t that a fine air we have just composed, little
canary-bird, eh?"

"Twee! twee!" answers the canary.

Mozart has willed it so: there is no possible appeal against his
decision; his artistic sense would not listen to our logic; our
arguments could not attain him, for he simply shook from off his feet
the dust of logic-land, and calmly laughed defiance from the region of
artistic form, where he had it all his own way, and into which we poor
wretches can never clamber. So here is the page's song irrevocably
sentimental; and Mozart has been in his grave ninety years; and we know
not why, but we do shrink from calling in Offenbach or Lecocq to rewrite
that air in true jackanapsian style. What can be done? There still
remains another hope.

For the composer, as we have seen, could give us--as could the painter
or the sculptor--only one mood at a time; for he could give us only one
homogeneous artistic form. But this artistic form exists so far only in
the abstract, in the composer's brain or on the paper. To render it
audible we require the performer; on the performer depends the real,
absolute presence of the work; or, rather, to the performer is given
the task of creating a second work, of applying on to the abstract
composition the living inflexions and accentuations of the voice. And
here, again, the powers of musical expression, of awaking association
by means of sounds or manner of giving out sounds such as we recognize,
automatically or consciously, to accompany the emotion that is to
be conveyed; here again these powers are given to the artist to do
therewith what he choose. This second artist, this performer, is not
so free indeed as the first artist, the composer; he can longer choose
among the large means of expression the forms of melody and rhythm, the
concatenation of musical phrases; but there are still left to him the
minor modes of expression, the particular manner of setting forth these
musical forms, of treating this rhythm; the notes are there, and their
general relations to one another, but on him depends the choice of the
relative stress on the notes, of the tightening or slackening of their
relations; of the degree of importance to be given to the various
phrases. The great outline cartoon is there, but the cunning lights and
shades, transitions, abrupt or insensible, from tint to tint, still
remain to be filled up. A second choice of mood is left to the singer.
And see! here arises a strange complic