Note 45 — OSCAR BIE (continued 2)

The engraving and printing of music was rare, even in the case of popular masters, till late in the eighteenth century. In most cases short and simple clavier pieces were copied privately. This method of spreading works about in our own time when printing has made everything democratic is not lost, but made aristocratic. When Wagner copies the Ninth Symphony, or when a scholar copies an old, unpublished work, we have an instance of the personal love of manual labour in a dilettante or scholar—the work of the hand in an age of machinery.—[Author’s Note.]