MI CONTRA FA: The Immoralisings of a Machiavellian Musician

MI CONTRA FA: The Immoralisings of a Machiavellian Musician

To my honoured and revered friend
Professor Dennis Saurat

Entête:

"Consider well your neighbour, what an imbecile he is. Then ask yourself whether it be worth while paying any attention to what he thinks of you.... were the day twice as long as it is, a man might find it diverting to probe down into that unsatisfactory fellow-creature and try to reach some common root of feeling other than those physiological needs which we share with every beast of earth. Diverting; hardly profitable. It would be like looking for a flea in a haystack or a joke in the Bible- they can perhaps be found; at the expense of how much trouble!"
"Therefore the sage will go his way, prepared to find himself growing ever more and more out of sympathy with vulgar trends of opinion, for such is the inevitable development of thoughtful and self-respecting minds. he scorns to make proselytes among his fellows: they are not worth it. He has better things to do. While others nurse their griefs he nurses his joy. He endeavours to find himself at no matter what cost, and to be true to that self when found, a worthy occupation for a lifetime."

- Norman Douglas: Alone

"Mi confra Fa est Diabolus in Musica" (Mediæval monastic prohibition of the use of the Tritone.)