“WRITING ABOUT MUSIC.”

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1496, 26 December 1918, Page 33

“WRITING ABOUT MUSIC.”

In his new book, “Plays, Acting and Music,” Arthur Symons, the English writer, has some apt things to say about “Writing About Music.” Hhere is an extract:

“The reason why music is so much more difficult to write about than any other art is because music is the one absolutely disembodied art, when it is heard, and no more than a proposition in Euclid, when it is written. It is wholly useless, to the student no less than to the general reader, to write about music in the style of the programmes which we buy at concerts. ‘Repeated by flute and oboe, with accompaniment for clarinet (in triplets) and strings “pizzicato,” and then worked up by the full orchestra, this melody is eventually allotted to the ’cellos, its accompaniment now taking the form of chromatic passages,’ and so forth. Not less useless is it to write a rhapsody which has nothing to do with the notes, and to present this as an interpretation of what the notes have said in an unknown language. Yet what method is there besides these two methods? None, indeed, that can ever be wholly satisfactory; at best no mode than a compromise. In writing about painting you have the subject of the picture, and you have the colour, handling, and the like, which can be expressed hardly less precisely in words. But music has no subject, outside of itself; no meaning, outside. its meaning as music; and, to understand anything of what is meant by technique a certain definite technical knowledge is necessary in the reader. What subterfuges are required in order to give the vaguest

suggestion of what a piece of music is like, and how little has been said, after all, beyond generalisations, which would apply equally to half a dozen different pieces! The composer himself, if you ask him, will tell you that you may be quite correct in what you say, but that he has no opinion in the matter. Music has indeed a language, but it is a language in which birds and other angels may talk, but out of which we cannot translate their meaning.”

“Hearts of the World” at the Melbourne Theatre Royal has broken the record put up at this theatre by “The Birth of a Nation” and “Intolerance.” The theatre has been packed at each screening of D. W. Griffith’s stupendous spectacle, and the effect it creates is remarkable. It is generally conceded that nothing to equal “Hearts of the World” has ever been seen in Australia.

Mr. Robert Williamson, touring manager for the Muriel Starr Company, has just received word from the firm saying that the Manuka has not yet sailed from Sydney, so the opening of the Christmas attraction will necessarily have to be delayed for a couple of days.

David Belasco is now associated with the Charles Frohman Corporation. He is at present handling “The Saving Grace,” the new starring vehicle for Cyril Maude.

Melbourne is soon to see the famous “Toy Soldier.” For 14 years the “Toy Soldier” has been famous in England and America. In the latter country the “Toy Soldier” has spent the past six years in the principal theatres throughout the United States. Now J. C. Williamson, Ltd., will place him on view in the “Goody Two Shoes” pantomime. Fred. Walton is the “Toy Soldier,” and it is expected that his famous specialty will take Melbourne by storm.