siders Pelléas et Mélisande a score of which "nine-tenths is dreary monotony," whereas Louis Laloy is stirred to reverence by contemplation of its beauty. Jean Marnold and H. T. Finck do not agree about Carmen, and W. J. Henderson and James Huneker hold opposing opinions regarding the merits of Strauss's Don Quixote.
There are critics who accept Wagner whole: Rienzi, Lohengrin, Ring, and Parsifal; others find nothing to enjoy or praise in certain of his works and even discover tiresome passages in Die Walküre. Some critics profess to admire folksongs and folksong influences; others do not. Many otherwise estimable men have been found who are willing to subscribe to an everlasting veneration for the music of Liszt, a fancy, even, for the compositions of Rubinstein. I have read in several newspapers and at least one magazine that Horatio Parker's Mona was a valuable contribution to our national art. It is possible. When we are informed that Percy Grainger is a greater composer than Debussy we may be interested, if we are interested in the manner of the telling, but we are not obliged to accept the statement as literally true.
To be sure, the acknowledgment is pretty general that Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart were great composers, but some critics insist that the musicians who imitate the forms and styles of
