When the elements of Unity and Variety are sensibly matched, evenly balanced, the form is good.
On the other hand, a composition is formless, or faulty in form, when the component parts are jumbled together without regard to proportion and relation.
Which of these two conditions is the more desirable, or necessary, would seem to be wholly self-evident.
The error made by pedantic teachers is to demand _too much_ Form; to insist that a piece of music shall be a model of arithmetical adjustment.

This is probably a graver error than apparent formlessness.

Design and logic and unity there must surely be; but any _obtrusive_ evidence of mathematical calculation must degrade music to the level of a mere handicraft.
* * * * * * Another and higher significance involved in the idea of Form, that goes to prove how indispensable it may be in truly good music, rests upon the opposition of Form to the material.
There are two essentially different classes of music lovers:--the one class takes delight in the mere sound and jingle of the music; not looking for any higher purpose than this, they content themselves with the purely sensuous enjoyment that the sound material affords.

To such listeners, a comparatively meaningless succession of tones and chords is sufficiently enjoyable, so long as each separate particle, each beat or measure, is euphonious in itself.

The other class, more discriminating in its tastes, looks beneath this iridescent surface and strives to fathom the underlying _purpose_ of it all; not content with the testimony of the ear alone, such hearers enlist the higher, nobler powers of Reason, and no amount of pleasant sounds could compensate them for the absence of well-ordered parts and their logical justification.
This second class is made up of those listeners who recognize in music an embodiment of artistic aims, an object of serious and refined enjoyment _that appeals to the emotions through the intelligence_,--not a plaything for the senses alone; and who believe that all music that would in this sense be truly artistic, must exhibit "Form" as the end, and "Material" only as a means to this end.
* * * * * * Still another, and possibly the strongest argument of all for the necessity of form in music, is derived from reflection upon the peculiarly vague and intangible nature of its art-material--tone, sound.