It used often to be said of Mendelssohn that “he had nothing to say, but said it like a gentleman.” To that I may add the observation of one of my own teachers: “When Mendelssohn couldn’t think of anything else to say, he said his prayers.” Is it surprising that the England of Thackeray adored him? To Mendelssohn and Schumann we owe the fashion of what used to be called “characteristic pieces”――quasi-pictorial exploitations of certain idioms which at once established themselves as universally recognizable conventions both of technique and of sentiment――all those “hunting songs,” “spinning songs,” barcarolles, cradle songs, wedding marches and funeral marches. At this distance of time they may have the charm of old-world refinement. But considered historically, what they brought into music was a multitude of insincere _clichés_. Mendelssohn and Schumann are themselves remembered for their very genuine merits. The style which they represented was absorbed into the work of followers whom it is equally impossible to forget as well as into that of the innumerable hundreds of purely commercial composers. Romantic _cliché_ reached its apotheosis in the symphonic monstrosities of Gustav Mahler. But between Mendelssohn and Mahler there came others――worthy in some ways of our deepest and sincerest respect――who from their own high seriousness became victims of the impressive platitude. Ethical fervour led them only too fatally into reverent pomposity. All this false sentiment was diffused universally by the pianoforte; not merely by the enormous multiplication of instruments and of performers thereon, but by the intrinsic acoustical character of the instrument itself. For the sound of the pianoforte cannot press onwards like that of the voice, the wind instrument or the violin. That is why “horizontal” music is in reality impossible to it; the most it can do is to recall the memory of something heard before. It can do this with extraordinary subtlety. The sudden impact of the hammer on the string gives it even in its most delicate moments a far clearer articulation than the voice or the singing instruments. Its whole art is an art of evasion, illusion and association. It was the ideal instrument for the romantic temperament. It suggested melody, it intensified harmony; it falsified the values of both.