programme without naming the pianist, and see how much of an audience you draw. The people who go to hear Galli-Curci sing the shadow-song from _Dinora_ do not go to hear music at all. They go as they would go to see Bird Millman walk a slack wire; they go to hear a woman prove that, given a phenomenal development of the vocal cords, she can, after years of practice, perform scales and trills _in altissimo_ very nearly as well as the union flute-player who furnishes her obligato. All this is to a certain extent true elsewhere, of course. It is natural that if one person can sing or play better than another, audiences should prefer to hear him rather than another. But this worship of the performance rather than the thing performed, this blind adoration of skill for its own sake, is cultivated in America to a degree that is quite unparalleled. Many American cities and large towns hold annual musical festivals, lasting from two days to a week or more, and these are often mentioned as evidence of the existence of a genuine musical culture among us. Are they? What happens at them? For one thing, the local choral society performs a cantata or oratorio. This is more than likely to be either _The Messiah_ or _Elijah_, works which through long association have taken on less the character of musical compositions than of devotional exercises. Edification again. Soloists are engaged, as expensive and famous as the local budget allows, and these give recitals during the remaining sessions of the festival. The audiences come largely to see these marvels rather than to hear music, for after the annual spree of culture is over they return home contentedly enough to another year void of any music whatever. Hearing a little music is better than hearing none, but the test of genuine culture is whether or not it is an integral part of life rather than a vacation from it. By this test the annual festival would seem to exert about as much permanent cultural influence as a clambake. The total unconsciousness on the part of his fellow-countrymen that art is related to life, a sense of futility and unreality, is what makes the lot of the musician in America a hard one, and is responsible for his failure as an artist. If people get the kind of government they deserve, they most certainly get the kind of art they demand; and if, comparatively speaking, there is no American composer, it is because America doesn’t want him, doesn’t see where he fits in.