MODERN BRITISH COMPOSERS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 29, Issue 739, 11 September 1953, Page 5

MODERN BRITISH COMPOSERS

Sir-In your issue of August 14, which I have only just read, Mr. John Longmire is reported as having made two untenable assertions-first, that rhe Victorian era produced only minor British composers, none of real eminence; second, that music has become; in the course. of centuries, gradually more discordant. and is now preponderantly discordant. "This," says Mr. Longmire, "is natural and inevitable-we must accept it." It is almost incredible that any musician should utter such nonsense. The 20th Century has as yet produced no British composers of the calibre of Elgar, Hubert Parry, Villiers Stanford, Edward German, Coleridge Taylor, etc. Present-day specimens are, as Mr. Longmire admits, preponderantly discordant, therefore not acceptable as writers. of real music. The listening public has shown unmistakably that it will not tolerate "music" written in the so-called modern idiom. Not long ago, Sir Thomas Beecham had to abandon a concert of works by modern British composers, which he was advertised to conduct, simply because there was practically no advance booking. My reply to Mr, Longmire is that we must not and will not accept dissonance as an inevitable element in today’s music or that ef the future. The diction- ary defines "dissonance" and "discordance" as "harsh, ugly, jarring, clashing sounds, offending the ear by inharmonious combination." No intelligent musiclover will submit to this preposterous noise purporting to represent what Shakespeare calls "the concord of Sweet sound." h

L. D.

AUSTIN

(Wellington). :