MUSIC ARCHITECTURE

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 276, 20 October 1938, Page 13

MUSIC ARCHITECTURE

EXAMINER’S LECTURE RECITAL, UNUSUAL PIANOFORTE PEAT. Improvisation of a prelude in fugue—one of the most difficult pieces of music because its intricacies are interwoven like a tapestry—from a theme and key supplied by his audience, was a remarkable achievement performed, last evening, by Dr Edgar Ford, examiner for the Trinity College of Music, London, when he gave a lecture-recital in the P.D.O. tearooms on architecture in music, and it proved to be delightfully instructive and appreciative to members of the Society of Registered Music Teachers, under whose auspices tile gathering was held. Mr J. Holmes Runnicles presided. Dr Ford explained the basic: principles of binary and ternary forms of music, and showed the framework upon which composition could be built. “I think it is very bad for examiners to run in and out of a town without meeting members of the teaching profession,” said Dr Ford. He added that limny seemed to regard architecture, or form, in music as having no relation to the practical side, in which they considered they had to satisfy examiners so busy looking into the dry-as-dust past that they “walked backwards into the future.” Improvisation was demanded for architecture in music, being really composition and interpretation carried out.,

Architecture in music was intimately associated with composition,' and had not the permanence of building architecture, perhaps fortunately in some eases, and regrettably so in others. Commenting that there had been some extraordinary • “concoetity” of sounds produced, Dr Ford said that some people even appeared to have difficulty in harmonising such a simple thing as the National Anthem. Some used only two basic chords—tonic and dominant—and others went simply mad. There should be a discrimination between the dresses in which simple melody could be presented, and improvisation should be just as perfect as composition. There must have been times when people had entered the portals of a cathedral and sunk down in the seat to the accompaniment of a beautiful stream of sound. Transported to the plain precincts of a studio, it might seem empty and void in its reaction. Improvisation should maintain the effect whatever the surroundings. Laws underlying composition demanded ability, first of all, to harmonise the thought, and then to harmonise the melody. Demonstrating what he meant by the latter, Dr Ford said elaboration was required to .relievo any sense of dullness. Many 'people saw hut did not observe. Twice as many heard'but , did not observe. But for the academic side, musicians would never have had the symphonies of Beethoven or the fugues of Bach—and there was nothing dull in the academic if its real feeling wero developed. FEATURES OF HARMONY. Sequences were an extraordinary feature in harmony, and their reduction had a curious effect. They could bo changed by altering the rhythm, although the tune remained the same. Dr Ford demonstrated Chopin’s “Funeral March” and Parry’s “Pied Piper of Hamelin” as well as other melodies, and the effects which could ho achieved. Strength was produced, lie said, by opening outwards on the piano and softness by coming down in the notes. It was not sufficient to know that certain devices existed, but they must ho used as a part of one’s self. Forms of harmony were interpreted by Dr Ford, who next asked his audience to choose the theme and key for his improvisation of movements in fugue form and movements in sonata form. Showing how the forms of music could be linked up without any incongruity, Dr Ford mentioned Beethoven’s remarkable Sonata No. 10 as an example of extraordinary economy in material. The whole of this sonata, lie said, was based on the first four bars on the subject. “I like people to express themselves,” said the visitor, who added that thoso who culled from hooks usually did not understand practical form. For instance, some declared that in Beethoven’s C Minor Sonata, Opus 10, there was a chord in the middle, instead of a development, but Beethoven never wrote a development. The chord was merely an amplication of tho one preceding it.” Appreciation of the lecture was subsequently expressed by Mr Runnicles, who voied his admiration for the splendid exposition of a fugue given by Dr Ford.

Subsequently, answering questions, Dr Ford said the music brought forth by the English school of composers iii the last thirteen years was the finest in the world, because it was based upon an experience of the music of all the other nations. Great music was international in character. During the last thirteen years music had been going through a period similar to that of 1600 A.D., when the beauty of the existing system had been exhausted, and a new avenue was sought. Modern music was much more closely connected with the old than most imagined. Most of tlie work of to-day was experimental, aud probably not one work in a thousand would remain.