingen, 1926. In this respect Zilsel's work, overwhelming in the richness of
its documentation in all other fields, suffers from a lack only too common in the
works of cultural historians: the role of music and musicians in the cultural symphony
is either ignored altogether or treated in marginal notes betraying a complete lack
of understanding.
Thus Zilsel wonders, in his account of the paragon of the arts in Renaissance
literature, why it is that music, although in need of manual execution, nevertheless
is not, like painting, considered a mechanical art, but instead succeeded in penetrating
the circle of the seven liberal arts-"a curiosity," he says, "explicable probably
through religious and liturgical [kultische] connections" (p. 151). The simple reason
for the success of music where painting failed lay, of course, in its mathematical
structure. Rhythm, melody, harmony are all expressible in mathematical ratios-

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 Musical Genius - Evolution and Origins of a Concept 323

concept of genius in any systematic manner.' It is the purpose of this

paper to sketch an outline of the evolution and the origins of the concept
of musical genius.
Nineteenth-century Romanticism is often credited with having origi-
nated the idea of musical genius. A well-known music historian and Bach
scholar wrote:
It is characteristic of Baroque mentality not to make the slightest fuss about a
great artist's genius . . . Nowhere . . . is there a hint of the chosen nature of the
great artist or of the divine origin of his creative gifts. These are concepts created
by Romanticism. In Bach's time one does not yet speak of "depth of feeling,"
"originality," or "personal approach," and certainly not of a composition as
expressing an attitude towards life and the world. These things lay outside of
the Baroque world of thought.8
Let us then begin with the search for the Romantic concept of
musical creativity. When Wagner in his Meistersinger, completed in
1867, presented the Romantic prototype of musical genius in the figure
of Walter, he had only to lend life and color to an idea already developed
in Romantic literature. Among the Romantic writers on music, none
can claim greater authority than E. T. A. Hoffmann (1776-1822), poet,
music critic, pianist, conductor, and composer, particularly of Romantic
operas. Hoffmann exercised a great fascination over Wagner from the
latter's youth on. Many passages in Hoffmann's writings deal with the
composer. Few are more eloquent than the following:
To touch us, to move us mightily, the artist himself must be deeply affected in

sufficient reason for its admission into the quadrivium of the mathematical disciplines
(see also the pertinent remarks in the next instalment of this article).
Zilsel in a footnote to the above remark promised to treat music in a later
volume-a promise he did not live to fulfill. He then went on to characterize the
position of the musicians in the Renaissance as "shifting: now they are counted among
the learned clerics, now among the instrument builders, singers, minstrels - i.e., the
mechanics and jongleurs." It is impossible to arrive at valid conclusions about the
role of any art and its adepts if the literature dealing with that art is ignored-a
practice that cultural historians indulge in only when it comes to music. But an
attentive reader of Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarch, Filippo Villani (see note 81), Castig-
lione, Aretino (see the concluding instalment of this article), and other luminaries
among the great writers of the age would be sufficient to raise doubts concerning
Zilsel's final conclusion.
7A recent history of music (The Art of Music by B. C. Cannon, A. H. Johnson,
W. G. Waite, New York, 1960) treating Classical and Romantic music under the
title The Age of Genius quotes Shaftesbury's, Addison's, and Young's essays, but not
a single source on the nature of musical genius. While the latter, unquestionably, is
only a facet of the general concept, it has, nevertheless, its own history illuminating
phases of music history often in surprising ways and enriching the general history
of the concept with a counterpoint of peculiar individuality.
* Arnold Schering, Das Symbol in der Musik, Leipzig, 1941, pp. 85-86.

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324 The Musical Quarterly

his own heart. Effective composition is nothing but the art

higher strength, and fixing in the hieroglyphs of tones [the not
in the mind's unconscious ecstasis. If a young artist asks how to
opera, we can answer only: read the poem, concentrate on it
of your spirit, enter with all the might of your fancy into all
You live in its personages; you yourself are the tyrant, the
you feel the pain and the raptures of love, the shame, the fe
Death's nameless agony, the transfiguration of blissful joy. Y
you hope, you despair; your blood glows through the veins, y
violently. In the fire of enthusiasm that inflames your hea
harmonies ignite, and the poem pours out of your soul in the
of music . .. Technical training, through study of harmony
great masters, and your own writing bring it about that you
music more and more clearly; no melody, no modulation, no
you, and thus you receive, together with the effect, also th
now, like spirits subject to your power, detain in the magic
To be sure, all this amounts to saying: take care, my good
musical genius. The rest will come by itself. But thus it is, a
Musical creation as the volcanic eruption of a glo
grip of ecstatic revelation, technical study as the magic
the spirits of the art: this indeed is a truly Romantic
did not spring only from a poet's imagination, but rath
individual expression of a general conception prevailing
be seen from a comparison with the sober definition b
musical dictionary. Peter Lichtenthal, born in German
resident of Italy from 1810 till his death in 1853, wrot
e bibliografia della musica'0 under the entry Genio: "M
that inborn, inexplicable gift of Nature, or original fac
facility esthetic ideas and to give them the most fittin
melodic and harmonic organization of tones. It is that
burns in the composer, which continuously inspire
beautiful melodies, lively expressions that go to the h
harmonies that endow the melody with character." Li
to say that talent imitates, whereas genius reveals its
However, Lichtenthal does not reject the rules. He me
genius does with ease and speed what for another wou
enterprise.
The Belgian musician and writer, August Gathy, who lived for many
years in Germany, in his Musikalisches Conversations-Lexikon" calls
9E. T. A. Hoffrnann, Dichtungen und Schriften, Gesamtausgabe, ed. by W.
Harich, Vol. XII. Weimar, 1924, pp. 7-8.
1o Milan, 1826. I. 289-90.
" Second ed., Hamburg, 1840, p. 163.

