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One says music should be impersonal, abstract. Another school declares that it should always tell a story. Still another division of
musical public says that music should go much farther than dictionary definition above quoted; that it not only is art of "combining tones to please ear," but that music should represent whole of life, whether it pleases ear or not.
In other words, if subject portrayed is one of pain, horror or calamity, then music must be of clash, cacophony, discord, entirely abjuring idea of beauty or "pleasing ear." Out of all this, long ago, arose question whether it was function of music merely to be beautiful, or whether, like painting, its mission is to portray all of life -- good and bad, pleasure and sorrow, happiness and horror.
That is a question no part of world can settle for rest. Ever since music reached an advanced stage of development, it has been a bone of contention among musicologists and composers, and, no doubt, it will so continue for decades, and possibly for centuries.
So, not to enter discussion of it, simpler way is to accept such a generalized definition as that suggested above, and classify music as "thought expressed through tone," to which hardly any school of music, or composition, can take exception.
This article, written by W. Francis Gates, was taken from the February 1922 issue of magazine "Etude Musical Magazine." This article is featured at http://www.thepianopages.com, along with free piano lessons, sheet music, products, and lots more.
