672 MUSIC 



centration of faculty, even if he mended and pruned less than Bach 

 and Beethoven. It must be admitted that perfect consistency in style 

 is not to be hoped for. Nothing is absolute in human affairs, and 

 though the greatest men in their greatest moments employ the style 

 which enables them to cover the most ground in other words, such 

 as is most perfectly adapted to the conditions of presentment even 

 the greatest are sometimes forced by circumstances to employ traits 

 which are drawn from alien sources. A great deal of the music in 

 Mozart's operas is not essentially either histrionic or operatic, but an 

 outcome of the traditions of the conventional Italian operatic enter- 

 tainment of the early part of the eighteenth century, which made 

 scarcely any pretence of being a dramatic or a histrionic product at 

 all. Conversely we come across passages with an operatic flavor occa- 

 sionally in Beethoven's instrumental compositions. But the greater 

 men are less frequently betrayed into such bewilderments than those 

 who take their responsibilities lightly. At the same time there are 

 infinite shades of variety of style from the highest to the lowest. As 

 there is a style for the greatest things, so there is for the least. 

 There is a style for the music hall, which of its kind may be good 

 and consistent, as well as for the grandest works of art. A great 

 deal of the low and repulsive vulgarity to be met with in such quarters 

 arises from the fact that the true ratio of style has not been found. 

 Even popular comic operas can be admirable when the true style has 

 been found; when they are repulsive it is mainly because the makers 

 of them have no sense of style at all. And it would be absurd to 

 consider the style of light art of no consequence. There must be in 

 all men's lives infinite degrees of mood, from serious to playful. 

 It is a very poor nature that can never be gay; but it is of great 

 importance that the gaiety shall be of good honest quality, and not 

 degenerate into brutishness. And it seems to be even more important 

 in this country than elsewhere. For almost the only English music 

 which has been cordially welcomed by the great mass of intelli- 

 gent English people throughout the world is the music of farcical 

 topsey-turveydom. It is probably the outcome of that dislike of 

 appearing to be pedantic and solemn, which is characteristic of certain 

 classes, which causes them to refuse to take music anyhow but as a 

 joke. Such taste in music is the counterpart of the habit of persi- 

 flage which has been justly attributed to a large section of upper- 

 class wealthy society, which does not necessarily imply an incapacity 

 for being serious and devoted, but a dislike of showing it. It is 

 an affectation of nonchalance which is really more dangerous in art 

 than it is in everyday life. For the persistent habit of using an art, 

 which is one of man's most sacred inventions, for mere trifling and 

 fooling, is not only a degradation and an insult to the art, but is bound 

 to produce deterioration of the standard of appreciation, and a low- 