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 Musical Genius - Evolution and Origins of a Concept 325

genius "a driving power, a divine instinct, guided by a divine thoughtful-

ness. It is the original, the inborn, it cannot be learned, it expresses itself
unconsciously, it manifests itself in a high degree of characteristic produc-
tivity ... Although it owes everything to itself and cannot be acquired
through study, it can perfect itself through study." And the same author,
in his article on talent, makes the attitude towards rules the touchstone
of differentiation between genius and talent when he writes: "Neither
through contempt nor through worship of rules does the genius become
what he is, he fashions his creations after himself; but where overwhelm-
ing creativity is lacking, there the talent will always succeed better with
the help of the rules."'2

The Romantic writers on music received their impetus from the

18th-century literary movement of the Sturm und Drang. Among its
chief spokesmen are Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803)13 and Chris-
tian Friedrich Schubart (1739-1791.) The latter interests us particularly
through his essay Vom musikalischen Genie, written in 1784-1785. Not
only a poet of distinction, but also a musician, a brilliant keyboard
player, famous for his improvisations, and a composer, he was qualified
to write on the subject. His Ideen zu einer Aesthetik der Tonkunst' of
which the essay was a part, originated in the long years of imprisonment
imposed on him for his philosophical beliefs as a freethinker. His views
on the nature of creativity are not unrelated to his convictions on the
nature of freedom of thought. His essay begins with these words: "No
proverb is so true and so appropriate to the nature of the matter as this
ancient one: Poets and musicians are born." In elaboration of the old
Poeta nascitur non fit,"' to which he added the musician, Schubart
12 Ibid., p. 455.
13 Herder was deeply absorbed in all problems concerning art and artists. His
ideas on genius are laid down in the second part of Kalligone, 1800 (see Herders
Siimtliche Werke, ed. by Bernhard Suphan, Vol. 22, Berlin, 1880, pp. 202-07). They
are a true mirror of Romantic ideas of the creative artist, distinguished as they are
more by a rhapsodic elan and by imagination than by sharpness of definition and
distinction. "Verg6nne mir," he cries, "noch einige Worte von dir zu stammeln,
grosser heiliger Genius der Menschheit. Genius ist ein h6herer, himmlischer Geist,
wirkend unter Gesetzen der Natur, gemaiss seiner Natur, zum Dienst der Menschen"
(p. 205). ("Grant me to stutter a few words yet about thee, great, sacred genius of
mankind! Genius is a higher, heavenly spirit, working, under the laws of Nature,
according to its nature, in the service of Man.")
4 Ed. by P. A. Marbach, Leipzig, 1924, pp. 252-55.
15 William Ringler, in his study "Poeta Nascitur Non Fit: Some Notes on the
History of an Aphorism" (Journal of the History of Ideas, II, 4, Oct. 1941, pp. 497-
504), traces the proverb back to a sevcnth-century commentary on Horace's Ars
Poetica, but shows how it gains currency only from the 16th century on.

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326 The Musical Quarterly

continued: "Musical genius is rooted in the heart an

pressions through the ear . . . All musical geniuses are
the fire that animates them carries them away irresistibly
flight orbit [Flugbahn].
"The Bachs, a Galuppi, Jommelli, Gluck, and Mo
ready in childhood through the most magnificent produ
Musical harmony lay in their soul and they soon threw
of art ... Nevertheless, no musical genius can reach pe
cultivation and training. Art must perfect what Natu
raw."

Herder"' and Schubart,"7 as well as E. T. A. Hoffmann"8 and other

19th-century writers were indebted to Jean Jacques Rousseau, who is
perhaps the first author of a musical dictionary in which the term
"genius" is entered. In his Dictionnaire de Musique, published in Paris
in 1768, but completed in 1764 as the fruit of sixteen years of labor,
Rousseau follows the article Gavotte with one on Genie. To understand
this article, and in particular its surprising ending, we must recall Rous-
seau's passionate embracing of Italian, and his utter contempt for
French, music. Here is Rousseau's article, which, because of its seminal
significance, I translate in its entirety, with some interpolations.
"Don't ask, young artist, 'what is genius?' Either you have it-then
you feel it yourself, or you don't-then you will never know it. The
genius of the musician subjects the entire Universe to his art." Does
this not sound like an echo and a revival of the myth of Orpheus, who
subjects animals, human beings, and even the gods of the underworld
to his art? "He paints all pictures through tones; he lends eloquence
even to silence"-this is certainly one of the first attempts to characterize
the expressive potentiality of a musical pause. "He renders the ideas
through sentiments, sentiments through accents, and the passions he
expresses he awakens [also] in his listener's heart. Pleasure, through him,
takes on new charms; pain rendered in musical sighs wrests cries [from

16 In his Kalligone. Von Kunst und Kunstrichterei, Zweiter Theil (1800), loc.
cit., pp. 178-91, Herder writes "Von Musik." Rousseau's inspiration hovers over this
essay. In par. 9 (p. 182) Fontenelle's "Que me veux-tu, Sonate?" made famous by
Rousseau's enthusiastic approval, is quoted without indication of its source.
17 See Schubart's eulogy of Rousseau and his ideas on music with particular
reference to the latter's Dictionnaire de Musique (op. cit., p. 157).
18 That Hoffmann's concept of genius is inspired by Rousseau's article is obvious
from a comparison between their statements. That he actually knew it can be docu-
mented from a partial quotation of the article in his review of Andreas Romberg's
setting of Schiller's Die Macht des Gesanges (E.T.A. Hoffmanns musikalische

Sc.hriften, ed by E. Istel, Stuttgart, 1907, p. 265; see note 21).

