MUSIC AND WORLD CRISIS

Greymouth Evening Star, 12 August 1932, Page 10

MUSIC AND WORLD CRISIS

A PtAYER’S EStIMATB

What is file depression doirig for thusic 9 While opera, houses. threaten to close and hundreds of musicians are out of work, it might seem that the condition of music is far , from healthy. But .this, is ; .not the yiew of the famous flautist, Georges Barrere< expressed in ‘'Tlid Musical Courier (NeW.. York). .. jT r. ’.. ■- This tall, dark-haired gentleman, transplanted from ..France, was for years sold flautist witli the New Yoik Symphony Orchestra., r . Since : the cons.olidation of that organisation with the Philharmonic,. Mr. .Barrere has conducted ifie,. Syrhpliony. .in concert arid broadcastipg programincs. Instead of dying; “music is emerging from the feverish ‘progress’ of the past, decade,”. aricL we .rife “on the musical.highway .jat last.” • ....-, lOs .- This so-called “progress,” according to Mr. Barrepe,-rested pn J'a crumbling foundation . which was- bound to collapse sooner or later because it was founded on the wrong kind of musical basis.” ... - ■ What .was that “basis”? . L < ' “Because great crowds flocked to our Concert-halls and opera Houses, bet cause our people. spent .hundreds of millions of dollars on music arid musi cal projects, we believed that we had arrived artistically. We took it for granted that mere- patronage of important 4 musical personages, of socially significant, orgamsatidns;... was the ear-mark of an enduring culture. “Well, we poured out millions to rear this great musical structure in our country when something went wrong iri our economic machinery. All at drice we discovered that music was considered a luxury-—of all things, a luxury. We had not truly wedded art to bur social .consciousness; we had attempted to graft—l speak musically—art on to our national organisin'. An the grafting process was not thoroughly successful. . . . “In our mad pursuit for culture we had thought that we could imitate the mass-production operations, of, our industrial leaders —that we . must ..publicise art into being. ■ So we adopted the methods of the mass productionists. We piled mountains of dollars into the process, and a countless host- dt magnificent pfeople. We assumed that wheri we-had a million, or two persons flocking to musical events -and a, vast army .of eager youngsters studying for the profession of music, we.were travelling in the right direction. We have mistaken patronage for culture. In our. mad race ; we forgot the .true sun of- the artistic uni, verse —the individual. We lavished so much attention on the mass we neglected the most vital unit, the individual.”

; .Without disparaging the impor-. : tance of the masses in music, or any art.,. Mr. Barrere reminds .us that there is “a normal conflict between the artist, .the individual, and the crowd.” “The vast size of our country, the enormous size of the audience awaiting the. artist here,, is a challenge tti tl)e artist’s integrity. He is always tempted to succumb to gain the instant approval of this gigantic body of .listeners. Our programmes are conceived to win the approval of the crowd,.and the pressure to surrender one’s individuality to this force is tremendous.

“Our artists, then, in concert, apd in this new medium of the radio, are in.. a. way r.cogs in the machinery of niass-enteritainment— mass-production as..applied to music. This system exalts the few ‘stars’ at the cost of the many .worthy artists.

“Unless the artist .is recognised as a great. ‘star,’ which . means that Jig has been, publicised by mass-produc-tion ..methods,, ltd is considered just another musician.

“Such a. system was all wrongs ; “I use the past, tense., because I believe that, we are definitely, through with .this type of musical exploitation. “After all, the political, the economic, the artistic view-points of any nation are all strangely interwoven and inter-related. Now, at last, ,w,e are beginning to understand the worth of the individual.

“Thousands of persons who werp attracted to the musical fold by the high-pressure spectacle of the old methods lidve been forsaking music during the past couple of years. Good music has again become an exclusive commodity, an expression of individualists who understand that glory and the dollar are only incidents in a musical career, not the sum total.

“Who can deny the commercialism which has been rampant, which has struck thousands of otir young people who were subject to the riierciless mass-production methods of destroying individuality? Our. new audiences will buy the concert tickets because they have the inclination, not simply because they have been stampeded into, imitating their neighbours. We inust not cultivate inusic as a fad but tis a living substaiice of our individual beings.”