e modern
Russian school. With this semi-political cause in mind it is less
difficult to grasp the paradox that with all the growth of
intercommunication the music of Europe moves in more detached grooves
to-day than two centuries ago. The suite in the time of Bach is a
special type and proof of a blended breadth and unity of musical thought
in the various nations of Europe of the seventeenth century. In the
quaint series of dances of the different peoples, with a certain
international quality, one sees a direct effect of the Thirty Years'
War,--the beneficent side of those ill winds and cruel blasts, when all
kinds of nations were jostling on a common battle-ground. And as the
folk-dances sprang from the various corners of Europe, so different
nations nursed the artistic growth of the form. Each would treat the
dances of the other in its own way, and here is the significance of
Bach's separate suites,--English, French and German.

Nationalism seems thus a prevailing element in the music of to-day, and
we may perceive two kinds, one spontaneous and full of charm, the other
a result of conscious effort, sophisticated in spirit and in detail. It
may as well be said that there was no compelling call for a separate
French school in the nineteenth century as a national utterance. It
sprang from a political rather than an artistic motive; it was the itch
of jealous pride that sharply stressed the difference of musical style
on the two sides of the Rhine. The very influence of German music was
needed by the French rather than a bizarre invention of national traits.
The broader art of a Saint-Saens here shines in contrast with the
brilliant conceits of his younger compatriots, though it cannot be
denied that the latter are grounded in classic counterpoint. With other
nations the impulse was more natural: the racial song of the
Scandinavians, Czechs and other Slavs craved a deliverance as much as
the German in the time of Schubert. In France, where music had long
flourished, there was no stream of suppressed folk-song.

But the symphony must in the natural course have suffered from the very
fulness of its own triumph. We know the Romantic reaction of Schumann,
uttered in smaller cyclic forms; in Berlioz is almost a complete
abandonment of pure music, devoid of special description. Liszt was one
of the mighty figures of the century, with all the external qualities of
a master-genius, shaking the stage of Europe with the weight of