The Evening Star SATURDAY, JULY 15, 1922. THE TREND OF MUSIC.

Evening Star, Issue 18021, 15 July 1922, Page 4

The Evening Star SATURDAY, JULY 15, 1922. THE TREND OF MUSIC.

Sthemtous efforts ai'O teing made in Sydney to prevent the disbandment of the New South Wales State Orchestra. Under M. Henri Verbrugghen it acliieved a size and a solidarity and a standard of playing which promised well for its permanence. It was an adjunct of the University Goneervatorium of Music, and, not being as self-supporting as had been hoped, it received a State subsidy. But retrenchment is the order of the day in all the Australian State Government, and if so important a help to the basic rural industries of New South Wales as the Weather Bureau had to have its services seriously curtailed, there was not much hope for continuance of money from the public purse for purposes of artistic and intellectual culture of the public mind. Those who had the fortune to listen to the lecturettes with which M. Yerbruggheu used; to preface his chamber music concerts would appreciate his disapproval of any euch retrograde step. So far as his personal interests are concerned, he appears to have bettered his fortunes in America. But, though he gave the impression of being an excellent man of business as well as a fine musician, those who know his enthusiasm and his ideals will feel sure that his disappointment will be intense if his work is not carried on. He turned over practically virgin ground in New South Wales, found that it was most fertile, and almost as soon as production had begun there arose the disheartening prospect of the ground going out of cultivation, and the general experience is that neglected land lying fallow is prolific of weeds. The experiment of reconstructing the orchestra under M. Khalski will bo watebedi with interest. The announcement of its conversion into a “symphony orchestra” suggests, if it suggests anything, that its personnel will be reduced. Except from the aspect of the discarded players, this should not be any great hardship, nor should it result in lessened artistic effects being obtained or in a poorer class of music being presented. There were times when one could not avoid the impression that the Verbrugghen Orchestra was a trifle unwieldy. It was framed on a scale which would have permitted it to tackle the recent class of composition which demands huge orchestras producing orgies of sound. Eichard Strauss, one of those chiefly responsible for the enlargement of the orchestra required for the playing of Beethoven’s works—not only by the increase of the number of players of the standard instruments usually scored for, but by the introduction of new types of instrument—has been accused of “a predilection for making - a tremendous din to cover the crude sentimentality of his temperament.” Thus in the demi-monde of music we see the equivalent of the now orchestra in the jazz band. Fortunately there seems to be a reaction against the cacophony of Strauss. Modern critics profess to see a movement, in which Stravinsky is a pioneer, for a return to something like the simplicity of Beethoven, and even of Mozart. There was a time when such names ns those just mentioned were banned from English programmes. It was done in tho name of patriotism—in our opinion a very impetuous, if not a very blind and idiotic, perversion of patriotism. It was done here also, and it lasted longer hero than in Britain. It greatly restricted tho scope of choice of tho programme compiler, led to the repetition of many second-rate compositions until they became hackneyed, and brought into undeserved prominence a few foreign composers. And all tho time the English composers, who had long 'been looking for recognition, and to whom real patriotism would surely have turned, remained neglected, being quite overshadowed by rivals whose nationality enabled them to be classed ns “ our brave Allies.” To this craze there is already a reaction also. Miss Eesina Buckman reminded us of it a week or two ago in an interview which appeared in our columns. She spoke of the fine work now being accomplished by English composers. She convinced us of it by singing us seme of their songs, and by including one at least of Purcell's songs eha hinted that a line of very payable reef could bo traced down through several centuries. And this holds good in instrumental as well as in vocal music. Furthermore it applies to interpreters as well as creators of music. The English—may one say the British?—are not an unmusical people, either as listeners, performers, or composer’s. But they have been participants in or victims of a species of musi ■cal snobbery which fawned on the foreigner and ignored native talent for too much,