The symphony of the present age has perhaps fallen somewhat in estate.
It was natural that it should rush to a high perfection in the halcyon
days of its growth. It is easy to make mournful predictions of
decadence. The truth is the symphony is a great form of art, like a
temple or a tragedy. Like them it has had, it will have its special eras
of great expression. Like them it will stay as a mode of utterance for
new communities and epochs with varying nationality, or better still,
with vanishing nationalism.
The tragedy was not exhausted with Sophocles, nor with Shakespeare nor
with Goethe. So the symphony has its fallow periods and it may have a
new resurgence under new climes. We are ever impatient to shelve a great
form, like vain women afraid of the fashion. It is part of our constant
rage for novelty. The shallower artist ever tinkered with new
devices,--to some effects, in truth. Such is the empiric course of art
that what is born of vanity may be crowned with highest inspiration.
The national element will fill a large part of our survey. It marks a
strange trait of our own age that this revival of the national idea
falls in the very time when other barriers are broken. Ancient folk-song
grew like the flower on the battle-field of races. But here is an
anxious striving for a special dialect in music. Each nation must have
its proper school; composers are strictly labelled, each one obedient to
his national manner.
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