child rebels—it demands the opposite. Each day begins differently from the preceding, yet always with the flush of dawn.—Great artists play their own works differently at each repetition, remodel them on the spur of the moment, accelerate and retard, in a way which they could not indicate by signs—and always according to the given conditions of that “eternal harmony.”

And then the lawgiver chafes, and refers the creator to his own handwriting. As matters stand to-day, the lawgiver has the best of the argument.

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“Notation” (“writing down”) brings up the subject of Transcription, nowadays a term much misunderstood, almost discreditable. The frequent antagonism which I have excited with “transcriptions,” and the opposition to which an ofttimes irrational criticism has provoked me, caused me to seek a clear understanding of this point. My final conclusion concerning it is this: Every notation is, in itself, the transcription of an abstract idea. The instant the pen seizes it, the idea loses its original form. The very intention to write down the idea, compels a choice of measure and key. The form, and the musical agency, which the composer must decide upon, still more closely define the way and the limits.

It is much the same as with man himself. Born naked, and as yet without definite aspirations, he decides, or at a given moment is made to decide, upon a career. From the moment of decision, although much that is original and imperishable in the idea or the man may live on, either is depressed to the type of a class. The musical idea becomes a sonata or a concerto; the man, a soldier or a priest. That is an Arrangement of the original. From this first transcription to a second the step is comparatively short and unimportant. And yet it is only the second, in general, of which any notice is taken; overlooking the fact, that a transcription does not destroy the archetype, which is, therefore, not lost through transcription.

Again, the performance of a work is also a transcription, and still, whatever liberties it may take, it can never annihilate the original.

For the musical art-work exists, before its tones resound and after they die away, complete and intact. It exists both within and outside of time, and through its nature we can obtain a definite conception of the otherwise intangible notion of the Ideality of Time.

For the rest, most of Beethoven's piano compositions sound like transcriptions of orchestral works; most of Schumann's orchestral compositions, like arrangements from pieces for the piano—and they are so, in a way.

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Strangely enough, the Variation-Form is highly esteemed by the Worshippers of the Letter. That is singular; for the variation-form—when built up on a borrowed theme—produces a whole series of “arrangements” which, besides, are least respectful when most ingenious.

So the arrangement is not good, because it varies the original; and the variation is good, although it “arranges” the original.

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The term “musikalisch” (musical) is used by the Germans in a sense foreign to that in which any other language employs it.[I] It is a conception belonging to the Germans, and not to culture in general; the expression is incorrect and untranslatable. “Musical” is derived from music, like “poetical” from poetry, or “physical” from physic(s). When I say, “Schubert was one of the most musical among men,” it is the same as if I should say, “Helmholtz was one of the most physical among men.” That is musical, which sounds in rhythms and intervals. A cupboard can be “musical,” if “music-works” be enclosed in it.[J] In a comparative sense, “musical” may have the further signification of “euphonious.”—“My verses are too musical to bear setting to music,” a noted poet once remarked to me.

writes Edgar Allan Poe. Lastly, one may speak quite correctly of “musical laughter,” because it sounds like music.

Taking the signification in which the term is applied and almost exclusively employed in German, a musical person is one who manifests an inclination for music by a nice discrimination and sensitiveness with regard to the technical aspects of the art. By “technics” I mean rhythm, harmony, intonation, part-leading, and the treatment of themes. The more subtleties he is capable of hearing or reproducing in these, the more “musical” he is held to be.

In view of the great importance attached to these elements of the art, this “musical” temperament has naturally become of the highest consequence. And so an artist who plays with perfect technical finish should be deemed the most musical player. But as we mean by “technics” only the mechanical mastery of the instrument, the terms “technical” and “musical” have been turned into opposites.

The matter has been carried so far as to call a composition itself “musical,”[K] or even to assert of a great composer like Berlioz that he was not sufficiently musical.[L] “Unmusical” conveys the strongest reproach; branded thus, its object becomes an outlaw.[M]

In a country like Italy, where all participate in the delights of music, this differentiation becomes superfluous, and the term corresponding is not found in the language. In France, where a living sense of music does not permeate the people, there are musicians and non-musicians; of the rest, some “are very fond of music,” and others “do not care for it.” Only in Germany is it made a point of honor to be “musical,” that is to say, not merely to love music, but more especially to understand it as regards its technical means of expression, and to obey their rules.

A thousand hands support the buoyant child and solicitously attend its footsteps, that it may not soar aloft where there might be risk of a serious fall. But it is still so young, and is eternal; the day of its freedom will come.—When it shall cease to be “musical.”

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The creator should take over no traditional law in blind belief, which would make him view his own creative endeavor, from the outset, as an exception contrasting with that law. For his individual case he should seek out and formulate a fitting individual law, which, after the first complete