GREAT MUSIC 311 



others in a less degree give us the fullest satisfac- 

 tion, their value varying according to the degree 

 of expression they are capable of. It is always the 

 human voice spirituaHsed and made unearthly; and 

 no sooner does it rise or, rather, degenerate into a too 

 close resemblance to the human voice (or any other 

 natural sound) than it repels us: we feel this in 

 what is called the vox humana of the organ. I have 

 also felt it where in an otherwise beautiful piece, 

 descriptive of spring, an exact imitation of the 

 cuckoo's or the nightingale's song has been intro- 

 duced. The least touch of what may be called realism 

 in music is fatal to its charm and its mystery. 



Listening to great music my feet are off the ground. 

 I float away as in the dream called levitation and am 

 in another realm far removed from earth, inhabited 

 by beings who were once of the earth. I hear them, 

 a great company, coming towards me, singing and 

 chanting as they come, and recognise in their clarified 

 and infinitely beautiful voices the voices that were 

 once of earth, and in their singings hear their memories 

 of the earth. 



These feelings which music invoke in me serve to 

 remind me of my first experience of great orchestral 

 music. My musical readers accustomed to haunt the 

 Queen's Hall and such places may smile at what I 

 call my great music, but it came to me as a revelation 

 as if, even I, a little boy from the wilds, had been 

 snatched up and borne away into some unearthly 

 region. The music I had so far heard was of the 

 guitar, an instrument to be found in every native 



