the most profound and acute
intelligences ever distinguished in music, and a great master of the
province of opera (in which he accomplished stupendous creations), was
also an orchestral virtuoso, coloring when he chose, with true
instinct, for the mere sake of color; and massing and contrasting
instruments in endless variety and beauty.

The activity in musical production during the nineteenth century has
been so extraordinary in amount and in the number of composers
concerned in it, and so ample in the range of musical effects brought
to realization, as fully to illustrate the truth of the principle
enunciated at the outset of this narrative, namely: That the course of
musical progress has been toward greater complication of tonal effects
in every direction; implying upon the part of composers the possession
of more inclusive principles of tonal unity; and upon the part of the
hearers, to whom these vast works have been addressed, the possession
of corresponding powers of tonal perception, and the persistence of
impressions for a sufficient length of time in each instance for the
underlying unity to be realized.

As an incident in the rapidity of the progress on the part of
composers, we have had what is called "the music of the future";
namely, productions of one generation intelligible to the finer
intelligences of that generation, yet "music of the future" to all the
others; but in the generation following, these compositions have gone
into the common stock, through the progress of the faculties of
hearing and of deeper perceptions of tonal relations. Meanwhile there
has been created another stratum of music of the future, which may be
expected to occupy the attention of the generation next ensuing, to
whom in turn it will become the music of the present.

In the nature of the case, there is not, nor can there be, a stopping
place, unless we conceive the possibility of a return to the
conservatism of Plato and the ancient Egyptians, and the passage of
statute laws permitting the employment of chords and rhythms up to a
certain specified degree of complexity, beyond which their use would
constitute a grave statutory offense. It is possible that the ideal of
art might again be "reformed" in the direction of restriction from the
uncomely, the forced and the sensational, and in favor of the
beautiful, the becoming and the divine. Nevertheless, it is the
inevitable consequence of a prescription of this kind to run in