It is said that modern music has lost contact with “the people.” Had it ever any contact with them, if by “the people” is meant those whose musical education is not more than elementary? By all means let us do our utmost to raise the standard of musical education in all classes of society; but we cannot get away from the fact that at all periods of musical history the music which really made that history was in its own day the possession only of a limited circle of highly cultivated enthusiasts. This is inevitable. The moment we recognize music to be an art and not merely the instrument of magic we have to apply our intellectual faculties to the understanding of it. Architects and painters complain bitterly enough of the public’s unwillingness to meet them halfway. For the musician the case is still worse; the practical difficulty of grasping a piece of music in the transitory moment of performance is one reason, and another is the intensity with which musical sounds act upon human emotions. It is small wonder if large numbers of people still regard music as almost magical. It is the remnant of these primitive beliefs which leads so many serious-minded and otherwise reasonable persons to take an apprehensive view of modern music, even though they may consider themselves more enlightened than those who view the music of all ages with moral apprehension. The danger, if it exists now, has always existed; people have always feared that which they do not understand. “It is difficult,” says Dr. Burney of Plato, “to refrain from numbering this philosopher, together with Aristotle, Aristoxenus and Plutarch, though such illustrious characters, and, in other particulars, such excellent writers, among the musical Grumblers and _Croakers_ of antiquity. They all equally lament the loss of good music, without considering that every age had, probably, done the same, whether right or wrong, from the beginning of the world; always throwing musical perfection into times remote from their own, as a thing never to be known but by tradition. The Golden Age had not its name from those who lived in it.” * * * * * Transcriber’s Notes: ――Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_). ――Punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected. ――Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved. ――Variations in hyphenation and compound words have been preserved.