Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1927-08-07

ulSIuSSloll dl lliiS AtiliC tite
subject OF their own line of work,
with comments broad and compre-
hensiye on the one hand, and narrow
and indignant on the other, from in
: dividuals who have never personally
attempted such work. In this must
cally arid month of August-musical-
~ arid in Washington though buzz
! ing with activity abroad and even
elscwhere-it might prove interest
ing to sift out few of the different
phases of the question.
@TUHY do we applaud: asks
w Lawrence Gilman, music critic
OF the New York Herald Tribune. Ill
a recent Sunday article in that news
paper. why, after listening to the
baritone singing his sweet romanza
Che is more likely to be tenor
4 the vioiins and the comets, the oboe
land the beating drums. the men 5
I chorus. the women's chorus-the
specifications arc Walt Whitman S.
why, then. do we respond by beat
! ing together OF palms or shouting
OF gladstone shouts? Because, you
will probably reply, we are polite,
or because we are genuinely stirred:
! But it isn't really as simple as that, II
p. the psychologists and the probing
aestheticians are to be believed. Mr..
frank Howes. the Shrewd Oxonan
investigator. deyotes an illuminating
! chapter to the subject OF applause
lin his admirable new book, The Bor
derlaad of Music and Psychology,
and his observations tempt a clta-
tior.
when an audience claps its hands
or breaks forth in joyful shouts over
iMr. Gigli or Mr.. Toscanini or Deems
j Taylor or the virtuoso in Mr.. Whit
mans band who plays his instrument
through his derby hat, it is, says
Mr.. Howes, obeying various im-
pulses which are not primarily con-
cerned with the desire to reward a
performer or to express delight. OF
some half-dozen elements which may
be distinguished in applause. Mr..
Howes adds prosaically, the first is
/ the natural tendency to move the
: body after a period of mental &C
3tivity.' For you must know (and If
you don't, there are Mr.. Howes and
Aristotle and McDougall and Groce
and James and Lange, and our old
friends Freud and Jung. to explain
it all to you in extended detaiD you
must know that there is no purely
mental activity that has not some
physical counterpart.
Fundamentally, the human mind
is a mechanism for doing things
(conation. the wise men call it). The
: activity of listening is "a species of
cognition divorced from conation.'
We venture to explain that it means
simply that the process OF listening
to music impels you to bodily move
ment, and usually IN the concert
room this impulse is thwarted, espe-
cially if the music has stirred your
emotions. Your applause is an eff
fort to relieve this strain. In artistic
and intellectual pursuits Mr.. Howes
explains, where the activity begins
land ends in the mind, there is no ap-
,propriate action in which the coma
ton can issue. This absence of
movement is felt by the mind as
vague uneasiness'-a sense of strain.
That is what happens as Mr.. Gigli
finishes 'Cielo, mar, or Mr.. Tos-
canini brings the Ninth Symphony
to close. The listeners might re-
& ieve this uneasiness,' says Mr..
Howes. by aimless movements, get
ting up from their seats. stretching
their arms, yawning, even-not all
OF which expedients would be con-
venient and some of which might
even be misunderstood
Mr. Gilman enlarges on these state
snerts and indicates that Mr.. Howes
in his book goes into other minor
aspects of the phenomenon of ap-
plause. Any one interested to &C
company Mr.. Howes into these de-
/ tails will probably find his book
available at the library.
! Y u X
I A MOTHER entirely foreign COM
"A ment to those, made on the sub
feet of applause, especially as applied
TO music critics. appears in clipping,
not so recent, from the pages of the
Boston Transcript. 1t says, in part:
"The other evening / attended
concert in company with several
hundred others. OF that number per-
Ihaps two or three were professional
iCritics--that is, people who were
earning their living at that peculiar
trade, while there were doubtless
score or more amateurs present who
knew-or thought they knew-a vast
amount about music and, taking
note of the professionals, adopted
that attitude of superciliousness
mingled with tolerance which
stamped them straightway as men,
Tiers of the inner circle. 1t is COM
Iparatively easy to pick out a critic
professional or amateur) at a con-
cert. for, while the features of the
ordinary human being in the au-
dienCe present variety Of express
sions ranging all the way from de-
,piction of ecstatic transports to
registration of frank ennui, save for
1.-THE wooden immobility of the small
boy undergoing penance at his moth
er's side. there is nothing on earth
approximating the rigid austerity of
icountenance which invariably marks
your true critic. An occasional tight
ening of the lip muscles; twitching
OF the eyebrows; save for these
purely physical manifestations, there
lis no relaxation from this strained
attitude of uncomfortable vigilance
until the concert is at an end"
:, These comments were not made
by one Of THE Tribe of Critics and
Music" as the article is titled, but
by theatrical producer.
Other reasons which might be
given for not applauding at a con-
cert might be: % The rare sensation
of being SO carried away by the
beauty of the music and its perform
ance that physical reaction seems
sacrllege; % being so bored by the