commit to memory a vocabulary of words which bear not the remotest resemblance to any in French or German, Latin or Greek; but when it comes to tackling an entirely strange system of syntax for the expression of unfamiliar ideas, the mind revolts and the student asks whether all this jargon can really have any significance at all. And the student of modern music is made still more sceptical by the fact that the musicians whom he respects among the apparent initiates are seldom in any agreement as to which of the various conflicting systems of music is to be regarded as the expression of the true faith. Can you tell me, he asks, often with genuine humility, of one living composer whom you wholeheartedly accept as a great creative genius, in the way in which you once accepted Beethoven, or Brahms, or Wagner, as the case might be? The hardened critic hesitates, names tentatively this or that musician――No, replies the other firmly; there seems to be no one whom you can name without some qualification. And to scepticism he adds fear. The new music, he begins to feel, requires not merely a new and unaccustomed intellectual effort: it demands a new outlook on life altogether. It may affect and disturb fundamental principles such as most people prefer to leave untouched. It may be in truth what the old fogeys of the past have always said of it: it may be “positively dangerous.” Let us consider our fundamental principles. Let us forget for a moment all this contemporary turmoil and ask ourselves what is honestly our attitude to the classics that we revere. Music, it has often been said, appeals to us in three ways. It affects us first by the mere sensuous beauty of sound; as we become more familiar with the art, it works upon our emotions, and finally we learn to contemplate it intellectually. _La musique est l’art de penser avec les sons._ To the musician who has been brought up on the classics this definition of Combarieu’s sums up his most complete experience. The three forms of appeal summarily described above divide listeners conveniently into three categories, but it is a very rough division, and the same person may at any one time of his life and experience find himself in any one of the three groups according to the particular work which he may be hearing. But it may be safely said that the large majority of those whom we can call music-lovers belong to the class for whom the appeal of music is mainly or exclusively emotional. The first group, those who are affected only by the physical quality of musical sound, may be disregarded here. And it must be remembered that any one who is sufficiently musical to enjoy what we colloquially call “a tune,” however simple, has at least the germ of intellectual appreciation; he recognizes that a tune has a definite rhythmical shape and a definite tonality, even if he is not able to say so in technical language. But most people, when they listen