Produced by Andrés V. Galia and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) THREE GREAT EPOCH-MAKERS IN MUSIC TO THE MEMORY OF MY TEACHER AND FRIEND HERMANN KOTZSCHMAR THAT RIPE MUSICIAN WHOSE MATURE JUDGMENT HAS MUCH STRENGTHENED MY OWN CONVICTIONS THESE PAGES ARE DEDICATED Three Great Epoch-Makers in Music BY EDWARD CLARENCE FARNSWORTH PORTLAND SMITH & SALE, PRINTERS MDCCCCXII COPYRIGHT 1912 BY EDWARD CLARENCE FARNSWORTH CONTENTS PAGE PREFACE vii JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH 3 FREDERIC CHOPIN 33 RICHARD STRAUSS AND THE ART OF SOUND 81 PREFACE Bearing in mind Emerson's saying that every action admits of being outdone, and around every circle another may be drawn, we none the less believe that a comparison of Sebastian Bach, Frederic Chopin and Richard Strauss, will show that, because of excellences peculiar to his day, and also individual excellences, no one of these three epoch-makers wholly outdoes, wholly encircles either of the others. Rather is he a link of a chain in which Beethoven, Wagner, and certain others are indispensable. That chain had beginning in the remote past, but, because inadequate, many early links are now broken. Of musicians prior to Bach, Gregory and Palestrina alone have endured the strain of time. The inadequacy of the old, true of not another art, proves music to be virtually an achievement of the last two and one-half centuries. This brief term, a mere fraction of that which must be allowed to certain of the sister arts, argues for music a very considerable period of future development.