CURRENT COMMENT.

Taranaki Daily News, 23 August 1930, Page 17 (Supplement)

CURRENT COMMENT.

OTHER POINTS OF VIEW.

(By

M.O.S.

With.the British team gone and the wicket at- the Oval still covered to keep rain off, the people of New Plymouth have been very busy during the past week concentrating on music.

Apart from, music week the most in- ■ tcrcsting happening of recent times has • not been in New Plymouth at all, ;but near Whangamomona. Reporting to the. /Rabbit Board on Monday, the rabbiter ; • •'■fia'id that during May he had killed 12 ’ rabbits and 'observed another. During June five were killed and two observed; . and during July six were killed —a total . < of 23 killed and three observed during . '■> ' the quarter.. The important part observing seems to. play is apparent from the figures, and no doubt accounts for . the phantom shapes that have been seen lately by various residents of the district, especially when returning at night from Whangamomona to Tangarakau. With unemployment so rife, the idea instantly suggests, itself that here is a golden opportunity to find work for indigent members of the R.S-A. How pleasantly at home, for instance, an ex-member of. one of the batteries would, be on the job if he had once occupied an advance post for his unit in Flanders. And how like old times for a Dink.or a,member.of the Legion of Frontiersmen, after worming his way up a ridge for half a mile through some of' Whangamomona’s deteriorated land, to be able to signal back the thrilling news: /‘Twenty degrees right; .’6OO yards; garden at rear of cottage; lettuce patch—one rabbit.” ?■ * * ■; Of course, there is always the ob- ‘ jection that it takes money to do even these things. Money is ‘ a strange “ thing. All our lives we strive for it, except for the short periods in between time when we strain every sinew to get rid of it. (People accept as a jnat-. ter of course the fact that Henry Ford makes thousands of pounds a day, and yet when a Canadian amused himself with the reverse .process ,at the Deauville casino the other, day onlookers became almost hysterical so amazed were they at the gambler’s almost unbelievable imperturbability. Beginning at mid- " ' night he lost. £3200 in a .couple of hours. He' then lost £9600 when holding a single hand, . and up. £BO,OOO .. down. He apparently did not worry, . and why should he? How many young men owe not only the loss of more than £9600 but also ‘ their liberty and independence for the-whole of the rest of their lives—just through .holding a-sin-

gle hand after midnight. And thia is nothing to what happened to some men

who have - held a - married hand after midnight.

Thrills ia a poor English word that Jias been almost worn out since this extraordinary 20th century began; but music does thrill. No other word quite gives the peculiar meaning of the waves of sound coursirig through the body. • Beethoven chords march through the mind; the movements have the strong sweep' of the tide. It may be a fragment by McDowell, a butterfly mood caught and pinned, still faintly quivering. “Let music sound . . .” says, Portia when Bassanio has to choose the casket.

After hearing Backhaus play the last exquisite raindrop in a shower of notes, people say, “It. made my spine go like this —” and with a linger make the road sign for a hairpin bend. Music is a generous art. . It gives pleasure without demanding technical knowledge from the listener.

Pater, the 19th century lover of the arts, places music as the highest art of, p.ll.- All art, he says, constantly aspires ' towards the condition of music. The constant effort of art is to do away with tlie distinction between matter and form. Art is always striving to be independent of the mere intelligence, to become a matter of pure perception, to get rid of its responsibilities to its subject or material . . Music most completely realises this artistic ideal.

At the iconoclastic stage of life, the early twenties, one used to be constantly irritated by people talking 'about soul in music. Take, one would reply,’ take two artists both with accomplished and equal" technique. A is gaid to have soul, B to lack soul. But JB, with his accomplished .technique, jias the ability to put in light and ehade where it is marked bn the music, to play rallentando where indicated, in short to play the composition exactly as the composer intends. Why should he not play as well as A, and what then is this .soul? Probably nothing more than wearing long hair and having a feverish eye. One thought this a rather powerful argument; •■■"■•

' ! The answer to this, .of course, is pimply that there is soul in the playing of music. There is a legend of Hungary that once upon a time there was a violinist who had a flawless [technique, but his playing bored the people *o tears. The- notes from his yiolin were perfectly dead. It happened that he fell in love with a most beautiful woman and, from that time pn, he played glorious music, gay, passionate and of a burning intensity. {The woman died but she lived in his inemory. People flocked to hear the bitter sweet singing of his violin. A great evening was prepared when he should play before the prince. In the (meantime the violinist met a woman of [the Court, believed in her silky adulation, and forgot the other. The great . evening came, the prince was in his box 'and the galleries were filled with people. The violinist bowed, took up ibis bow' and drew it across the strings, i [fcut instead of the deep calm opening j p.ote, the listeners heard a cry of jinguish and there were some who swore [they glijnpsed a strange, white form [tying up from the violin, weeping. The .inusician went on playing, but before [Very. long the people began to yawn, rohe prince left the royal box’and little [ by little, everybody went home. The i gold had gone from his playing, »