Spirit and Music

"All the hearts of men were softened By the pathos of his music: For he sang of peace and freedom, Sang of beauty, love, and longing: Sang of death, and life undying In the Isla...

"Music is not only a source of noble pleasure--everyone admits that, at any rate in theory--it is a form of intellectual and spiritual training with which we really cannot affor...

There are, roughly speaking, three classes of interpreters in Music: performers or executants, composers, and teachers. The function of each of these is, by a special sensitiven...

"Conventions mean very little to the artist, because conventionality arises either from mental laziness or fear of what others will say and think. Moreover the true genius must...

Life is a diversity in unity, and the expression in countless different forms and shapes of the one fundamental reality, spirit. We ourselves are comprehended in this definition...

"We understand but little of music. The greatest masterpiece is but a signpost to that infinite realm of harmony, in which music is for ever included, and to the joy which await...

Ideas on the subject of the teaching of Music are changing at such a rapid rate to-day that the position of the teacher as an interpreter may well receive some consideration. Th...

There are in essence but two creeds in the world, the one a materialistic belief, and the other some degree or phase of a spiritual conception. Every degree of density is to be...

"The greatest Masterpieces in Music will be found to contain sensuous, emotional, and rational factors, and something beside: some divine element of life by which they are anima...

Music, as we have seen, is implanted in the very nature of things, and it is as deeply embedded in our lives. Was there ever a time when no man sang? As a matter of evolutionary...

may be but poor stuff: one expresses well, and the other feebly. In the same way with ourselves, if our bodies have the life force circulating freely they express robust health:...

Music is a part of life. It is not merely an accomplishment or a hobby, nor yet a means of relaxation from the strenuous business of earning a living. It is not an addendum or a...

If Music be a means of expression, we must needs ask ourselves what it expresses. It is entirely insufficient to accept music as sequence or a combination of tones that "sound n...