JOYOUS MUSIC.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 47, 24 February 1923, Page 25

JOYOUS MUSIC.

A NOTE ON SULLIVAN. ,By l-YRAXO.) onrl experience sometimes rt«i conjunct-one. One holiday **T satin the cabin of a launch *•» to two violins playing good \<i i """ e a had 'V "flapper" among the *■**". a'ked if they could play t*-' ifn f Tlicv could no..' T had never! ■**!• of "Ohio,- but putting the ■"' •■ and the name of the song to"f J T deduced the quality, and 1 was P'rarised "hen I hoard it* exotic °°' frame over the water a few day* dr,ff from a rowing boat. Both the W< rion of the sonir on the launch and » itself brought to mind a de'l b article that 1 had recently read accomplished and much-travelled * fi&ufrice Baring, on Gilbert and wrote, "when Gilbert and Sul-j * and 'The Beggar's Opera' were re- ] "% to hear real English musir ouce i > T ot the slosh of ballad concerts, ""the iangle and rattle of ragtime ana Tnodeni revue?, with their grating tillietang and twang, thoir esasperathesitations and their alien languor. to, tie music of the Knglish nell: wo He so g»y> s0 debonair, so beautiful. fonder if the "flapper" who asked for l<o , knows one tune from the Gilbert vi Sullivan operas. Mr Baring quotes an accomplished who was librarian of the Xlse of Lords, as saying that the .■•test Enfflifh composer England had S* since the days of Pum-ll wu Artliur Sullivan, not t,1(? Sullivan of The Golden Legend." but the Sullivan of "Pinafore" and "Ruddigore," and •Jut most of our modern composers ronratfed with him were but the grammiriins of music. Mr. Baring holds itet Sullivan carried on the true tradi,joo of Knglish music. -'Tlie melodies in Sullivan's comic operas are as English If those older tunes; that is to say, as English as a picture by Constable, a Irric of Shakespeare, as English as eggs aid bacon. - ' A few months after Mr. Biring wrote his article, a Mr. Hamilton Hartv, who is a Manchester authority" on music, also said that Sullivan was the greatest English composer since Purcell. ud i controversy arose over the Htimste. The chorus director of the Halle concerts in Manchester, speaking on 'Mnsic and its Influence on the Festival of Christmas/ said he agreed with Mr. Harty, it being obvious that Mr. luty meant that no English composer since Purcell had got so much of the English character into his music ac Sulliiaj. Xow comes along the "London ITercnry" with an article on Purcell, in thiol we are informed that ever since 1876 the Purcell Society has been publishing Purcell's works, that twenty-two Totames have been issued, that ten renin to be published, and that the aiterprise is still hampered by lack of rapport. I blush to confess that I know only one bit of Purcell music, and I dare ay there are plenty of music lovers In m more creditable position.

Yon may remember that Sherlock Mm remarked to Watson that be Iflad German music because it was introfjwtive. If there is one thing that Sullim is not, it is introspective. The Gemsna are supreme in the greater Ms of music, and probably we shall ma challenge them. The qualities Mr.

Barmg and others claim for Sullivan are melody freehneee. refinement, sweetness lyrical beauty and joyousnes. His tunes come up from the orchestra or across the room fr om the gramophone with something of the fresh beauty and fragrance of an English garden. Row pure and refreshing they are after the exotic scents that popular taste is so fond of casting on the surfeited air! These" American tunes and musical comedy numbers give the impression of a tired joy, of pleasure taken in cabarets and music-halls, of a jaded palate, and a base mind. Sullivan's joyous music is ike a clear bubbling spring. "There was little." said the Manchester musician quoted above, "that was exhilarating and cheerlul in modern music. If much music of the young French and English schools were played in a household at nnstmas, it would be more likely to lead to murder than cheerfulness * Tf one wanted to create an atmosphere, of peace and goodwill Sullivan's music was exactly the thing." This i<, well said. There is need of periodical protests against the idea that art should necessarily be gloomy or heavy. Let us have our meed of joy. Serious people says Mr. Baring, "are always prone to despise a goldfish because it is gold and looks pretty, and they are sometimes inclined to patronise tunes if they are gay, light and joyous. Anything in art that is ponderous, serious, complicated and unintelligible is at once respected, but if a tune is gay and easy, a poem rhythmical and well" rhymed, "a picture pleasantly coloured, with a subject that is perfectly plain, so that if it represents a field, the field looks like a held, and not like the forty-second proposition of Euclid, the serious aro inclined to look at it askance Some people will never forgive Sullivan for being popular, and never admit that a tune which can be as infectious as smallpox in a slum should be taken seriously." I listened the other night to The Gondoliers" on a gramophone, and the extraordinary joyousness of SalJivan'a music came over like a wave. Then one of us will be a Queen, and sit on a golden throne"—what amazing life and verve in the music, what innocent, unadulterated joy!

The immortal partnership was more than a partnership; it was a chemical combination; and arguing that Gilbert or Sullivan had the more to do with the resultant success is rather like contending that the H2 or the O is the more important constituent of water. Gilbert's, however, is, I think, the greater fame. He has given the adjective "Gilbertian"' to the language. Possibly Sullivan will be the greater gainer in fame as the years pass. A celebrated modern author expressed the opinion to Mr. Baring at a performance of "lolanthe" that' the most permanent and enduring achievement of the Victorian age would be these operas, and Mr. Baring thinks that in times to come people will talk of the age of Gilbert and Sullivan as they now talk of the age of Pericles.

This would be very distressing to certain superior people" if they lived to hear it. Aβ for the young people who sing "Ohio" and "Kies Mc 'Neath the Soft Hawaiian Moon" (or words to that effect), they don't worry about the matter either, way.