TENDENCIES IN MODERN MUSICAL COMPOSITION 253 



the older masters ; but it is necessary to limit this observation to the relation 

 of reaUsm to modern composition, with a reference to its abuse. What 

 may be termed the literary tendency encourages and at the same time 

 disguises this abuse : the tendency to place pseudo-musical experiments 

 in tone (mere results of study and ingenious device) above their actual 

 musical value, not infrequently leads to an almost patronizing attitude 

 toward the compositions of Mozart and Schubert ; an attitude due to the 

 failure to understand the immense distance between genius and mere 

 talent and also an overestimation of the importance of mere technical 

 achievement. OHver Cromwell said: "A man never rises so high as 

 when he knows not whither he is going." Genius works silently, guided 

 by an intuitive force rather than by theories. The critical writings and 

 theories of poets, painters, and composers are, after all, incidental to their 

 creative energy. Hence, if art is really great, if art is the ultimate expres- 

 sicn of the sensitized human consciousness as opposed to the insensi- 

 tive, the coarse and brutal, then are we compelled to respect this intuitive 

 power of genius as the truest, most real phenomenon, and question any 

 attempt of science or theory to divert it from its natural course. 



It is claimed in defense of modern originality that it was ever thus, 

 genius having always struggled against precedent and pedantry. But 

 what is true of the past is not necessarily true of the present, removed as 

 it is to a sufficient distance rightly to behold those mountain peaks of 

 genius — heights which could not be comprehended by the observer 

 standing near them, whose vision might easily have been intercepted by 

 mere foothills which are lost to view at this distance. It is impossible to 

 anticipate judgments self-infolded in the future. Though the contend- 

 ing opinions of modern conservatives and radicals in music cannot be 

 reconciled on neutral ground, it is possible in a measure to understand 

 the attitude of those widely differing in opinions. To conservatives (now 

 alas, too few) educated as a rule amid the great Leipzig influences of 

 Germany, the works of the classic period are a known truth in a sense 

 possibly not understood by a younger generation molded under dif- 

 ferent influences. It is doubtless true that this is not because the former 

 understand the modern spirit less than the younger enthusiasts who 

 dream of "impossible destinies" in music, but that they (the conserva- 



