It is by no means intended to underrate technical proficiency.  No one can be a satisfactory exponent of music whose technique is deficient, however profound may be his musicianly understanding and feeling.  At the same time, with every tone, every measure, mechanically correct, a performance may fail to move the listener, because it lacks warmth and glow.  Only they can make others feel who feel themselves, but sentiment is apt to be confounded with sentimentality unless it is guided by a scholarly mind.  The more feeling is spiritualized with thought the nobler it will be.  Heart and head need to operate in company with well-controlled physical forces, in order that a fine interpretation of music may be attained.  Faultless technique, in the service of a lofty ideal, indeed ceases to be mechanical and becomes artistic.

A musical work of art originates in the deep well of the fertile imagination of genius, and can only be drawn forth when the composer is in that highly exalted frame of mind we call inspiration.  The theme, or musical subject, is a vital spark of the divine fire, and has flashed unbidden into his consciousness, demanding undivided attention for its logical development.  With infinite care he molds and groups the musical factors which are his working forces, and of which he has both an intuitive and a practical knowledge.  The manifold forms he fashions all combine for one purpose, and lead persistently to one grand climax, from which they may return to the repose whence they came.  Unity in diversity is the goal he sets before himself.  All aglow though he is with the joy of artistic production, he dare not permit his mind to waver from the task in hand.

Music is not to be played with, and the labor of composition is no trifling matter.  It demands the keenest mental activity, the most profound mental concentration.  It demands consecration.  The composer thinks and works in tones, in an ideal realm, far removed from the realities of the external world.  His business is to bring his theme to its most magnificent unfolding, treating it with absolute definiteness, that his intention may be perfectly clear.

It is the business of the interpreter of music to be so thoroughly acquainted with the elements of which music is composed that he can promptly recognize the color, complexion and individual character of every interval, chord and chord-combination, every consonance and dissonance, every timbre and nuance, and every degree of phrasing and rhythm.  He must have so complete a mastery of his materials and working forces that his imagination may be influenced unimpeded by the emanations from the composer’s imagination which animate the moving forms he commands.

It is his business to respond with his whole being to the appeal of the musical masterpiece he attempts to interpret, and so express the emotions aroused by it from their slumbers in his own bosom that a responsive echo may be found in the bosoms of the listeners.  A most ingeniously constructed music-box, with the presentation of a complicated piece of music, may fail to move a heart that will be stirred to its depths by a simple song, into which the singer’s whole soul has been thrown.