The name is absent

Contemporary Music 145

preserved the quality of its material in accurate documentary
form by recording the songs on gramophone disks, which
are capable of catching and holding permanently the most
elusive of folk-lore characteristics, including small varia-
tions in pitch, intensity, and quality of sound, for which
the cruder medium of our ordinary written musical notation
is utterly inadequate.

In conclusion I would say that even if negro music is not
of purely American origin, nevertheless I believe it will
prove to be an effective factor in the founding of an Amer-
ican school of music. At all events, may this national
American music of yours embody a great deal of the rich and
diverting rhythm of your jazz, a great deal of the emo-
tional expression in your blues, and a great deal of the
sentiment and spirit characteristic of your popular melo-
dies and songs, worthily deriving from, and in turn con-
tributing to, a noble national heritage in music.

Maurice Ravel.

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