of the modernist tone poem, an excuse for producing hideous sounds, which politeness requires us to call cacophony.

Scriabin produces his cacophony by the use of a scale basis of his own invention. It is something like that of Debussy, only a little more eccentric. His work is all tone or musical color. To elucidate its meaning, he proposes to invent machines whereby his hearers may receive simultaneous sensible impressions of the metaphorical color and smell of music. The artistic principles so laboriously wrought out by Palestrina, Bach, and Beethoven now fade away before the tricks of the light-piano, the color-organ, and the smell-machine. Intelligence retires in the presence of sensuality. And still the composer cannot express himself, but must issue a long descriptive programme to tell his hearers what he means.

If we take Debussy as analogous to early post-impressionist painters, and Scriabin as analogous to the later ones, then we may class our next example, Arnold Schönberg, as analogous to the futurists. Debussy and Scriabin had each a definite scale basis, scales with some remote foundation in the nature of things. Schönberg employs the whole chromatic scale in one chord combination. He literally sits on the keyboard of his piano, and thereby produces his artistic cacophony! Yet Schönberg is not a member of the Stock Exchange playing a Saturday afternoon joke. He is a musician of European repute. He was born at Vienna in 1874. In 1901 he went to Berlin, acting first as kapellmeister in Wolzogen's "Buntem Theatre," and later as teacher of composition at the Sternschen Konservatorium. In 1903 he returned to Vienna. For seven years he worked successfully as a private teacher of composition. In 1910 he received an appointment for the same subject in the Imperial Academy of Music. Late in 1911, however, he returned to Berlin. In his book on harmony there is a passage which sums up not only his own life work, but the whole of the method of modernist art. He says: "The artist does nothing which other people hold to be beautiful. He simply does that which he himself feels that he must do."*

He speaks

Schönberg is an artist who has come to himself. only to the elect. There is a kind of silent outspokenness, whatever that may be, between him and his friends. But how may one become an illuminati? Be open and yielding. Throw aside everything to which you are accustomed, all principle, conviction, infal

*"Der kunstler tut nichts, was andere für schön halten, sondern nur, was ihm notwendig ist." Arnold Schönberg, von Karl Linke, etc., p. 22.

libility, nervousness. Put out the lights in the room and listen to yourself within. Then suddenly the light will flood your soul.

If Schönberg cannot express himself in sound, he expresses himself in paint. His hand is guided not by understanding, but by a strong inexplicable impulse, which overpowers the defenceless artist. He has only this feeling: "Something is happening to me. My hand is being led." When he has finished these pictures he calls them " Visions." 'Visions." I have two of them lying on my desk. One looks like an ape with the earache. The other, like Satan in delirium tremens. Such is the drama of the vast inwardness. Schönberg's music steers us with unerring aim into a great chaos. It takes us along paths which give no indication either of coming to an end or of going to anywhere. Tradition is the wall which bars entrance to the new cacophonious world. Tradition, the idol of a bygone day, must be shattered.

We are loth to follow this movement to its still lower depths. It would not be difficult to show its association with rag-time and the degenerated dances connected therewith. It is time to ask whether there be no way out of the mess. Is there no modern school which retains the traditions of the past, and yet is alive to the needs of the present and the future? Our English composers are very correct, as clear as twice two are four, and as barren. Our musical festivals have given birth to an endless number of useless oratorios and cantatas, Balaam, Beelzebub, Potiphar, and the like. But they are all so prim and uninteresting that they die quite young. Even Elgar, whom we would like to claim as the Newman of music, has foregone the promise of his Dream of Gerontius. We ask again: Is there no living composer who satisfies or at least assuages the modern demand for tone, color, and feeling without apostatizing from intellect? Is there no artist in musical sound who utters the claims of enhanced individuality without apostatizing from the collective judgment?

Such a prophet seems to stand among the French group of writers. We may be premature in speaking thus of Vincent d'Indy, but we think we see in him one who understands the aspirations of the time-spirit, one who is in constant communication with its every slighted movement, yet is thoroughly saturated with and enamored of tradition, who, in fine, is capable of speaking the ancient truth to the modern world.

D'Indy inherits his Bach-Beethoven tradition from his master, César Franck, who was born at Liège in 1822, and died in 1890.

Franck was a professor at the conservatory in Paris. He studied and employed every form of the musical art. He is best known, however, for his organ compositions, and for his oratorio Les Béatitudes. In Les Béatitudes he sustains the beauty of reason, clothed with feeling. The music is solid architectural design, and alive with mystic poetry. Franck suggests mystery, not by cacophony, but by silences. With the fact value there is a spirit value, and the silent periods following upon the spoken word give opportunity for reflection and inference.

Franck was alive and working when the Wagnerian crash came, and he was courageous enough to stand out against it. His was not an unreasonable complaint, but a protest founded on a thorough scientific knowledge of his art, and made effectual by his strong personality, and the moral authority which he exercised on his circle of friends.

