Aubertine Woodward Moore

For Every Music Lover Aubertine Woodward Moore

Book Excerpt: ...eval man as the direct expression of his emotions were unquestionably of a like nature. The tendency to manifest feeling by means of sound is universally admitted, and sound, freighted with feeling, is peculiarly exciting to human beings. The agitations of a mob may be increased by the emotional tones of its prime movers, and we all know that the power of an orator depends more on his skill in handling his voice than on what he says. A craving for sympathy exists in all animate beings. It is strong in mankind and becomes peculiarly intense in the type known as artistic. The fulness of his own emotions compels the musician to utterance. To strike a sympathetic chord in other sensitive breasts it becomes necessary to devise forms of expression that may be unmistakably intelligible. Out of such elements the tone-language has grown, precisely as the word-language grew out of men's early attempts to communicate facts to one another. Its story records a slow, painstaking building up of principl...