Mr. Herbert Antcliffe is well-known to readers of this and other journals as a thoughtful writer on matters concerning our art. He has recently put forth a collection of his periodical essays under the title of Short Studies in the Nature of Music. He opens with six short essays dealing directly with the title, and follows them up with longer papers on Programme Music, the Symphonic Poem, ȘMusic as an Educational Force, History and Music, and Religious Emotion and Music On all these subjects Mr. Antcliffe says a good deal well worth saying, with a simplicity and clearness of style that are too often lacking in musical literature. The cause of music in this country has suffered from a lack of books written for the plain average man who makes up the bulk of our concert audiencesȔbooks free from gush, affectation, and pedantry. Mr. Antcliffe does exactly what his Preface tells us he sets out to do, To suggest some lines of thought for the average thinking person who is interested in the subject.
ȔThe Musical Times, Volume 61

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From the PREFACE:

THE Origin and Nature of Music are subjects upon which most scientists and all sentimentalists have their own theories. The following essays attempt neither to teach the one nor to guide the other, but merely to suggest some lines of thought for the average thinking person who is interested in the subject. Most of them have passed the primary test of editorial scrutiny, others have been delivered as lectures to audiences, alike learned and unlearned, in many different places in England and Ireland, some of the original papers being modified as the result of discussions following the publicity so afforded.
The longer ones have generally appeared as several distinct articles, sometimes in journals of widely differing scope. To the Editors of the Musical Quarterly, Musical Times (that severe critic, but genial and unvarying friend, the late Dr. W. G. McNaught), New Music Review, Educational Times, British Review, Musical News and Musical Opinion, an acknowledgment is due for their kind permission to reprint.
While the essays claim to be unified by their endeavor to discover or state one or other aspect of the Nature of Music, of its essential qualities, its constituent materials and the methods in which such materials are employed, each essay is complete in itself. This has involved a certain amount of overlapping, which, however, has been avoided so far as is agreeable with a complete statement of the theory or fact set forth.