Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-04-03
THE COWNSMAN

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CLAUDE ACHILLE DBBUssY. the noted
- French composer of highly original, sue
cossful and significant impressionistic music
IS dead at the untimely age Of hfty-siX
and, by way OF antclimaX Karl Muck
leader OF the Boston Orchestra, has been
sent to prison. To consider tho latter first
Doctor Mucks excellence as the conductor
Of famous orchestra that was already
made TO his hand when he assumed its lead
ership is neither here nor there And the
question Shall we play enemy music?' Is
only subsidiary. Tho real issue is this:
Shall we suffer art 20 cloak tho propaganda
of a relentless and unprincipled foe2
1NHE Germans are superior musicians
i Music is the one art in which they have
succeeded, in any measure, in rising above
their national limitations But the Germans
are not the only musicians in the world and
some of their greatest names not quite
so wholly German as habitually think
them. Beethoven was half Flemish, Mozart
a Tyrolese Austrian; in the fire and
splendor of Wagner there has been sus-
pected a tinge Of the very Jewish strain
which he so detested The arts are not so
much an endowment OF race as the indi-
vidusl gift Of fortune. Music ftckered once
in England. but that was as far uacH Ss
the days of Elizabeth painting bla2ed out
in medieval Italy and still shines brightest
IN contemporary France. There was great
drama in Greece, in Spain, in England IN
widely separated ages. And there VIII come
a time when the arts will rise TO their place
beside other American acuievements. Shsll
we give up German music? Not where u
had risen out of the fogs of Germanism INTO
the regions of universal art. Shall we give
ND German literature? Absolutely yes, where
it is degraded into German propaganda or
depraved by German insolent immortality
Shall VIC take this untimely time TO eN-
plot any of the Teutonc arts? AssuTedlN
not, for there is little in their purely Teutonlc
elements worthy of exploitation ana the
rest they had from the ancientS, from lhe
Italians. the French and the English cle-
ments now long since become the common
heritage of mankind. But the Gownsman is
getting lost in the folds Of his gown.
Tn THE death OF Debussy the world OF
L music has lost an extremely interesting
artistic personality one from whom that
world might well have hoped that there was
still much accomplishment TO come. Dehus-
sy's work is at once that OF a daring lnho-
Vator a craftsman of Consummate SKIN anu
a poetic. at times a highly imaginative. spirit.
There are musicians. as there are poets and
painters who discover for us the greater
depths and riches which are inherent in the
things which we now possess; and there are
musicians as there are poets and painters
who lead the way into new provinces of art.
Debussy belongs to the latter daring and
fascinating class, and he is problematic. as all
such leaders must remain until time and the
onward trend Of the art Of each shall justify
his conquests The association Of Debussy's
music with the futursts' art is natural. with
inopressionism. post-impressionism, cubism
whatever may be the name of the new art
ism with which the tagging and breathless
Gownsman has failed to keep abreast. And
our licensed libertine in words, the new
free verse. is n fedgling Of the same nest
But there is difference. and momentous
one at that. The impatient student Of art
weary of the slow academic processes Of
training, unwilling to try very hard or work
very long, dashes off in a refractory mood a
thing it matters not what except that Il
he unlike any other thing" in art or in life.
shapeless. colorCul insignificant. absurd.
With this as his banner he marches forward
with a handful Of mad followers and the
further he goes, the further his distance from
art Or "the poet" unable TO undergo the
discipline of his sister art unwilling TO knead
the intractabe qualities of words into the
ductility of verse. remembers that fine old
rebel Walt Whitman and. following In his
difficult path, whose large ideas sustained
his stumbling feet, the poetlinE throws away
rhyme. verse, beauty. significance. and in a
tumble of sound initiates his friend the
cubst in art.