ENGLAND'S LACK OF MUSIC.

Press, Volume LVII, Issue 17294, 4 November 1921, Page 7

ENGLAND'S LACK OF MUSIC.

RESOURCE TO INTELLECTUAL LIFE. COMRADESHIP AND CO-OPE RATION. (FROU OTTO OWK CORKESPONDKNT.) LONDON, Sept. 20. Sir H. Hadow did not confine himself to the letter of his presidential address on "The Place of Music in a Liberal Education," at the Edinburgh session of the British Association, but he gave a free rendering, which his listeners found much more piquant in many, respects. He amused his hearers with a string of anecdotes and he relieved his mind of much pungent sarcasm touching "popular" music. Ninety per cent, of the stuff written on music paper, he said, could not claim to be considered as music at all. Beyond that point they liad to go through a good deal of second-rate music before they got to that which was higU-class. He related how on his way north he stayed one night at an, hotel, and during dinner four "malefactors" came in and, with violins, 'cello, and piano, proceeded to give what was nothing but inarticulate gibberish. VLaughteri) It was as if four people from a. home for mental defectives had sought to engage • in conversation. (Laughter.) Another personal experience was when he was at Doirnam University. A, friend and he undertook to arrange for a social evening. In looking after the musical portion he wrote to the conductor of a very good Newcastle band which went about the country, and asked him to send, if it was disengaged for that evening, a suggested programme. When it came it was an insult to him—(laughter)— so he wrote back a very strong letter. The conductor replied that he did not know that high-class music had been wanted. (Laughter.) Fancy, when strawberries were ordered, such a remark beinor made as "we did not know you wanted good ones." (Laughter.) How Music should lie Bead. Music, ho said, should bo recognised in the formal education of school and college; it should be given a place in the curriculum and full recognition in the examination system. The study of a. great composer might be made of as much educational value as that of a great poet. On the other side, the qualities of abstract thinking and of mental construction implied in the study of musical form are closely analagous to those of our natural sciences, and might well be made of the same educational value. It should be quite possible to draw up a for musio, which would fit into the existing schemes of school and college work, and which would neither encourage faddists, nor excuse idlers, nor produce that lamentable class of people, not yet quite extinct, who talk emotionally <ibout musio without any understanding. There should be a groat improvement in the place of musjc in libraries. Every public library in the country and, if possible, every school and university library, should contain a musical department which included not only the standard classical compositions, but the first-rate books on musical aesthetics and criticism. There were a great many more of such books tuan was commonly supposed. "At present an allusion to musio in average society would tend to cut the conversation down to the roots; y.alf the company would feel nervous and uncomfortable, naif apprehensive of a dull or pontifical lecture. It ought to be.just as possible for people to be well read in musio and interested in communicating their ideas about it as .they are at present in ordinary civilised) society over questions of literature or the representative arts. The ordinary educated man ought to be trained to read music. The script, thought it is not always very rational, is not unduly difficult, and its mastery unlocks the door of a new literature. A very many of us have only rare ana infrequent opportunities of hearing the best musio. We have no means of refreshing our memories between recurrent performances, and we therefore lose a great deal of the effect which they ? reduce. If we learn to read (by which do not mean to sing or play at. sight, but to read silently ( as ono reads a play, or a novel) we have added another valuable resource to our intellectual life. | "And as a corollary to all these, we all of us need to simplify our altitude towards music. One result, which follows from the uncertainty of its position, is that it has not yet found its proper bearings. People, who have any musical gifts, are a little inclined unduly to stress them, because they have a misgiving that their neighbours do not rate music sufficiently high. The outside world, which would be very glad to understand more about music, but regards it as a kind of hieroglyphic or sacerdotal secret, which the profane may not penetrate, is", equally reticent because it is afraid to put fqrward an opinion in the presence of the expert. We want really to pool our knowledge, to concentrate our interests, to develop on this side, as we have on so many others, a sense of comradeship and co- ■ operation, and this can only.' be done if we are all made free of the company] if our musical education is such that we can meet each other as frankly and openly in this field as educated men are accustomed to do in the discussion of science or poetry. And this_ we can only do if music is enfranchised in our educational system, if it takes its assured place in the community and is invested with the full rights of intellectual citizenship." Not a Bare Gift. It was generally thought fnat music was a rare gift, given only to a few, Baid Mr Plunket. Greene, but that was not so. Investigations and experiments had proved that every boy and firl had music in them, but that sense ecame atrophied from want of use. It was given more to some than to others, but they knew from experiment and investigation that every normal child had music in him and a voice to sing with. Music in this country had suffered from the inevitable, aftermath of the Italian period, but in the last generation there had been a great change. Nowadays the educated singer had a working knowledge of s other languages besides his own, and, above all things, he had a repertoire, and was able to make his programmes works of art to a certain degree. But we still allowed him to befoul and j bedraggle our beautiful language with terrible and horrible foreign solecisms and mal-pronunciations. Music gave an outlet for the most beautiful things in the world; and it was a divine healer. If shell-shodr cases could be got to sing they were half-way to recovery. He cited the case of a man who could make only two sounds, but who, when someone sang the first line of '"Eipperary," went on with the song. He had taken many parties to sin ° in hospitals, where patients. suffering from aphasy. men sunk in a dead stiioor, men holding on to life and reason only bv a nurse's hand, cheered when they heard music, and s ana- choruses. If these men could sing, musio must be hidden in everybody. ; He contended that there was a hunger for music everywhere in the country. Workmen's cottages had their gramaphones, factories had their choruses and bands, and the best voices in the country came from'the Welsh miners. (Musio was no respecter of persons and swept away all social barriers. Music moved in great waves, and we were now, he thought, on the crest of the wave. Progress, however, sjpis d education-

alists. Musio iad worked out its , own salvation in bliood and tears. Mr H. Dyke Acland (Falmouth) said that musio hadl extraordinary effect on children.. It greatly improved their discipline. Thpy became more tractable and easier to teach. Musical competitions had an important effect in the cultivation of <iharacter. Lady Carlaw Martin asked if there waa any place for the gramophone in educations Sir Henry Hadow replied that, there was not only a place for it, bnt it was being used, many education authorities laying them in for that purpose. He said that although lie had a personal dislike to the sound of the gramopnone, no doubt they would be further improved until the sandpaper quality was erased. (Laughter.) But, impartially, he admitted it had a place, especially in rural districts.