Contemporary Music 137
Such laws in the course of years may become those of a
school, of pupils, or imitators, or of followers, but when-
ever a real artist appears, he evolves from his own con-
sciousness new laws peculiar to himself. Incidentally, I
should like to remark that musicians who are true alike to
their national consciousness and to their own individuality
often appreciate compositions altogether different from
their own, but a Germanized French musician or a Galli-
cized musician of Germany will have a tendency to fail in
understanding the musical works of others—the hybrid fail-
ing to recognize other personalities because of the loss of its
own individuality. If we should now consider our lawful por-
tion of inheritance from other musicians, the evident value
of such a heritage, and the eventual danger of plagiarism,
I should place on the legitimate side exchanges in emotional
expression, the influence of experimental or incomplete
compositions, which may be absorbed or assimilated with-
out loss either of individual or of national conscious-
ness; while, on the opposite side, I would put all efforts,
either through imitation or plagiarism, to conceal absence
or weakness of personality. It may sometimes be extremely
difficult to decide these questions with respect to a particular
work, but here again, the keen perception of the artist is
the only dependable guide. Perhaps one of the most curious
cases of exchanges of influence is that of Herold, Weber,
and Rossini; these three composers were strongly influenced
in turn by a common characteristic of their respective works
—namely, their romanticism; but each of the three held
these interchanges of influence subservient to his own respec-
tive national consciousness. It was French romantic music
that Herold wrote, Rossini’s romanticism was obviously
Italian, while Weber remained to the end a German roman-
ticist. Such influences enlarge the horizon of the aspiring