The whole idea of the book is to enable this untrained music-lover to understand the music that he is accustomed to hear. There is nothing 'antiquaruan' anywhere in the book, since it is based entirely upon such type of music as we of to-day actually enjoy in Concerts and Recitals, or at Church, or at home from our Gramophones or Pianos, and such as we ourselves sing or play if we are ourselves singers or players. This book is, then, an attempt to 'tidy-up' the mind of the music-lover. The main part of each volume is that in large type. The thought of this runs on continuously, showing, under a division into periods, the evolution out of lesser things of ever bigger (and often greater) ones. Interpolated are notices in smaller type of LEADING COMPOSERS OF THE PERIOD. Under this heading short notices are given of the lives and work of typical composers of each of the periods discussed.