Strawinsky, in a sense, is quite done with programme music; at least he says that this is so. “La musique est trop bête pour exprimer autre chose que la musique” is his pregnant phrase, which I cannot quote often enough. And in an interview with Stanley Wise, which appeared in the columns of the “New York Tribune” he further says, “Programme music ... has been obviously discontinued as being distinctly an uncouth form which already has had its day; but music, nevertheless, still drags out its life in accordance with these false notions and conceptions. Without absolutely defying the programme, musicians still draw upon sources foreign to their art.... The true inwardness of music being purely acoustic, the art so expresses itself without being concerned with feelings alien to its nature.... Music in the theatre is still held in bondage to other elements. Wagner, in particular, is responsible for this servitude in which music labours to-day.” The greater part of Igor Strawinsky’s music, up to date, is written to a programme, but these remarks of the composer should not be incomprehensible on that account. Somewhat later than the performance of the three pieces for string quartet, _The Firebird_ and _Petrouchka_ were performed in New York and were hailed by the critics, _en masse_, as most delightful works. But the music depends for its success, they said, on the stage action to explain it. I fancy this is true of many operas which were written for the stage. _Siegfried_, as a whole, would be pretty tiresome in concert form and so would _La Fille du Regiment_. And read what Henry Fothergill Chorley has to say about the works of Gluck (“Modern German Music”): “The most experienced and imaginative of readers will derive from the closest perusal of the scores of Gluck’s operas, feeble and distant impressions of their power and beauty. The delicious charm of Mozart’s melody--the expressive nobility of Handel’s ideas--may in some measure be comprehended by the student at the pianoforte and the eye may assure the reader how masterly is the symmetry of the vocal score with one,--how rich and complete is the management of the instrumental score, with the other master. But this is in no respect the case with _Alceste_, the two _Iphigénies_ and _Armide_--it may be added, with almost any opera written according to the canons of French taste. That which appears thin, bald, severe, when it is merely perused, is filled up, brightens, enchants, excites, and satisfies, when it is heard with action,--to a degree only to be believed upon experience. Out of the theatre, three-fourths of Gluck’s individual merit is lost. He wrote for the stage.” That all this is true any one who, like me, has taken the trouble to study the scores of the Gluck operas, which are infrequently performed, may have discovered for himself. I have never heard _Alceste_ and that lyric drama, as a result, has never sprung to me from the printed page as do the notes of