because it is universally felt.  More than speech, if its primitive element of emotionality be omitted, more than the primitive language of gesture, music is a natural mode of expression.  All three forms have attained their present stage of development through conventions.  Articulate speech has led in the development; gesture once occupied a high plane (in the pantomimic dance of the ancients) but has now retrograded; music, supreme at the outset, then neglected, is but now pushing forward into the place which its nature entitles it to occupy.  When we conceive of an art-work composed of such elements, and foregoing the adventitious helps which may accrue to it from conventional idioms based on association of ideas, we have before us the concept of Absolute music, whose content, like that of every noble artistic composition, be it of tones or forms or colors or thoughts expressed in words, is that high ideal of goodness, truthfulness, and beauty for which all lofty imaginations strive.  Such artworks are the instrumental compositions in the classic forms; such, too, may be said to be the high type of idealized “Programme” music, which, like the “Pastoral” symphony of Beethoven, is designed to awaken emotions like those awakened by the contemplation of things, but does not attempt to depict the things themselves.  Having mentioned Programme music I must, of course, try to tell what it is; but the exposition must be preceded by an explanation of a kind of music which, because of its chastity, is set down as the finest form of absolute music.  This is Chamber music.

[Sidenote:  Chamber music.]

[Sidenote:  History of the term.]

[Sidenote:  Haydn a servant.]

In a broad sense, but one not employed in modern definition, Chamber music is all music not designed for performance in the church or theatre. (Out-of-door music cannot be considered among these artistic forms of aristocratic descent.) Once, and indeed at the time of its invention, the term meant music designed especially for the delectation of the most eminent patrons of the art—­the kings and nobles whose love for it gave it maintenance and encouragement.  This is implied by the term itself, which has the same etymology wherever the form of music is cultivated.  In Italian it is Musica da Camera; in French, Musique de Chambre; in German, Kammermusik.  All the terms have a common root.  The Greek [Greek:  kamara] signified an arch, a vaulted room, or a covered wagon.  In the time of the Frankish kings the word was applied to the room in the royal palace in which the monarch’s private property was kept, and in which he looked after his private affairs.  When royalty took up the cultivation of music it was as a private, not as a court, function, and the concerts given for the entertainment of the royal family took place in the king’s chamber, or private room.  The musicians were nothing more nor less than servants