APPROACH TO MUSIC

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26399, 1 March 1947, Page 8

APPROACH TO MUSIC

Lill Kraus in a recent interview stated: “ There are two approaches to music which are possible, equally for the listener as for the player. One—ln which the music is a pastime or a distractionenables the listener to get (or the performer to give) as much entertainment and thrill as makes the listener want to repeat that experience, or the performer able to repeat it (because the demand is great enough). For this approach, music is preferred—by listeners and performers—which is not too spiritual: not so spiritual that it takes the attention away from the immediate material happenings, the sounds coming from the instrument, which are the focal point of the interest. " The other approach—which demands the highest form of concentration—sees the Instrument as just the medium for the composer’s expression of universal experiences, which are therefore primarily spiritual, and which in the process of materialisation—through the instrumentdo not lose that quality. This means that the listener, like the performer, partakes in an adventure which not only leads his imagination away from the immediate thrill of material perfection, but leads it Into infinity.” Full details of Mme. Kraus’s Dunedin concert are advertised.