INSPIRATION OF FIRE

Taranaki Daily News, 16 January 1935, Page 2

INSPIRATION OF FIRE

LEGENDARY TALES AND MUSIC. MR. E. JENNER’S LECTURE SERIES. The element of fire as inspiration for musical composition was the subject of Mr. Ernest Jenner’s continuation of his lecture series on "Music and Legendary Associations” at the teachers’ summer school yesterday. “Fire music” he illustrated by several skilfully chosen gramophone records of operatic composition and by excellently performed pianoforte themes. Mr. Jenner’s object was obviously to cultivate direct visual association with the appreciation of musical themes and to develop the realisation in his audience that music possessed colour, movement and action sequence. He began by a description of fire in the blacksmith’s forge, drawing attention to the importance of rhythm in portraying the strokes of hammer on anvil—the rudimentary force of the conception expressed in the “angularity” of the music. The illustration chosen was the Brahms song, “The Blacksmith,” which the audience sang. The effect of Indian musical legends on the work of certain western composers, notably Rimsky Korsakoff, was illustrated by the lecturer by the playing of the Hindu Song from the opera “Sadko.” He related the delightfully fanciful story of the Dipak-Laat, the bird which possessed a beak with seven apertures each corresponding with a note of the seven-note scale. Through it the Dipak-Laat whistled melodies which had the power of invoking fire. The legend had it that when the bird was 1000 years old it danced in ecstasy about a pile of dry twigs and branches whistling until fire burst from the bonfire into which it then dashed itself, its body being consumed, but its inner and truer self becoming a god. In such a resurrection there was striking similarity with the legend of the Phoenix. From the Indian legend Mr. Jenner passed on to the influence of Teutonic myths upon musical composition, with particular reference to the Wagner opera “Siegfried,” in which fire music was vivid and stirring, particularly in that passage which related the coming of Siegfried the Joyful to Brunhilde through the walls of flame. 1 Another instance of a vivid fire theme occurred in the ballet “El Amor Brujo,” in which the magnificent “Dance of the Fire Ritual” was incorporated. The legendary aspect was that 'of the belief that it had been danced by gipsies to drive away evjl spirits. Mr. Jenner told the delightful legend of the bewitched gipsy princess who was haunted by the spirit of her jealous lover and who might not marry until she had exchanged a kiss with her living lover. The downfall of the evil spirit had been brought about by the performance of the fire dance and the strategy of the princess' friend, Lucia. The festive nature of English fire music was simply illustrated by the community song “The Festive Log,” in which the audience joined. The final group of fire legends affecting music as quoted by Mr. Jenner concerned the eclipse of the sun, and one such story from India had it that the singing of a night raga at noon by the most skilful of minstrels could produce the darkness of an eclipse. A Japanese legend explained an eclipse as the flight and hiding of the sun goddess from her brother. Mr. Jenner concluded his lecture with a reference to Gustav Hoist’s opera, “The Perfect Fool,” illustrating its colour practically by playing what is known as the fire music of the composition.