Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-06-26
AMERICAS MUSICAL FUTURE

clothes of civilized cut that sit in repusive awkward
these splendid bronze figures SO the white
mans song is also a mOurnful m1Sflt
The rude music of these kafirs, beautiful in its
simplicity and quantness is the true, characteristic
music of the Africa of yesterday but it will not be
the characteristic music of the Africa of tomorrow.
Year by year the Dark Continent is becoming
white mans country. Native simplicity and origi-
nality are already beginning to disappear through
contact with superior race. Eventually all that is
characteristic of the Kafr to-day will be eliminated
in the absorption of a more complex civilization.
His music will then cease to exist except in the
photographic records of ethnOlOglstS.
This transitional period on which the kaflr has en-
tered brings home to us the circumstances of our
own aborigines Immediately before and after the
Colonial period, and the conditions of Southern
negroes before and after the Civil War. Time was
when the weird ncantatons the battle songs and the
burial chants of the Indian the characteristic
music of the people who inhabited this country.
They were not of race but their history is part
of our history and the most romantic element of it.
And their folklore and their music have been dill
gently collected and conserved for
The Indian was intensely musical being in his
uncivzed way; but the white who dis
psalm singers The pioneers who opened up the
wilderness were too busy even for that pous but
unmuscal diversion. Years passed before any phase
OF our national existence found musical expression 1t
the negro finally another alien to our blood who
began to express the emotions of his primitive nature
in song The simplicity and originality OF his melodc
inspiration, sprnging from his unsophisticated
ture, had an irresistible appeal and charm. He
brought into manifestation and characteristic
musical idi9m. But after the Civil War the un-
sophisticated negro became obsolete and melodies
like Suwanee River" disappeared with him.
Inspiration of the Civil War
IF it obliterated the melodious darby, that same
Civil War furnished the first real nspra ton to our
native composers. Patriotic songs, marching tunes,
battle hymns and songs of defeat and victory were
turned out in endless profusion. Much of this was
worthless and ephemeral; but there remains a
fairly substantial residuum of crude homely, but
stirring music, halowed by patriotic associations,
and valuable not only that account, but because
it is Enthusiastically American in its musical
idiom.
Almost half century has elapsed since the close
of the Civil War and in that period country has
undergone expansion in the commercial arts that
is without parallel in history; but we struck no new
note in music until the last decade brought into
vogue the reigning vulgarity of ragtime Frown on
it may, must confess in the end that it has
distinct individuality of rhythm. And that is
great deal; for rhythm stands at the root of all
musical structure. But above and beyond the vital
Importance of its structural quality, it has soul of
its own 1t is perfect expression in musical terms
of Our nervous vitality and of national swagger,
of the slapdash, devil may care get there or bust
method of the American.
l hope have made clear the existence of four
periods in history, which have their in
dividual and characteristic musical diom,
idiom so intimately a part OF the warp and
wool of certain phases of national life, that
it not only serves to recall them to memory but
to express the national mood of its time.
Remarkably vivid and instructive has been
the evolution within the last half century of
j national music in Russia. We may well turn
81 to it object lesson to help solve our own
81 problem Before that time what music was
~ written in Russia weak imitation OF the
Italian, French, and German composers. Then
Nikhai Gnka, who had been educated mu-
sicaly in Italy and Germany determined to
write music that of and for the Russian
people. His opera. Life for the GAR, was
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