acquainted with the elements of which music is composed that he can
promptly recognize the color, complexion and individual character of
every interval, chord and chord-combination, every consonance and
dissonance, every timbre and nuance, and every degree of phrasing and
rhythm. He must have so complete a mastery of his materials and working
forces that his imagination may be influenced unimpeded by the
emanations from the composer's imagination which animate the moving
forms he commands.

It is his business to respond with his whole being to the appeal of the
musical masterpiece he attempts to interpret, and so express the
emotions aroused by it from their slumbers in his own bosom that a
responsive echo may be found in the bosoms of the listeners. A most
ingeniously constructed music-box, with the presentation of a
complicated piece of music, may fail to move a heart that will be
stirred to its depths by a simple song, into which the singer's whole
soul has been thrown.

Though the mind of the inventive genius be a mystery that may not fully
be explained, its product is within the grasp of the intelligent seeker.
The æsthetic principles of musical construction rest on certain
elementary laws governing both the human organism and the phenomena of
sound, and may become familiar to any one who is capable of study. In
the same way the established canons of musical expression, observed by
the skilful artist, consciously or unconsciously, are traceable to
natural causes. Without realizing the inherent properties of music, as
well as its technical possibilities and limitations, we cannot know the
art.

The tonal language is one that is not translatable into words. It is