Vincent d'Indy was born at Paris in 1851. With the exuberance of French youth, he thought he could make a short cut to the end without using the means, and wrote a grand opera without studying counterpoint and fugue. But just then he had the good fortune to fall under Franck's influence, and became his pupil at the conservatory. For several years he played the drums in the Colonne orchestra, and eventually acted as chorus master, all to gain experience. Out of the fullness of his knowledge he wrote three important works: Le Chant de Cloche, a dramatic legend; Fervaal, an opera in three acts, and L'Etranger, an opera in two acts, all characterized by extraordinary knowledge of technical combinations, and rich fecundity of color. The real genius of d'Indy shows itself in that with such a complete knowledge of orchestration based on practical experience, he yet depended chiefly on the resources of design for the production of color. His melody may even be called poor, but so intelligently is it manipulated that the simplest themes become gorgeous under his treatment. In studying M. d'Indy's work, we realize St. Thomas' requirement of claritas for the perfection of a work of art. Not the clearness of plain banalities of the two and two make four type, but the clearness of a great complexity of elements organized in harmonious unity.

That master critic, M. Romain Rolland writes of d'Indy: M. d'Indy eliminates very little: he organizes. He employs in his music the qualities of a commander: intelligence of aim and patient will-power to attain, a complete knowledge of the means at his disposal, a sense of order, and a mastery of himself and his work.

His

In spite of the variety of materials which he employs, the ensemble is always clear." Although d'Indy was born in Paris, yet his parents came from the mountains, and his delight has ever been to go to the mountains to breathe in the inspirations of nature. Poème des Montagnes (1881), his Symphonie sur un thème Montagnard français (1886), and his Jour d'été dans la montagne (1905) illustrate both his power to idealize scenes from nature, and the evolution of his form from the material to the spiritual. D'Indy is now engaged on a great oratorio, St. Christopher.

It is true d'Indy has many critics. He has not made the same splash as Debussy. His work is not so sensational, but it will certainly be more permanent. He is above all things an artist. But he is also a propagandist, as his connection with the Scuola Cantorum shows.

The Scuola Cantorum is a rival of the conservatory of Paris. It was founded by d'Indy, Charles Bordes, and A. Guilmant primarily for the reform of church music by a return to plain chant and Palestrina. To meet the problem of how to apply the restrictions of ecclesiastical usage to the enrichment of secular art, its founders turned for guidance to the musicians who had set things right after Monteverde's rebellion several centuries earlier-to Heinrich Schütz, and Giovanni Gabriele and the German and Italian composers of the seventeenth century who prepared the way for Bach. In 1900 d'Indy became head of the school, and at once set about enlarging its ideals and activities.

The principles of M. d'Indy and his school may be summed up as a strong faith in the classic traditions combined with a sane eclecticism; a summary, truly, of the notes of development as opposed to corruption. Strong faith in the classic tradition sounds the notes of continuity of principles, logical sequence and conservative action upon the past. Venture in a sane eclecticism sounds the notes of power of assimilation, anticipation of the future and chronic vigor. The leader of such a movement cares nothing for the glamor of public applause. He may well be content to await the steady growth which all history shows to be the condition of healthy life.

THE GENERAL CONVENTION OF THE PROTESTANT

EPISCOPAL CHURCH.

BY JOHN F. FENLON.

E are sometimes interesting for reasons we do not suspect. The recent General Convention of the Episcopal Church attracted an unusual degree of attention, if big headlines and generous notices in the papers had their accustomed effect. Many readers were won by a pure interest in religion; many others, under the inspiration of the press, cherished the devout hope of seeing a good fight. The public, which dearly loves to see the godly in a fight, was led to expect a battle royal between the Catholic and Protestant parties in the Episcopal Church. The convention met; the opposing parties debated, divided, skirmished, but they did not fight; there were no casualties; hardly anyone lost his temper; politeness, urbanity, reigned; excitement there was none. It was all a sad disappointment. And so the wearied public toward the close of October, turned for comfort to the New York campaign in the hope (which was realized) that it would bear little resemblance to a prayer meeting. The disciple of Mr. Chesterton will say they did not fight because they did not feel. It appears he will be mistaken. The truth is, we are told, that a clash was averted because the feeling was too intense, the havoc would be too great; just as modern nations avoid war, because the consequences would be too terrible. The battle is yet to be; it must be; although it may be fought out silently, on many a field, and the victory really won before the last clash on the floor of some future convention. In the meantime, although there was no great battle, there were several minor ones of significance; and much that was said and done at this convention is of interest to those who watch the fortunes of religion.

I.

Let us begin with the message of the constituted authorities of the Church. The bishops, reverting to the exercise of an ancient prerogative long fallen into disuse, issued a pastoral letter at