ORPHEUS ORPHEUS OR The Music of the Future BY W. J. TURNER _Author of “The Seven Days of the Sun,” etc._ [Illustration] NEW YORK E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 681 FIFTH AVENUE Copyright, 1926 BY E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY _All Rights Reserved_ Printed in the United States of America CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. DEFINITION OF MUSIC 1 II. IS MUSIC KNOWLEDGE OR LIFE? 14 III. THE GENERAL IDEA OF PROGRESS 27 IV. THE IDEA OF PROGRESS IN MUSIC 36 V. ABSOLUTE VALUE 47 VI. EMOTIONAL SIGNIFICANCE 64 VII. BEYOND ALL SENSE 83 ORPHEUS CHAPTER I DEFINITION OF MUSIC The dullest books on literature are the books which begin with a history of the alphabet. A good history has its uses; however, this book is not a history but a phantasy or, if you like, a philosophy. For if it be a good phantasy it will be a good philosophy since all philosophy is phantasy, or the imagination of love. _Amor che muove il mondo e l’altre stelle_ We know, however, that philosophy degenerates from that love which moves the spheres into that love of moving in the tracks of the spheres which is called the love of knowledge, and philosophers are commonly men who spend their lives describing the old tracks in which they are running, and teaching how you also may keep your feet in them. So, too, musician has come to mean a man who performs music--he plays over again Beethoven’s sonatas and Chopin’s studies; _partout il parcourit et parfournit_ This performance of his is a tribute to our weakness and a sign of our imperfection, and, since we are weak and imperfect, is necessary; but I cannot state too clearly and decisively at the outset that music is not the playing or the hearing of symphonies and sonatas but the imagination of love.