_Orphée_, _Armide_, and _Iphigénie en Tauride_. I am convinced of the depth of expression contained in its pages; I am certain of its noble power, but only because I have had a similar experience with other Gluck music dramas, with which I have later become acquainted in the theatre. This theory in regard to _Petrouchka_ and _The Firebird_ may be easily contradicted, however. One listener told me that she got the complete picture of the Russian fair by closing her eyes; it was all in the music. The action, as a matter of fact, she added, annoyed her. It is quite certain that the music of either of these works is delightful when played on the piano; an average roomful of people who like to listen to music will be charmed with it. _The Sacrifice to the Spring_ was hissed intolerantly when it was performed as a ballet in Paris but, later (April 5, 1914), when Pierre Monteux gave an orchestral performance of the work at a concert it was applauded as violently. Strawinsky has, it is true, worked away from _representation_ (in the sense of copying nature or, like Wagner, relying on literary formulas for his effects) in his music, but he has written very little that does not depend on a programme, either expressed or implied. All songs of course are “explained” by their lyrics. The _Scherzo Fantastique_ and _Fireworks_ are programme music in the lighter sense, and naturally the music of his ballets and his opera depends for its meaning on the stage action. What Strawinsky means to do, I think--certainly what he has done--is to avoid going outside his subject or requiring his listener to do so. To understand the music of his opera you need never have heard a real nightingale sing, for the bird does not sing at all like a nightingale, a fact which was not understood by the critics when the work was first produced, and in _The Sacrifice to the Spring_ you will find no attempt made to ape natural sounds, although there was ample opportunity for doing so.... Another modern worker in tone, Leo Ornstein, in the accompaniment to his cradle song (it is the same _wiegenlied_ set by Richard Strauss, by the way) tries to give his hearers the mother’s overtones, her thoughts about the child’s future, etc.; the music, instead of attempting to express the exact meaning of the poem, expresses _more_ than the poem. And Mr. Ornstein once said to me, “What I try to do in composing is to get underneath, to express the feeling underneath--not to be photographic. I do not think it is art to reproduce a steam whistle but it is art to give the feeling that the steam whistle gives us. That can never be done by exact reproduction.... I should not like a steam whistle introduced into the concert room” (I had shamelessly suggested it) “... but great, smashing chords....” Yet Mr. Ornstein in his _Impressions of the Thames_ is as near actual representation as Whistler or Monet ... certainly a musical impressionist.