Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1912-02-13
THE WISDOM OF EleAR.


Sir Edward Edgar has been pointing
out to a Daily Telegraph interviewer
the enormous misunderstanding that
prevails as To the amount of money
10 be made by the individual composer
out of his own music. He estimates
that there are not many more than one
hundred first-rate symphony orches-
tras existing that have tlseir own i'm
portant musical library. IL each of
these purchase the full score and parts
of a new symphony il will be, roughly,
the maximum: on the other hand, III
a novelist sells 1000 copies of book 1t
IS put down as a failure Did ever n
modern musician. he asked, sell 1000
full scores? To emphasize his point
that il is only from pianoforte or violin
music that the composer can make
living ballad-makers were not taken
into consideration-Elga cited exam
pies from mis- own experience. When
he visited Turin in November to con-
duet a concert he found superb or
ehestra Of one hundred and twenty
five, which for years had had his En-
isrna" Variations in its repertory, and
had played the work on tour under
Toscanini as a show piece.
Now. said Sir Edward, in not one
year since the Variations came into
being NSs9) have his fees from their
performance amounted to "A sum SUI
ncient To pay the cost Of the manu-
script paper on which they were orig
inally written. Yet the Variations are
PLAYED hundreds of times each year in
Europe and America. out of the null
tit,ide of the performances last year
Edgar gathered $3.50 into his own eX-
chequer The case of "Gerontius IS
almost worst for the composers aver
age yearly income from its periof-
nance is about, and not more than,
St25. This is not the fault of the pub
fishers. but of the public and the mu-
steal societies, who will play any ntl-
sic that Is free Amateur actors in
the country will readily pay 81 for the
right to play some farce, but not one
penny piece can be extracted Tor the
musical composer. whose work is re-
iected If his performing right is insist
ed on--if, indeed, 1t exists
ON other subjects. too, the foremost
English composer talked with his in
teryiewer, and with especial eloquehce
when he touched on the teaching OF
music. Richard Strauss once pointed
out in speech that caused no little
STIR in England at the tlme-some
eight or nine years ago-that cigars
-techric is so entirely his tEigar 81
own precisely because 1T grew along
side and together with the IDEAS eN-
pressed by the technic. Far 100 much
stress is laid nowadays upon technic
qua technic, thinks Elgar. OF course
YOU much teaah "A child TO write teach
him syntax, prosody. The tine art or
the teacher is TO guide the elementary
mower of selection of both idea and
| the expression OF It,
E,lgar says that his own teachers"
were the authors of the great books he
| read in order to find out" sfor himself,
| to develop his own power of selection;
| and he points to the fact that he was
! not told in his youthful dayssto prefer
| Mozart to Gossec, but learned for him.
| self and by himself where lay the
| truth, and why. Teachers. he main
| tains, do not leave enough to the pu-
| pills; they are too doctrinaire and, as
| it were. too definite.
! The work at present engrossing Sir
| Edwards attention is a setting for
! chorus. orchestra and contralto solo of
the ode with which the late Arthur
O'Shaughnessy opened his little volume
| of poems entitled Music and Moon
/ light" The most familiar stanza of
| the Ode is the one that runs thus:
We are the music makers.
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
| Wandering by lone breakers,
| And sitting by desolate streams:
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon CLEANS
Yet we are the movers and shakers
OF the world for ever, it seems
Ii is expected that the novelty will
be heard first in the course of the pre-
sent year at one of the provincial fes-
rivals, probably either Birmingham or
Hereford.--Musicai American.