Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 268, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 November 1911 — MUSIC AND THE LAW [ARTICLE]

MUSIC AND THE LAW

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More Men Left Study of Jurisprudence; to Follow “Divine Art" Than le ; Case With Any Other 7 Profession. It is'Burprising to think of any close; bond between the profession of the? law and that of music, but a writer ini the Juridical Review asserts that! “more great composers have left the) study of jurisprudence to devote themselves to that of the ’divine art,’ or; Combined the two, than is the case' with any other profession.” ' Kuhnau, the forerunner of Bach, studied law to the extent of qualify-i ing as an advocata,-and when be died> in 1722 was one of the most famous' men of his time. Bach was not a: lawyer, but he endeavored to put twoj of his sons into the profession, onb| of them, the famous Emander Bach.; studying jurisprudence at the University of Leipsic.. ; '7 ; ‘■ Likewise their English contemporary Arne, composer of the Rule Britan-; nla, served two years* apprenticeshipto a solicitor. Handel and Holzbauer. were both destined for the law. Marcello of Venice combiped the.practice* of music with that of the law, and! Rocklitz came very near entering the profession. X-. -.*-«■.. £•, -• Undoubtedly the greatest composer who actually entered on a study of the> law was Robert Schumann, the centenary of whose birth was recently, celebrated. Between Romanticism,* with its cult of pure imagination, its fondness for the supernatural and abhorrence or formalism and precedent on the one hand and forensic prind-i pies on the other there would appear to be a sharp contrast, if not absolute antagonism. Schumann was the incarnation of romanticism and in music its chief apostle. One is not surprised there-i fore to read that his z entering Leipsic; university as studlosus Juris was Sole-’ ly to please his widowed mother, who would not hear of his following an artist's career. Nor is it surprising that she defeated her own end. At Heidelberg university, to which' Schumann shortly transferred himself, her son made the acquaintance of. Willibald Alexis, who had already ! trodden the path Schumann was de-l stined to folldw—that through the law’ to music. And the eminent jurist' whose classes be attended, A. F. J. Tbibaut, was an amateur musician of high attainments and the author of a work on precisely that aspect of music to which Schumann was peculiarly sensitive, namely, purity in musical art Moreover, Schumann studied long enough—in all two years —and ultimately hard enough to prove that failure was due to his utter incapacity for a legal career. Gottfried Weber, doctor of laws and philosophy and state attorney at Darmstadt, was not only proficient on the piano, flute and violoncello but became eminent as a musical theorist. Siegfried W. Dehfi, who is remembered chiefly as a critic and theorist, and as the teacher of Glinka, Kullak and Rubinstein, studied jurisprudence at Leipsic from 1819 to 1823. And Von Bulow only after two years study of the law at Leipsic and Berlin threw over his career as a lawyer.