MUSICAL BACKWARDNESS OF ENGLAND

Evening Star, Issue 19776, 28 January 1928, Page 18

MUSICAL BACKWARDNESS OF ENGLAND

SIR T. BEECHAM’S CRITICISM At a meeting to further the objects of the newlv-founclecl Imperial League of Opera, held at the Queen’s Hal! recently, Sir Thomas Beechain said he had come to talk to them about the catastrophic state of music in their unhappy country. In every part of the world music flourished except in England. For five years before the war ho had an orchestra which was described as the finest in Europe, and every man in it was an Englishman. That was because they played daily, but there was no orchestm like that in England to-day. It was impossible to have perfect interpretation without constant rehearsal, and if that were true of orchestras it was still more so of opera. Opera simply did not exist in England as a living thing. Looking hack upon the post four seasons he could not recall one interesting production. nor one which had presented any unfamiliar or peculiarly interesting developments. It was three and a-half years since the leading English opera company had appeared in Central London. There was no country in Europe, except Turkey, which had a state of affairs equal to that. _ Every musical institution In the country was tottering, and the time had come for the country to decide whether it would shoulder the burden of carrying on its musical traditions. The league was not trying to build nr endow a theatre, hut simply to ensure for five years that opera should be carried on in the finest way possible. At the end of that time he hoped a really national and permanent scheme would be possible.