MUSIC.

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2391, 22 February 1915, Page 7

MUSIC.

rßv Tbebm Cibf.V Barring German Music. The Sydney "Sunday Times" has allowed a correspondent in the person of Mr. William G. Bentley to hold forth on the subject of German, music. 111 the courso of a long letter, "starred" under the heading "Bar German Music," llr. Bentley remarks:— "One is known by the company he keeps, and therefore' all Germans must buffer for the atrocities committed in the name of the German Empire. You cannot dissociate German music from German thought, and .although AVagner was admittedly a great genius, there are other great geniuses of the same Nationality working for our -undoing, and therefore, in a time like the present, a true patriot should put his country (and all belonging to it) before everything, ltichter, by his contemptuous treatment of ■ the high honour .conferred on him by one of the oldest scholastic establishments in the world, must bo taken to endorse these atrocities, and no excuse," to my mind, can be given for his conduct. . . The Philharmonic Society's recent programme called forth a rebuke from a morning daily, and it certainly was a surprise to see a programme of German music rendered by a body on. which the title 'Itoyal' had been conferred. Good taste, let alone patriotic feeling-, should have included some British, French, Belgian, or Russian music." It hardly needs my pointing out that all arts are universal, ■ not national. Great music, great sculptures, great pictures, great books and plays, are uot given to the nation or the individual —they are born to the world. We do not hear of' Germany barring Shakespeare bccauss he happened to be English, and that country happens to be at war with us. According to a recent comic report, Germany had annexed Shakespeare as her own, thoroughly convinced that England was not a fit and proper place to be associated with such a genius. How utterly preposterous the consistent, line of action that must follow the barring of German music would, be can be briefly and pointedly illustrated in a few lines. Wo must give up the study of Goethe and Heine, and all translations of modern German novels. All German paintings, and the myriad reproductions of them must be condemned to the cellar, and German statuary must be'clothed ill coal-sacks. Dresden china mu6c bo barred, and German pianos used for firewood. No — I'm afraid we cannot forgo the pleasure of hearing German music. There are many fine French, Italian, Russian, and even English musicians, but none of these countries, have produced a Beethoven or a Bach, and the world of music' would be 6adly impoverished if we dropped Handel, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Schubert, and Schumann overboard. In any case, these exceedingly talented gentlemen were very dead long before Germany thought of war with us, s and were made abundantly welcome in England in the days "when t'hey strutted their little hour," and made noble music for fill time. Handel' 6 "Messiah" was originally produced in Dublin, and to-day w? all reverence the composer as well as the theme of the "Hallelujah Chorus" by rising during its rendition. lam pleased'to see that no one has Taised the question of barring German music in Wellington: it reflects credit on the intelligence of the community.

War and Music. "That grim and'terrible tragedy of war cannot, be set to music. The hor-' xors of the battlefield cannot be put pn paper for ■an orchestra Even the soldier in the firing line can hardly comprehend it; for it 6eems a kind of waking dream to him in which he does mechanically what he has been trained to do. When a whirring bullet hurtles through his brain or rips his hea,rt apart he drops, and all. is over. Victory and defeat are all tlTo K;irno . to him. He answers no more the trumpet's summons to duty. And when the battered regiment returns with the proud, I high step of conquerors, and the band plays old and familiar airs at home, ther« will' be aching hearts, among the charing throngs, and many a streaming eye will look in vain for faces that are'never to, be beheld again. "What consolation will a military march bring then? . "The jaunty crew of Gilbert and Sullivan's 'Pinafore' sing. 'We Sail the Ocean Biue' —as if the .ocean was a sunny lake and ; men-of-war were excursion . steamers. And the concert basso in kid gloves and immaculate white linen sings a smooth ditty about the joys of being 'Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep.' His stage valour would quail before a current of air that might endanger the velvet,-of, his larynx. What would he' do on the. deck of a gunboat smashing through the billows and scudding over the foam, with the hideous death song of machine guns shrieking overhead and the rhythm of exploding shells for a tremendous bass P The sweet voice of music has no place among these jarring sounds. "There is 'another scene, however, where music is in place. ' "When the vast cathedral opens its portals to receive the dead who fell in defence "of those who stayed at home, the deep and solemn tones of the organ are a fitting requiem of peace and tranquil glory after the riotous discord of the fighting deck ?nd battlefield. But the dead march is for the living to hear, not for those who sleep in their eternal slumber. ■ Tt may perhaps bring consolation to the mourners and it may make serious those who merely came to see. -It cannot thrill again-the gallant men who marched away with banners and a band, with loved ones smiling through their tears, and comrades clasping their hands in silence when the last good-bye sticks in their throats." —Clarence Lucas, in the "Musical Courier."

Chernlavskys and the War. Jan Cherniavsky, the pianist of the Cherniavsky Brothers, who are shortly to tour New Zealand under the management of Howard Edie, is a very close student of the war, and intends to publish a book in the English lanugage during his visit to the Dominions concerning the great international upheaval: Practically all the important towns in the fighting arena have been visited by the Cherniavskys at one time or another, so Jan's geographical knowledge' will stand him in good stead. He lias studied every move of the Allies and their opponents from tho commencement of the - war, and many of his prophecies made at the commencement of the upheaval have already come true.

Fritz Kreisler, the eminent Austrian violinist, who was reported to have been killed in action, is at present chaTming enormous audiences in America. Carl Flosch, the Hungarian violinist, aud now considered to be in the first flight, has not been able to obtain permission to fulfil his engagements in America, and at latest was giving recitals in Berlin, where Slezak, the big Hungarian operatic tenor, was also 6inging hard and often for the benefit of the Red Cross funds. Thibaud, the eminent Frenchman, prefers to fight for his country than to fiddle while Paris hums, and has written so to hie Now York agents. .