Note 4 — BANTOCK
Reading edition
It is intended to point out here that the composer has realized that a piece of elaborate orchestral programme-music is as authentic and legitimate a fusion of literary and musical modes of expression as is the song, the opera, or the oratorio; that a full knowledge of its subject-matter is as essential in the one case as in the others, and as little to be satisfied, in most instances, by a knowledge of the title alone. Mr. Bantock has appreciated that certain things in his music were conceived in a particular way not primarily in obedience to a musical design, but as an expression of a definite mood or picture or idea; and that he owes it to his hearers not to set his music before them without giving them at the same time full and definite information as to what it is intended to express.