essed, for by this it becomes
speech. When in such music this inflection rhymes with the
words, that is to say, when the speech finds its emotional
reflection in the music, we have reached the highest development
of folk song. In its best state, this is immeasurably superior
to much of our "made" music, only too often false in rhythm,
feeling, and declamation.

Among the different nations, these three characteristics often
become obscured by national idiosyncracies. Much of the Chinese
music, the "Hymn to the Ancestors," for instance, seemingly
covers a number of notes, whereas, in fact, it belongs to the
one-note type. We find that their melodies almost invariably
return to the same note, the intervening sounds being more
or less merely variations above and below the pitch of the
principal sound. For example:

[Figure 13]

Hungarian folk music has been much distorted by the oriental
element, as represented by the _zingari_ or gypsies.
The Hungarian type of folk music is one of the highest, and
is extremely severe in its contours, as shown in the following:

[Figure 14]

The gypsy element as copied by Liszt has obscured the folk
melodies by innumerable arabesques and ornaments of all sorts,
often covering even a "one-note" type of melody until it seems
like a complicated design.

This elaboration of detail and the addition of passing and
ornamental notes to every melody is distinctly an oriental
trait, which finds vent not only in music but also in
architecture, designing, carving, etc. It is considered by many
an element of weakness, seeking to cover a poverty of thought
by rich vestments. And yet, to my mind, nothing can be more
misleading. In spite of Sir Hubert Parry and other writers,
I cannot think that the Moors in Spain, for instance, covered
poverty of thought beneath superficial ingenuity of design. The
Alhambra outdoes in "passage work," in virtuoso arabesques,
all that an army of Liszts could do in piano literature;
and yet the Arabs were the saviours of science, and promoted
the greatest learning and depth of thought known in Europe in
their time. As for Liszt, there is such an astounding wealth
of poetry and deep feeling beneath the somewhat "flashy,"
bombastic trick of speech he inherited, that the true lover
of music can no more allow his feelings to be led astray by
such externals than one would judge a man's mind by the cut
of his coat or the hat he wears.

Thus we see the essence