Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1916-02-04

HatlOn-a nation OF business SenluSeS'
II find the interest in music in the
Cincinnati Public Schools is growing
daily. | am one of the advisory COM
mittee in public schools on musical
matters. | see the school people and
the schoolchildren are very much in
terested in having me superintend
their orchestra work, and pupils from
these classes come to our afternoon
concerts regularly. For the social
community also l feel that such musi-
cal work as We are doing here is im-
portant. 1t must of necessity heighten
the standard of culture. If people
want good music and have it, and grow
to understand it, love it and play 1t,
they will inevitably feel the urge for
finer art and painting and sculpture.
They will want more intelligent dra-
matte presentations, they will want the
truer and better home architecture.
In other words, is not all art impulse
one and the same desire for beauty,
only flowing out through different
channels; so that if it is cultivated
along one line it is bound to seek the
various outlets that are essential to it?
And artistically, too, believe that
for city to be musical center must
be valuable and significant thing for
the civic growth and improvement. To
begin with, it must bring together peo-
pie who love music, who have artistic
standards, and in bringing together
such a community an audience is fur
nished not only for good music but
for art and literature.
"A great factor in our musical life
is our symphony orchestra, about
which, as it is connected with me per-
sonally, l rather like not to say too
much, but asked about the tastes and
likings of the public of our symphony
concerts | have to say that there are
no very great differences, so far as
modern music is concerned, between
American and European audiences. In
European audiences where there is
something which the people are not ac-
customed to, they do not like it in the
beginning, they have to become accus-
toned to it. 1t is not that America is
so far behind in her appreciation
the same condition obtains everywhere.
A popular novelty has an immediate
hearing and an immediate response,
but with the serious music which is
new | find everywhere that training is
necessary to bring about a genuine APP
preciation. Where it is impossible to
give complicated modern novelty
twice in a season or two consecutive
seasons, because of the restricted num-
ber of concerts, as for instance in Gin
cinnati, | recommend very hinghly the
institution of lectures, such as | have
accustomed myself to give before the
performance of a difficult work. For
instance the last time | gave a Bruck-
ner symphony the people were not very
enthusiastic, but before performing a
/ Bruckner symphony again | gave lee
ture TO my public, in which l told them
many things about this work, and
played parts from the score, and | am
confident that at the next concert which
( [ am to give, the Bruckner symphony
will be understood with a great deal OF
interest and pleasure.
/ so much for the symphony concerts
| For the popular concerts, of course
quite different policy must be fol
/ lowed. 1t is very natural that the ma
/ jority Of the people in a country which
has not specialized in music should
prefer popular to severe classic music
but | find that it is possible to ac.
custom audiences to the higher type
of music. This is just what | am aim
ing to do in our popular concerts in
Cincinnati. 1 am bringing before the
people music they know, then | am
bringing modern serious music with
colorful orchestration, and in the same
program | am adding the purely clas-
sic.
THE greatest difference between
American and European audiences is
not in the degree of liking and under
standing modern music novelties or
popular music,-it consists in their
different attitudes toward the classics,
pure classics, especially Haydn,
Mozart and Beethoven, the prin-
ciple proclaimed by me in the begin
ming must be remembered. The
greater the number Of persons in an
audience who themselves play, Cham
ber music or four-handed piano ar
rangements, ETC., the most genuine the
appreciation of the classics. The rea-
son for this is obvious. The modern
concert goer is accustomed to the
richer sound of the usual popular and
modern symphony works. The beauty
of music in modern orchestra is like
a beautiful person wonderfully and
deliberately dressed; what reaches you
first is not the human beauty but the
elaborate costume. | feel that to be-
come real music lovers in America we
must understand the beautiful body of
music, as we'll as to enjoy the rich
orchestration. 1t is just as if you
wanted to be true student of human
be auty and only looked at people who
were very much dressed up The ar
tist who paints the human being most
beautifully is student of the nude.
( The beauty of our great classics,
Haydn. Mozart and Beethoven, is just
in music what the simple human body
is in comparison with wonderful dres
sing, but to understand this heavenly
inlCGrd harmony and richness you
must study the nude in music as in art
and this means careful, untiring, per
s0Rdl work.
THE composers l have found most
/ popular with Cincinnati audiences
| Beethoven, Wagner and Tschaikowsky
are here, as everywhere, the most be
loved. For reasons above mentioned
there is in American audiences to be
found certain beginning of weaken
ing interest in Beethoven in compari
son with Wagner and Tschaikowsky
These three musicians are all deeply
passionate and great in conception, but
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