FROM GRIEG TO BRAHMS
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
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FROM GRIEG TO BRAHMS
STUDIES OF SOME MODERN
COMPOSERS AND THEIR ART
BY
DANIEL GREGORY MASON
New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1921
All rights reserved
Copyright, 1902, by
THE OUTLOOK COMPANY
Published November, 1902.
To my uncle
Dr. William Mason
who has won the gratitude
of lovers of music in America
I dedicate these studies
with affection and respect
PREFACE
«Music may be hard to understand,but musicians are men;»so remarked a friend of minewhen I was first planningthese essays. The sentencesums up very happily a truth I have constantlyhad in mind in writing them. As allmusic, no matter what its complexity on thetechnical side, is in essence an expression of personalfeeling, and as the qualities of a man'spersonality show themselves not only in hisworks, but in his acts, his words, his face, hishandwriting and carriage even, it has seemednatural and fruitful, in these studies, to seekacquaintance with the musicians through acquaintancewith the men.
But personal expression depends not alone[Pg viii]on the personality of the artist; it depends alsoon the resources of art, which in turn are theproduct of a long, slow growth. Accordingly,if we would understand the individual composers,we must have a sense of the scheme intowhich they fall, the great universal evolutionof which they are but incidents. It is for thisreason that I have tried, in the introductoryessay on The Appreciation of Music, to describesome of the fundamental principles of the art,and to sketch in their light the general movementof musical history, in order to give thereader a perspective sense, a bird's-eye view ofthe great army of artists in whic