reciate in full measure any section of this long
work, have a fairly close acquaintance with Cervantes' book--whether
derived from an analytical programme or from personal reading: there are
neither words nor acting to give a clue, nor does the printed music
itself give the slightest assistance, except in so far that a couple of
themes are labelled with the names of the 'Knight of the sorrowful
countenance' himself and Sancho Panza. Sometimes, no doubt, a composer
helps at any rate the purchaser of his music more; but to the listener
he gives nothing, and leaves his thought, as embodied in the mere title,
to be reached as best it may. The modern composer makes these demands on
the listener continually; and he does so simply because the sphere of
the music-lover's imaginativeness and general culture has become so
greatly enlarged that he thinks he can fairly afford to take the risk.

But we may well ask whether the music of suggestion has not, in its
restless anxiety to correlate itself with non-musical culture, reached
or perhaps even overstepped the limits of musical possibility. It is no
question of a composer's rights: he has a right to do anything he can,
provided that he preserves a due proportion between essentials and
unessentials. And judicious criticism will turn, if not a blind, at any
rate a short-sighted eye towards a great composer's occasional realistic
escapades, which, however irritating they may perhaps be to others, are
to him only a part of the general background of his texture; after all,
in their different media, Bach and most of the other giants have
occasionally allowed themselves similar little flings. It is a question
not of rights, but of powers. The poet and the painter and the novelist,
not to mention all the non-human agents in the universe, are bound to do
a good many things much better than the composer can; and even if he may
personally aspire to be a kind of spectator of all time and existence,
he has no means of making his listeners see eye to eye with himself. The
risk he runs may be too great. Realizing as we must that all this
ferment of suggestion-seeking has undoubtedly vivified and enriched
musical development in not a few aspects, we may nevertheless feel, and
feel profoundly, that there is a cardinal weakness inherent in it. A
composer may so easily be tempted to forget that it is after all by his
music, and by his music alone, that he stands or falls. If he asks too
much extra-m