For the sake of clearness we will group music as follows: 

1.  Dance forms. 2.  Programme music. (Things.  Feelings.) 3.  The gathering together of dances in suites. 4.  The beginnings of design. 5.  The merging of the suite into the sonata.

The dance tunes I need hardly quote; they consist of a mere play of sound to keep the dancers in step, for which purpose any more or less agreeable rhythmical succession of sounds will serve.

If we take the next step in advance of instrumental music we come to the giving of meanings to these dances, and, as I have explained, these meanings will at first have reference to things; for instance, Couperin imitates an alarm clock; Rameau tries to make the music sound as if three hands were playing instead of two (Les trois mains); he imitates sighing (Les soupirs); the scolding voice; he even tries to express a mood musically (L’indifferente).  In Germany, these attempts to make instrumental music expressive of something beyond rhythmic time-keeping continued, and we find Carl Philip Emanuel Bach attempting to express light-hearted amiability (La complaisance) and even languor (Les tendres langueurs).  The suite, while it combined several dances in one general form, shows only a trace of design.  There was more design in one of the small programme pieces already quoted than in most of the suites of this period (see, for example, Loeilly’s “Suite").

Bach possessed instinctively the feeling for musical speech which seemed denied to his contemporaries whenever they had no actual story to guide their expression; and even in his dance music we find coherent musical sentences as, for instance, in the Courante in A.

In art our opinions must, in all cases, rest directly on the thing under consideration and not on what is written about it.  In my beliefs I am no respecter of the written word, that is to say, the mere fact that a statement is made by a well-known man, is printed in a well-known work, or is endorsed by many prominent names, means nothing to me if the thing itself is available for examination.  Without a thorough knowledge of music, including its history and development, and, above all, musical “sympathy,” individual criticism is, of course, valueless; at the same time the acquirement of this knowledge and sympathy is not difficult, and I hope that we may yet have a public in America that shall be capable of forming its own ideas, and not be influenced by tradition, criticism, or fashion.

We need to open our eyes and see for ourselves instead of trusting the direction of our steps to the guidance of others.  Even an opinion based on ignorance, frankly given, is of more value to art than a platitude gathered from some outside source.  If it is not a platitude but the echo of some fine thought, it only makes it worse, for it is not sincere, unless of course it is quoted understandingly.  We need