physical pleasure of music from its ideal significance, our art,
in my opinion, cannot stand on a sound basis.

Music contains certain elements which affect the nerves of the
mind and body, and thus possesses the power of direct appeal to
the public--a power to a great extent denied to the other arts.
This sensuous influence over the hearer is often mistaken for the
aim and end of all music.... In declaring that the sensation of
hearing music was pleasant to him, and that to produce that
sensation was the entire mission of music, a certain English
Bishop placed our art on a level with good things to eat and
drink. Many colleges and universities of America consider music
as a kind of boutonnière.... Low as it is, there is a possibility
of building on such an estimate. Could such persons be made to
recognize the existence of decidedly unpleasant music, it would
be the first step toward a proper appreciation of the art and its
various phases.

In my opinion, Johann Sebastian Bach, one of the world's
mightiest tone poets, accomplished his mission, not by means of
the contrapuntal fashion of his age, but in spite of it. The laws
of canon and fugue are based upon as prosaic a foundation as
those of the rondo and sonata form; I find it impossible to
imagine their ever having been a spur or an incentive to poetic
musical speech.

Overwhelmed by the new-found powers of suggestion in tonal tint
and the riot of hitherto undreamed of orchestral combinations, we
are forgetting that permanence in music depends upon melodic
speech._