The Music of Hindostan c17.167

c17.167

¹ A string quartet, for instance, which may be taken as our highest achievement in absolute music, still finds its final justification in the fact that the instruments individually or collectively ‘sing’, that is, are employed upon phrases which are thoroughly ‘vocal’ in all but the grace of words. Modern composers seem increasingly to ignore this fundamental of their art and to forget to ‘sing’. If they will not take warning by the fate of Spohr’s saccharine harmonies and of Berlioz’s evasion of the main issue, they can expect no immortality.