Music) "present music not as an isolated phenomenon or the
work of a few outstanding composers, but as an art developing
in constant association with every form of human culture and
activity". This has been our third aim, and in pursuing it we
have tried, by giving what we hope is sufficient relevant
information of a general nature, to set the stage, as it were, for
each successive scene and (to continue the analogy) by out-
lining the principal characters involved (religion, painting,
literature, etc.), to show in what ways and to what extent they
influenced or were influenced by music.

This attempt to present music as an integral part of western
civilization is essential, we believe, because all creative artists
are influenced by the spiritual and intellectual environment in
which they live, and so it follows that the more we know about
a particular period the more we can enter into the creative
minds of that period and hence appreciate more fully their
aims and achievements. This may appear, and indeed is,
obvious enough, but it is all too often forgotten, because each
of us can enjoy and even be profoundly moved by a work of art
knowing little or nothing about its creator or general back-
ground. Nevertheless, it remains true that every creative artist
gains in significance when his work is related to the conditions
in which it was created, whether he be someone whose name is
a household word, like Mozart, or a comparatively obscure
mediaeval composer, like Pérotin. Thus, knowing something
of the rationalism, the sophisticated sentimentality, the
polished elegance of society in the latter half of the eighteenth
century, of the delicate sensuousness and exquisite refinement
of Watteau's and Boucher's paintings, we marvel more than if
we knew nothing of all this, not so much at the utter perfection
of Mozart's style and sense of structure as at the undercurrents
of emotion that pervade his work and which at times amount
almost to romantic passion.

Compared to Mozart, Pérotin gains in significance to a
much greater extent when we know something about his
background because the time at which he lived and the style
in which he wrote have far fewer points of contact for us today
than is the case with the eighteenth century. At first hearing,
his music may well sound bare, monotonous, and meaningless,
but when it is realized that the systematization and reiteration
of rhythmic patterns, which are the main features of Pérotin's

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