ETHICS IN MUSIC.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 13857, 21 March 1907, Page 9

ETHICS IN MUSIC.

VIEWS OF MR FFRANGCON DAVIE3.

CBOH OUB OWN Coerespondekt.)

LONDON, February 1. On Friday laa|. I spent a most pleasant evening at. tlio house, at. Regent's Park, of Mr D. Ffrangcon Davios, ono of our best known and most cultured vooalisti, whoso views on art in general, and musical art in particular, arc becoming impressed upon the present generation of pupils. Jlr Ffraugcon Davios is not only a vocalist, but. an artist to his finger-tips. A Welshman by birth. lie was educated for tlio Ohnrch, lining a. classical exhibitioner of .Tcsiis College, Oxford, nnd an M.A, of that university. to religious views lift resigned his position as a Church of England clergyman, and became a vocal student. 110 has sung in operas at Covetit Garden and at Drury Lane, and in oratorios at. all the principal festivals of tlio world. 110 lias toured no fewer than 12 seasons in For three years ho resided in IJorlin, taking his position in the German art world, and those who have hoard ftim sing German songs are not. likely to forget, tbe experience readily. He is also' now a professor at tlio Royal Academy of Music.

AVheu I asked why lie had oomo to take up the subject of the " Essential -Unily of ant ' i' p lisioni" Mr Davies replied:' Simply boKiuso 1 found my art fashioned entirely and 1 absolutely upon it. I couldnot have pursued my art. without, it. There is another reason: without this I'should become merely a temporary and evanescent, phenomenon. I have not tlio slightest, objection to sing songs that please ]>cople. I am always glad 'to please them when I sing for them songs that will make them laugh, I mji 2ja<l to do anything that, will hob) them to live a happy life. I will do anything of that, ill reason. But, as an they must take 1110 seriously. They must t.-iko me as a man who is trying to do llio same thing for life 011 the artistic side, I will pipe and dance imto them; but tliey must not turn me qua artist into an entertainer or a clown."

Conversation then turned upon the ethical and seslbetic aspect of art. Mr Ffrangcon Davics held that modern lifn was complex, anil i|. was difficult to llnd the harmony in lift; as the initiated saw it. Tlio many ways in , which lite could ho looked at resolved themselves into two— tho material and the spiritual. All agreed that tho physical—the materia]—was not lasting. Id choosing one's vinw of life, therefore, one naturally chose that which began, continued, and ended in good: Tho one that presented permanence—the trim view of life—was the one which showed that Micro was a good purpose behind it. Whatever the material sense' might he, tho view which presented this ideal was the. spiritual, and not the material:! and this was the key of file mastery of life. Speaking of tho vocal art, he said, that •generally the world had been putting tho cart before the horse for about 300 years. Moil had preferred the material lo the spiritual. The vocalist had made the vcico tho horses and the inind the cart, • instead of mind the horeo nncl voice tho cail Tho commanding ideas, lio continued, had been in vocal art beauty, bigness, blatant loudness. His objection to theso as ihe main things was that they were not causes, hut effects. If ono wanted to serve art, ono must, deal in causes and not ill effects. Beauty could bo recognised, but it could not. be defined. It- was definable. . Real noble, sonorous tone was that, which carried with it words and atmosphere, which represented beauty to the musician. Ho was not indifferent to. vocal beauty, but ho urged there must bo more truth in the tone, more reason, rooro mind. Simplo loudnees only appealod to a man's shell. If a man followed art in order to make money at it, ho would never make an artist. He might make money. Tho only other thing, ho woidd maio would bo a bad, ugly noise. If evolution meant, anything it meant that tho important thing was not-what ono liked, but. what one had tatight himself to like. Summed up, tho material viow of' things was Baal worship, His protest was tho protest which rational art always had entered, always did enter, and always would enter against unmusical, megalomania, what lio might call " time-, serving' art. Many modern porfdrmancca resolved themselves into occasions for the oxercise of a specious art, a kind of vocal dram-drinking, supposed to bo very pleasing. I-Ie who adopted a non-moral, nonvital, lion-religious view of at* was liablo to develop into a oiiltish mechanic, an intellectual Lucifer, or he .might finally appear as the occupant of a seif-built, cake, in what ho might call a pseudo-artistic zoological garden. Negation had been busy, and had denied the essential goodness of creation; Man must therefore • re-state his creed, and say: "I believe that God is; that Hb is good; that He made nle, I believe that I am; I believo that I am good; I believe in myself; and Leo forth to justify my faith. I believe in God, and I believe iii man. I believo that they are both good with a common goodness." Instead of human theology, let thcro bo divine biology. And tho chief element of this divine biology was an imaginative reason. Tho artist was primarily a man of reason, who had exercised his reason in such a manner that ho inlierited freedom. Tliere were three words which neither priestly .nor antipriestly bigotry had been able to remove from the human conscience—God, Freedom, Immortality.

These threo had been shown by suck men as. Kant, Martincau, Professor Henry Jones, to arise out of man's nature and reason. Those throo great words convoyed to tho artist ideas of infinite lifo and beauty and liberty to seek and manifest themselves' They also implied continuity and energy of purpose for the task. Ho had often startled people by saying that to him <!tfr Davie?) Christ waa the greatest artist that, ever lived. His whole life was an object, lesson in art. His outlook was spiritual—that was art. It was also lifo; and evevy Ufa was a crystallised principle. If one tried' to separate art' a.nd life he took tile lifo out of his art. Failh was a neccssitv: it must make its own experiments in the laboratory of life. It grew out of reason arid out of self-mastery and self-kowledge. Tho real artist always suggested rnoro than ho saw. Art was scicntific. rational, pliiloeophical. ethical, and divine. The career of tho artist was, therefore, a noble one. Ho served God and man. He himself was a. thorough believer iu tho powers of musical artists in I his country.- They had minds and tlicy lwd Voices. Lifo would l>o easier,, pleasantcr, better ifo'r tho wOrk they did, and they would show through th« lofty character of th'cir work that, music and song were manifestations of spiritual activity, in which activity life revealed itself as lovo and (ruth in that, fine poetry and music which man had brought forth through lmtch snoffring.