PADEREWSKI AND THE WAR

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2486, 12 June 1915, Page 11

PADEREWSKI AND THE WAR

. WHERE MUSIC WILL GAIN. The great pianist, Paderewski, has come among us in the interests of his afflicted Poland, writes a correspondent in an American magazine. His piano is silent and must remain so, for liko Maeterlinck, he says while the war lasts his "heart and brain are too full of other thincs." He has pondered deeply upon tie probable influence of the war on music, as on art and life in genoral, ho tells a writer in ' Musical America" (New York), but he does not pretend to "see the solution clearly in all its complexities." Of one thing he does feel convinced, he declares, "that the art of musio will react to this supreme tragedy of humanity by acquiring qualities of simplicity such as it has long since renounced." To this end material conditions may be counted on to supply strong incentive: "For a time, at all events, the mammoth size of orchestras will in all probability be cut down for want of funds to pay for the maintenance of these huge bodies of instrumentalists for' which composers have so long been writing. That must of necessity affect the nature of compositions put forth, to the extent, at least, of reducing swollen instrumentation and excesses of counterpoint. "At last we shall see the musician put to it to regard primarily what he is expressing, not how he is expressing it. Luxury, the overabundance of means that stifles the spirit, must be discarded before true advancement can take place—and the .age which is passing unquestionably save itself too freely to luxury of one land or another. In every walk of life, in every function of existence, it has had its baleful effect. In our art, on the one hand, as in our food on the other, we have suffered from this handicap of excess. "True, much has been written of late j and I should be far from deny-

ing the existence of many clever composers. But humanity will feel the need of more than cleverness. What has been given ■us for a number of years is oratory, not poetry. And by such wo can not live, however polished, elegant, and graceful its expression. We may evolve a Beethoven; we may not. But Beethoven is the supreme summit, and -we shall also require our small hills and even our valleys. The awakening must bring lesser as well as greater prophets. ''The precedent of history would lead us to look for a great renaissance at the close of this struggle. After the French Revolution came Beethoven, and when the Napoleonic wars ended there emerged Chopin, Schumann, Liszt, Wagner, and lesser though talented men such as Mendelssohn, Meyerbeer, and others. In poetry, Heine, do Musset, Pushkin, and a number of great Polish writers insufficiently known to other nations sprang up. And in other arts were analogous figures. May we not look for a similar resurgence of the artist-spirit when this catastrophe has run its course ? I see no reason to doubt it, since history lias a manner of repeating itself."

The Great Tragedy of War. To another interviewer Mr. Paderewski says:— "As far as art is concerned, war is the calamity and destruction cf art. No great art work has been. don« in periods of violent and far-reaching battle. He who undertakes an important art work must ha.ve the opportunity calmly and quickly to ' gather about him all the forces of his fancy and intelligence, and a long interspace of time to develop and to perfect the output of his oreative mental labour. Nothing should be allowed to distract him. But who can concentrate his powers at such a time as this, when the events of each week _ seem almost designed at once to fascinate tho attention and perturb the brain? Who can create a work of the imagination when the imagination is numbed and blinded? Who can writ® a drama when an actual and living tragedy greater _ than he conceives is. unfolding in realities itself before his eyes ?"