MUSIC.

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2404, 9 March 1915, Page 3

MUSIC.

I'Bx TBUBLE Cli M.l

War's Effect on Muslo. Mr. Thomas Beecham, in addressing the annual meeting and diploma function of the Royal Manchester; College of Music had some straight home truths to utter.

He remarked that we were at the parting of the ways in -this country at the moment.' The war was the great awakening, and it had produced a miracle of miracles. He, for one, had been labouring for the past ten or fifteen years to. expel from this country all the incompetent foreigners—and nearly all that he knew of were profoundly incomi>»tentT 'He had 'written, in the Presß, he had agitated publicly and privately, but without the slightest success. He had brought forward artist after artist of British birth, orchestra after orchestra of entirely British but had been knocked dowji each time by the sledgehammer strokes of the British critics who steadily refused, to entertain the idea that anything British could be of tho slightest good. ■ ,

' War had altered all that. He saw to his great pleasure all the people he had championed for the past few years, and who had been most despised and rejected, welcomed since the Beginning of the war aB great geniuses by the Press.. .. This discovery on their part was very touching to him and very gratifying. It. was only a pity that they did not discover it a little sooner.

It remained for the younger generation to continue successfully, or unsuccessfully, the battle that some of them had fought for'the. past ten or' fifteen years—th? battle that had been 'fought for the younger generation! They should'not think that now the national spirit was reawakening- they_ had only to sit and wait for. the musical prizes to fall into their laps. That would not happen. There was no place in music for anyone w'lio, was not . profoundly competent and efficient to-day. ■ The kingdom of music was; least like a republic than anything else in the world. It was an artistocracy, and everyone who went into the profession should make up their minds ,to be a mental jnusical artocrat. It was from that point of view, or rather lack of that point of view, that we-were Buffering in Britain to-day. There' had been splendid opportunities for composers, executants, and artists, hut they had been too backward to seize them, or in some cases too' ill-equipped to make |P use ;of them. There was never _a time when they should he'better equipped than in the next two or three years.