MUSIC.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1794, 5 July 1913, Page 9

MUSIC.

TBr Treble Clef/i The Lost Art of Melody. • o lle begins to wonder whether the writing of melody is a lost art. A cynical music critic remarked not long ago (writes J. C. Hadden in "Tho Etude'"), Avowedly a • big dose of Debussy, Strauss, and Company, that "tunes are despised nowadays." I do not know that tunes are despised by thoso who like to listen to music, but there is some ground for believing that they are despised by the creators of what, in these times, is often taken for music. Scarcely a composer of any standing in Europe would dream of writing a haunting melody, assuming that ho could write it. Beoome a mere Gounod, a Balfe, a Bellini f No, •no; positive ugliness were better than that 1 ' And Sir Hubert Parry was never mora• tano than-'.when ho-said that ugliness in musical composition is chiefly the makeshift of melodic incapacity. Vincent Wallace, tho composer of "Maritana" (his centenary is about to bo celebrated), talking owxi to a friend about "rising composers," declared that there was not the ghost of a tune in the whole lot." Tho observation was made sixty years ago. What, would Walaco say about composers risen and rising now? After all, Haydn was right. "Let your .air be good, said tho old toaster, "and your composition, whatever it be, will be so likewise, and will assuredly delight. It is the soul of music, tho life, tho spirit, the essenco of a composition. Without it theorists may succeed in discovering and 1 using tho most singular chords and combinations, but nothing is heard but a, laboured sound, which, though it may not be the ears,. leaves the head empty and tho heart cold and unaffected by it. Ho know what he was talking about, this melodic father of the symphony, , and there is no gainsaying him, even to-day. Why does such a work as "The Bohemian Girl" retain itsr phenomenal popularity with the opera-going masses? Not because it is in any sense a "great" work. Its orchestration is thin and feeble, its dramatic grip of a rather elementary kind. It has no depth of thought, no intellectual aim. Nevertheless, a performance always gives real' and abundant pleasure. And why? Just because of the sheer tunefulness of the work. It is a .string of melodic pearls. Strauss, Senior, called Balfe the "king of melody," and- he was right. These airs of his are pure and natural, written spontaneously without, as it would seem, the slightest effort. Pedantry may sneer at them, but they have a way of finding out the tender spots in the human heart. Notable Russian Opora. The opera "Boris Godounov," by that ill-starred genius, Modesto Petrovitch Moussorgsky, has at last been produced at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York.- It created a profound impression, and undoubtedly stands out as one of the most remarkable events of ' the season. Moussorgsky has been characterised as the "most Kussiaii of all Russian composers," and this work fully voices the ideals and emotions of the Slavic temperament with tragic intensity. "Boris Godounov" suffers from tho faulty technique of the composer (though much of this has been redeemed by the careful <yliting and revision of Rimsky-Korsakov), and sundry cuts and elisions rendered portions of the opera somewhat confusing to the audience. Busoni as a Composer. ■ Busoni is one of the modern virtuosi who look down- with lofty contempt on mero melodists like Grieg and MacDowell. Concerning his own creative art, Caroline V. Kerr writes in the "Musical Leader," with special reference to his opera, "Dio Brautwahl": "When I heard the opera, there seemed to be so much greater evidence of orchestral than theatrical instinct that I decided in my own mind that an orchestra suito would bo the most felicitous solution of the matter. But after hearing the chief musical numbers collected into a succession of orchestral sketches, the impression remains quite as nebulous; now, as then, ghostly ' apparitious of rhythm, harmony, and melody flit about in a twilight atmosphere, with only fitful gleams of genuine inspiration. It is music of elusive contour, in which there is no light and shade, and it is impossible to shake off the feeling that it is the music of a metaphysician or a scientist experimenting in sound effects. It is difficult to believe thnt even a body of musicians can take any genuine pleasure in a work which is so purely tho produce of reison, and from which the soul spark is so totally lacking.

CAUGHT COLD AFTER DANCING. "Through not wrapping up after a dance my sister and I both got bad colds." says Hiss Bertha Scott, 56 Fitzgerald Street, North Perth, AV.A. "leather stocks Chamberlain's Cough Remedy and as it had done him so much good when ho had a cold wo thought wo would try it. It gave immediate relief and quickly cured us, and now wo always recommend Chamberlain's Cough Remedy to our customers."—Advt.

At Ilolbeach, South Lincolnshire, recently, the old Rogation .Day custom of blessing tho crops was observed. A procession, lie.'ided by the vicar, marched to the west ol the town, whore hyi.'ins wore Ming, prayers oli'ered, and tho growing crcp.s bUvs-L-il-

liirmingham rates are to bo relieved to llio extent ot J.'80,000 from tho municipal ira? urolitsu