Music in wartime
Daily Chronicle
, May 1930.
GERMAN MUSIC AT ENGLISH CONCERTS.
To the Editor
Daily Chronicle.
Sir,—May I, as an earnest lover of music, raise a timid protest, though
your columns, against the decision of the Albert Hall authorities to exclude
German music entirely from their promenade concerts, and at the same time
express my fervent hope that their example will not be followed by Sir Henry
Wood and the Queen's Hall directors?
After all, we are at war with the brutal materialistic spirit of modern
Germany, not with that wonderful array of masters from Bach to Brahms, who
have made her past supremacy in music an incontestible fact. Besides, music,
more than any other art, ought, one would think, to be placed above the
bitterness of war and national hatreds. Both as a creative impulse and
development in the soul of the musician and in its aesthetic appeal to the
world at large, music is, save, of course, in its primitive stages, less
narrowly national than either the plastic arts or poetry. The poet thinks his
thoughts and writes them in his native tongue; and he is, more or less
consciously, the subjective mirror of the thoughts and manners of the society
in which he lives.The painter must needs go for his models to national type
whether in nature or human life. Only the musician as artist, is subject to no
limits of nationality in the formal expression of his art; and thus, the nature
of his inspriation being in a sense more abstract and wholly from within, he is
at once the most universal and subjective of artists. Dürer, and even the
cosmopolitan Goethe, are both more expressively German than Wagner, even though
the latter set himself to idealise and interpret old Teutonic myth. One of the
most enthusiastic Wagnerites I have ever met was a French litterateur, who
loathed Germany from the bottom of his soul, and found Goethe "trop
allemand."
But putting aside the logic of the case, I do not see how the suggested
"taboo" is likely to promote the interests of British music, as its
supporters maintain it will. By all means let us do without contemporary German
composers, who are for the most part mediocre, and, in the person of their
leader, Strauss, largely tainted with the unclean thing. But to try and elevate
British music by denying its votaries the advantages of what might well be
called a "classical education" in the art, seems to me to be neither
reason nor patriotism, but sheer fatuity.
CONRAD BONACINA.
St. Augustine's College, Ramsgate.
May 30, 1915.
Yorkshire Gazette
, 7th August, 1915.
WAR EFFECT ON ENGLISH MUSIC
Regarding the effect of war on English music, Dr. E. C. Bairstow, organist at
York Minster, is apparently not one of the optimists who declare that the
conflict will inspire English musicians to immortal compositions. In the
"Musical Herald" he despairs of England in the musical sense, and
asks despondently about the whole course of musical education in the country in
question: Cui bono? Our proverbial phlegm serves us well in all but music. Here
entire repression of emotion is fatal, though Dr. Bairstow admits that it is
just as fatal if emotion cannot be controlled and kept in hand. Nearly all the
enormous energy expended in musical education is, in his view, wasted through
being directed into one channel—the technical. A child learning the piano
is never told what music is for, and it goes on blindly studying scales and
pieces, fondly imagining that the ultimate end is to pass an idle hour or an
examination. The learner with a decided gift for composition has, under the
usual methods of teaching, all the poetry, freshness, charm and imagination
knocked out of him, and he emerges from much study a Doctor of Music, but able
only to write "in eight pure parts, meaningless mid-Victorian
meanderings." Dr. Bairstow declares that music must be discovered as an
art, and not be taught as a science. Technique must be a means to an end and
not an end in itself; and musicians must let themselves go—with discretion.
"MUSIC IN WAR TIME"
"Music in war time," is the motto of a committee which has been
formed to
stimulate musical activity in this country, and the proposal has received the
approval of Sir Alexander Mackenzie, Sir Hubert Parry, Sir Frederick Bridge,
Mr. Landon Ronald, and Professor Granville Bantock.
Two considerations have led to the formation of the scheme—first, that
professional musicians are in danger of losing their livelihood, and, secondly,
that amateur societies who employ professional singers and instrumentalists are
being compelled to curtail or abandon their programmes.
It is proposed, among other things, to organise concerts to provide employment,
and a fund has been started to finance operations. Mr. W. W. Cobbett, 52,
Circus-road, N.W., is acting hon. sec.
War-time Music.
An influential committee of musicians has been formed to consider the question
of music in war-time in so far as it affects
(1) the large body of professional musicians dependent upon their art for a
livelihood;
(2) the large body of amateurs to whom the continuance of music is an essential
element of life.
The committee purposes to take practical steps on the
following lines:
(1) It will form a register of competent artists requiring work and willing to
accept such fees as can be offered.
(2) It will collaborate with local societies anxious to continue their work,
but hampered by lack of funds or helpers. Such societies will be assisted by
helping them to secure the professional artists required, and by making grants
towards expenses.
(3) It will, if funds permit, undertake to arrange concerts in places where no
society is operative.
(4) It will collaborate as far as possible with organisations that are giving
free concerts for soldiers and refugees in camps.
Such a scheme, if worked upon practical lines, is destined to be of great
service to both professional musicians and concert-goers. It has the approval
of several well-known heads of the profession, and a strong executive committee
has been formed, which includes Dr. Walford Davies, Dr. Vaughan Williams, Mr.
H. C. Colles, and Mr. W. W. Cobbett (hon. sec.).