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 Musical Genius - Evolution and Origins of a Concept 327

the listener]. He bums incessantly, but never consumes himself"-here

the biblical miracle of the burning bush, symbol of the Divine, is trans-
formed into a symbol of genius. "He expresses with warmth frost and
ice"-this seems to be a simile taken from the Italian Renaissance
madrigal, in which few conceits return more regularly than that of
lover "burning in ice" or "freezing in fire."19 "Even when he paint
horrors of Death, he carries in his soul this feeling for Life that n
abandons him, and that he communicates to hearts made to feel
this is another favorite madrigalesque metaphor: to die living an
live dying.20 "But alas, he does not speak to those who don't carry
seed within themselves and his miracles escape those who cannot imi
them. Do you wish to know whether a spark of this devouring
animates you? Hasten then, fly to Naples, listen there to the masterw
of Leo, of Durante, of Jommelli, of Pergolesi. If your eyes fill with t
if you feel your heart beat, if shivers run down your spine, if bre
taking raptures choke you, then take [a libretto by] Metastasio and g
work: his genius will kindle yours; you will create at his example. T
is what makes the genius-and the tears of others will soon repay y
for the tears that your masters elicited from you. But should the cha
of this great artist leave you cold, should you experience neither deli
nor delight, should you find that which transports only 'nice,' do y
then dare ask what is genius? Vulgar man, don't profane this sublim
word. What would it matter to you if you knew it? You would not k
how to feel it. Go home and write-French music."2'
It is easy to see why poets, musicians, and estheticians were stirred
Rousseau's concept of genius. This was not an ordinary dictionary art
this was a dithyrambic ode, every word of which echoed Rousseau's o
intense musical experiences in the Venetian opera houses during his d
as secretary to the French Embassy in Venice.
Creative activity engendered by enthusiasm, fire, imagination, a
above all, the ability to feel, and feel passionately-all of these essen
elements in the Romantic concept of genius hail from Rousseau. In
9 See Alfred Einstein, The Italian Madrigal, Princeton, 1949, I, 187.
'0 Ibid.
11 In his rendering of this passage, E. T. A. Hoffmann carefully omits the
at French music. He translates: "Bleibst du aber beim Anharen dieser Stiicke
Armer, dann bleibe zuriick und-komponiere!", adding: "Was er noch weiter
brauchen wir nicht anzufiihren" (op. cit., p. 205). To be sure, in that transl
Rousseau's statement has lost its pointe and his concluding sentence its meaning
reason for the omission lay certainly not in Hoffmann's free choice but in
presence of French garrisons on German soil. The article was written in 1811
years before the "War of Liberation" from Napoleon's yoke.

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328 The Musical Quarterly

Dictionnaire de Musique Rousseau returns, significantly

idea of genius in his article Pathetique, which he defin
dramatic and theatrical music which tends to paint and
the great passions and in particular anguish and melanc
end of this article, after having exposed the inability of
Italian music to express real passion, he declares: "The t
lies in the impassioned accent which is not determined by
the genius finds and the heart feels without art's being
its laws in any manner whatsoever."
The fundamental importance for the 18th century of
between craft as dictated by rules and creation as i
artist's inspiration is evident from the testimony of th
detached and rational thinker. Immanuel Kant, in his Kr
kraft,23 calls genius "the talent (natural gift) which gi
art." This is an ingenious, indeed, an elegant definiti
avoidance of setting up an opposition between rule and i
and genius. Kant succeeds, nevertheless, in making a so
between them, especially, as he goes on to say that gen
to create that which escapes all definite rules: it is not
what can be learned according to any rule; hence, origi
its first attribute."24 "Everyone agrees that genius mus
pletely to the spirit of imitation."25 Thus Kant man
emphasis on emotion that was contrary to the nature o
mind, and yet to stay basically within the framework o
time."2 However, he did not succeed in escaping the
22If Beethoven himself really entitled his piano sonata Op.
Grande Sonate Pathetique (under which name it appeared) as
although the autograph is lost (see Hugo Riemann, L. van Beet
Klavier-Solosonaten, 2nd ed., Berlin, 1919, II, 1), then it seem
he was impelled by the reading of Rousseau's article.
23 Immanuel Kant's Siimmtliche Werke, ed. by Karl Rosen
Wilhelm Schubert, Vol. IV, Leipzig, 1838, p. 176, par. 46: "G
(Naturgabe), welches der Kunst die Regel giebt."
24 Ibid., p. 177: "Man sieht hieraus, dass Genie 1. ein Talen
wozu sich keine bestimmte Regel geben liisst, hervorzubringen,
keitsanlage zu dem, was nach irgend einer Regel gelernt werden
Originalitit seine erste Eigenschaft seyn miisse."
25 Ibid., par. 47: "Darin ist Jedermann einig, dass Genie dem N
ginzlich entgegenzusetzen sey."
26 Otto Schlapp, in his Kants Lehre vom Genie (G6ttingen,
summarized his findings on Kant's ideas of genius in relation to
sentences: "Obeying necessity rather than his own impulse, he g
the period of Sturm und Drang their classical formulation, eve
post festum, after the lapse of about twenty years. Nature, origi

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 Musical Genius - Evolution and Origins of a Concept 329

emerging Romantic movement led by Herder, who printed excerpts from

Kant's definition of genius together with devastatingly sarcastic glosses."7
III

That the concepts of musical and poetical genius go hand in ha

is obvious from the mere observation that most of our authorities were

not only musicians, but poets and writers as well. This is true of Richard
Wagner and E. T. A. Hoffmann, of Schubart and Rousseau. But if we
should assume that Rousseau is the initiator of the concept of musical
genius, and that his Dictionnaire de Musique of 1768 is the precise
frontier between the genius concept of the great apostle of Nature and
the Baroque idea of the composer as a craftsman, a perusal of the writings
of Baroque authors would quickly disabuse us of this notion. For one
thing, the term genie occurs frequently in the writings of Rameau,
Rousseau's great antagonist in the controversy between the adherents of
French and Italian opera in Paris, the notorious guerre des boufons.
Rousseau's partisans accused Rameau of saying that according to his
principles the composer needed no genius, only the science of harmony."2
However, in his Traite de 1'Harmonie, published in Paris in 1722, when
Rousseau was a boy of ten, Rameau speaks constantly of le genie et le
gout.29 "There is a world of difference," he observes, "between a music

