The young Ford Madox Ford-then Ford Hermann Hueffer-seemed destined to be a musician. His father, Francis Hueffer, was a renowned musicologist and music critic and a fervent Wagnerian.1 His sister was a Wagnerian singer with some recognition.2 Ford started his artistic career by composing music. Even though he eventually devoted himself to writing, the inuence of music is very much present throughout his literary work. Ford’s early novels have been said to be musical in their extensive use of assonances and, more specically, Wagnerian in their sometimes-heavy use of leitmotifs.3 However, musical inuences in the Parade’s End tetralogy, which is usually considered Ford’s achievement in maturity, are richer and subtler. I shall explore the presence of musicality in Parade’s End4 and show how, whilst drawing inspiration from nineteenth-century music in an apparently traditional and somewhat expected manner, Ford’s writing enacts a transition towards modernist writing.