I need hardly say that these addresses have no claim to be regarded as lectures on Musical History. It is impossible with the time at command to do more than deal with certain isolated aspects of the Art and especially with those which are particularly open to controversy. I have not, for instance, said anything about Beethoven, not because there is at present no controversy about his work for I understand that there is a good deal, but because he has been so definitively treated in the famous chapter of Sir Hubert Parry's “Art of Music” that I do not see how we at the present time can have anything profitable to add. Nor have I dealt with the old controversy of Brahms and Wagner (which occupied the world so much in my younger days) because at the moment there has settled a sort of twilight on their names through which we do not see their lineaments very clearly. I believe myself that this is only a temporary obscuration and that they, or at any rate, the best of their work, will emerge all the better after it. We shall begin to see, for example, the importance of Wagner's design and the genuineness of Brahms' passion. But for the present, within my restricted limits, I would rather leave them on one side and proceed to discuss some aspects of contemporary music. I say again advisedly “some” for the field of survey is so enormous—much larger than it has ever been before—that I cannot hope to do more than take a few examples as illustrative of particular points.