older lions roared and shook their manes because I had spoken disrespectfully of chamber music, which thus suffered along with the equator. Perhaps. However, a certain salutary disrespect for the snobbery of string quartet fanatics survived . . . also along with the equator.
It is not necessary, gracious reader, that you should agree with the critic. You will satisfy no longing in the heart of the animal if you do agree with him, unless he be made of base metal. It will require only a little reading on your part to convince you that the critics themselves, especially the best and most interesting critics, do not agree. There exist no standards, it would seem, by which music can be assessed and judged with any degree of finality. Lawrence Gilman gives us plenty of evidence on this point,[1] if any were needed. He reminds us that John F. Runciman viewed Parsifal with a contemptuous eye, calling the music "decrepit stuff," "the last sad quaverings of a beloved friend," while Ernest Newman describes it as "in many ways the most wonderful and impressive thing ever done in music." Vernon Blackburn regarded Elgar's Dream of Gerontius as the finest musical work since Wagner, but George Moore dismisses it briefly as "holy water in a German beer-barrel." H. E. Krehbiel con-
- ↑ In a paper called, Taste in Music, which appeared in The Musical Quarterly, January, 1917.
