MUSICAL EDUCATION.

Evening Post, Volume LXXV, Issue 28, 3 February 1908, Page 2

MUSICAL EDUCATION.

TO THB EDITOR. Sir, — Mr. Cohen's speech on musical education, as reported iv the proceedings of the University Senate on Friday last, was, as might hayo been expected, a veiy able piece of 'special ploading. I feel keenly my own lack of .ability to break a lance successfully with ed skilled a master of dialectics as Mr. Cohen, but I cannot allow seme of his statements to pas-s without such comment and pro-, tes< as J, am able to offer in reply. Ltt rue Bay at the outset that I am not one of thoso, if there are any such, whore views (I quote Mr. Cohen) are 'tinged with a selfish but not unnatural desiro for self-preservation." lam not opposed to the idea, of a consorvatoiium (why not school, or college, or academy of music — names whioh Buflice for the great teaching institutions of England ?), but my own conviction is that the proposal is premature, and that, for tho prescut, public money would bo more wisely spent in training the children in our Echools to siug properly, or v (as Mr. Barnett suggested at tho recent conference) in subsidising a permanent orchestra under a competent conductor, to give performances of standard musical works throughout the Dominion These two things, or either of them, would accomplish more than half-u-dozon music schools in tha matter of "illuminating the public, and creating an "atmosphere' for tho art of, music. Air. Cohen. rrtay not have .meant all that he said or implied, but in a creat deal of his speech there aeems to lurk a thinh-t veiled contempt for all the good and earnest work for musk— using the word music in its wmest sense—which has been done throufjncufc ISow Zonland for the' last 20 or 30 yoaw. When ho says that taste has not improved since his boyhood he makes a rather omel reflection on tho work ol n\e.n. *nd women who have grown grey m the. Eeryice of the art, and it is a, reflection which is no/ borne out by facts Mr, Cohen supports his statement by ■ wwrog that some fine artists who have visited New Zealand have been poorly patronised. This is undeniably true in a few cases, but it is .capable of quite a different explanation; and on tho other side must bo set the fact— a fact n,«™ ? lfcclv . greater importance "in our .national musical hfe-that in thousand. „/?"" tho rou™ of Bach and Mozart and Beethoven, of Schubort and Schumann h« f /eßfc/ eBfc Of tho g lori °"* company, has found an entrance, is gradually but surely making it, way aut f is as surely driving out tho rubbish which hold almost cXn's 1 Sod, 1110 **" *" ° f Mr ' training of future teachers a point of the thS TT V ° r J* nce> and > see ™ imply that no adequate training is at present possible in Now Zealand, that, in fact our^ teaching r standard to-day Is deffi Iv/r Vw Thei ' BCCar8 CCarn r be no doubt hfttsHtnjS, U « mrso . of T Btu dy in such institutions as those jn London or Leipzig Z«ZV V - ad T' rablc thinar for those who aje entering the profession. But, I vennrV? n?t,! ay -^ afc *!? e f, 0 are >. Wellington and other cities of the Dominion, scores ot young teachers, locally trained, who u'jf;«i nn ° W ij W {?* * dmi ™We work: work winch could hardly be improved by any Bohßme o* musical education : work I m i a n y t D^ ' hl ? h year by y ear dra^s unstinted praise from the English musicians wnp visit us as examiners. And surely it is a childish thing to complain in these early days of the fe%vn PES of candidates SL .mu3lcai. mu3lca i degrees in our infant uniOxford and Cambridge, with their enormous prestige, and their annual output of hundreds of graduates in arts, the numoer of Bachelors of Musio oreated each year is extremely small. I think I may safely say that 'in tho combined universities there are not a dozen. [ Did time and space allow I should like lo comment on other points in Mr. Cohens speech, but I will now only briefly refer to his gibe at our recent conference of musicians. I think that it no had been present at its meetings ho would generously admit that good work (not all of it in our own selfish interests) was done at that couferencework aa good and important in its humble way a3 that of the august body which, by way of relaxation from its graver duties, now seeks to teach musicians their business. Why, may I as k narenthetically, should not musicians be qqually anxious to instruct other workers -^lawyers, doctors, parsons— in the ethics ot their various professions. The whole situation is fertile in humorous suggestion, and there I will for th B present leave- it, lest, having begun seriously I should seem to end flippantly.— I am etc., ' ROBERT PARKER. Wellington, 3rd Fobruary, 1908.