There need not really be anything so very terrifying about the abandonment of the classical system. After all, we can always go back to it when we feel inclined, just as we may take up Dante and return to mediaeval astronomy. The lurking fear which besets us is perhaps that if we abandoned ourselves to the artistic adventure of modern music we might find, not merely that we did not particularly enjoy it, but that somehow it had made it impossible for us to go back wholeheartedly to the music of our youth. It is impossible. Everybody has to ask himself the question and answer it for himself honestly――am I ready and keen to face fresh intellectual adventures? As age increases, increasing vanity has to be taken into account. We elderly people are easily prone to deceive ourselves and to think that we can convince others of the doctrine that connoisseurship is an adequate substitute for direct enjoyment. XV Some of the composers of the present day appear to be pursuing adventure in a definitely intellectual spirit comparable almost to that of the mediaeval Netherlanders. Their admirers often seem to be somewhat at a loss to expound their music to the uninitiated. They draw our attention to various technical ingenuities and they insist, no doubt justly, on the entire sincerity of the composers. As regards sincerity, it is a virtue with which art has no concern. As regards technical ingenuities, we have learned too many lessons from the past. There are many devices which look quite amusing on paper, but which in practical performance pass unnoticed. To this the composer may reasonably reply that the perception and enjoyment of technical ingenuities in performance is a matter of practice and experience; there is no reason why he should compose music for fools. Ingenuity is by no means a quality to be despised; there are innumerable moments in the works of Purcell, Bach and Mozart at which technical ingenuity has brought about some peculiarly poignant expression of beauty. Constructive skill――and this is what is really meant by the musician’s technical word _form_――is what makes music an art; and constructive skill has to be attained by study and experiment. It is desirable too that listeners should be trained in its appreciation, not so much by books and lectures as by the actual experience of hearing.