the construction of the familiar forms, vocal and instrumental, such as the song, the 'sonata,' the 'symphony,' and others. These you will find in dictio-naries and in musical studies, most of them

in foreign languages. It also helps greatly to know the different musical instruments and to be able to tell them apart merely by hearing their sound. Among the things most useful to the listener is the ability to read music — by which is meant not the ability to sing it or play it, but to read it silently, as one of us reads a novel; and this is no difficult matter if the student begins with simple, familiar melodies and then progresses to what is more complex. We will not say that reading music, or knowing anything about it, does away with listening and experience, which remain the best road to delight and appreciation; but let each of us imagine how near he can draw to the great pieces and their composers once he possesses the means of reaching them, as in literature and poetry.

What we have said applies above all to instrumental music, for in vocal music the words are bound to have their effect. True, the composer's aim in both cases is to arrive at an essential beauty; but when words direct him, he tries to make the melodies agree with the meaning and express it as far as possible. Songs inherit from their two parents, the poet and the musician, and

in them the merits of both appear. Yet this statement, for all the truth in it, is very limited. In the greatest songs — by which judgment must be made — we find that what works upon us is not the words themselves but the circumstance that stirred the composer's genius. Words are to music what the scene is to the painter, who cares less about copying the details of the scene than about expressing the feeling that came over him in that situation. Every attempt to deduce the words of a song from merely hearing its melodies is doomed to fail, because music by its nature cannot mirror poetic words or natural scenes. The impulse to compose it is an inner feeling, and this may arise from many causes. Below we cast a quick glance at music in the Middle Ages.

Before the Middle Ages, music was for the most part vocal, confined to hymns and religious prayers. The ancients had no variety of voices: all the members of the choir sang a single melody. Matters remained so until the eleventh century after Christ, when the principles of blending different melodies and voices into a unified consonance and beauty were discovered. Some of those who have written on the history of music think that its development in Europe was built upon what the ancient Greeks and Hebrews left behind; but there is nothing in the history of music to justify this belief, for neither the Greeks nor the Hebrews had any

idea of 'harmony.' On this occasion it is fitting to correct a mistaken notion held by a great number of people. Many think that the Jews have rendered great service to music, the reason being the abundance of Jewish names among famous performers. But the truth is that there are no Jews among the great composers; for composition demands great effort and a devotion to art detached from material gain, whereas fame in performance demands only some skill and practice, and drags behind it vast material profits. There is no doubt that the Arabs were the first to concern themselves with the principles of constructing the musical scales (Gammes Scales) which made possible all the development that followed. Whoever wishes to know the details of this should consult the learned Lebanese musician, Professor Wadih Sabra, for his studies of this fascinating subject. The Europeans took the idea of blending melodies and combining voices (Counterpoint & Harmony) from the Arabs and built upon it the principles of the two sciences just named; and their music began to grow and to produce, while among the Arabs it remained as it was. 'Counterpoint' is the science of melodies that agree with one another in a horizontal direction, while 'harmony' is the principles of combining voices vertically.

These two sciences are among the distinctions peculiar to music; there is nothing like them in the other arts. They help music to bind together the parts of a single piece and to make it consonant. As for the development of music and its flowering in Europe, it came at the hands of geniuses among the composers, some of whom we shall mention in coming issues.