MUSICAL COMPOSITION

THE TREATMENT OF VOICES 141is made intelligible to the hearer; and that if, evenfor one moment, he obliterates a sentence of it by overloadinghis instrumentation, the sense is lost, thethread breaks, and his illustration is automaticallydeprived of the only possible clue to its meaning. Itis &.s though a woodcut in a book were printed over,instead of opposite to, the text to which it refers. Hemust not trust to the words being printed in the programme.They should be so printed, but not asexcuses for the composer's concealment of them, or forthe singer's faulty declamation or enunciation. Theyare only to enable a listener to see the gist of thewhole poem which is to be sung, and to follow withease the various moods which it interprets.The best practice in the art of writing accompanimentsto both these types is to arrange folk-songs.The colour and sense of every verse must be grasped,and any advisable variations both of harmonies and offigures must conform to them; and as in setting themsimplicity is the main consideration, and complexity isonly tolerable when it is peremptorily called for bythe poetry, the principle of economy of material willbe more thoroughly driven home.But there is, on the other hand, no need to beirritatingly antiquarian in dealing with folk-songs. Anarranger need no more follow the sixteenth or seventeenthcentury than the eighteenth or nineteenth ~n hisformulas. The musi cian of early times set them inthe spirit of his own day, as best suited it, and mosteasily appealed to his contemporaries. A latter-daycomposer can express th9 spirit of his own time withoutspoiling the flavour' of his theme. The melodiesof such songs are for all time, their settings must vary