Die Lust an der Musik

Abstract

THIS is a little pamphlet which we have perused with no small amount of disappointment. After a short chapter reating of the origin of music, in which the author nerely recapitulates the theory expounded by Darwin long ago, we come to Chapter II., on the development of music, in which the author states very little that has not before been stated by Darwin, and particularly by Helmholtz, in his “Lehre von den Tonempfindungen.”The principal chapter, viz., that on the effects of music, in which we expected to find the explanation promised in he title of the pamphlet, or at least the expression of some new ideas on the subject, occupies but four small pages, and contains merely a few illustrations of the capacity inherent in music of modulating the pleasant sensation it produces in the mind of man in a number of various ways. An appendix treats of the pleasure man derives from the aspect of colours, certain forms, and the beauty of the human body.

Die Lust an der Musik.

Erklärt von H. Berg. B. Behr's Buchhandlung. (Berlin, 1879.)