Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-08-24
THE MUSIC WORLD.
a Prodigy is the Result of Environ.
ment as Well as Talent
SOME GUIDING WILL NECESSARY.
The Rare Promise of Youth is Seldom Re.
allied in Mature Years.
LATE GOSSIP OF GENERAL INTEREST

Another contribution from pen that car
ries weight with it has been received with
pleasure and is printed below, 1t bears the
title, "How Prodigies are Made:"
There is perhaps in this very title chal-
lenge to popular opinion. 1t provokes the
retort that they are not made; but like
black Topsy. in "Uncle Toms Cabin, they
'Tust growed." "He just can't help il, !"
remark made at Otto Hegner's concert, is
upon exactly the same philosophical plat
form as TopSy's spontaneous development
theory.
Our strong disposition to hero-worship,
and almost superstitious love of the mar
velous, tend powerfully to facile accept
anee Of such a theory. Undoub btedly the
spontaneous selection, or strong prediction
ior his chosen art, which impels the artist
to express his thought and feeling in its
mode and material, is prerequisite to sue
cess. This special mental bias is called
talent or genius. And truly this element
he ''can't help" But it is of no beneht TO
humanity, unless he find the means of con-
yeving his own finer perception of things
TO the minds OF others less gifted. He must
reach our minds through our senses, either
of sight or Of hearing.
EXCEPT in music, he must use some ma
terial substance in which to embody his
idea. Canvas and paint, stone and metal,
are these commonplace substances-crude
and discouraging material enough, upon
which to place representation of an imma-
terial conception in such manner as to pro-
duce the same conception or mental state
within the observer.
The way in which alone this can be done
constitutes the method of the art. The de-
tails of manipulation are its technique.
The selection and setting apart from COM
mon uses of the material, and the develop
ment OF the method of handling it, is now
relatively complete. Considering the in
tractability OF these materials it is hardly
to be wondered at that every art has con-
ventional methods OF expression, and that
the observer must needs understand some
thing of the art and these methods to group
the idea intended. Something like an ini-
tiation, or what artists like to call the ''cul-
tivation of the public" in the art-mode,
must take place in order to make the art a
medium OF communication between the art
ist and public. The lamented failures of
the mueh-abused public to understand any
art work are then perhaps as much due to
this fundamental intractability of
physical material in the expression of an
server. No material or method has vet been
devised that conveys an idea so directly as
language itself. But what the arts lose
in dIreetness and explicituess they
gain in poetry and subtilty, even
as they are. And artists must be content
with small audiences until more general
cultivation removes a larger minority
farther from the attitude OF the BOBBY in
Joshua Whitcomb, who wants to know
what color you weuld paint the barn to
make it look yellow"
But no one can appreciate the perversity
and intractability Of his material as does
the artist himself. 1t is he who must study
work, experiment, analyZe, and recombine
until he has acquired facility in dealing
with his material, at least in recognized
methods. This implies many years OF min
ute investigation and research, of intense
and continuous application. This is SO
fatal a test of many aspirations that there
are many definitions which call the vital
characteristic of genius "a capacity for
taking pains, "''a consummate ability for
hard work" This is probably a
rhetorical error; but it may serve to
emphasize and introduce the other
mental elements of genius, which balances
and gives Iorce and expression to the talent
which is, without it, merely a resultless
predisposition. This element in the artist
Ae q VII ouO
to overcome the great technical and mechan-
ical difficulties of the material side OF his
art, and to acquire the special mental equip
ment for its intelligent use. s'Talent,"
says Tolstoi, "he certainly has, but be lacks
intellectual culture, fault common to all
Russian artists"
Talent is native, culture and technique
are acquired by severe application. The
first, however great, is absolutely abortive
without the second. The acquisition of it
requires not only great and comprehensive
mental power, but purpose will and courage.
Enthusiastic" work is the only watch
word.
All this applies, in music, to the COM
poser the creative musician; much of it,
and more, to the true inUerpretative musi-
clan, who has greater method and tech
nique of his instrument to gain, in addi-
tion to a similar mental and musical train
ing. Our present tonal system is highly
conventional and artificial. 1t can hardly
be maintained that there has been a develop
ment of musical capacity spontaneously
with the growth in complexity of the har-
monic system, especially as genius is said
not to be hereditary. Certainly no evolu-
ZIONIST can say that there is any muscular and
nerve improvement from Mozart to Rubin
stein, corresponding to the increased diff
Guilty OF playing the piano; nor the most
sentimental rhapsodist of the "divine
spark" hope that his be-praised prodigy can
ever be born with, so to speak, piano in
his mouth
However, the earlier his contact with the
true forms of his art, aud the more scientific
his training in executive ability the quicker
and surer the result And so is your
prodigy made. His work is none the less
real because done at the will of another; and
his accomplishment is a natural consequence
of his work and its correctness, as much as
it is of hls native ability.
1t is a question, first, of talent, then of
environment 1t is rule that his "environ-
ment" has included some individual with
authority, purpose and knowledge to direct
his training from infautile years. Art is
long, and the life of the prodigy is short,
though generally longer than his advertise
ments state. When arrived at adult years
he may prove wanting in those logicaIand
philosophical powers, which can alone be
the basis for the production or Interpretation
of great works. Sucn adult verifcation of
prodigious promise is the exception. Liszt
recognized this when he refused to hear
Lansig at Il, by saying, 81 will hear no
prodigies." The London Musical Times
after Juoiciously praising the present condi-
tion OF Hoffman and Hegues, says: I'VE
want no more prodigies."
1t is difficult to instance the failures to
fulhll iaItn ul promise, because the failures
are forgotten majority, whose only name
is Legion. Who remembers the Juror in
New York about Michael Banner. the prod
ICY violinist and who knows now when or
where he plays In the orchestra rank and