ART AND PENURY

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2050, 10 April 1907, Page 1

ART AND PENURY

Professor Marshall-Hall, the well-' I known Melbourne conductor, who has just been' on a visit to Germany,: repeats the advice so often given to colonial . aspirants to the musical honors of the Old World. lhit his warning ,is even more emphatic than usual. The number of talented young artists in Germany ho describes as legion. In all countries narrow limits arc set to those who are really creative in interpretation, but One hears in Germany glorious voices and admirably trained singers by the hundred. He heal'd onto fine voices and more well-schooled singing in Berlin in a few weeks than in all the fifteen years lie spent in Australia. Australians should recognise this, for the recognition of plain fact is the beginning of culture To make a mark in the Old World requires a combination of phvuouj and mental powers as are given to few, ajql flies it alone ciljijiot bp pended oil to bring success. Even very great talent requires to ho pushed along by money and influence. “I have heard admirable so*jartists playing in restaurants, corridors, smoking-dons, who are. more worthy than mapy a luckier virtuoso of the concert-hall. The second ( ,i.d third ranks of singers are crowd-)] to overflowing. Those struggling niusn elans “okc out a scanty living b,toachilig at the rate of eighteen inn -e to half-a-crown per lesson; live in dingy-lit apartments like half-sta :ved rats; walk miles over hard pavements to save the halfpenny fare ; and hang round (die pork shops, eating ti-eb dry bread to the savoury smell, whiali does duty for solidcr, hut" dearer, fare.” As the pianists and violinists of admirable qtiaUt?, S“>U kpook against them in dozens in the sti eets. They work day and night, hut no one knows how they live. Heic men ml frailty is conquered by Divine madness. The world lirfS no use for the average musician, who is sacrificed i.l thousands to render possible the rare coining of a man of genius, b K ~ ture, everywhere wasteful, 1 recks not by how many ruined lives she attains her end.” Professor MarshallHall is forced to the conclusion that, the musical atmosphere of Europe “reeks of metal.” and ,tb a t t°. KUt> ceed there a man must make his mental and intellectual development subservient to others. He longs to he hack in his “jnore careless, thoughtfree southern home of sunlight,”