While teaching at the Conservatoire Nationale de Musique in Paris Fetis extended the student curriculum by lecturing on wider musical topics. He also produced a music textbook for the general public at this time with the title La musique mise a la portee de tout le monde (1830). The book enjoyed a very wide circulation, was translated into most European languages and became the first influential treatise on -musical appreciation- in the wider sense of the term. The first English version, enlarged by ten per cent, of this important book is reproduced here.