DECREASING PATRONAGE OF MUSIC.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1922, 3 December 1913, Page 10

DECREASING PATRONAGE OF MUSIC.

SIR EREDERICK BRIDGE DISCUSSES THE REASONS. I Speaking at n prize distribution of the I'linity College of Music recently, Sir Frederick Bridge deplored tho fail-ing-olf in the patronage given in London and throughout tho country to musical festival;;, musical institutions, and eon- • certs. The patronage, he said, was not so good us it. used tu be. Nearly all the great musical festivals had constantly to call upon tho guarantors to keep tiicm going, whereas in past years they were m a position to give sums of money to charitable institutions. The Philharmonic Society in London was not kept alive to-day bv people paying for their own tickets and afterwards paying as guarantors. At the Albert Hall concerts .groa'ti doa;es had a|so been sustained, ami the promote!'.? of those concerts only just managed to keep their heads above water.

English people, within tho last few years, showed a ijreat ) 0 ve —and rightly so—for outdoor exercise. There had been an extraordinary development in motors and outdoor games,- especially golf, which both sexej could play. Tho result was that people, indulged in thoso games and travelled about the country, asid were not on the spot to go to concerts. There had been another almost fatal obstacle, and ho was ashamed to mention it, because it was associated with his name—the game of bridge. (Laughter.) He did "ud't play bridge himself, and he did not understand it. He was sure that the love of card-play-' ii:g and bridge monopolised the time which young pnoplo and old people would have «ivcn to music and to Attending concerts. The great societies ail over tho country were languishing really for want of public support. Ho did not think the woiubri'ul series of Halle concerts in Manchester were supported as '.veil as thoy.uued to be.

People, he said, should not imagine that music was no hut as music. Tire study of music trained the intellect and reacted upon every other study tho pupil took up. Ho would back a musical boy, properly trained, against an ordinary boy who had spent all his time in other subjects, such as Latin and Greek, and had not studied music. The study of music refined the pupils to begin with; it mado them think, it made 'them alert and quick, and it gave them a little lightness of heart, and this was a great deal.