Project Gutenberg's The Masters and their Music, by W. S. B. Mathews

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: The Masters and their Music
A series of illustrative programs with biographical,
esthetical, and critical annotations

Author: W. S. B. Mathews

Release Date: November 17, 2008 [EBook #25213]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MASTERS AND THEIR MUSIC ***

Produced by Al Haines

[Frontispiece: W. S. B. MATHEWS.]

THE

MASTERS AND THEIR MUSIC

A SERIES OF ILLUSTRATIVE PROGRAMS, WITH
BIOGRAPHICAL, ESTHETICAL, AND
CRITICAL ANNOTATIONS

DESIGNED AS AN INTRODUCTION TO
MUSIC AS LITERATURE

FOR THE USE OF CLUBS, CLASSES, AND
PRIVATE STUDY

BY

W. S. B. MATHEWS

Author of "How to Understand Music," "A Popular History of Music,"
"Music: Its Ideals and Methods," "Studies in Phrasing," "Standard
Grades," Etc., Etc.

Philadelphia

Theodore Presser

1708 Chestnut Str.

COPYRIGHT, 1898, BY THEO. PRESSER

PREFACE.

When a musical student begins to think of music as a literature and to
inquire about individualities of style and musical expression, it is
necessary for him to come as soon as possible to the fountainheads of
this literature in the works of a few great masters who have set the
pace and established the limits for all the rest. In the line of
purely instrumental music this has been done by Bach, Haydn, Mozart,
Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Chopin, Liszt, and Wagner. The
latter, who exercised a vast influence upon the manner of developing a
musical thought and in the selection of the orchestral colors in which
it can be expressed advantageously, powerfully stimulated all composers
later than himself, nevertheless exerted this influence at second-hand,
so to say, never having written purely instrumental movements, but
merely dramatic accompaniments of one intensity or another. Hence, for
our present purposes we may leave Wagner out altogether. Practically,
down to about the year 1875, everything in instrumental music is
original with the masters already mentioned, or was derived from them
or suggested by th