ts, wire, wood, and brass? Consecutive-fifths are as harmless as
blue laws compared with the relentless tyranny of the "media." The
instrument!--there is the perennial difficulty--there is music's
limitations. Why must the scarecrow of the keyboard--the tyrant in
terms of the mechanism (be it Caruso or a Jew's-harp) stare into every
measure? Is it the composer's fault that man has only ten fingers? Why
can't a musical thought be presented as it is born--perchance "a
bastard of the slums," or a "daughter of a bishop"--and if it happens
to go better later on a bass-drum (than upon a harp) get a good
bass-drummer. [Footnote: The first movement (Emerson) of the music,
which is the cause of all these words, was first thought of (we
believe) in terms of a large orchestra, the second (Hawthorne) in terms
of a piano or a dozen pianos, the third (Alcotts)--of an organ (or
piano with voice or violin), and the last (Thoreau), in terms of
strings, colored possibly with a flute or horn.] That music must be
heard, is not essential--what it sounds like may not be what it is.
Perhaps the day is coming when music--believers will learn "that
silence is a solvent ... that gives us leave to be universal" rather than
personal.

Some fiddler was once honest or brave enough, or perhaps ignorant
enough, to say that Beethoven didn't know how to write for the
violin,--that, maybe, is one of the many reasons Beethoven is not a
Vieuxtemps. Another man says Beethoven's piano sonatas are not
pianistic--with a little effort, perhaps, Beethoven could have become a
Thalberg. His symphonies are perfect-truths and perfect for the
orchestra of 1820--but Mahler could have made them--possibly did make
them--we will say, "more perfect," as far as their media clothes are
concerned, and Beethoven is today big enough to rather like it. He is
probably in the same amiable state of mind that the Jesuit priest said,
"God was in," when He looked down on the camp ground and saw the priest
sleeping with a Congregational Chaplain. Or in the same state of mind
you'll be in when you look down and see the sexton keeping your
tombstone up to date. The truth of Joachim offsets the repose of
Paganini and Kubelik. The repose and reputation of a successful
pianist--(whatever that means) who plays Chopin so cleverly that he
covers up a sensuality, and in such a way that the purest-minded see
nothing but sensuous beauty in it, which, by the way, doesn't disturb
him as much as t