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Show WHAT WE CALL A SYMPHONY Merely a Series of Ordered Sounds Produced by Means of Instruments Instru-ments of Different Kinds. What we call a symphony is merely a series of ordered sounds produced by means of instruments of various kinds. It is sound and nothing else. Our program books tell us about "first themes" and "second themes," and we make what effort we can to patch together to-gether the various brilliant textures of symphonic music Into a coherent pattern pat-tern ; but the music we seek lies behind be-hind these outward manifestations, as, in a lesser sense, the significance of a great poem lies behind or beneath the actual words. A symphony is not a record of something else; it is not a picture of something else-, you cannot use the word "else" in connection with it because it is itself only. Any intelligent in-telligent person, on being shown a diagram dia-gram or plan of a symphonic movement, move-ment, could be made to understand how and why the material was so disposed dis-posed ; for that disposition is dictated to the composer by the nature of sound 8 ad by the limitatlins and capacities of human beings, and it conforms to certain principles which operate everywhere ev-erywhere ; but that understanding would not reveal the symphony to him. Thomas W. Surette, in the Atlantic. |