THE RELATION OF THE COMPOSER TO MUSICAL FORM 19 
we have, as in the case of some of Beethoven s last compositions, what 
are erroneously considered as instances of the bursting of the bonds of 
form by the composer. This is a contradiction, since form never having 
enslaved the genius of Beethoven, it is impossible that he could defy its 
limitations; the truth being rather that form became so transcendent, so 
spiritualized, that it no longer existed as an objective phase of art in its 
perfect union with the subjective nature of music itself. 
“The style is the man,” but what is the meaning of this in music ? 
That is even more difficult to answer than in its original literary sense, for 
music as a medium of expression is infinitely more subtle than the 
medium of spoken or written language, and to attempt an explanation 
would be to involve the reader in an exhaustive essay on musical aesthetics, 
on the psychology of musical sensation—a field of psychological re- 
search but little developed in its larger sense; and to invite an endless 
amount of discussion on the subject of the relation of music and the plastic 
arts to the art of poetry and to general literature, to say nothing of the 
confusion of ideas relative to the relation existing between music and the 
other arts. Let us therefore take for granted that the symphony is the 
greatest form in purely instrumental composition, and that the opera, 
and especially the musical drama of Wagner, is greater than the simple 
Lied, and from this standpoint arrive if possible at just conclusions. 
It is safe to say that the form of composition in which a composer ulti- 
mately attains to his highest possible ideal indicates his attitude toward 
music, and his success in that particular form measures the real power 
of his creative genius. But what I feel as a serious mistake in most 
textbooks on musical form, is the attitude toward form as a subject to 
be learned as one would learn the rules of grammar, and the composi- 
tions, for example of Beethoven, are cited to illustrate his increasing 
mastery of form as he advanced from his earlier to his latest composi- 
tions, whereas it was the development of the wonderful resources of his 
musical nature, a development containing within itself those forces of its 
outward expression as the growing tree expands its bark which is a part 
of the living tree and not a mere covering. In this sense the composer 
does not choose his form, it is inseparable from the music itself. Key 
relationships, contrasting tempi, and the treatment of principal and 
