Too much stress has been laid on the graphic purpose. There is always a
tendency to construe too literally. While we must be in full sympathy
with the poetic story, there is small need to look for each precise
event. We are tempted to go further, almost in defiance, and say that
music need not be definite, even despite the composer's intent. In other
words, if the tonal poet designs and has in mind a group of graphic
figures, he may nevertheless achieve a work where the real value and
beauty lie in a certain interlinear humor and poetry,--where the labels
can in some degree be disregarded.
Indeed, it is this very abstract charm of music that finds in such a
subject its fullest fitness. If we care to know the pranks exactly, why
not turn to the text? Yet, reading the book, in a way, destroys the
spell. Better imagine the ideal rogue, whimsical, spritely, all of the
people too. But in the music is the real Till. The fine poetry of
ancient humor is all there, distilled from the dregs of folk-lore that
have to us lost their true essence. There is in the music a daemonic
quality, inherent in the subject, that somehow vanishes with the
concrete tale. So we might say the tonal picture is a faithful likeness
precisely in so far as it does not tell the facts of the story.
Indeed, in this mass of vulgar stories we cannot help wondering at the
reason for their endurance through the centuries, until we feel
something of the spirit of the people in all its phases.
Pages:
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225