Music, like its sister arts, is rediscovering the classical past and striking out along paths that are both familiar and new. Contemporary composers are once again tonalists, with memorable melodies, gorgeous harmonies and propulsive rhythms. They pay homage to tradition by engaging the forms and techniques of the canonical masterpieces, yet they do so selectively and imaginatively, moving beyond mere imitation. Above all, they reject the modernist definition of music as simply a structural entity, as nothing other than “the science or art of ordering tones or sounds in succession, in combination and in temporal relationships to produce a composition having unity and continuity” (Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary, 1974). Instead, they recapture an earlier understanding of the medium as “the art of combining sounds with a view to beauty of form and expression of emotion” (Concise Oxford Dictionary, first edition, 1911). This richer conception of music is the gateway to the future.