But, Mr. Aldrich would object, in most of these instances the music stands by itself and it is possible to enjoy it without reference to the titles. I contend that this is just as true of Strawinsky’s three pieces for string quartet (of course one never will be sure because Daniel Gregory Mason explained these pieces before they were played). However Mr. Newman has already exploded a good many bombs about this particular point and he has shown the fallacy of the theory. Mr. Newman concedes that a work such as Tschaikowsky’s overture _Romeo and Juliet_, would undoubtedly “give intense pleasure to any one who listened to it as a piece of music, pure and simple. But I deny,” he continues, “that this hearer would receive as much pleasure from the work as I do. He might think the passage for muted strings, for example, extremely beautiful, but he would not get from it such delight as I, who not only feel all the _musical_ loveliness of the melody and the harmonies and the tone colour, but see the lovers on the balcony and breathe the very atmosphere of Shakespeare’s scene. I am richer than my fellow by two or three emotions of this kind. My nature is stirred on two or three sides instead of only one. I would go further and say that not only does the auditor I have supposed get less pleasure from the work than I, but he really does not hear Tschaikowsky’s work at all. If the musician writes music to a play and invents phrases to symbolize the characters and to picture the events of the play, we are simply not listening to _his_ work at all if we listen to it in ignorance of his poetical scheme. We may hear the music but it is not the music he meant us to hear.” And Mr. Newman goes on to berate Strauss for not providing programmes for some of his tone-poems (programmes, however, which have always been provided by somebody in authority at the eleventh hour). Niecks thinks that nearly all music has an implied programme: “My opinion is that whenever the composer ceases to write purely formal music he passes from the domain of absolute music into that of programme music.” (“Programme Music in the Last Four Centuries.”) But Niecks does not hold that explanation is always necessary, even if there is a programme.