In this country we are rich in the quantity of songs rather than in the
quality. The singer has to go through hundreds of compositions before he
finds one that really says something. Commercialism overwhelms our
composers. They approach their work with the question, "Will this go?"
The spirit in which a work is conceived is that in which it will be
executed. Inspired by the purse rather than the soul, the mercenary side
fairly screams in many of the works put out by every-day American
publishers. This does not mean that a song should be queer or ugly to be
novel or immortal. It means that the sincerity of the art worker must
permeate it as naturally as the green leaves break through the dead
branches in springtime. Of the vast number of new American composers,
there are hardly more than a dozen who seem to approach their work in
the proper spirit of artistic reverence.