THOUGHTS ABOUT MUSIC

Evening Star, Issue 21934, 22 January 1935, Page 3

THOUGHTS ABOUT MUSIC

[By L.D.A.]

“ Music sue* tone to th» universe: »injr» to the mind: flight to the iia agination : a charm to seances; gaiety and lifa to everything.’’—Plato. Since my arrival in London I have heard an immense quantity and variety of music, both vocal and instrumental, some of it extremely beautiful, but quite a large part ot' it, I regret to say, exactly the reverse. For years before leaving New Zealand I Imre expressed on every possible occasion my antipathy to extreme modernism in music, and I used to be told by misguided enthusiasts for this kind of musical aberration, that when, if ever, I went to Europe my ideas upon the subject would undergo a radical change. One man said to me: “ It’s of no use for you to set yourself against the inevitable—this music, which you profess to dislike, is going to be the music of the future.” My reply to him, I believe, I have recorded previously in this column, but I think it will bear repetition. I said: “If I caused to be deposited at your garden gate a lorry load of manure, and you protested, I might say to you: ‘ It’s of no use for you to say you don’t like this aroma, because 1 assure you it’s going to be the smell of the future.’ ” Fie had no answer to this argument, except to say that he failed to see any analogy.

« * .• « The constant hearing of the so-called “ music of the future ” has not in any way inured my ears to the onslaught of cacophony, though I have to admit that many modern composers show marvellous ingenuity and talent, which, if directed into what I call legitimate channels, would surely yield a plentiful harvest. Some of Dr Arnold Bax’s work is extremely striking and original; in fact, of all contemporary British composers I am inclined to place him an easy first. 1 did not care for his compositions at a first hearing, and possibly what I did hear to begin with was not representative of his best work, but since then my admiration for him has increased by leaps and bounds. However, it is not the purpose of this article to discuss the merits of any particular composer so much as to deal with the question of what actually constitutes beauty in music, for 1 have always insisted that beauty is essential to "music in its truest sense. « * * » Many centuries ago Plato wrote the following:— Must it bo then only with our posts that wo shall desire they create for us the image of a noble morality? Or shall we not also keep guard over all other workers for the people and forbid them to make what is ill-cus-tomed, unrestrained, and ungentle and without order or shape, either in likenesses of living things or in buildings or in any other thing whatsoever that is made for the people? And shall we not rather, seek for workers who can track the inner nature of all that may be sweetly schemed, so that the young may be profited by everything that, in work iairly wrought, may touch them either through hearing or sight?

So runs a passage from Plato’s ‘ Republic,’ and it may be quoted here as .-.landing partly for the impressiveness of a voice uttering eternal truth out of the far distant past, but more, 1 think, for the sake of the truth itself, which is as vital at the present moment as when this antique sage penned his thoughts. In much the same vein is an extract from a lecture by Ruskin, delivered at Oxford in 1870. He said: — Now the first necessity fojr the doing of any great work in ideal art is the looking upon all foulness with horror, as a contemptible and a dreadful enemy. This opens up for us the great question of limitations, neglect of which has caused so many disasters in music as well as in other forms of art. But the points we have to consider are simply these: First, Plato said; “All work should be beautiful”; second, Ruskin preached that all workers should avoid whatever is inconsistent with beauty. At a glance it would appear that these two propositions mean the same thing, but acute readers will see that, though they touch each other, they are not in every respect / equivalent. What is actually meant by _beauty i in music? The obvious answer is that it should be regular in form—which does not by any means imply formality—restrained in expression within the limits imposed by the general law of art, pleasing alike to ear and mind, and elevating in tendency. I am quite aware that all musicians will not agree with this programme, particularly in regard to the last clause. **. * * An example might be cited of Wagner’s music to ‘ Tristan and Isolde. What music could be more divinely beautiful than the prelude to this famous work? Some judges have even gone so far as to assert that this prelude is the finest piece of music ever conceived in the mind of man. But can it be called truly elevating in tendency? The answer to this, of course, depends entirely on the quality of mind that hears it, and it certainly raises much too complicated an issue to be profitably discussed in this column. But whatever this prelude is or is not, it is certainly beautiful music, even though it might not answer to the definition of musical beauty once given by a famous bishop. He said ; “ Music elevates my spirits, tranquillises my thoughts, delights my car, recreates my mind, thus fitting me not only for the business of life, but filling my heart with pure and noble thoughts, so that when the music sounds the sweetest in my ears truth commonly flows the clearest into my mind. Hence it is that I find my soul is become more harmonious by being accustomed so much to harmony and so averse to all manners of discord that the least jarring sound, either in notes or words, seems very harsh and unpleasant to me.”

It is hardly possible to dissent from the bishop’s dicta as regards the highest form of music—that which we call pure or abstract music—wherein composers have no excuse and no warrant for any kind or degree of ugliness. That some have perpetrated ugliness within this sphere is an unfortunate fact, and they may be classed as men in w'hom eccentricity of expression is cultivated more as a pose, as a means of attracting attention. In the realm of chamber music, for instance, instead of the clearness, charm, and refinement which the great classical masters have taught us to expect, we are often called upon to suffer a kind of coarseness and musical vulgarity consisting largely in extravagant emphasis, redundant utterance and obscurity of sense. This kind of work yields no satisfaction, either to player or listener. T know that musicians as a body do not agree with me, but in this class of music I place Debussy’s G Minpr String Quar-

tet, which although written in strict form, according to its composer’s peculiar idiom, is to my mind one of the most unsatisfactory works by an acknowledged master ever penned.

One might ask, Why do modern composers (and Debussy must be considered as the forerunner of modern music) persist with their deviations from the canons of true musical art? It appears to me that the only answer is to be found in their lack of real creative power. Jt is not to be denied that many modern composers are masters of every technical resource; they have the power to express the mightiest musical thoughts imaginable-in a word, they have at their fingertips all the means for almost any end, and it is a great pity that the musical results are only too frequently out of all proportion to the machinery employed. I cannot describe the processes of some modern music more aptly than by likening it to the travail of a mountain which brings forth a mouse. Must of the ugliness in present-day music arises from the inability of composers to envisage music’s limitations. In their own proper sphere the faculties of music are boundless, but directly this noble art is degraded to the level of mere imitation, such as we frequently hear in so-called “ Programme Music,” we find ourselves on very contentious, not to say dangerous, ground. For once yon open the door to this kind of thing the audacity of the innovator immediately becomes untrammelled. T could write a good deal more on this subject, such ns upon the apnlicntion of the audacious mind towards the delineation of primitive and savage instincts, frequently to he heard in some forms of jaz.7., hut having stressed this side of musical turpitude on former occasions I am inclined to walk warily. I have only touched on the frings of the subject and shall return to it in a future article.