MUSICAL PROGRESS

Dominion, Volume 25, Issue 293, 6 September 1932, Page 7

MUSICAL PROGRESS

England Now Holding Her Own LECTURE BY MR. JENNER As music advanced, it tended to become more and more the profession of the specialist musicians and of their expression, and though it was developing marvellously as an art in their hands, it was undoubtedly ceasing to belong to the people, said Mr. Ernest Jenner, A.R.A.M., of the Training College staff, in a lecture-recital, the first of a series, given before members of the W.E.A. on Saturday evening. The people, said Mr. Jenner, were robbed of the desire to make their own music and certain clever but com-mercially-minded musicians wrote for the people a debased, unworthy music that was not a genuine expression of anything. Having thus ceased to express themselves in music, the people were out of sympathy with the work of the creative artist-musician, and that meant not only that the contemporary musician was out of touch with the "folk,” as it were, which was almost inevitable, but it was sad to find That the present-day public did not appreciate the art-music of Bach, and Brahms and Caesar Franck. Folk Music. Mr. Jenner traced the development of folk music in Britain, giving details of the earlier composers and playing interesting examples of their work. He considered it quite remarkable that such highly finished design could be the product of an untrained people. When dealing with the Scottish folk songs, Mr. Jenner observed that in the example he had chosen there was not a commonplace interval in the whole song, and he felt sure that if the present public could only lie given healthy music of that kind as their daily fare they would develop taste and repudiate the trashy type of music that was so popular. The wealth of fine melodies that Ireland possessed was referred to, and in selecting the Donegal lullaby, “Sleep, My Babe,”, as an example, the lecturer stated that he had purposely chosen a song which was less familiar because he felt that in music people on the whole were not venturesome enough. The Hebridean folk songs were so beautiful and so numerous that it was difficult to choose an example, and the speaker believed there were no folk songs in the whole world that could compare in beauty with those of the Hebrides. Mr. Jenner went on to deal with the child of folk music, British art-music, and pointed out that it was fostered tenderly by the Church. The church musicians of the Saxon days, in addition to using plain melodic work, experimented with the earliest known forms of harmony, movement in octaves, 4ths and sths, a form of music known as “diaphony” or “organum.” This improved little by little, other intervals replacing the cruder ones, so that by the time of King John a freer form of harmonisation known as “descant” was being tried. A New Era. . Mr. Jenner referred to the setback which music received in England dur-

Ing the Revolution and the Commonwealth period through the burning of cathedral organs and disbanding of church choirs, and showed how the Restoration ushered in a new era in British music. He dealt with the work of the great composer, Purcell, who was essentially English, and explained that when England came under the domination of the great German Handel, a period of decline in British music followed. Some admirable keyboard pieces were nevertheless written from time to time, and Mr. Jenner bridged this period from about 1720 to 1850 by playing the following compositions:— “The Brook,” by Henry Holcombe; “Gavotte,” by Dr. Arne; “Minuet,” by Dr. Hayes; and “Nocturne” in A, by Field. “Since the time of Sterndale Bennet,” concluded the lecturer, “there has been a glorious renaissance of British music. It began with Parry, McKenzie, Stanford,. Sullivan and German, continued with Elgar and Bantock, arid is now in the hands of Vaughan Williams, J. Ireland, Frank Bridge, Holst, Delius, Bax, Goossens, York Bowen, Dale. Shaw, Gibbs, and the very young and promising Constant Lambert. ‘Some of these men hold a very high place on the Continent as well as in England, for their music is wide in its appeal, and all are doing flue work fqr the cause of British music, so that it can truly be said that England is now holding her own again, no matter to what depths she had sunk in the dull Victorian period.” Mr. Jenner concluded - his illustrations by playing a group of charming compositions—Parry’s “Bogies and Sprites”; Bax’s “Nereid”; Frank Bridge’s “Columbine”; and Bowen’s “Toccata.” He was accorded a hearty vote of thanks for a delightful aud instructive evening. Next Saturday night he will deal with "The Music of France.”