Prophecy of War

Fredrick A. Stock, conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, made a startling diagnosis of the condition of music in Europe. Mr. Stock's visit to the older world was partly in quest of new compositions--as is usually the case with a symphony orchestra director who wanders in other lands.

" The state of musical composition in Europe indicates the approach of another general war," Mr. Stock opined. The music grows wilder and more hysterical, with a frenzy of new disharmonies, new sensations. It is an increasingly mad and neurotic development in the most fluent and sensitive of the arts. Mr. Stock related this phenomenon in music to the general artistic and social case of nerves and brain fever to be observed everywhere, the insane quest for excitement and thrills, barbarous dances. In music this disturbance of the spirit is reflected the most vividly. From such a state of mind comes war.