From the Tone World (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1885. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... II.--Performance at Berlin, March, 1874. HAVE an old and a young friend, who form a pair of delightful contrasts with each other. The one asserts that all things must have ripened before they can be enjoyable; the other fancies, on the contrary, that the fresher a thing the more charming it is. They not only carry out this singular contest over all living things--if we except love, flowers and oysters--but also over art. Painting or music, insists the older one, must wear the "beautifying rust of centuries" to be properly appreciated. The younger one is not disturbed by the freshest varnish upon a picture; and a score, to which the sand still adhered, would just suit him. Convictions are not liable to duty. They thrive in an atmosphere foreign to governments; in reality, they live on air, and become the more robust, the more opportunity they find to steel themselves in battle. Still, a capricious element, or, at least, something problematical, is native to them.-They share the fate of new intellectual ideas; at some point or other they will always remain open to debate. Both friends were doomed to the fate, critical in their peculiar relations, of living to hear Wagner's music. I have profited and learned much from them; if ever truth could be found in the "happy medium," it was here. My old friend, in his noncompliance, that amounted to embitterment, appeared in as questionable a light as my young companion, who was deprived of his mental equilibrium by Wagner's revolutionary and exciting qualities. The former considered simply his feelings, that had become venerable beneath ivy and moss; the latter was on the straight road to measuring all things only by their capacity for exploding. Under similar circumstances, it is but natural for one to remain in a fluctua...