imitation, freedom from the rules, creative imagination, etc., these had already been
the slogans of the young generation around 1770. How far removed Kant was from
the movement may be deduced from the circumstance that his polemics against its
spiritual leader, Herder, blunted the point of his theory of genius."
27 Op. cit., pp. 197-202. Some of Herder's criticism is mere carping, most of it
is serious and substantial disagreement, as when he takes issue with Kant for his
attempt to limit the concept of genius to the arts and to deny that the discoveries
of a scientist such as Newton constitute the work of genius (see p. 199).
28 This was, for example, the opinion held by Baron von Grimm, who had
converted from a partisan of Rameau to a devotee of the new Italian opera (see
Albert Jansen, Jean-Jacques Rousseau als Musiker, Berlin, 1884, p. 234).
29 To cite one instance, in his Preface Rameau writes: "Il est vrai qu'il y a de
certaines perfections qui d6pendent du genie & du goait .. ." ("It is true that there are
certain perfections which depend on genius and taste.") To be sure, he continues
that the indispensable tool of genius is a perfect mastery of the art. "Dailleurs cette
parfaite connoissance sert a faire mettre en oeuvre le genie & le gouit, qui sans elle
deviendroient souvent des talens inutils." ("Moreover, this perfect mastery serves to
put to work genius and taste, which, without it, would often decline to useless
talents.")
It is evident from the concluding sentence that Rameau distinguishes between
genius and talent, but counter to some Romantic notions of later times he pronounces
the opinion that genius and good taste without perfect mastery of the craft may
sink down to the level of mere talent, and a useless one at that. Mastery of the
art, however, is by no means synonymous with slavish obedience to the rules. This

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330 The Musical Quarterly
without fault and a perfect music,"30 and with this
immediately demolishes the notion of the artist as a cr
excellence can be measured by his success in following
craft. In speaking of melody he remarks: "It is well-ni
give rules concerning it, inasmuch as good taste has a g
than anything else; thus we leave it to the happy genius
themselves in this genre on which the whole streng
depends."3" As so often, the critics had not read what
For here and elsewhere, Rameau shows his profound aw
limitations of the "science of harmony": nowhere does
a more decisive role than in melodic invention, nothing
to the expressive qualities of a composition than m
Rameau leaves melodic gift and characteristic expressio
geniuses" as branches of the art incapable of being taug
Indeed, Rameau defends the composer against the pe
ians of the rules who, he says, become deaf if you wan
the good effect of freedom, license, and exception in a
apparently against the rules.3 And he waxes so hot i

Rameau makes repeatedly clear; so in the chapter dealing wit

style (Chap. XLIV, pp. 332-62; 358) in which he pleads the ne
for the work of genius: "Ce seroit donc trop borner le genie d
restreindre dans les premieres limites." ("It would confine the gen
much to restrict him to the narrowest boundaries.") Nothing pro
insight into the nature of composition and the continuous interr
spiration and technique more profoundly than his thoughts on t
long seemed to be the embodiment of craftsmanship, the fugu
ornement dans la Musique, qui n'a pour principe que le bon go
Regles les plus generales que nous venons d'en donner, ne suffisen
y reiissir parfaitement. Les differens sentimens & les differens e
peut exprimer en Musique, s6ment a tout moment des nouveaut
reduire en regles" (ibid.). ("The fugue is an ornament of music
principle, good taste; the very general rules governing it that
not suffice in themselves to insure perfect success in it. The v
events that one can express in music constantly produce novel
reduced to rules.")
For a perceptive analysis of Rameau's place in the theory of f
see Alfred Mann, The Study of Fugue, New Brunswick, 1958, p. 5
3so"I y a bien de la difference d'une Musique sans faut
parfaite" (Livre II, Chap. XXI, p. 147).
31 "La Melodie n'a pas moins de force dans les expressions
mais il est presque impossible de pouvoir en donner des Regles
le bon gofit y a plus de part que le reste; ainsi nous laisserons
le plaisir de se distinguer dans ce genre, dont depend presque
sentimens" (Livre II, Chap. XX, p. 142).
32 "Si on leur demande des raisons, ils citent I'autorit6 des Re
convaincre du mauvais sens qu'ils donnent A ces Regles, ou des

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 Musical Genius - Evolution and Origins of a Concept 331

the composer's need for freedom from convention against the presump-
tions of the Beckmessers of the art that he cries out: "Here you see before
you the evil genius of intrigue that has arisen in this age of ours to
plague all men of ability. Try as you may to invent a delightful com-
position, it will be of no value according to them."33
Aside from genius, a composer, according to Rameau, also needs
good taste. It is not quite certain, though, whether Rameau thinks of
good taste as an additional requisite of the composer, or as an attribute
of genius. Certain it is that with le goat another irrational element
enters our discussion, one that cannot be measured, prescribed, or fixed
in rules. Yet it is to some extent rational-and in that regard typically
French-in that it resides in esthetic judgment rather than in emotion,
a chief attribute of genius in German and Italian writings-and we must
count Rousseau as Italian in his musical predilections as well as in his
musical philosophy.
But emotion is not missing in Rameau's psychology of composition.
Indeed, the irrational concept of empathy, the dramatic composer's ability
to put himself in the place of his characters and re-create them in tones
by the sheer force of sympathetic imagination, a concept dear to Rousseau
and elaborated by E. T. A. Hoffmann, is already a part of Rameau's
esthetics. At the end of Chapter 20, Book Two, on the propriety of har-
mony, he says: "For the rest, a good musician must surrender himself
to all the characters that he wishes to depict, and, like a skillful comedian,
put himself in the place of the speaker, imagine himself in the localities
where the events to be represented occur, and take part in them as much
as those most involved in them, be a good orator, at least within himself,
feel when the voice should rise or fall more or less, so as to shape his
melody, harmony, modulation, and motion accordingly."33a
That the term ge'nie was not only part of the French musical vocabu-

peuvent souffrir, on les prie d'entendre, & de s'en remettre A l'effet que produit une
Musique compos6e en apparence contre ces Regles, ils deviennent sourds" (Livre II,
Chap. XVII, De la licence, p. 111).
33 "VoilA en quoi consiste le genie de la cabale, qui s'est ilev'e contre tous les
habiles gens de ce Siecle. Vous aurez beau trouver une Musique charmante, elle ne
vaudra rien selon eux" (ibid.).
S3a "Au reste, un bon Musicien doit se livrer a tous les caracteres qu'il veut
d6peindre; & comme un habile Comedien, se mettre a la place de celuy qui parle;
se croire etre dans les lieux oui se passent les differents 6venements qu'il veut repre-
senter, & y prendre la meme part que ceux que y sont les plus interessez; etre bon
declamateur, au moins en soy-meme; sentir quand la voix doit s'6lever ou s'abaisser
plus ou moins, pour y conformer sa Melodie, son Harmonie, sa Modulation & son
mouvement" (Livre II, Chap. 20, De la proprietd des Accords, p. 143).

