The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-06-06
Professor DAgostino Talks of Symphony Orchestra
 For Birmingham and Work Required of Members
By DOLLY DALRYMPLE

K MUSICAL activities in Birmingham MI have been so tremendously in-
 4 creased within the past 12
 months that not only have we become
 quite ambitious as a city along musical lines, but every individual musician seems to have become permeated with greater ambition than heretofore-an
 ambition to work together as it were for the good and the uplift of Birmingham, in other words, to lay aside personal matters and enter heart and soul into the promotion of musical affairs which affect the entire community.
 None is more unselfish and at the same
 time, more active in this attitude, than Prof. Alfonso D'Agostino, the popular violin teacher, whose school of music is one of the most successful in the city. Prof. D'Agostino, although he has lived in Birmingham but four years, has large clientele-one which is loyal and devoted to him, and this means that he has given good service, else he couldn't have the enthusiastic following that is his.
 Prof. D'Agostino has a class of 50 pu- pils now, a splendid tribute to his ability as teacher and from early morn until late in the evening, oftimes after studio hours, too, Prof. D'Agostino is giving lessons; in fact, he has his hands quite as full of work as any man could do jus tice to- and his recent recitalS, when hls pupils appeared, showed the sklll ana the
 training that he has so conscientiously given and the result of his work IS most commendable.
 Tn ha xIith AVOStinO terday about the forthcoming Federation of Music Clubs, the season of the Bos-
 ton National Grand Opera company III conjunction with the PavloWa Ballet
 Russe, the various artists, who VIII sNe
 recitals here next season, and a lot or
 other things relative to music geher-
 ally, Professor D'Agostino salo;
 Tt is my conviction that stuoents VI
 music should have from the primitive
 stage. clear understanding of music
 and the rythmical construction or the different movements. They should pc
 able to distinguish one period rom ah- other, and know the different sectlohs
 of each one. in order to obtain correct
 phrasing Later a thorough knowledge
 of composition will reveal to them that
 which not even the intuition of genus can afford to set aside. In the first eight or sixteen measures of almost any
 of Beethoven's slow movement, the two
 sections of the period stand toward each other in the relation of subject and predicate: The first phrase awakening expectation and the second partially an-
 swering it; the third phrase repeats the first, and the fourth completes the an swer Hence, I could not conceive an artistic performance of simple lyric period without analysing same to it's full significance"
 Finished playing is never the result
 of technical work, and we could not
 produce musicians neglectng such im- portant studies as composition and form. In fact with culture and experience of such studies, only, we can acquire the power of interpretation and transmit in actual performance our conception" he continued. "The first object of any teacher or music school is to teach mu- sic. This seems such an automatic and self-evident truth that one might be ac- cused of tiresome platitude to repeat it. A little reflection will demonstrate, how ever, that too frequently the prime ob- ject of sincere musical instruction is sub- ordinate and made secondary to commer- cial purposes. Commercial effort and ar- tistic effort are two distinct and differ ent propositions Just as soon the com mercial ambitions begin to interfere with the artistic needs, just so soon will we fall below the mark. There is a distinct line separating the commercial from the'