Yet I am well aware that this statement would be dismissed as either absurd or heretical, according to the point of view of the particular objector." Of Mendelssohn he said: "Mendelssohn professed to be an 'absolutist' in music.

As a matter of fact, he stands on the same ground that Liszt and Berlioz did; for almost everything he wrote, even to the smallest piano piece, he furnished with an explanatory title....

Formalist though he was, his work often exhibits eccentricities of form--as, for instance, in the Scotch Symphony, where, in the so-called 'exposition' of the first movement, he throws in an extra little theme that laps over his frame with a jaunty disregard of the rules that is delightful....

His technic of piano writing was perfect; compared with Beethoven's it was a revelation.

He never committed the fault of mere virtuoso writing, which is remarkable when we consider how strong a temptation there must have been to do so.