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332 The Musical Quarterly

lary before Rameau, but was clearly understood in Ram

be seen from the Traite de Musique34 by de la Voye, p
in 1656. After having dealt fully, in example and prec
tary theory, counterpoint, and fugue, the author conc
with these words: "The other artifices of music, su
echoes, the variety of movements, the order of caden
the melodies, the mixture of modes, the natural expres
and passions, they depend on the genius and the i
composer.""
De la Voye divides music into two spheres; one, teachable, deals
mainly with counterpoint, the other, unteachable, comprises the realm
of invention and feeling as revealed chiefly in dramatic music.
French, Italian, and German writers, however, had no monopoly
on the idea of genius. We find it also in the writings of English men of
letters and of music. It is only recently that a greater part of the musical
essays of Roger North, prominent lawyer at the time of James II, was
rescued from dust and oblivion. This man, born into a noble and art-
loving family, heard and practiced music from early childhood on. His
essays, written between 1695 and 1728 but never published in his own
lifetime, reveal a great connoisseur and a surprisingly judicious and keen
critic and esthetician of music. While he fully recognized the necessity
of careful training in "all our gammuts, times, keys, mixtures, fuges,"
North insisted that "good musick must come from one by nature as well
as art compleately made, who is arrived at a pitch to throw away the
lumber of his rules and examples, and act upon the strength of his
judgment, and knowledge of the subject matter itself, as if it had bin
bred and born in him ab origine."36 Anticipating Rousseau and later
Romantic writers, Roger North saw music's finest jewel in melody, or as
the English were wont to call it, "ayre," of the invention of which he
said: "But as for securing an Ayre, if it must be above the indifferent,
it is like securing witt in poetry, not to be done; and after all will be
found to flow from a genius, and not without some accidents or rather
felicitys of fancy, as well as sound judgment, to make it sublime.""'
34 Traiti de Musique pour bien et facilement apprendre ti Chanter & Composer,
tant pour les Voix que pour les Instruments . . .
35 "Les autres artifices de la Musique, comme les Recits, les Escos [sic], la
vari6te des mouvements, I'ordre des Cadences, la beaut6 des Chants, le meslange
des Modes, la naive expression des paroles ou des passions, dependent du genie & de
l'invention du Compositeur."
36 Roger North on Music, ed. by John Wilson, London, 1959, p. 145.
37 Ibid., p. 92.

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 Musical Genius - Evolution and Origins of a Concept 333

North adds the element of judgment to the process of creation. In

this he precedes another great connoisseur and original writer on music,
Wagner's erstwhile admirer and later sworn antagonist, Friedrich Nietz-
sche-who, perhaps in opposition to Wagner's emphasis on inspiration,
wrote these ironic words on "belief in inspiration":
The artists have a vested interest in our believing in the flash of revelation, the
so-called inspiration, as if the idea of the work of art, of poetry, the fundamental
idea of a philosophy shone down from heavens as a ray of grace. In reality, the
imagination of the good artist or thinker produces continuously good, mediocre,
and bad things, but his judgment, trained and sharpened to a fine point, rejects,
selects, connects as one can see now from Beethoven's sketchbooks where he
appears to have slowly developed the most beautiful melodies and to have selected
them, as it were, from many diverse starts . . . All great artists and thinkers were
great workers, indefatigable not only in inventing, but also in rejecting, sifting,
transforming, ordering."

It was a countryman of Roger North who spoke of music in a vein

that would have delighted Rousseau, Schubart, and the whole host of
Romantic writers. I refer to Thomas Mace and his work Musick's Monu-
ment, published in London in 1676. Mace was a clerk at Trinity College
in Cambridge. His book dealt with all sorts of practical problems of
church music, of lute construction and lute playing, and of the string
consort. Although decidedly no more than a fine craftsman and mediocre
composer, he entertained the most sublime ideas of music, its power and
origin:
Musick speaks so transcendently, and Communicates Its Notions so Intelligibly to
the Internal, Intellectual, and Incomprehensible Faculties of the Soul; so far
beyond all Language of Words, that I confess, and most solemnly affirm, I have
been more Sensibly, Fervently, and Zealously Captivated, and drawn into Divine
Raptures, and Contemplations, by Those Unexpressible Rhetorical, Uncontroulable
Perswasions, and Instructions of Musicks Divine Language, than ever yet I have
been, by the best Verbal Rhetorick, that came from any Mans Mouth, either in
Pulpit, or elsewhere.
Those Influences, which come along with It, may aptly be compar'd, to
Emanations, Communications, or Distillations, of some Sweet, and Heavenly
Genius, or Spirit; Mystically, and Unapprehensibly (yet Effectually) Dispossessing
the Soul, and Mind, of All Irregular Disturbing, and Unquiet Motions; and Stills,

38Friedrich Nietzsche, Menschliches Allzumenschliches. Ein Buch fiir freie

Geister. Nietzsches Werke, Erste Abtheilung, Band II, ed. by Peter Gast, Leipzig,
1923, p. 163. It is remarkable that Nietzsche should have recognized so early the
significance of Beethoven sketchbooks for our understanding of the creative process.
Obviously, he had acquainted himself with Gustav Nottebohm's work on Beethoven's
sketches, Beethoveniana, Leipzig, 1872. Menschliches Allzumenschliches was written
in the years 1876-78 and published in 1878.

