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 ture on Browning. Reflecting in this manner, my enthusiasm mounted: surely no need to stop with Aida and La Forza del Destino.

The mere announcement, however, that operatic works of art were to be so tampered with would arouse the New York Times to such a condemnatory editorial that else only a threatened encroachment on Central Park could provoke, and yet, on second thought, I realized that this idea of Oscar Hammerstein's was not entirely new. He crystallized it into an advertisable slogan, gave it the power to create discussion, but he did not create it. Scarcely any work of art which requires interpretation, play, symphony, or violin concerto, is ever performed exactly as it was written, and I think it may be safely stated categorically that an opera never is.

Most conductors have found it expedient to modify orchestral masterpieces. I am inclined to believe that all of them have. Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven did not write for the modern orchestra, and when their music is performed under modern conditions doubtless some liberties should be taken with the text. As a matter of fact, it usually is. The weak orchestration of Chopin's piano concertos has been reinforced by many pens. If some one with courage does not inaugurate a similar mode of pro-