As this Second Edition is printed from moulds, no alteration of or
addition to the text of the First Edition has been possible. I should
have liked to expand one or two of the essays at various points and to
revise them at others. There is always something new to be said, for
example, about programme music, while any article on a living subject,
such as that on Strauss, is bound to contain many things that are not
so apposite now as when they were first written. But even these may
have a value as pictures of a bygone state of things; and in this way
such matter as that relating to the earlier attitude of the critics
and the public towards Strauss may be of some historical interest.
The Strauss article obviously needs bringing up to date. But even if
that were done, the new article would in turn be behind the times in
another year or two; while the reader will find a further discussion
of Strauss, and a consideration of the trend of his art since the
_Symphonia Domestica_, in my little book on him in the series of
"Living Masters of Music." The Appendix to the present volume is wholly
new.