Los Angeles herald., 1909-12-05
MuSiCNOfeS
Continued from Page Threel

lectual character of chamber music, as
compared with orchestral or choral
music, l can only say that the idea is
laughable. Greater care and Cleanli-
ness of technique is demanded of the
players than in orchestral work, be-
cause here there is but one man to Il
part that is there sustained by many,
The variety OF character, mood ana
musical form is as great as we find IN
the orchestral library and far greater
than we find in the choral archives.
The fact that many people have been
bored at their first hearing of cham
Der concert is largely the fault of the
man who made up the program and
conducted the concert. If the usual
strict quartet program with its eX-
hausting succession of ancient syn
phonic forms were to be copied by the
symphony orchestra the symphony
directors would quickly go abegging.
The symphony is conducted with oil
possible consideration of the general
public. 1t gives only good music, and
it recognizes the fact that its patrons
are not students of music but simply
enlightened people who seek music for
its real office in this busy world as a
means to nervous relaxation AMI
spiritual uplift.
The broadminded conductor, however
erudite, knows that emotion is the es-
sence Of music whether played by five
men or fifty. He knows that the emo
tions can not be awakened by a great
work unless the auditor mind is pre-
pared by being informed of the char
acter of what is to be played and thus
allowed an opportunity to get into
receptive state. Hence the analytical
program has come into universal use
save in a few cases where the better
eXpedient of a brief lecture by the
conductor is employed to place the au-
dience en- rapport. Walter Damrosch
has endeared himself to the American
people by this means. Where chamber
concerts are given with a like proper
consideration of those whose lives are
without opportunity for close musical
study, such concerts are bound, in the
nature of things, to be as enjoyable
as symphony concerts They are like
ly indeed to be more so, as the musical
subjects present a higher average Of
melOdious beauty and the smaller in
strumentation rendered it easier for
the lay mind to trace the development
of ideas.
1t is true that the average citizen is
either unacquainted with good music
or has at some time been inveigle1
into a concert where he was made to
feel about as much interested and at
home as an Alabama darky In a Fifth
avenue church. Who can blame him
if he declines to pay 50 for a concert
ticket? He must be convinced that
he will be given twice as much fun
as he gets at a good th6ater, four times
as much as he finds in the Orpheum
twenty times what he gets at a moving
picture show.
If the opulent gentleman of the Re
view will find stray dog with ribs
Il
loose garbage bits and will make him
a household pet it viii not be a month
before that dog will turn down a por-
ter-house steak that is not properly
truhled.
The usual concertizing plan Of wide
spread and isolated dates is what keeps
the general public from getting the
music habit and keeps the concert
business in the category Of precari9us
ventures. The theater runs daily, Civ
ing the citizen a constant opportunity
to attend at his convenience. He drops
i'm a few times and acquires the theater
habit, Experience has proven that the
music habit is as easily gained as the
theater habit. and is far more ten
aCiOus. The taste for good music Is
gained precisely as the taste for good
books good pictures or good plays IS
gained-through contact.
The worthy editor of the Review
either forgets the course Of his own
or would have us believe
that he began, as a red baby, to kuit
the brows and listen with pOnderOus
mien to three Beethoven symphonies [
a meal. or possibly he considers the
average American citizen less capable
of learning and liking good things
than a stray canine. The cultivated
musician is apt to forget his artistic
childhood as grandparents forget the
viewpoint Of boys and girls. As pro-
gram makers and directors they err as
old people err who are too strict and