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 334 The Musical Quarterly

and Fills It, with Quietness, Joy, and Peace; Absolute Tranqu
pressible Satisfaction.
I speak not by Roat, but by Experience, and what I have o
felt.39

Mace understood that composition needed a propitious time and

cautioned those "who do attempt to Exercise Their Fancies, in such
Matters of Invention; That They observe Times, and Seasons, and never
Force Themselves to any Thing, when they perceive an Indisposition;
but wait for a Fitter, and more Hopeful Season; for what comes most
Compleatly, comes most Familiarly, Naturally, and Easily, without
Pumping for.""'
Moreover, we find as early as in this 17th-century tract the notion
that certain intimate events in an artist's life may lead to the conception
of a work of art. The tomposition in question is a "lesson" by Mace, a
term that denotes simply a piece of music. And here is his story:
It is (This very Winter) just 40 Years since I made It; (and yet It is New, because
All like It) and Then, when I was past being a Suitor to my Best Beloved, Dearest,
and Sweetest Living-Mistress; But not Married; yet Contriving the Best, and
Readiest way towards it: And Thus it was,
That very Night, in which I was Thus Agitated in my Mind, concerning Her,
(My Living Mistress;) She being in Yorkshire,(and My Self at Cambridge,) Close
shut up in My Chamber, Still, and Quiet, about 10, or 11 a Clock at Night, Musing,
and Writing Letters to Her; Her Mother, and some other Friends, in Summing up,
and Determining the whole Matter, concerning Our Marriage: (You may conceive,
I might have very Intent Thoughts, all that Time, and might meet with some Dif-
ficulties. (For as yet, I had not gain'd Her Mothers Consent.) So that in My Writ-
ings, I was sometimes put to My Studyings. At which Times, (My Lute lying upon
My Table) I sometimes took It up, and Walk'd about My Chamber; Letting my
Fancy Drive, which way It would, (for I studied nothing, at that Time, as to
Musick) yet my Secret Genius, or Fancy, prompted my Fingers, (do what I could)
into This very Humour; So that every Time I walk'd, and took up My Lute, (in the
Interim, betwixt Writing, and Studying) This Ayre would needs offer It self unto
Me, Continually; In so much that at the last, liking it Well, (and lest It should be
Lost,) I took Paper, and set it down, taking no further Notice of It, at That Time;
But afterwards, It pass'd abroad, for a very Pleasant, and Delightful Ayre, amongst
All; yet I gave It no Name, till a long Time after, nor taking more Notice of
It, (in any particular kind) than of any other My Composures, of That Nature.
But after I was Married, and had brought My Wife Home, to Cambridge;
It so fell out, that one Rainy Morning I stay'd within; and in My Chamber, My
Wife, and I, were all alone; She Intent upon Her Needle-Works, and I Playing
upon my Lute, at the Table by Her; She sat very Still, and Quiet, Listning to All
I Play'd, without a Word a Long Time, till at last, I hapned to Play This Lesson;

39 Thomas Mace, Musick's Monument, Vol. I, facs. ed. by editions du Centre

National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris, 1958, p. 118.
o Ibid., p. 124.

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 Musical Genius - Evolution and Origins of a Concept 335

which, so soon as I had once Play'd, She Earnestly desired Me to Play It again;
For, said She, That shall be Called, My Lesson.
From which Words, so spoken, with Emphasis, and Accent, It presently came
into my Remembrance, the Time when, and the Occasion of Its being produced,
and returned Her This Answer, viz. That It may very properly be call'd Your
Lesson; For when I Compos'd It, You were wholly in My Fancy, and the Chief
Object, and Ruler of My Thoughts; telling Her how, and when It was made: And
Therefore, ever after, I Thus Call'd It, My Mistress; (And most of My Scholars
since, call It, Mrs. Mace, to This Day.)41

In this lovely and quaint account Thomas Mace describes composi-

tion as an almost subconscious act guided by "secret genius or fancy."
To render this act doubly mystical he narrates how a composition made
in thinking of a certain person is felt by that person to be addressed to
her. Nothing contradicts the notion that the Baroque made not "the
slightest fuss about a great artist's genius" more thoroughly than this
testimony, for Mace uses the term for the creative act whether the
composer be great or small-and I doubt that he entertained illusions
about his stature as a composer.
However, it becomes clear that the term genius as used by musicians
suffered changes similar to those that the concept underwent in the
philosophical writings of the age. In French philosophy Diderot (1713-
1784) is credited with changing the concept of genius from the tradi-
tional avoir du ge'nie to the novel etre un genie; he is seen as the first
thinker to conceive of " 'the genius' as a type of person."42 Unquestion-
ably, Rousseau (1712-1778)-an old friend of Diderot's, who was his
comrade in arms in the fight against Rameau, and with whom he
collaborated on the Encyclopddie-conceived of genius in terms of
a personality of an extraordinary emotional and intellectual constitution,
with the accent on the former. Being himself the rare case of a genuine,
untutored genius given to passionate outbursts of tears and emotions, he
was not in need of much "influence" to arrive at his notions, although
they were, of course, "in the air."'3
For Rameau "genius" is distinctly more than talent, but it remains
a concept entirely within the domain of the mind; it has nothing to do
with a particular psychological constitution. Yet, Rameau's concept of
41 Ibid., pp. 122-23.
42 Herbert Dieckmann, Diderot's Conception of Genius, in Journal of the History
of Ideas, II, 2, April 1941, pp. 151-82; 152.
43 Curiously, in his admirable article Dieckmann does not deal at all with
Rousseau, although there were few of Diderot's friends who would have constituted
a better living model for his representation of "the genius" than Rousseau-quite
aside from the latter's literary contribution to the 18th-century image of the genius.

