The music itself carries only a portion of the composer's
intention. It carries only enough to ignite and set functioning the
auditor's imagination. To that person is reserved the pleasure of
fathoming the intention, of completing the idea adumbrated by the
composer. For Haydn and Mozart did not desire that the listener assume a
completely passive attitude. They had too great a love and respect of
their fellows. They were eager to secure their collaboration, had
confidence that they could comprehend all that the music intimated,
regarded them as equals in the business of creation. But the music
written since their time has forced upon the hearer a more and more
passive role. The composers arrogated to themselves, to varying extents,
the greater part of the activity; insisted upon giving all, of doing the
larger share of the labor. The old intimacy was lost; with Wagner the
intellectual game of the _leit-motif_ system was substituted for the
creative exercise. The art of Ravel and Debussy returns to the earlier
strategy. It makes the largest effort to excite the creative
imagination, that force which William Blake identified with the Saviour
Himself. It strives continually to lure it into the most energetic
participation. And because Ravel and Debussy have this incitement
steadily in view, their music is a music of few strokes, comparable
indeed to the pictural art of Japan which it so often recalls.
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