The Lyttelton Times TUESDAY, DEC. 20, 1881.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LVI, Issue 6494, 20 December 1881, Page 4

The Lyttelton Times TUESDAY, DEC. 20, 1881.

Peofessob Haslam’s letter of yeaterday showed a alight lapse from that standard of good taste which most people are wont to associate with the Professor's chair. The first motive of his writing seemed intelligible enough. It has been a matter of comment that the eminent violinist, whose perfect mastery of the modern substitute for the sounding bow of Apollo, is now delighting his too scanty audiences in Christchurch, has not hitherto appeared to rate the musical culture of his hearers very highly. From a perusal of, at any rate, his first two programmes, it might have seemed that “ the Great Tone Poets” had either never lived, or had lived for nought, so conspicuously was their work absent from the Lists. Those to whom no amount of execution, however brilliant, can quite supply tbe choice of defective subject matter, very naturally regretted ibis. Soon an explanation began to be whispered about. Classical music, even when played by such a master of the art, had found no favour iu the Australian Colonies; in Melbourne, people preferred melody of tho light and catchy order; in Sydney they simply stayed away from the performances. All this Profeasor Haslam’o letter rehearsed, with the very proper conclusion that Christchurch lovers of what is really grand and beautiful should not be made to suffer for the sins of their neighbours. So far, m good. But Professor Haslam, with an ingenuity only paralleled in the famous connection of Tenterden steeple with tho Goodwin Sands, went on to attribute tho defective taste of Melbourne in matters musical to tbe Democratic spirit supposed to reign rampant in that community. He pictured the Victorian mob, intolerant of all that is superior, brutally dragging down, either Herr Wilhelm] or his admirers—which of tho two is not quite clear—to their own low level, not liecaus®, being unable to appreciate high-class music, they naturally preferred what was inferior, hut through the envy that, according to certain modem thinkers, is at the root of ail Radicalism, It might have occurred to ordinary minds, that this supposed hatred on tbe part of Melbourne audiences—we should like, by-the-way, to know what is Professor Haslam’s authority for its existence—for the classic#, is simply tbe result of want of musical education, and not ol political vice. Men and women like best, as a rule, what appeals most to their feelings, and it is surely not wonderful if those who have not been trained to appreciate high-class music, should take pleasure in something more adapted to their understanding. Professor Haslam may, for all wo know, bo a devotee of Wagner and tbe music of the future. If not, he would yet have the right to feel aggrieved if p pupil of tho advanced school were to call him an envious Democrat (or declining to bo present at a performance of ” The Flying Dutchman.” The fashion of using anything and > everything as a missile to fling at the institutions of the day is no new thing. Cheap sneers at democracy are old enough to bo no longer surprising or even irritating. Democracies can very well take care of themselves. But tho fact is that intolerance ol higher

eiuetcol culture is so far from baring any connection with universal suffrage that it is at least as old as the days tf Hntnkl. That great composer, it iHU be remembered, came to England in the earlier years of George the Second’s reign. Sir Robert Walpole and a Whig oligarchy ruled the land, amid a saturnalia of jobbery and corruption. Democracy, envious or otherwise, had not yet been dreamed of. It was, oa Thackeray haa put it, the age of the Patricians. Welcomed by the German king and queen, Handel endeavoured to plant the tree of his art on Britiah not). But far from educating the nation, ho could not even gain a bare living for himself. The aristocracy organised a regular crusade against him. Royal favour did him no good, for the good old Tory spirit took fire at the countenance given to an upstart foreigner. Tho King came to hear him constantly, indeed, at the Haymarket ; but no beggarly was the array of empty benches, that Lord Chesterfield once withdrew with a bow and a grimace, “ lest ho should intrude on tho privacy of his Sovereign.” The rival party absolutely opened another theatre, and subsidised on Italian singer named Bononciui in order to ruin Handel; and in this they succeeded, lor he was twice made a bankrupt. Swift, to whoso discordant mind all mnsto was equally contemptible, summed np the controversy in tho well-known lines

M Soma say tost Signor Bonoaoini, Compared to Haaael is a ninny. Others aver that to him Handel Is scarcely fit to bold a eandle. Strange there should such difference he ’Twist tweedle dum and tweedlo-dee." Not till after many years of cruel poverty: not until ho stood npon the threshold of blindness and old age, did Handel succeed in conquering the prejudices of the *• Town.” Surely there arc things in the world more repugnant even than democracy, and among thorn are the affectation of superiority, bred of isolation, and the Pharisaic giving of thanks that we are not as other men are.