The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1911-10-28
81 ESTHER GRIFFIN WHITE.


The tentative plan of the Indiana
Federation Of clubs to form an Indiana
Opera company to tour the smaller
cities and towns of the state and give
the music-lovers of these communi-
ties an opportunity to hear opera in
English and presented with musical
and theatrical eclat is an altruistic
one.
The musical possesses the most uni
versal appeal of any OF the arts. The
simulated by the unsophisticated men
tally than is that of color or words.
More people like music" than care
for pictures or poetry or sculpture.
And it is curious that an apprecia-
ton of music, either popular or of
the classics, is not necessarily asso-
ciated with involved intellectual pro-
cesses Persons sometimes called
cultured" know nothing of music and
cannot appreciate it in it's finest es'
sence While on the other hand q
class which could not be included In
the culture belt will have an intimate
| knowledge of the intricacies of the
musical art and an acute appreciation
of it's finesse.
In other words, musicians are often
aside from the practice and under
standing of their art, not in the
heavyweight class.
Not referring so much to composers
as executants. That is the distinguish
ed among the latter.
There may or may not be psyche
logical reason for the universally OF
| the feeling for music in its less com
plicated aspects. If it is true that
the whole universe swings to rhythm
that there is a music of the spheres,
that the eternal motion of the worlds
is harmonious. that life is fluid which
flows melodiously on it's bed OF illu
sion, this unconscious setting OF the
spirit to the score of the universe is
easily explainable.
The most plastic artistic medium is
words.
So little is this recognized, however
that the highest expression OF the
literary art is the least understood
Musical classics are far better
known to the general public than the
classics of literature.
More people are familiar with Wag
ner than with Moliere, with Beet
hoven than with Shakespeare, with
Mendelssohn than with Goethe.
| Wagner is supreme and isolated
instance of the great master under
stood of the mass.
Wagner-derided, abused, sneeret
at, insulted, laughed down, ignored
Kissed, hooted and all but PERSONAL!
assaulted on the presentation of some
of his first great music-dramas-nov
is known wherever a musical instru
ment is known. In the concert-room
! the opera-house and the study-roou
he is no more familiar than in thu
cafe, the vaudeville theater and thu
sidewalk orchestra.
Wagner, once relegated to the linn
DO of classical music"-a vague reg
ion inhabited by musical skeletons &C
cording to the uncou' who Danish air
" there all that they do not "un
derstand"-is now included on ever,
program where music obtains.
Why? No one has ever been able tt
explain.
For Wagner is one of the wonderful
human anomalies. He did not fount
a school. He has had imitators, fol
lowers. But that is ALL He is one o
those art-gods that, posed on a pin
nacle, are the admired and envied o
the world.
And still, among musical snobs
Wagner is looked upon as trifle old
fashioned. This among that coterie o
ultra technicians and "realists" wh'
believe, or affect to believe, that &C
robatics are the superlative apoge,
of musical art.
Melody Is the soul of music, as colo
is of painting.
You can ignore this successfully TO
while but not all the time. TIL
truth at the bottom of all things will
prevail. You can't destroy the foun
dation and then proceed to erect I
structure on it's ruins.