Muddling Of The Arts

I've just begun reading Forster's 'Howards End' and came across this passage:

Margaret: 'Do you think music is so different to pictures?... [My] sister declares they're just the same... Now doesn't it seem absurd to you? What is the good of the ear if it tells you the same as the eye? Helen's one aim is to translate tunes into the language of painting, and pictures into the language of music. It's very ingenious, and she says several pretty things in the process, but what's gained, I'd like to know? Oh, it's all rubbish, radically false. If Monet's really Debussy, and Debussy's really Monet, neither gentleman is worth his salt - that's my opinion... Now, this very symphony that we've just been having [beethoven's Fifth] - she won't let it alone. She labels it with meanings from start to finish; turns it into literature. I wonder if the day will ever return when music will be treated as music... But, of course, the real villain is Wagner. He has done more than any man in the nineteenth century towards the muddling of the arts. I do feel that music is in a very serious state just now, though extraordinarily interesting. Every now and then in history there do come these terrible geniuses, like Wagner, who stir up all the wells of thought at once. For a moment it's splendid. Such a splash as never was. But afterwards - such a lot of mud; and the wells - as it were, they communicate with each other too easily now, and not one of them will run quite clear. That's what Wagner's done.' (Pgs 40-41.)

I'm not sure where people stand on this issue today - the passage above is a glimpse into thoughts from the early twentieth century, and like ones can be found in the biographies of RH Schauffler, and many other writings after Wagner. I know there are some students now who stand absolute in their belief that music is best when it's segregated from the other arts; and there are those who are firm believers in the unity of the arts, them all lastly primary when constructed into an egalitarian Gesamtkunstwerk, or some reduced but near scale. There are those on this site now who are now working on ballets (which consist of dancing, set design, music), operas (those last, and singing), and even 'sententiae' (sentences; which are or can be, I suppose, a transmutation of a literary, grammatical unit into a musical one [if not just a fascination with short instances of music; anti-romantic miniaturism, or something like it]); and there are no doubt many between who are indifferent, accept both without contradiction, or hold some such other feeling between them or beside them. 

My question is: What are your thoughts about it? Do you believe the artistic forms should be segregated, and music kept entirely or mostly absolute? Or should they all be very often amamgamated into a unitary and supreme art-form, music made in parity with the others? Or do you believe otherwise from this presented dichotomy?

Do you believe the artistic forms should be segregated, and music kept entirely or mostly absolute? Or should they all be very often amamgamated into a unitary and supreme art-form, music made in parity with the others? Or do you believe otherwise from this presented dichotomy?

I don't understand why you'd say 'should'.

Here's my opinion:

Although many people do try to make absolute correspondance between arts, they are not "that" simple and objective, if any. One cannot get a whole symphony and simply translate it into literature, as music is not a language which aims to express something else than itself.

My thought about this subject is almost the same as Hanslick states in his "The Beautiful in Music" (Vom Musikalisch-Schönen). I don't agree with 100% of it, but it's more or less the way I think.

Although many people do try to make absolute correspondance between arts, they are not "that" simple and objective, if any. One cannot get a whole symphony and simpli translato into literature, as music is not a language which aims to express something else than itself.

What, never?

I don't understand why you'd say 'should'.

If it's an opinion, why not 'should'? Should music keep to itself, do you think; or should it expand and incorporate other art-forms? This is all considering that there are opinions that music ought to go one way than the other - though no doubt there are other routes.

What ever mode one is composing in, there is truth unique to it. While they share many of the same rules the beauty comes in what rules make it unique. 

On a side note, I have experienced dreams where arts integrate. Where I can hear the music of a novel and I can see a portrait of a piece of music. Anyone else ever experience this? For some reason, I never question its impossibility while dreaming... 

Deciding whether an individual piece of music should be absolute or if it should be tied together with other arts is entirely the prerogative of the composer. I believe it is entirely possible for the arts to be separate AND unified at different times and in different circumstances. Like when separate TV shows sometimes have crossovers. They don't have to be together, but they can be. It's not as if we're actually mixing water and dirt to make mud. We're mixing paints to get new colors. It's definitely ok to do that.