MUSICAL COMPOSITION

76 MUSICAL COMPOSITIONand intangible entity, it can create its own forms andvary them more completely than they can. But onerule is common to them all j no matter how free thedesign, the proportions must be preserved if the workis to make any sensible appeal to human intelligence.A new form in music may require study and frequenthearing to understand it, but if it is logical andfounded on a thorough knowledge and control ofmeans,~time will endorse it. Such modifications grow(like folk-songs in Hungary) and are not made. Tohave any value at all they must in their nature bechildren of their fathers. The laws of evolution applyas rigidly to musical art as they do to nature itself.It is not necessary to go out of the way to seek fornovelty of design any more than for novelty of expression.No two faces are exactly alike, although theears, eyes, nose and mouth are in the same relativepO'3ition. To paint a face with two noses or four earswould not suggest novelty of form, but only theimbecility of the artist. Polyphemus, with his oneeye in the centre of his forehead, will always be agrotesque monstrosity. In the treatment of form, asin the control of invention, the only path to originalityis through sincerity of expression on the lines ofnatural beauty. The moment originality is forced,extravagance, exaggeration and bizarrerie become inevitable.The history of musical form, then, is a history ofevolution, and in order to master it, the student mustevolve it for himself in miniature on the same linesthat it has been evolved through the last threecenturies: beginning with short dance forms, andgradually expanding his ideas into longer movements,