aternal en sa saison,
Garde en elle un secret commun, un certain noeud
dans la profonde contexture de son bois,"

Claudel assures us through the mask of Tete d'Or. And the resemblances
between works produced independently of each other within the space of a
few years, generally so much greater than those that exist between any
one work of one age and any of another, bears him out. The styles of
Palestrina and Vittoria, which are obviously dissimilar, are
nevertheless more alike than those of Palestrina and Bach, Vittoria and
Haendel; just as those of Bach and Haendel, dissimilar as they are, have
a greater similarity than that which exists between those of Bach and
Mozart, of Haendel and Haydn. And so, for the men of a single period the
work produced during their time is a powerful encouragement to
self-realization, to the espousal of their destiny, to the fulfilment of
their life. For the motion of one part of a machine stirs all the
others. And there is a part of every man of a generation in the work
done by the other members of it. The men who fashion the art of one's
own time make one's proper experiment, start from one's own point of
departure, dare to be themselves and oneself in the face of the
gainsaying of the other epochs. They are so belittling, so
condescending, so nay-saying and deterring, the other times and their
masterpieces! They are so unsympathetic, so strange and grand and
remote! They seem to say "Thus must it be; this is form; this is beauty;
all else is superfluous." Who goes to them for help and understanding is
like one who goes to men much older, men of different habits and
sympathies, in order to explain himself, and finds himself disconcerted
and diminished instead, glimpses a secret jealousy and resentment
beneath the mask. But the adventure of encountering the artist of one's
own time is that of finding the most marvelous of aids, corroboration.
It is to meet one who has been living one's life, and thinking one's
thoughts, and facing one's problems. It is to get reassurance, to accept
oneself, to beget courage to express one's self in one's own manner.

And we of our generation have finally found the music that is so
creatively infecting for us. We have found the music of the
post-Wagnerian epoch. It is our music. For we are the offspring of the
generation that assimilated Wagner. We, too, are the reaction from
Wagner. Through the discovery we have come to learn that music