MUSIC AS REFUGE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 29 November 1939, Page 7

MUSIC AS REFUGE

FROM HORRORS OF WAR. When one considers the whole nature of music—not only its all-embrac-ing emotional field and the physical power of rhythm, but its absorbing intellectual aspects; its quasi-mathema-tical harmony and counterpoint and its half-architectural, half-logical forms —one must at least admit that music, really great music in which all these aspects are fully and equally developed, does offer a very complete and satisfying metaphysical world in which one can not merely take refuge from the physical world but gain spiritual strength and mental poise before returning to it. says the "Listener." London. One need not despise the lighter music, any more than the literature, of mere escape; it has its own. lesser value. The young soldier of whom Sir Walford Davies told in his broadcast talk on “The Tranquil Mind" the other day was quite right: "If you’ve got the wind up. there’s nothing like a sing to get. it down." But the case of the officer and the Bach Double Concerto, also mentioned by Sir 'Walford, was a different matter: "It was one gramophone record of the Concerto in his dug-out that made 12 months of hell bearable." That was not mere temporary escape; it was the regular taking of a potent spiritual tonic. Here, obviously, is one of broadcasting’s most important functions in time of war. By radiating great music—and not only great music but great drama, great poetry—it can provide us with this form of escape which is so much more than mere escape; a fortress into which the downcast, spirit can withdraw for a time to rally and recuperate.