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336 The Musical Quarterly

genius is by no means that of a cerebral wonder, for

elements of esthetic sensibility (le go it) and of sentime
sion thereof.
Thomas Mace uses the term in the Roman sense of a
within a person; Mace speaks of his "genius or fancy"
were wont to speak of their "muse." But Mace in no
the concept of genius in differentiation from that of
as he perceives that "fancy" needs proper times an
can neither be forced nor regulated, his conception of
whom genius resides certainly exceeds the notion of a c
over, Mace concedes an occasional connection, altho
with the composer's inner experience.
Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680), German by birth, It
a polyhistor of prodigious productivity, raises the issu
genius in music in a passage of great interest. In his t
entitled Musurgia Universalis," dealing with the "un
the Jesuit Padre reports about an experiment to find o
is such a thing as a national vein when it comes to the
of passion-this anticipates a line of thought followe
by Rousseau.
In order to study musica pathetica-here is the p
Rousseau's genre Pathetique-Kircher selected:
certain topics of the Sacred Scriptures appropriate to certain
such as dealt with love, grief, joy, indignation, wrath, plaint
intense melancholy, presumption, arrogance, despair, and f
done, I thought I should select eight or more of the most out
of the whole world, men conspicuous through their judgme
moreover celebrated for their musical knowledge. Thus I se
parts of the world requesting each one of them to compose
above-mentioned topics corresponding to the said affects as
sympathica45 [which term he uses as synonymous with musica
Kircher goes on to say:
Since the composers selected were the most experienced in
since they were drawn from diverse nations, in particular fr

44Rome, 1650, I, 580-81.

45 "ex Sacra Scriptura singulis affectibus apta quaedam them
amoris, doloris, laetitiae, indignationis & irae, planctus & lame
vehementis, praesumptionis, arrogantiae, desperationis, denique a
in se continerent, selegi. Hoc peracto, octo, vel plures praestant
is musurgos, homines iudicio, & ingenio conspicuos, harmoni
maxime insignes seligendos duxi, diversis per Orbis partes lit
stanter rogando, ut singuli super eadem memorata themata dict
tentia quaedam componerent sympathicae musicae paradigmata

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 Musical Genius - Evolution and Origins of a Concept 337

England, France [the order is noteworthy] and since each of them was asked to
write his compositions on the same eight topics expressing the chief affects of the
soul, I felt certain that I should soon know to what affects the genius of each
[nation] would incline; first the composers, and then the listeners, and whether
there was agreement or disagreement, and of what sort, in the manner in which
the various nations expressed passions.46
Unfortunately, we do not know the outcome of Kircher's experiment.
The compositions he requested did not arrive in time and he did not wish
to delay the publication of his work.47 But it is evident from another
passage that he had formed pretty clear ideas as to the musical propensi-
ties of the various European nations, which he attributed to national
temperament, history, and habit, and to the climate." And again he
speaks of national genius in a manner that combines talent and tempera-
ment, natural inclination and psychological constitution, condensing these
elements into a national artistic personality." In speaking of a single
composer's gift, Kircher uses mostly the term ingenium. He defends the
46 "cum enim Compositores electi essent totius Musicae consultissimi, ijque ex
diversis nationibus, Italia, Germania, Anglia, Gallia praecipui, singulique supra octo
eadem praecipuos animi affectus exprimentia themata compositiones suas perficere
rogarentur; statim cogniturum me credebam, ad quales affectus uniuscuiusque Genius,
prim5 ipsos Compositores, deinde vero ipsos Auditores inclinaret; utrum diversae
Nationes in pathematum expressione convenirent, vel discreparent, & in quo illa
discrepantia consisteret."
47 Ibid., I, 581.
48 Ibid., p. 543: "The Germans, born under a frigid sky, acquire a grave, solid,
and industrious character to which the style of their music, serious, phlegmatic,
temperate, and polyphonic, corresponds. The French, more mobile, and of a gay
and vivacious disposition, love music of that same character; this is why they
cultivate a style preeminently apt for dancing (see their gaillards, passamezzi, and
courants). The Spanish have a pompous style of an affected gravity. The Italians,
however, born under a benign sky, have the most perfect and well-tempered style,
and, being truly born for music, know how to use every style aptly and with fine
discrimination."

491bid.: "Qui quidem diversarum nationum diversus in musica stylus non aliund
provenit, nisi vel a genio, & inclinatione naturali, vel a consuetudine longo usu
introducta, tandem in naturam degenerante." And now follows the description of
national styles summarized above.
Kircher refers in passing to the musical style of the English: "habent & Angli
nescio quid peregrinum" (and the English have something indefinably strange). This
statement is more than amusing, it expresses Kircher's recognition of the individuality
of English music and its character that strikes him as so peculiar that he finds it hard
to assimilate. It is almost as if Addison, two generations later, was getting back at
Kircher, when he said in The Spectator, 18 (March 21, 1711): "If the Italians have
a Genius for Musick above the English, the English have a Genius for other per-
formances of a much higher Nature, and capable of giving the Mind a much nobler
Entertainment ..." (quoted by John Hollander, The Untuning of the Sky, Ideas of
Music in English Poetry, 1500-1700, Princeton, 1961, p. 383).

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338 The Musical Quarterly

gifted composer's right to break the rule against p

example, in these words: "I say their use is legitima
who has achieved perfection in his art, as long as he a
such ingenuity that they cannot bare their hard soun
and subject matter and the fancy of genius demand it
conception of genius is not evident in Kircher's work,
to lie below the surface of his writing.
The distinction between genius and craftsman em
clarity in the thought of the classical scholar and
Giovanni Battista Doni (1594-1647), Florentine by b
Cardinal Barberini in Rome, and later recalled to Flor
II de' Medici as professor of eloquence. As the first the
Doni posed for the first time the question of what pa
opera composer should possess. In his writings we
formulation of a contrast that henceforth dominated
it is the contrast between counterpoint as a craft and d
the creation of genius. Referring to the latter, Doni sa
It is this kind of music that deservedly is held to be the mos
which requires more a strong natural disposition [buona ven
here counterpoint takes a place of lesser importance than in t
counterpoint requires art and exercise rather than natural
consists of many rules and observations and is based on pract
use. But in dramatic music he who is wanting in natural di
even try to undertake it. Never will he achieve perfection, e
arrive at mediocrity through long study and knowledge acqu
equally needed by those singularly privileged by Nature. The co
music, therefore, must be very inventive and versatile, he mus
and a strong imagination: qualities that he has in common wi
fore it is said Poetae nascuntur, Oratores fiunt, poets are bor
Thus we may compare to orators those composers who ordina
firmus or subject from others and, weaving over it an artfu
various melodic lines from it, which often have something dr
they lack a certain grace and naturalness, which is the true s
is what today's musicians have noted in Soriano, who, whil
in counterpoint, never had talent to write beautiful and gracef
fore he devoted himself to the writing of canons and similar la

50 Ibid., I, 624: "Licitum itaque esse dico, Musico iam in ar

ponere, dummod6 eas eo ingenio absorbeat, ut vigorem [I believe
for rigorem] suum demonstrare non possint; quoque si verba
ingenij id postulet." My translation of ingenium as ingenuity in
in another indicates my belief that the term was used by Kirche
him, with a considerable degree of flexibility. Obviously, a cl
must rest on something more solid than the use of the term in
of genius.

