GREAT MUSIC AND SAVAGE NOISES

Evening Star, Issue 23335, 3 August 1939, Page 17

GREAT MUSIC AND SAVAGE NOISES

ARCHBISHOP'S CONTRAST The Archbishop of Canterbury (Dr Lang) spoke at the final service of the London Music Festival held at Broadcasting House. He said: — “ Surely the festival must liavo stimulated tb‘o desire of all sorts of people for great music, for men must needs admire the best and highest when they hear it. They will be reluctant to descend again to the low levels of the trivial and vulgar. Doubt-

leas there will always be a place for the lighter music which attracts the ear and enlivens the heart, but there ought to be no place for the savage noises sometimes heard. They are a degradation. I might use a stronger term—a prostitution of music.” After referring to the manner in which the thoughts of those who listened to good music were raised to a world of order, harmony, and beauty, Dr Lang said; “Seldom, surely, has there been more need for such an escape of,the soul than now. Wo are oppressed by anxieties and fears and rumours of war. Doubtless

I some relief has come through the fixed resolve of this nation to make and to show itself ready for whatever may come, hut a sense of uncertainty about the future remains. It haunts us—and it haunts not least the young. I have been impressed by the crowds of young people who have been thronging Queen’s Hall, and 1 cannot help thinking how glad they must *havn been that, for a time, music helped them to forget it. To all of us music can bring this welcome escape to a world of harmony and Inanity where the discords of this lower world of strife are unknown.”