NEED MUSIC GO SIDEWAYS

Radio Record, 22 July 1938, Page 14

NEED MUSIC GO SIDEWAYS

Special to the "Record"

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$6 VERY little bit of practical effort to produce music in some form or other must everywhere be encouraged. If people can produce music themselves-even a little-they can: get greater pleasure from listening to music." Mr. Swinstead broke off as a steward crossed the floor of the hotel lounge, carrying a large, framed photograph, and hung it on the wall. Mr. Swinstead’s eyes dwelt on it for a moment. "For instance," he said, "I know that isa fine photograph of a girl over there that they have just put up. I have tried to take one myself. "It is the same with music." His Question HXAMINER in Musie for Trinity College, London, Mr. Felix Swinstead, now visiting New Zealand, put aside my next question on the composing of music for a moment and usked oue himself: , "What are your piano stools like?’

11@ Js LO broadcast lliustruted Music tulks during lis stay in New Zealand from the four main National stations, and will give leeture-recitals in schools as Yell. He plays and speaks on "Mood in Music" from 1YA on August 5; on "Form in Music’ from 2YA on August 30; on "The Left Hand in PianoPlaying" from 3YA on November 18; and on "How the Composer Works" from 4YA on November 24. "In Australia, they have very fine pianos," said Mr. Swinstead, "but their music stools are awful. Not in one centre in Australia did I find a stool that stood up and down." "THE stool, of which nobody in the audience takes the slightest notice, may play a most important part in a pianist’s recital. Yet in many places, says Mr. Swinstead, musicians are given only the one stool. Jt must do for both long people and short people, The spiral-swivelled

stool] is not satisfactory either. As you play, the chair jolts loose. And position matters very much to the player. Wrong position means that he does not get the correct muscular conditions. "When I played in one place in Australia," said Mr. Swinstead, "they gave me the stool that Moiseiwitsch used. They had cut down the legs of it for him because he is a short man, much shorter than I. I could not use it. "I gave my recital sitting on a beer-box, with the top of the stool on it to make it comfortable." No Short Cuts S done with, Mr. Swinstead began to speak ugain of modern musical composition. For him there are no short cuts in composing. All the great masters have founded their style on that of their predecessors before they developed their own individuality. There was a tendency after the war for a new school of thought to grow up. Some composers said: "We can disregard all this early work. We can begin where Ravel and Debussy finished." They got a cheap notoriety by being outre, but no music written in this method will last. OU must go back to the masters,’ said Mr. Swinstead. "There never will be another composer who is greater than Bach and Beethoven. There never can be." The evolution of music is like the

evolution of the motor-car. It begun with the combustion engine and the pneumatic tyre. It came to a certain point until it reached perfection. Now nothing can be added but cer-. tain refinements and graces. The manufacturers tried ultrastreamlines and found they had gone too far. They could, no doubt, make one to go. sideways, but what would be the use of that? What use is it to make music ‘go. sideways"? Gomn new composers, Vaughan Williams and Delius, have evolved new ideas, but first they ghad to go through the mill. To listéh to some modern writers, one might imagine that the laws of harmony and and counterpoint are no longer needed for composers, That, says Mr. Swinstead, is all wrong. Vaughan Williams, for instance, learned his harmony from (Oontd, on page 42.) ~a

Music of Moderns

(Continued from page 14.) part singing when he was a choir boy. There is no doubt, says Mr, Swinstead, that would-be composers-even if they are writing for the pianomust make a complete study of vocal part writing. It is to music what the multiplication table is to accountancy. BRE is one thing he would not like forgotten, however. The study of harmony must never be divorced. from the real study of music. In England, and elsewhere, there has been a tendency for people to study the grammar Of music apart altogether from visualising the notes they see in sound. They will study music. without reference to the ear. . That, says Mr, Swinstead, is ‘like’ teaching the grammar of French first and learning ‘the language afterwards. it is the wrong way round, the unnatural way. When we learn Bnglish as children, we learn to speak the language first and study the grammar afterwards. To have this knowledge of the grammar of musie without responding to the real meaning of music is as if one read a book on aviation and said: "Because I have read all about itin a book I know what aviation is.’’ And, all the time, one has never had the sensation of being in the air. As for jazz music, the examiner from Trinity College does not objéct to it, though he hates to hear the classics jazzed. He finds that much of it is exceedingly clever and suitable in its right place. He enjoys it, say at the films, but it is only suitable for the purposes for which it is intended. It would not stand up ata symphony concert,