COMPOSER'S AMUSING CONCESSIONS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13202, 13 June 1906, Page 7

COMPOSER'S AMUSING CONCESSIONS.

MR. GLUTS AM OX HIMSELF. [FROM OUR OWN* CO KB RSPOXDKS'T. ]

LONDON, May 4. Mr. Gkorck CIA'TSAJt, in the course of an interview just published, said: —"Please don't call me ' Our only Australian composer.' Somebody did that once, and for about a week after I walked about feeling as if 1 were a sort of soothing syrup. By the S'vay, 1 don't know why I am always alluded to, and described as, a Now Zealandcr. I'm not. I was born at Botany Bay. To prevent misunderstanding you might add that I come of poor but honest parents.

I have inherited one of th© adjectives.' X am, at least, poor. Thus I am a Sydneyitc by the force of circumstances over which 1 had little or no control, but at- the early age of one i. migrated to Dunedin. I hadn't much to do with that either, now 1 come.to think of it. I fancy they look me there because someone said the milk was so wholesome. I have never had a lesson in my life—a lesson in composition that is. (I spell fairly well, excepting when I write letters). Musically. 1 am a self-taught man. I have a number of opinions, which 1 am told arc . quite heterodox and revolutionary, and -. altogether alarming. One of them is that the way so-called 'theory' is taught is wholly wrong. I would much rather talk about other people than about myself. This is my maiden interview, and I'm very bashful, and sure to say the wrong thing. I can't even follow in. the approved path with th«, fervent manifesto that everything I do is for the honour and glory of my native land. As a candid fact I can honestly say that I should be very sorry if Australia were in any way proud of the stuff I turn out. My view of the situation is of tho most sordid 'I and commercial character. I write to sell. .Ambition.'?? I haven't any: I only want 'to be let alone. Ideals? My dear sir, it isn't a matter of ideas, it's a matter of 1 sheer* common-sense. • Art doesn't pay, ragtime-does. I've gone to publishers with pieces that have taken roe the best part of a year to .compose. I couldn't get a fiver for anvj one of. them. I've gone with something that took me half an hour, and the cheque has taken my breath away. I've been 17 years in London, and the best of my work during that, time, the best that is in me to writeis locked away, and there I intend it shall remain."