MUSICAL MUSINGS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21326, 29 October 1932, Page 1 (Supplement)

MUSICAL MUSINGS

MELODIES FOR THE MILLION

BY ELSIE K. MORTON

I had been working in the garden for an hour when a rich, manly voice came floating out the open window on the still morning air. " Our next item," it announced, " will be the ' Bumble Bees' Parade.' " Most suitable. I went on thinning the poppies with increased fervour, unconsciously keeping time with my fork to the catchy melody of the bumble bees, as broadcast to a yawning world per medium of several thousand wireless sets. , . . Delightful, indeed, to waken to work, to music, these sunny spring mornings, especially to rural melodies such as the " Bumble Bees' Parade," " The Penguins' Patrol " and so forth. Wireless was indeed bringing music into the lives of the people! Then a disturbing thought struck me. Was it music ? We all know the Kipling story of the first artist, how the poor man was innocently enjoying his crude and horrible production, a picture scratched in the mud with a stick, when the devil came along and whispered in his ear, " Pretty . . . but is it art ?" And mankind has taken up the parrot cry, and ever since the first barb entered the brain of the first artist the same question has rankled in a million brains, raising demons of doubt, clouding simple, honest appreciation and enjoyment and stirring a bourgeois fear that one may show one's ignorance by applauding where one should rather shrug or politely sneer A pity. There arc so few real sincerities in life, so few things that move people to spontaneous expression of pleasure. If I choose to enjoy the " Bumble Bees' Parade," why should 1 bother my head whether it is high-brow, low-brow, or no brow at all in the world of high musical art ? And if personally I should happen to prefer to start the xnorning with some sweet and lovely melody of Mozart's, what right would I have to go to the telephone and request the announcer immediately to switch off " He Played His Ukulele as the Ship Went Down " ? The story of the gallant captain might possibly provide the very moment of uplift required for some relief worker to start the day with a light heart —and it is surprising how many wireless sets you will find in relief-workers' homes these queer, contradictory days! Mr. Huxley on Beethoven And now many of you will violently disagree with me when I say with emphasis that I am very glad indeed that wireless does brighten these homes. I would not presume to ask how the relief worker manages to pay his licence fee, nor even what he does when a valve blows out! I merely hope it is not one of the twenty-seven and sixpenny kind. There are many things that can better be spared, these* days, from the homes of our people than music. Wireless programmes do not please everybody, but does anything on earth ever please everybody ? Even Heaven, you will remember, had its discontented angels, so if the music of the spheres lacked harmony, what wonder that earth's melodies for the million sometimes sound slightly out of tune to critical ears ? Some of these reflections are quite spontaneous, others have been inspired by the lamented reading of an essay on " Popular Music " by Aldous Huxley. Everybody knows how very clever Mr. Huxley is, even those who would not be caught so much as glancing inside the covers of one of his very clever books. His literary work may be " art," although quite possibly a few unsophisticated readers in remote country districts might consider some of it as wholesome and invigorating as standing under a shower bath of sewage. So it is interesting to know what such a critic thinks of some of our popular music. He says that " ultimately and indirectly Beethoven is responsible for all the languishing waltz tunes, all the savage jazzings, for all that is maudlin and violent in our popular music. He is responsible because it was he who first devised really effective musical methods for the direct expression of emotion. He mado possible the weakest sentimentalities of Schumann, the baroque grandiosities of Wagner, the hysterics of Scriabine, and he made possible, at a still further remove, such masterpieces of popular art as ' You Made Me Love You ' and 'That Coal Black Mammy of Mine.' Poor Beethoven ! Wretched Beethoven ! Schumann, Wagner, Scriabine—what musical horrors we would have been spared had they never presumed to think themselves composers! And Rossini certainly should have been taken early in hand by Borstal, or some other exponent of the principle of reformative detention, for, according to Mr. Huxley, "Melodies before Rossini's day were often exceedingly commonplace and cheap, but almost never do they possess that indefinable quality of low vulgarity which adorns some "of the most successful of Rossini's airs. It is to his invention of vulgar tunes that Rossini owed his enormous contemporary success." A Regrettable Picture

As I read, a most regrettable picture came to my mind, the picture of a great audience of Auckland music-lovers revelling last week in the low vulgarity of Figaro the Barber. I hunted industriously through the essay to find out what Mr. Huxley thought of Puccini, Verdi, Bizet, Leoncavallo and Mascagni, but could find nothing more definite than an all-embrac-ing reference to " turbid brewage." That settled it. I laid the book down with a sigh of relief. My musical taste was beneath contempt; I could now go on enjoying my Beethoven, Wagner, Schumann and other outcasts to my heart's content and take comfort from the fact that I was one of an entire community sharing the same despicable musical tastes. [ oven felt kindly toward all those who can thrill with emotion at'the three wailing chords of Rachmaninoff s most popular "Prelude." Personally I wish it had never been written, along with that jingling " minute " waltz of Chopin s that can be (and usually is) rattled out by any schoolgirl in sixty seconds. But 110 doubt that is exftly how Mr. Huxley felt about " The Barber of Seville." And there is always the fine stirring crash of the other " Prelude," the one in G minor, the slow, measured rhythm of Chopin sonata or prelude, the lulling beauty of nocturne or the martial swing of polonaise, when radio does not please and the record cabinet yields its treasure. Freedom of Choice Music should be like all the other wonderful gifts of God—free to all, beyond the barbs of stinging criticism. If you love " Daisy Bell " or " The End of a Perfect Day " above all other songs, then to you they are music in its highest form, and as such to be respected. It does not follow that they are to be accepted as classics any more than a coster's pearlies or a Highlander's kilts may be permitted to set a standard in national dress, but assuredly they must not be ridiculed nor regarded with contempt by those to whom Ravel and Debussy represent the highest in musical art. The mind can appreciate only that which the heart can understand. The savage and his wooden drum, Szigeti and his violin, the Scotsman and his bagpipes, Paderewski and his piano—to each his instrument represents music in its highest form. He makes the music he loves best in the world. We others have all the world of music from which to make our choice; let each ono make it, and be content to let his fellows do the same.