The joy of loveliness admired, the frankness and naivete, the “jeu perle” and natural melodiousness that were the life of Viennese Music vanished utterly with the death of Schubert unknown. It seemed that he and his predecessors must have brought music into a cul-de-sac from which it would have to extricate itself. German music did and received new impetus from the professionalism of Weber, the literary romanticism of Liszt, the savoir-vivre of Chopin, and the cosmicality of Wagner. France, meanwhile, entertained loyally the older manner, nursing it through its unpopularity into the convalescence it now enjoys. When we come to discover that the spirit of Berlin is rather of something hyphenated to “Kultur” than of music purely, we shall also discover the spirit of Vienna,—vigorous and slightly Frenchified, in the Conservatoire and the Schola Cantorum. Somehow, without the least effort or merit, we have strolled into the position of the “distinguished amateur.” It is an eminence from which one may see everything if one but keep a clear eye and a doubting mind. What fools we should be to view the road before us as we can only this once, wearing a prejudice like a pair of smoked goggles. To doubt is a privilege which the wise will make a duty. We should doubt what has given us our artistic existence, and if it can only stand by our faith it will fall—but we shall not fall with it. We should doubt the things we desire so that when we abandon them we cannot be reproached with broken faith. We _must_ doubt the strength of organized professionalism that Berlin would teach us, the value of hard work the contrapunctalists of the Royal Academy preach;—we _must_ doubt the superiority of art and the artist, the inviolability of tradition, the legitimacy of the Beethoven-Wagner-Strauss succession for the reason that they have been so freely offered if for no other. Surely such eagerness to be accepted does not prove great worth. Let us pooh-pooh all these magnificent “Pooh-Bahs” of music to see if their threats to have our heads off are real or bluff. Then with our tongues still in our cheeks, let us continue on to other courts. If we have enjoyed the simple and fine art with which Beethoven and Schubert enlivened and refined the salons of Vienna, we shall enjoy Franck. If we should prefer our Mozart livelier by a notch of the metronome and lighter by one-half of the strings than we hear it now, we should be pleased by Chabrier and Faure and the way they are played by the half-dozen youngsters who get their premier prix at the end of each year’s work in the Conservatoire. From pure inertia we have out-stayed our pleasure in modern German music. A bit of animation and on to Paris! The Critics’ Catastrophe (A Probable Possibility) HERMAN SCHUCHERT