But leaving all these questions of a past hour, she would put the axe where George Washington did not put it--at the root of the tree--near enough also, she would remark, to leave no stump, and so at once place politics upon a new basis by taking the governing power away from the gentlemen, God bless them!
England and America have long been classed among the unmusical countries of the world, and for good reasons. Their history so far records the names of no composers of a high rank; and although in both countries there are plenty of amateurs and minor musicians who fully appreciate the best there is in the art, yet the people as a whole are not influenced by it in the same way as the Germans and the Italians, to whose hungry souls music is as necessary as is oxygen to their lungs. If we adopt the good old-fashioned classification of instrumental and vocal pieces into "music for the feet," or dance music, "music for the ear," or drawing-room music, "and music for the head and heart," or classical music, we are forced to admit that so far only the first of these classes has found general favor with our masses. Waltzes, quick-steps, galops, quadrilles, are the daily food of our people, and there are thousands of pianos scattered throughout the country which are never used for any other purpose than to play this dance music, which occupies about the same place in relation to the higher forms of music as dancing on the stage does to artistic acting. Next comes the somewhat more elevated branch of drawing-room or _salon_ music, which in the cities and towns is very largely cultivated. It is typified by the popular "Maiden's Prayer," and also includes the more sensational of the French and Italian opera melodies with all their vocal pyrotechnics, as well as the pianoforte fantasias on these same melodies--in short, all music written with a view to giving the performer an opportunity of displaying facility of execution rather than genuine feeling.
It is only in our centres of culture, the largest of our cities, that sufficient interest is taken in the highest products of musical genius to call into life and to support respectable orchestras and choruses; and even in these centres of culture there is no excess of devotion, as is perhaps best shown by the great rarity of amateur string quartettes, those most intellectual and most enjoyable of all musical clubs, whose sphere is classical chamber music, the direct opposite in most respects of the drawing-room music just spoken of. How different all this is from the state of affairs in Germany, where every town of ten thousand inhabitants has its well-managed opera-house and its various kinds of musical clubs for public and private amusement! The difference may best be realized by reading Wagner's admirable little essay, _Ueber Deutsches Musikwesen_, republished in the first volume of his collected works.