The Music of the Nineteenth Century, and Its Culture. Method of Musical Instruction. Tr. by A.H. Wehrhan (C.N. Macfarren). (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1855 Excerpt: ...these, the spiritual and moral faculties, to strengthen and elevate the whole man spiritually and bodily, to prepare his mind with the acquirements and knowledge which it requires for artistic life, to introduce him to all the treasures of art, and to make him familiar with all the practicable branches of artistic activity, in all its operations, to adhere to the nature of art, and to present artistically that which, although according to its nature foreign to art, is necessary on account of its connection with it, in order that neither the encroachment of instruction upon personal independence, nor the new ideas it raises in the mind, prejudice the sense and taste of the pupil and his artistic individuality. The following observations will guide us in the distinct branches of this task. We must previously, however, take yet another glance at the objects of instruction. The peculiar object of all artistic instruction is certainly art. As little, however, as is the artist to be separated from the man--so little of what artistic teaching has done for its object, leaves the man untouched; all branches of education unite themselves closely with other influences, to form him to that which, as a whole, as a person, he will become: from this idea of the whole, no one must withdraw himself who co-operates for the completion of the whole, even though it be but in a single branch. Least of all, may we overlook it (the idea of totality) in this particular art, the alarming as' well as the beneficent influence of which cannot have escaped our notice. It is inherent in the nature of music that it operates more powerfully upon the senses than other arts--that it rouses and stimulates the passions, even to the reaction of lassitude and enervation--that it primarily awaken...