Orpheus; or, The music of the future

ORPHEUS OR The Music of the Future
BY W. J. TURNER Author of “The Seven Days of the Sun,” etc.
New York E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 681 Fifth Avenue
Copyright, 1926 By E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
All Rights Reserved
Printed in the United States of America
ORPHEUS
The dullest books on literature are the books which begin with a history of the alphabet. A good history has its uses; however, this book is not a history but a phantasy or, if you like, a philosophy. For if it be a good phantasy it will be a good philosophy since all philosophy is phantasy, or the imagination of love.
Amor che muove il mondo e l’altre stelle
We know, however, that philosophy degenerates from that love which moves the spheres into that love of moving in the tracks of the spheres which is called the love of knowledge, and philosophers are commonly men who spend their lives describing the old tracks in which they are running, and teaching how you also may keep your feet in them. So, too, musician has come to mean a man who performs music—he plays over again Beethoven’s sonatas and Chopin’s studies;
partout il parcourit et parfournit
This performance of his is a tribute to our weakness and a sign of our imperfection, and, since we are weak and imperfect, is necessary; but I cannot state too clearly and decisively at the outset that music is not the playing or the hearing of symphonies and sonatas but the imagination of love.