Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION The necessity of getting out a second edition of this book two years after the publication of the first is a gratifying proof to me that the thoughts expressed therein did not fall upon unfruitful soil, although nothing was done for their dissemination. The present edition differs from the first, primarily in being more carefully finished in style, and furthermore in a greater precision, to obtain which some wordy passages have been struck out and some supplementary ones have been added. No reader of this edition will suffer under the false impression that I consider the further development of the symphony impossible and speak a good word for programme music only. It is incomprehensible to me how any one could have read this idea into the first edition. There have been complaints, also, that I have overlooked composers. Especially in Paris, where the little book has become known through the translation made by Madame Chevillard, has this criticism been raised against me. Although more names are spoken of here than before, still there are of course many deserving artists who are not mentioned. My book is not a catalogue, and no one should expect to find in it just what he would in the latter. Finally, the question is often put to me with nolittle wit, why I, after writing this book, should have composed two symphonies, and what was my aim in doing this. I will take the trouble here to answer this query with corresponding wit. Aim had I none. Both symphonies were written simply because they came to me. Felix Weingartner. Munich, December, 1900. chapter{Section 4THE SYMPHONY SINCE BEETHOVEN If in wandering through some Alpine valley, while we were standing awestruck before a colossal mountain, whose snow-crowned peak rose shimmering ...