efor we must be wary of the
old men who tell us that we shall soon tire of the music of Puccini
because it is fashionable.

Popularity is scarcely a test. I have mentioned Mendelssohn. Never was
there a more popular composer, and yet aside from the violin concerto
what work of his has maintained its place in the concert repertory?
Yet Chopin, whose name is seldom absent from the program of a pianist,
was a god in his own time and the most brilliant woman of his epoch
fell in love with him, as Philip Moeller has recently reminded us in
his very amusing play. On the other hand there is the case of Robert
Franz whose songs never achieved real popularity during his lifetime,
but which are frequently, almost invariably indeed, to be found on
song recital programs today and which are more and more appreciated.
The critics are praising him, the public likes him: they buy his
songs. And there is also the case of Max Reger who was not popular, is
not popular, and never will be popular.

Can we judge music by academic standards? Certainly not. Even the
hoary old academicians themselves can answer this question correctly
if you put it in relation to any composer born before 1820. The
greatest composers have seldom respected the rules. Beethoven in his
last sonatas and string quartets slapped all the pedants in the ears;
yet I believe you will find astonishingly few rules broken by Mozart,
one of the gods in the mythology of art music, and Berlioz, who broke
all the rules, is more interesting to us today as a writer of prose
than as a writer of music.

Is simple music supermusic? Certainly not invariably. _Vedrai Carino_
is a simple tune, almost as simple as a folk-song and we set great
store by it; yet Michael William Balfe wrote twenty-seven operas
filled with similarly simple tunes and in a selective draft of
composers his number would probably be 9,768. The _Ave Maria_ of
Schubert is a simple tune; so is the _Meditation_ from _Thais_. Why do
we say that one is better than the other.

Or is supermusic always grand, sad, noble, or emotional? There must be
another violent head shaking here. The air from _Oberon, Ocean, thou
mighty monster_, is so grand that scarcely a singer can be found today
capable of interpreting it, although many sopranos puff and steam
through it, for all the world like pinguid gentlemen climbing the
stairs to the towers of Notre Dame. The _Fifth Symphony_ of Beethoven
is both grand and noble; probably