The opportunity to become acquainted with the ideas of
some of the great masters of music gives one an insight into
their characters. Also, comments of lay observers are really il-
luminating. Reading these pages takes one into the green-
rooms of music history. We rub elbows with Socrates, Attila,
the Minnesingers, Castiglione, Shakespeare, Lessing and Jean
Jacques Rousseau. Gabrieli, Monteverdi, Bach, Handel, Haydn
and Mozart are quoted, now in an official, again in a private
capacity. One of the most touching documents is a letter of
Haydn about Mozart

"If I could imbue the mind and soul of every music
lover--and particularly those on high--with the same great
musical understanding and the profound feeling I have for
his inimitable works, the nations would vie with one another
for the possession of so precious a gem. Let Prague keep
the rare man but let it reward him, for, without this, the
history of a striving genius is a sad one, and gives little en-
couragement and incentive for further striving to posterity.
So many promising spirits are dejected for the want of it.
I am indignant that this one and only man has not been
engaged by some royal or imperial court."

The section on Beethoven gives an excellent picture of
music's greatest Titan. Selections from letters, the Heiligen-
stadt will, quotations from the Notebooks, the Conversation
books and comments by those who visited him--all are there,
together with Grillparzer's moving funeral oration. Nearly
a third of the book is devoted to the 19th century--a period
extremely rich in documentation, especially as literary elements
played an unusually important role in the music of the romantic
era. It is natural to find the names of Heine, Nietzsche and
Tolstoy here and to recognize the dual gifts of such men as
Schumann, Berlioz and Wagner who were almost as distin-
guished in literature as in music. Weltschmerz also begins in
earnest:

"My productions are the outcome of my understanding
and my pain" said Schubert. And "Life's burdens weigh down

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