The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-03-02
WOMEN IN THE ORCHESTRA

I receives a widespread response. and the classic French music is also presented in concert and song; but in Germany and Austria we hear far too little of Debussy, Ravel, Dukas, Cesar Franck. and still less of those great artists of the modern Russian school. I need not say that the modern music of every school is well comed in America There are no liInita- tions set to your enthusiasm. The Amer ican ideal of freedom and liberty is surely realized to the utmost in one thing-in the appreciation of beauty. Americans demand but one thing, namely, that what is given them is the best Of it's kind. In this ideal, at least, the American audience is paramount to any other in :he world.
 q am especially interested in this fact about America because I myself enjoy all piusic--the simple music and the great, the music of the people, and the music of classic eXclusiveness. I do not believe that there is such thing as vulgar
 music any more than we would speak of a vulgar soul A human being may have vulgar traits, but music is one of the at- tributes of the soul, and so it cannot be vulgar. It may be uninspired, it may lack harmony, it may be without perma- ! nent beauty, but it cannot be vulgar any more than a picture done by an ar- tst who loves humanity can be vulgar. l In England we hear peop;e speak of Hogarth, of Van Ostade, as vulgar pain 1 ters; this is quite ridiculous As mat ter of fact, they are men of wider sym pathies than most of us, men who find in all humanity a subject for their art, just as musician should find in all na- ture a subject for his music. I do not be- lleve that a man can be great artist who is not great lover of humanity. and you cannot become great and love only selected few human beings. Every manifestation of humanity the world over must interest you if your art is to express the great vitality'-life itself.
 There is really only one curb that schould be put upon the interest of the artist in life-the spiritual health of the community. If we are feeding the com munity with poison, then the time is come to stop. But there again, who is to decide
 what is spiritually good for nation and what will demoralize it? I consider that it is a part of every artists duty to study, to understand what will develop the community; and if he is not sensitive enough to pour out through his work the necessary spiritual sustenance, then he is not essential I believe, for instance, that every conductor of a symphony or- chestra should feed the audience with sustenance of rich beauty and variety; also, he should realize that hearty,
 
 just as the man who paints must realize that the humble people are not vulgar, that they are sometimes very close to the source of that power for expressing beauty which we call genius.
 AS for the present generation of mu- sicians, in the main, war will not stop i their capacity for creating. Once q man's l soul has been touched into life. nothing can take from him his desire to express | life; nothing, at least, except death. One remembers that war did not stop
 Beethoven in his work and that he com posed within the sound of bompa rdmeni;
 that Cesar Franck, back in the seventies, when Germany went into France, con- tinucd to score his Redemption So for
 the present. at least. we shall go on re- | ceiving musical scores wherever musi-
 cisns exist. And afterward. if peace comes to us again, who shall Say that 1t Will be merely material peace, csssa-
 ton of strife, blind urge for material comfort again? It may be thn- through
 conflict some strange. new force shall have been liberated to illuminate the ' world and cast out the shadows of this
 present universal tragedy"