MUSICAL NOTES.

Auckland Star, Volume XIII, Issue 3644, 15 April 1882, Page 3 (Supplement)

MUSICAL NOTES.

[Specially iVmttbn fou the "Stab" by Processor F. 0. Caillimj.]

NO VI.—MUSICAL INSTRUCTION

IN TrjE COLONIES.

MUSIC is a subject of conversation that pleases everyone, and to which oue likes to return an often as possible. Everybody gives his opinion of the work* of the masters and seeks to define in his own way the sensations that they cause him to experience. Everyone, too, wishes to be right ; and. although we recogune that taste iv music is, like personal judgment, associated with such an infinitude of variations, as to be incapable of uniformity, we believe, nevertheless, that discussions on this matter, just as the most contradictory opinions, could be rendered less striking and less whimsical than they always are. The popularisation ot good music, and the execution of serious works, have already done a great deal for the correction of the taste of the public, but its musical education will not be complete, and the hearing of the masterworks of musical genius, will only be really profitable when it knows the history of the art that it conceives itself called upon to judge, aud upon which it wishes to manilest its desires. Of all the arts it is music that speaks the most spontaneously to tbe heart. Whether it is interpreted by the human voice, by tho bow of a Paganini, or by the lingers of a Liszt, it is it and it only that can subdue at tho lir.-t essay the feelings, aud cause a fountain ot unknown sensation*—of ecstaticcnjoyuients— to burst (orth, or which, with the change of the theme, can hush the spirit in awe aud niourutul uauquility. In writing these lines I have been recalled to a sense of the unfortunate fact, ouly too common indeed amongst us, that there is abroad a restlessness ttur. allures away tho representatives of rainic liom the task of extciuliug the knowledge of it. One may see there after all ouly ibo natural consequence of excess iv uuytuuig, but what is cveu less explicable is Unit which meets us every day, viz., the flagrant opposition that exists between tuo love that we p.ofcss for the hi eat masters —a love which, iv certain cases, becomes ,1 sort of futishiam - nnd our own incomplete musical education. In effect, to love passionately the art of which one makes a daily study,to possess now and then some inclination tor playing on au instrument, to know a portiou of the chis.-ical works from the time of Handel until that of Schumann aud yet not to be able in a simple prelude to pass without hesitation from one tone to auother, is an anomaly which is to be remarked in the cases of nine-tenths of the persona who owe to musifi their purest onjoynunts. Where are we to ascertain ihe cause of this state of disorder iv which music tiuds itself ? Would it not bo in the Blight encouragement that is given to the teaching of it, und that too not merely iv the Colonies, but in .England also ? Is not this tho reason too why so comparatively small a number of the leading musicians iv Great isritain arc natives of t In; country. London expends almost fabulous sums in order to obtain the services of instrumentalists and singers for her theatres und concerts, and these artistes are nearly nil foreigners, and yet this great city has never even dreamt of founding a JNational School of Music, ia which, as among certain Continental nations, numerous pupils are gratuitously lustiucteit iv all branches of the musical art —from,its very ABC to its most abstruse ke/mique and highest development. The enouios which, so far, are much more liberal aud progressive in all these thiugs than tiie mother couatry.luve unfortunately iv the matter uuder notice followed tOJClojely the example of the great metropolis. The question of instruction is of extreme importance, and this is not iv tho least diminished by the fact of the art in which instruction is needed being music. 1

The ancient Grceiuu^wlio understood and were skilled in the culture of morals^eaused music to be asnociated with their policy even,and had recourse to it for the purpose of exciting or discipliuing tho minds of the citizens.

Iv their epoch it stood foremost among the arts, whilst at present, by a strange revolution, it is scarcely to be included amongst them. Indeed, oue might almost say that it is only tolerated. Yet its character has not changed, and it has still the same influence upou people who cultivate it seriously. Italy is the principal modern power that has given a solid basis to this neglected art. She has been as the nurae who has guided its first steps. It is through this circumstance that all the terms which we use in music form a vocabulary bjlougiug to herself and comprehended by all nationp having the slightest prsteusion to any musical knowledge or taste. It was in Italy during the XVll.century that the lirat Conservatories of Music were founded. Those of Naples turned out numerous celebrated composers and Biugers, such as Scarlatti, Porporo, Durante.Leo.Perßolfcse, etc. After the Neapolitan conservatories came those of Venice, which were wholly consecrated to women, as those of Naples were to men. These institutions, as their name indicates, were designed ts propagate the art and to conserve it in all its purity. Civilised Governments, being fully nensible of the importance of having uniformity of weights and measures, established a. standard in platinum—tbat is to say as a prototype or original.which serves as a basis tor commerce. If legislators have acted thus it was because they knewwell enough that if they had left the matter for everyone to determine as he pleased, the result would not be to their satisfaction or reckoning, and that at the end of a certain time the true mOtre would have shrunk to a half metre. The Conservatories subserve the purposes of a standard, for it is in them that, under the eyes of masters whose skill and ability have been recognised by public opinion, other artistes are instructed, who, in their own turn, when experience has come to ripen their talents, undertake the control of establishments of the same kiad, or teach under the direction of artistes more skilled or experienced than, themselves, becoming very often even frea professors, but professors for all that, who carry with them the stamp of unalloyed art; for we know that the water which comes to us immediately from its source is always more limpid than that which has already traversed a certaiu distance of its course in the earth.