had held despotic sway over the art, and also seeks to disclose
the beauty which lies buried in the world of mystery in and around us,
and give expression to the multitude of emotions to which unyielding
formalism had refused adequate utterance. This, I think, is the chief
element of Romanticism. Another has more of an external nature and
genesis, and this we find in the works of such composers as Von Weber,
who is Romantic chiefly in his operas, because of the supernaturalism
and chivalry in their stories, and Mendelssohn, who, while distinctly
Romantic in many of his strivings, was yet so great a master of form,
and so attached to it, that the Romantic side of him was not fully
developed.

[Sidenote: _A definition of "Classical" in music._]

[Sidenote: _The creative and conservative principles._]

[Sidenote: _Musical laws of necessity progressive._]

[Sidenote: _Bach and Romanticism._]

[Sidenote: _Creation and conservation._]

If I were to attempt a definition it would be this: Classical
composers are those of the first rank (to this extent we yield to the
ancient Roman conception) who have developed music to the highest
pitch of perfection on its formal side and, in obedience to generally
accepted laws, preferring aesthetic beauty, pure and simple, over
emotional content, or, at any rate, refusing to sacrifice form to
characteristic expression. Romantic composers are those who have
sought their ideals in other regions and striven to give expression to
them irrespective of the restrictions and limitations of form and the
conventions of law--composers with whom, in brief, content outweighs
manner. This definition presents Classicism as the regulative and
conservative principle in the history of the art, and Romanticism as
the progressive, regenerative, and creative principle. It is easy to
see how the notion of contest between them grew up, and the only harm
which can come from such a notion will ensue only if we shut our eyes
to the fact that it is a contest between two elements whose very
opposition stimulates life, and whose union, perfect, peaceful,
mutually supplemental, is found in every really great art-work. No law
which fixes, and hence limits, form, can remain valid forever. Its end
is served when it enforces itself long enough to keep lawlessness in
check till the test of time has determined what is sound, sweet, and
wholesome in the innovations which are always crowding eagerly into
every creative a