ACCENT AND REGNANT HARMONY 157 



these reasons in the main the music-drama is a work of 

 hybrid not of pure art. Whenever and wherever music 

 presents itself it attracts and dominates the attention. 

 In all its associations with other arts music refuses to 

 play a second part and never does. The composers 

 of songs, cantatas and operas are great and greatest 

 only when and where their music is great and greatest. 

 Music-contemplation is disturbed in the opera by the 

 presence of scene and action, in the cantata by the 

 implied scene and action which the imagination must 

 supply. Words expressive of pure sentiment alone 

 blend harmoniously with music, and when distinctly 

 rendered do not disturb music-contemplation, where- 

 fore as a work of art the song is purer than either 

 cantata or opera. Such hybrid art-creations, while 

 they are justifiable, exert immense power and may 

 even be called great, nevertheless as works of art 

 they are not pure. As a matter of course absolute 

 music is the most pure and potent music. Pure 

 enjoyment in music-contemplation is grounded and 

 dependent on anticipation, that is, on familiarity with a 

 composition. The greater this familiarity the greater 

 our enjoyment, the keener our anticipation of each 

 musical moment; it is then that we yield ourselves 

 completely to the power of the musical moment. The 

 unfamiliar conduces to another species of enjoyment 

 during which the mind maintains the attitude of 

 interrogation as what next.^ but this is not the true 

 mental attitude of complete receptivity and pure 

 enjoyment. Every public performance demonstrates 

 that the familiar is most enjoyed, wherefore two thirds 

 of a programme should be made up of familiar com- 



