In the first chapter I discussed the nature of music itself in order that I might clear away certain popular misconceptions about it and arrive at some estimate of what it really is. In the intervening chapters I have dealt with various phases of music: I have discussed it in connection with words or action, as a sociological force, and as a matter of pedagogy, and in so doing I have had to take into consideration all sorts of non-musical factors. Now the symphony is “pure music,” so called; it exists as a separate and distinct thing whose only purpose is to be beautiful and true to life. Furthermore it has always been largely independent of its audience. The opera has been subject to the vagaries of singers, to the demands of the audience for fine costumes and scenery; the symphony, on the contrary, has grown naturally and freely, being hindered only by the slow development of instruments and of the technique of playing them. Nearly every great symphony has persisted in the face of the opposition of the public and of many of the critics; the gibes hurled at the First Symphony of Brahms were as bitter as those hurled at the Second Symphony of Beethoven. In discussing, therefore, what is undoubtedly the greatest of musical forms, I desire first to state as nearly as may be what, in its essence, it is. A symphony is, of course, like other music in being an arrangement of rhythmic figures, of melodies (usually called “themes”) and of harmonies. But before describing it as such--before dealing with its materials, its form, its history, and its place in the art of music--I wish to treat it solely as a thing of beauty expressed in terms of sound. Many people seem to think music an art dealing with objects or with ideas. Some, never having become sensitized to it in childhood, look upon it as of no importance whatever. A large number have tried to perform it on an instrument and have failed. Others have succeeded at the price of thinking of it only in terms of technique. A certain happy few, some of whom can perform it, and some of whom cannot, are satisfied to take it as it is and be stimulated by it. These are the true musicians and we should all aspire to join their happy company.