if its primitive element of emotionality be omitted, more than
the primitive language of gesture, music is a natural mode of
expression. All three forms have attained their present stage of
development through conventions. Articulate speech has led in the
development; gesture once occupied a high plane (in the pantomimic
dance of the ancients) but has now retrograded; music, supreme at the
outset, then neglected, is but now pushing forward into the place
which its nature entitles it to occupy. When we conceive of an
art-work composed of such elements, and foregoing the adventitious
helps which may accrue to it from conventional idioms based on
association of ideas, we have before us the concept of Absolute music,
whose content, like that of every noble artistic composition, be it of
tones or forms or colors or thoughts expressed in words, is that high
ideal of goodness, truthfulness, and beauty for which all lofty
imaginations strive. Such artworks are the instrumental compositions
in the classic forms; such, too, may be said to be the high type of
idealized "Programme" music, which, like the "Pastoral" symphony of
Beethoven, is designed to awaken emotions like those awakened by the
contemplation of things, but does not attempt to depict the things
themselves. Having mentioned Programme music I must, of course, try to
tell what it is; but the exposition must be preceded by an explanation
of a kind of music which, because of its chastity, is set down as the
finest form of absolute music. This is Chamber music.

[Sidenote: _Chamber music._]

[Sidenote: _History of the term._]

[Sidenote: _Haydn a servant._]

In a broad sense, but one not employed in modern definition, Chamber
music is all music not designed for performance in the church or
theatre. (Out-of-door music cannot be considered among these artistic
forms of aristocratic descent.) Once, and indeed at the time of its
invention, the term meant music designed especially for the
delectation of the most eminent patrons of the art--the kings and
nobles whose love for it gave it maintenance and encouragement. This
is implied by the term itself, which has the same etymology wherever
the form of music is cultivated. In Italian it is _Musica da Camera_;
in French, _Musique de Chambre_; in German, _Kammermusik_. All the
terms have a common root. The Greek [Greek: kamara] signified an arch,
a vaulted room, or a covered wagon. In the time of the Frankish kings
the word w