To be sure, even a figure on canvas
is not the man himself. Indeed, as music approaches graphic realism, it
is strange how painting goes the other way. Or rather, starting from
opposite points, the two arts are nearing each other. As modern painting
tends to give the feeling of a subject, the subjective impression rather
than the literal outline, we can conceive even in latest musical realism
the "atmosphere" as the principal aim. In other words, we may view
Strauss as a sort of modern impressionist tone-painter, and so get the
best view of his pictures.
Indeed, cacophony is alone a most suggestive subject. In the first place
the term is always relative, never absolute,--relative in the historic
period of the composition, or relative as to the purpose. One can hardly
say that any combination of notes is unusable. Most striking it is how
the same group of notes makes hideous waste in one case, and a true
tonal logic in another. Again, what was impossible in Mozart's time, may
be commonplace to-day.
You cannot stamp cacophony as a mere whim of modern decadence. Beethoven
made the noblest use of it and suffered misunderstanding. Bach has it in
his scores with profound effect. And then the license of one age begets
a greater in the next. It is so in poetry, though in far less degree.
For, in music, the actual tones are the integral elements of the art.
They are the idea itself; in poetry the words merely suggest it.
A final element, independent of the notes themselves, is the official
numbering of themes.
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