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 Musical Genius - Evolution and Origins of a Concept 339

This same thing happens in poetry to those who, being unable to compose things
of wit and imagination, give themselves to the composition of anagrams, acrostics,
and similar tricks acquiring thereby rather the name of rhymesters than that of
poets, just as those should be called contrapuntists rather than musicians. Gesualdo,
Prince of Venosa, on the other hand, who was truly born for music, and with a
gift for musical expression, and who could clothe with his musical gifts any poetic
subject, never attended, as far as one knows, to canons and similar labored exer-
cises. Such should be, then, the genius of the good composer, particularly for that
genre of musical compositions which should bring to life all inner affects of the
soul with vivid expression.51
Doni could not have chosen apter personifications for his concepts of
craftsman and genius than Soriano,52 Palestrina's disciple, famous for
his 110 canons over a Marian hymn, and Gesualdo, princely composer
who, for the sake of truth of sentiment, broke every rule in the book.
In another passage53 Doni comments on the dilemma in which "mod-
51 See the posthumous edition of Doni's writings: lo. Baptistae Doni Patrici
Florentini Lyra Barberina . . . ed. by A. F. Gori and I. B. Passeri, Florence, 1763,
II, 129-30, Chap. XLV: 'Delle qualitca naturali, e artificiali, che si richiedono nel
Compositore di queste Musiche sceniche. "Questa sorte di Musiche meritamente si
tiene per la pidi difficile di tutte, e che piu ricerchi buona vena naturale; perocch6
qui ci ha minor luogo, che nell'altre la forza del Contrapunto, il quale piuttosto
richiede arte, ed esercizio, che naturale inclinazione, consistendo in mol-te regole, ed
osservazioni, e nella pratica, che col lungo uso si acquista. Ma in questa parte chi
non ci avera disposizione dalla natura, non occorrera che ci si metta; perch6 mai
gli riuscira di fare cosa perfetta, ancorche possa arrivare a qualche mediocrita col
lungo studio, e dottrina, la quale e necessaria ancora in quelli, che sono stati dalla
natura singolarmente privilegiati. Vuole dunque essere il Compositore di questa
sorte molto inventivo, e d'ingegno svegliato, e versatile, e di gagliarda imaginativa:
qualitY, che gli sono comuni col Poeta, onde si dice, che Poetae nascuntur, Oratores
fiunt. Possiamo dunque agli Oratori agguagliare quella sorte di Compositori, che per
ordinario pigliano il soggetto da altri, e intessendovi sopra un artifizioso Contrapunto,
ne formano varie melodie, che per lo piui sogliono avere del secco, o stentato, man-
candogli certa grazia, e naturalezza, che e il proprio loro condimento. I1 che hanno
notato gli odierni Musici nel Soriano, il quale comecch6 fosse peritissimo nel Contra-
punto, non ebbe per6 mai talento a fare belle arie, e leggiadre; onde si diede a
comporre Canoni, e simili concenti laboriosi: come succede a quelli, che nella Poesia
non potendo fare Componimenti d'invenzione, e di testa, si danno agli Anagrammi,
Acrostichidi, e simili galanterie, acquistando pid' presto il nome di versificatori, che
di Poeti, come quelli si devono pidi tosto chiamare Contrapuntisti, che Musici. II
Principe di Venosa per il contrario (che era nato propriamente per la Musica, e
con l'espressione del canto, poteva vestire a suo talento qualsivoglia concetto) non
attese mai, che si sappia, a Canoni, e simili Componimenti laboriosi. Tale dunque
bisognerebbe, che fosse il genio del buon compositore; massime per questa sorte di
Musiche, che devono dimostrare con viva espressione tutti i pidi interni affetti dell'
animo."
52Francesco Soriano (1549-1620) wrote the Canoni, et Oblighi di cento, et
dieci sorte, sopra l'Ave Maris Stella, da 3 a 8 v., Rome, 1610.
53 Op. cit., II, 128: "uno credera, che non sia lecito di partirsi dalle regole
lasciateci da quelli, che prima ne scrissero, e un altro sara piui ardito a seguitare

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340 The Musical Quarterly

ern" composers find themselves with regard to traditio

it was not permissible to depart from the rules left be
ecessors, another will be more daring and follow these
like the Prince of Venosa, indeed, he will spontaneo
things." And now Doni adds another pair of composer
teristic, when he continues: "This is why Montever
dissonances, whereas Peri hardly departs from the con
And again: "One must commend Monteverdi's judgm
ing behind those superstitious rules, knew very well ho
diversity of cadences the beginning of his Arianna.""5
Of course, the stylistic separation between counterp
sive music goes back to Monteverdi's famous distinctio
and the new style or, as he phrased it, the prima and s
the beginning of the 17th century. But Monteverdi h
perhaps he implied it - that it took less genius to writ
He merely postulated greater liberty for the seconda
expressive style of music.
Nevertheless, the connection between the concept of
of an expressive style of music is so close - we have fou
18th, and 17th centuries - that we can now almost
of genius to have originated at the same time when th
expression came into being. And this is indeed the cas

(To be concluded)

questi moderni Diaphonisti, come i stato il Principe di Venosa

cose nuove ... Di qul e, che il Monteverdi cerca pidi le dissona
diparte dalle regole comuni."
" Ibid., p. 65: "? da commendare il giudizio del Monteverde
da banda queste superstiziose regole, seppe molto bene variar
cadenze il principio della sua Arianna . . ."

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