There was a vast crowd in the public grounds that night to hear the band play the “Fremersberg.”  This piece tells one of the old legends of the region; how a great noble of the Middle Ages got lost in the mountains, and wandered about with his dogs in a violent storm, until at last the faint tones of a monastery bell, calling the monks to a midnight service, caught his ear, and he followed the direction the sounds came from and was saved.  A beautiful air ran through the music, without ceasing, sometimes loud and strong, sometimes so soft that it could hardly be distinguished—­but it was always there; it swung grandly along through the shrill whistling of the storm-wind, the rattling patter of the rain, and the boom and crash of the thunder; it wound soft and low through the lesser sounds, the distant ones, such as the throbbing of the convent bell, the melodious winding of the hunter’s horn, the distressed bayings of his dogs, and the solemn chanting of the monks; it rose again, with a jubilant ring, and mingled itself with the country songs and dances of the peasants assembled in the convent hall to cheer up the rescued huntsman while he ate his supper.  The instruments imitated all these sounds with a marvelous exactness.  More than one man started to raise his umbrella when the storm burst forth and the sheets of mimic rain came driving by; it was hardly possible to keep from putting your hand to your hat when the fierce wind began to rage and shriek; and it was not possible to refrain from starting when those sudden and charmingly real thunder-crashes were let loose.

I suppose the “Fremersberg” is a very low-grade music; I know, indeed, that it must be low-grade music, because it delighted me, warmed me, moved me, stirred me, uplifted me, enraptured me, that I was full of cry all the time, and mad with enthusiasm.  My soul had never had such a scouring out since I was born.  The solemn and majestic chanting of the monks was not done by instruments, but by men’s voices; and it rose and fell, and rose again in that rich confusion of warring sounds, and pulsing bells, and the stately swing of that ever-present enchanting air, and it seemed to me that nothing but the very lowest of low-grade music could be so divinely beautiful.  The great crowd which the “Fremersberg” had called out was another evidence that it was low-grade music; for only the few are educated up to a point where high-grade music gives pleasure.  I have never heard enough classic music to be able to enjoy it.  I dislike the opera because I want to love it and can’t.

I suppose there are two kinds of music—­one kind which one feels, just as an oyster might, and another sort which requires a higher faculty, a faculty which must be assisted and developed by teaching.  Yet if base music gives certain of us wings, why should we want any other?  But we do.  We want it because the higher and better like it.  We want it without giving it the necessary time and trouble; so we climb into that upper tier, that dress-circle, by a lie; we pretend we like it.  I know several of that sort of people—­and I propose to be one of them myself when I get home with my fine European education.