New-York tribune., 1921-05-22

oPAoAlCs JCW1olA |PCld ~
ments besides the valve horns), but the
demand is for an equable and sonorous
volume of tone and an acceleration of
speed which will prevent the sub
merging of the melody when in an aug
mented form it is given out by the
trombones. The nerve -rasping effect
into which legitimate and beautiful
device has been degraded by conductors
can only be explained by their desire
to create sensation, and its enthu-
siastic acceptance by audiences only
by the existence of taste formed on
love for the rhythmical din and bar
baric yawps of "jazz" bands.
Maltreatment of Classic Works
This instance of the abuse of an
admired composition for the sake of a
vulgar appeal has been discussed here
not as something new, but because it
marks the limit up to the present time
of tendency on the part of conductors
to destroy an element of musical ap-
probation which is essential to the en-
joyment Of beauty-the sense of eu-
phony, recognition of the loveliness of
pure tone. We do not wish to become
sentimental, nor are we disposed to
question the privilege of anybody to
make his own definition of beauty. If
one can find aesthetic enjoyment in
noise it is his privilege to do so. Up
to the present time it has been the be-
lief of physicians as we'll as astheti-
clans that sounds are musical material
only when they are the products of
regularity. Lacking this principle, So
norous vibrations are noise.
The claptrap effect in Wagner's over
ture does not make the passage dis
sonant, but it subverts its meaning and
destroys the appeal to the faculties,
hearing, imagination, emotion, which
the composer intended to address It
aims at an eXcitation of the nerves,
and is akin to the humping of drums
blocks of wood and pieces of metal and
the grunting and squawking of saxo-
phones and trombones in which rude
sensibilitics find incentives to the
dance. The euphony and melody and
harmony, as we'll as the sense of SYM
metry, proportion and we'll ordered
rhythm, have departed from dance
music Of the popular order, and with
it gracefulness. ease, symmetry OF
pose and movement from the dance
itself. "Jazz" music did not lead te
the vicious treatment to which good
orchestral music is now subjected in g
great many instances, but it is the
taste for "jazz" which makes the
vicious treatment delightful to man,
and leads to such demonstrations a.
We have deprecated.
Appreciation of euphony is departing
from our concert audiences; which
means that gentleness of feeling. re
fined fancy, understanding and goo,
taste are departing. The decay began
when instrumental bands were in
creased in size to conform to lare
corcertrooms and conductors began t.
revise the music composed for dfferen
conditions and under different concep
tions OF beauty and purpose. to max
it, as they thought, meet the require
ments of the changing popular taste
This raises a question too large an
momentous to be discussed here-th
question whether or not, and if so t
what extent, modern musicians are jus
tilted in Notwithstanding the works o
their predecessors. We have distinc
abuse of the classics in mind, and s
, far as it is concerned we believe tha
1t ought to be abolished before tn
ear becomes so habituated to loudnes
, of tone as to crave it and utterly los
appreciation of we'll modulated grada
tions. Conductors now give US exae
gerated expressions of the two es
/ tremes of the dynamic scale and littl
!, between. Forte has become fortissim
especially when the brass continger
and kettledrums come into use, an
J piano pidntsstmo, when the string ban
plays alone. The lack of high skill O
: the part of the majority of wood-win
players makes expressive nuance be
tween mezzo-forte and piano, ofte
piano itself, an unheard of thing.
We are not singing jereme with
out concrete instances of the abuse O
dynamics in mind. Memory easily re
calls cases in which, had our audience
been SIS susceptible to tonal beauty a
they ought to be (and might be), som
means for rebuking the perpetrator
would have been found. We hav
known the first of the characteristic
syncopated chords which open tn
overture to Manfred" emphasized wit
: & clash of the cymbals, as if the mos