GENIUS IN MUSICIANS

Evening Star, Issue 22938, 21 April 1938, Page 13

GENIUS IN MUSICIANS

MEN OF ADVANCED YEARS EUROPE'S OUTSTANDING TALENT Most men of genius, in music, show unmistakable signs of powers in their late thirties and early forties. The promise of their younger years begins to be fulfilled. At 40, Brahms, Wagner, Bach, Handel, Beethoven, and a host of others were pretty generally admitted to be great men. Schubert and Mozart never reached that age, but they flowered early. Conversely, if a composer has shown no evidences of being a genius by the time he’s 40, he is not likely to turn into one after that age. I have gone through my biographical dictionaries, and programmes, and who’s who, and whatnot, ana have collected a list of 44 living European composers who may be called distinguished, writes Deems Taylor, in ‘ Men and Music.’ I’m omitting the Americans for a reason that will be obvious later. Also, note that I say “ distinguished.” They are not all geniuses, but every one of them has written at least one work that has raised them above the level of mediocrity. The list may lack one or two names, but I think it fairly represents what Europe possesses to-day in the way of outstanding musical talent.

Some of the names of the best known, together with their ages in 1937, follow:—In Russia: Shostakovich is 31 years old, Mossoloif is 37, Prokofieff is 46, Stravinsky is 55, Miaskovsky is 56, and Rachmaninoff is 64. There are four other Russians on my list, their ages being 63, VI, 73, and 78. Now Germany: Erich Korngold, the youngest, is 40, Sohonberg is 63, Hans Pfitzner is 68, and Richard Strauss is 73. Two others are 42 and 66 respectively. France: Among the distinguished composers in France are Darius Milhand and Arthur Honegger, each of whom is 45, Ravel is 62, Florent Schmitt is 67, and Gustave Charpentier is 77. Three others are 38, 56, and 80. Now Great Britain: The youngest distinguished British composer is Eugene Goossens, who is 44. Arnold Bax is 54: Percy Grainger, who was Britishhorn, is 55, and Vaughan Williams is 65. Two others are 54 and 48 respectively.

In Italy we have Alfredo Casella, wh6 is 54 ; Malipiero, who is 55; Pizzetti, 57; Montemezzi, 62, and Mascagni, who is 74. Two others are 55 and 57 years old.

From Hungary come Kodaly, who is 55 years old, and Dohnanyi, wno is 60. Rumania gives us Enesco, who is 66. From Czechoslovakia comes Weinberger, who is 41; from Spain comes Do Falla, who is 61; and from Finland, Sibelius, who is 72. Just what does this list tell us? It tells us, for one thing, that among Europe’s 44 most distinguished living composers, just seven are under 45 years of age. Of these seven only three are under 40. Of the entire number only 10 are under 50 years of age. The burden of creative music in Europe to-day is being largely carried by men between the ages of 50 and 80 years. What does,this mean? You may say it is natural that the most famous musicians should be the men of more advanced years. Quite true. Blit discounting that fact, doesn’t it seem peculiar that the following seven men should be the only distinguished composers in Europe who are under 45 years of age? Their names are Shostakovich, Mossoloif, Korngold, Hindemith, Poulenc, Goossens, and Weinberger. Highly talented as these men are, I doubt whether contemporary opinion anywhere would rank them with Brahms or Strauss. Why aren’t there 50 distinguished composers under 45 years of age in Europe? Suppose we figure back. A musically talented boy who was 18 years old in ' the year 1914 would normally have been in a conservatory of music. • Today, at the age of 41, he would just be emerging into the most fruitful period of creative activity. But those boys weren’t in the conservatory in 1914. They were in the army. They were at the front, facing death. And most of them died. And the stronger, the healthier, the more alert and intelligent they were, the more certain they were of being taken into the army, and the surer they were of being killed. Not many 18-year-olds lived through those four years. Lawrence Stallings published a terrifying book of war photographs a year or so ago, called ‘ The First World War.’ But to me, the most sickening war pictures ever printed used to appear in tlie pages of the * Illustrated London News ’ and the ‘ Sketch ’ and the ‘ Graphic,’ between 1914 and 1918. They were portraits of young English officers who had been killed in action. . . page after page, week after week, year after year, of those slaughtered boys of 18 and 20. They were officers, of course. The dead private soldiers outnumbered them ten to one. England lost 900,000 in the war; France, Germany, and Italy last over 1.000. apiece: Russia lost nearly 3.000. Killed. Not casualties. Now do you think you know what became of a whole generation of potential composers, painters, poets, novelists, playwrights, architects, sculptors? Europe murdered them —a whole generation of them.