Listening to classical music is an art. It requires close and accurate attention, sympathy, imagination and genuine culture. Listening to classical music is an art of high degree. Many derive exquisite enjoyment from it, for classical music is potent and universal in its appeal. To listen intelligently to classical music is an accomplishment few have acquired. Those who are fortunate enough to have been surrounded from childhood up by the choicest gems of the tonal language, and whose minds are of the deceptive order, will insensibly attain a refinement of taste and delicacy of perception no learned dissertation on classical music could afford. An acquaintance with form as the manifestation of law is essential to an intelligent hearing of classical music. The listener should have at least a rudimentary knowledge of classical musical construction from the simplest ballad to the most complex symphony. Having this knowledge it will be possible to receive undisturbed the impressions music has to give, and to distinguish the trivial and commonplace from the noble and beautiful. Classical music is far beyond words, and in attempting to translate it into these we miss its musical meaning, the best that is in it.

Even a well-cultivated ear and taste may often be baffled by the intricacies of a fugue, symphony or other great work of musical art heard for the first time.

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