y elaborate combinations for the expression
of feelings too high-strung for the older forms of expression, is
observable in almost all stages of musical history, and in our own
days has received a striking illustration in the progress made in
appreciating the works of the latest of the great musical geniuses,
Richard Wagner, whose music twenty-five years ago was regarded by the
public generally as unmusical and atrocious; whereas now it is heard
with pleasure, and takes hold of the more advanced musical minds with
a firmness beyond that of any other musical production. The
explanation is to be found in the development of finer tone
perceptions--the ability to co-ordinate tonal combinations so
distantly related that to the musical ears of a generation ago their
relation was not recognized, therefore to those ears they were not
music. Wagner felt these strange combinations as music. The deeper
relations between tones and chords apparently remote, he felt, and
employed them for the expression of his imagination. Other ears now
feel them as he did. An education has taken place.

5. It is altogether likely that the education will still go on until
many new combinations which to our ears would be meaningless will
become a part of the ordinary vernacular of the art. Indeed, a writer
quite recently (Julius Klauser, in "The Septonnate") points out a
vast amount of musical material already contained within our tonal
systems which as yet is entirely unused. The new chords and relations
thus suggested are quite in line with the additions made by Wagner to
the vocabulary of his day.

III.

6. There are certain conditions which must be met before a fine art
will be developed. These it is worth while to consider briefly:

The state of art, in any community or nation, at any period of its
history, depends upon a fortunate correspondence between two elements
which we might call the internal and the external. By the former is
meant the inner movement of mind or spirit, which must be of such
depth and force as to leave a surplusage after the material needs of
existence have been met. In every community where there is a certain
degree of wealth, leisure and a vigorous movement of mind, this
surplus force, remaining over after the necessary wheels of common
life have been set in motion, will expend itself in some form of art
or literature. The nature of the form selected as the expression of
this surplus force will depend upon the fa