Doubtless a sound knowledge of the multiform devices of harmony, counterpoint, and the rest, is an important part of his equipment. But such knowledge may be acquired; whereas, if devoid of true tune, his best efforts are doomed to failure, for this tune-faculty is born with the man, and cannot be learned from books. [Sidenote: =Mozart on Melody=] Mozart indeed settled the question, once and for all, when he said “melody is the essence of music.” If we open at random the pages of works so dissimilar, say, as Handel’s _Messiah_, Wagner’s _Parsifal_ or Bach’s _Forty-Eight_,[34] what are we sure (among a host of other things) to find? Is it not melody? It may not be the conventional eight-bar tune, but in the true sense of the word it is sure to be melody. No doubt the words “tune” and “melody” have been used in a too restricted sense, and against this we must guard ourselves, for melody in reality represents the chief idea in music, and no art is worth much whose ideas are weak. Take, for example, Beethoven’s C minor Symphony. No one would call that musical battering-ram with which the work commences— [Music] a tune, in the usual meaning of that word; but, all the same, it is a musical idea full of real vitality, which clings to the memory with all the power of the finest tune that was ever written. It is in this light that the later works of Beethoven, and, to name another of the giants, those of Brahms, should be viewed. [Footnote 34: _Das Wohltemperirte Clavier_ (The Well-tempered Clavichord).] No doubt a composer may produce certain effects by progressions of harmony which can hardly be regarded as a tune. For example, the following motive from the first act of Wagner’s _Götterdämmerung_:— [Music] To call this a tune would be straining language, but none the less if a composer be possessed of what we call genius, such phrases will (as this does) produce on the mind of the listener an effect in all respects as vivid as that which the most fully developed melody produces under other musical conditions. _The idea_ of a true composer is strong, and therefore it succeeds. But it will doubtless be in the reader’s mind to ask what all this has to do with a String Quartett by an unknown composer. This merely, that without claiming for him the most exalted rank, Gretchaninoff possesses the gift of tune, and on this account, as well as by reason of his sound musicianship, what he has done deserves attention. This Quartett, op. 2, is in classical form, and consists of the usual four movements. It commences with a short andante, whose opening phrase, played by the four instruments in unison, is:— [Music] As in the Ivanoff Quartett previously noticed, we have here, in the first three notes of this quotation, a motto theme. This, when the first movement proper (allegro) is reached, is given out by the ’cello alone in the following complete form:— [Music]