The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-10-09
NEWS 0F THE DAY IN SOCIAL WORLD Mrs. Gussen's Address At Mu-
 sic Study Club NOTES HERE AND THERE Weddings of Note-Announcements or Clubs to Meet Today-PersonaI
 Mention-Workingf for
 Rescue Home.
BY MYRTLE MILES
tTeIephones: Bell 11eo, Peoples 2ss)

manded consideration Mrs. Rivers talk
 was upon this subject. It evidenced the
 deepest research and thorough familiarity
 with her subject, and was delivered with
 inimitable charm. In illustration of Mrs. Rivers address, Mrs Percy Tabler rem
 dered a group of Indian folk songs. Mrs
 Hoyt M. Dobbs and Mrs. bowman added
 much to the interesting programme with a group of four-handed instrumental num-
 bers Both are superb musicians. Their
 selections were illustrative of the clas-
 sical and syncopated music in delightful
 combination. Mrs. William Gussen read
 a strong paper which was a discussion
 of the question, "Is Ragtime Legitimate
 Music?" Mrs. Gussen is not only musi-
 clan of splendid cultivation but wom-
 an of unusual mental grace. Her ad-
 dress was the opinion of an expert given
 upon subject of popular interest She
 said:
 By your programme books you Will
 see that my subject Is, Is Ragt1me Legiti-
 mate Music?' When your president asked
 me to give you my opinion couldn't help
 but think Is ragtime worthy of any con
 sideration at all at the hands or pouy
 of serious music students, such as the
 Music Study Club of Birmingham You
 understand, ladies' that I refer merely to
 the ragtime that is written and played all
 over this country in third and fourth-
 rate theatres, in moving picture shows
 and even in a great many homes. UT
 course, 1t is legitimate. Any music that
 tue laws of our country do not prohibit is
 lesitilaate music. But it is decidedly not
 artistic musicl Surely it is our duty as
 members of a Music Study club to dis
 courage any class of music that does not
 teuA to uplft us and stir up all that Is
 best in us. And ragtime certainly does
 nothing of that kind. It is merely jig
 gng irregular kind of rhythm, with ab-
 solutely no melody, generally no pretense
 even at melody, which appeals to
 only those people who have never heard
 many real melodies accompanied by real
 harmonies. The very fact, and this is
 really a fact as you will find If you care
 to look into the subject, that most of the
 men who write ragtime have never been
 musically educated--that Is, have never
 learned to write according to the laws or
 harmony or have never studied the forms
 of musical compositions-which ought to
 be enough to convince the thinking stu
 dent that such music should be avoided. And then the words that are sung to
 ragtme songs! Aren't they always bad enough to disgust even those who have never thought of the musical side of the
 question? What would we think of a
 mother who would hand yellow-baek
  mean books that have plots of the most exciting kind and written in the worst of English by someone who knows abso- lutely nothing about the art of writing a real book. Of course, that doesn't often occur in this enlightened age, and when we do run across case of that kind we are greatly shocked. But how often in walking past homes right here in our own city, and even in the neighborhoods
 where our most cultured people live, do
 we hear some one rattling away at a terrific speed on some brainless piece of 'rag?' Not so often do we hear nocturne of Chopin or a song without words of Mendelssohn or any of the beautiful piano
 pieces left by our master composers How we laughed at the Chinese music
 when we heard it at the worlds fairs
 played by the native Chinese. We felt
 sorry for a benighted race that had re-
 maned in art right where they were 2O0O years ago, and thought that beating
 on tom-toms was music We know that it is merely rhythm! And so Is ragtime
 merely rhythm. It is not music at all! Some of you will say, But ragtime is syncopated time, and that is a kind of rhythm that all great masters make
 use of at times, and that all theoretical
 works on music treat of But to tell you about all the ways in which syncopated rhythm has been artistically used and can be artistically used would bring us to another class of music altogether, and we would have to speak of the compost tions of many other nations. What I un-
 derstand by the subject, Is Ragtime Legitimate Music? was that our pro- gramme committee referred simply to that very unrefined kind of syncopated rhythm which we call rags in this country. We, as a Music Study club, should cry down the playing of it and the listening to 1t just the same as a | literary club would discourage the read ing of low-class literature. The teach- CTS of music have a big field of work in this direction, too. Explain the beauties of great compositions and play them for your pupils and those who have not al- ready learned to love them will soon do so I'm sure.
 Musical conditions are growing better every year all over this country, and
 may the Music Study club of Birming ham do it's share in advancing the cause
 of the greatest of all arts, the language of tone and of exquisite emotions.
 As an illustration of syncopated rhythm used artistically l will play a concert Etude by our greatest American com poser, the late Edward Mcdowell. It IS a composition which suggests heroes and reaches our best and loftlest feelings. It is needless to give an example of rag time for we all know how vulgar and de- grading 1t is and it would certainly be uniting on a music club programme, even as an illustration of what to avoid in music.'
 The selection with which she illustrated the ideas just advanced was one of the loveliest of the Mcdowell composition and was played with Mrs. Gussens usual bril- liance.
 Wednesday evening, at 9 o'clock, at the residence of the brides parents in Ellis vile, Miss, occurred the marriage of Miss Nettye Shelby and the Rev. Lonnie Allen Moore of Meridian, Miss.
 Miss Shelby Is the daughter of MT. N. D. Shelmy, one of the wealthiest and most prominent gentlemen in the state of Mississippi. There is deep interest felt in this city in the marriage of two young people widely known, not only in that state but in Birmingham, where Miss Shelby was educated and has frequently visited her sister, Mrs. Henry Dean. The spacious Shelby home was made a place of exquisite beauty by its graceful decorations. Myriads of pink and white roses intertwined with trailing smilax and asparagus ferns adorned the lower floor. 1 Palms and ferns -e,yere used in artistic arpo