Valdez daily prospector., 1913-03-29
SATI RD\Y. MARCH 70. 1913.
TINE PLEA FOR AMERICAN MU-
 SIC.

If the American people could give to the arts the same dis tinctiNr characteristics they have fAgiven to their business and their politics. they would rise to new and higher eIninencc in Old World centrrs of culture, and the too common disposition to meas ure us down to the sordid level of the dollar soon would uisap- pear. At home and abroad there is a demand for art that is dis tinctively American, for a fuller expression of AmericaniSm, in it's larger meaning, in music, in painting, in sculpture, in litera- ture, in no less than in the more inexact sciences which largely are concerned in artistic interprrta- tiOnS.
 Partly at least we have built up an American language. and while we are at times peeved because Englishmen twit us on account of our linguistic innovations, and accuse us of "an old abusing of Gods patience and the Kings English we still are conscious of the viriIity, freshness and rug ged pictureSqueneSS of our prov incialiSmS. In furcefulneSS, mo- bility, accuracy and power of eX- pression, the American language, the distinctive existence of which we are too prone to deny, is with out an equal, unless We turn back to the English language of the Elizabethan period, the English of he inn, rat her than of the court. the robust English of the ale house and the market place, rat CT than the rt1'rte and empty yer biage of the lords and ladies of the palace.
 But We are not so fortunate in the matter of music. Real Amer icanism. in all that it means. has found no ample expression in mu- sic. no sustained expression which would reflect the dignity, beauty and power of our distinct i've nat ationaIity. of course. as Redfern Mason points out in the Atlantic Monthly. In" suggestion of "matiOnaI music' will cause many excellent people Io Shud- der" for it ofl'endS their musi- cal ideal. which is that of pure senurity unpurplrxrd by the Sug- gestion of anything out side of it's own beauty And yet LiSZt as a Hungarian. Gricg as Norwegian, and MnuSSnrgSky as Russian, wrote in what they considered their national idiom. Nor have other countries, such as Germany and France for instance. been without composers who have at tempted. more or less successful ly, lo put national color into their music
 But Mr. Mason believes that in spite of racial mixtures in Amer ica 'therr is no apparent reason why music chararIrristically American should not begin to manifest itSnIf,' though wheth- CT the "diffcrentiaiing factor" would he "a matter of tunality. of rhythm. of Style," or a composite of all three, he does not pretend to say. But if Russians sing their Volga boat songs. and if Oarsmen of the Niir have their songs, ''is it. unreasonable he asks. ito suppose that the Yukon. the Mis- sissippi and the St. Lawrence will inspire the American as the Nolga has inspired the Muscovite and the Nile the Egyptian? May we not look for music of he Rocky mountains which will vie in beau ty with that of Tyrol, yet have in it something which belongs to America alnne?'
 Surely we may expect to real iZe Mr. Mason'S dream of a mu- sic that will be distinctly Ameri- can in tone, rhythm and style: and when composers have given adequate musical expression to Americanism in it's fullest mean ing, we will be nearing the final ity of our symphonic. creations, for here in America are to be