In centres of highly refined musical culture, America, from East to West, is not lacking. An aristocracy of musical appreciation has followed upon the establishment of symphonic and chamber music organizations in a number of cities. This culture is, however, almost exclusively devoted to the maintenance of traditional European standards, and is inclined to take slight cognizance of the native and democratic developments in which the true national progress of the present lies. The presence of such a culture in America is therefore not altogether an unmixed blessing; in fact it may lead to certain results of positive evil. The presence of retrospective hyper-refinement in a nation at a time when rugged creative strength, even if crude in its artistic results, should be manifested, may be harmful in its effect upon normal creative progress, especially when, with the backing of wealth, the press, and the academy, it arrogates to itself the possession of the true vision of artistic standards. If, then, the tide of musical appreciation in America has reached a normal level, in accordance with the general civilization of the world of to-day, if the appreciative era, purely as such, is past, the creative epoch has only fairly begun. America, in musical composition, already reckons a historical sequence approaching to a classical, a romantic and an ultra-modern period, exhibiting the strange spectacle of most of the founders of the first period living to see the flowering of the last, during their active lifetime. In fact, some of the pioneers have actively engaged in fostering the issues of all three epochs. The truth of this curious condition is that this triple-aspected development of the past fifty years can not in reality be said to represent even the beginning of the actual creative epoch of the nation. As the child is said to pass through phases corresponding to the entire ancient history of the race, so this chapter in American music represents the rapid passage of the youthful America through the previous history of the art; it has represented the desire to catch up with the world at large. Even if some works of lasting value have been produced, as is undoubtedly the case, this period has in actuality represented a mere reflex of European musical civilization, a surface agitation, to be followed by an authentic and original national productivity along the lines of its own needs and ideals.