The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-03-13

You see these sound fancies, these little melody children of mine, have been made solely for my own pleasure, and because often the words of some poem fairly beg for tonal partnerl They twirl and flash on their little rhythmic feet until eye passes their challenge on to ear, and then you find yourself walking to it, talking to it, etc, and you have to give it voice to get it out of the system. l do not labor over structural or technical detail. 1 just write. The form is pretty much governed by habit. My thought is obedient to impulses given by long years of familiarity with the classic masters, who until Wagners time stayed in the domain of the diatonic, unlured by the lawless beauties of chromatic and whole tone scales. Many of the moderns are free lances, with % for a banner, and allegiance to nothing in their hearts, rearing their skyscraper dissonances into the peace of the upper air. Maeterlinck says:
 Art is the temporary mask under which the unknown without a face pug zles us.
 'Wagners bold digressions into the realm of chromatic dissonances opened a new world to tonal explorers. He swept interest from the human voice into the orchestra, and with his dominant 9ths, | his chromatic relationships, structural l flexibility and general scheme of dis | sonantal combinations, he created a most
 marvellous vehicle of expression, mod
 ern orchestral technic We cannot unlearn ! what he and Techaikowsky taught us i After time come Debussy, the mystic, | concerning himself not with form archi-
 lecture either but with impressions high 1 lights psychic things. Luminous dust
 someone called him. His school voices
 moods, emotions, astral images and his l m -ia tC Gl1ad oSgi n glammoured, fate-burdened sea of sound
 It is wavering, mediative, shifting fluid l stuff, exquisite beyond words at time, but | to my mind often too vague. My ears
 are often inhosptable to formless stuff
 without cadence, modulation or rest" 1 "Then, you do not like Strauss?" ventured.
 | 'I do not" was the reply. "He is
 mighty; sometimes has achieved beauty;
 but oftenest is arid and barren and al-
 ways tumultuous. Listeni I found this l recently in one of his works. A theme in e minor, and these chords accompany
 ing it; c sharp minor D sharp major G ! fiat, A sharp minor. And in another l theme a soprano scale in G flat major, a bass scale in D minor (simutaneous) and
 a c sharp triad and two dominant ninths i Gin A and E sharp) held against it f'd | just as soon hit on the whole keyboard
 l. at once for tonal beauty"
 l I remarked upon how much the pro- gramme at the clu bhad been enjoyed and | 1 remarked also upon manuscript re-
 cital," to which Mrs. Rivers replied: | "Yes, to a musical audience like the members of the Music Study club it is a great pleasure to present my efforts, but l it would be very hard to marshal my little melody children out before an audience of indifferent and opposing minds, be- | cause there are lots of folk who resent
 anything (musical, I mean) out of the
 common, and love to purposely withhold
 recognition. Don't you know that? It is
 one of the cheerful CD experiences of the
 creator to have someone who couldn't
 write line of melody and harmonize il
 to save their souls, to come up to you
 after such a programme with cold eye and
 intentional snub, and say, Tt was right ipretty.'"