The broad ax., 1927-04-16
MUSIC
Bv Clarence Cameron White, Premier
Violin Soloist, Former President
National Association of Negro Mu-
sicians
Cor Preston News Service)

(For Preston News Service)
AS we wish this column to be some
thing more than a chronicling o
musical happenings, we feel that
clear idea of just what this great ar
Of music really is will not be amiss
SO we are going to present first shor
treatise on Art in general and Musi
in particular.
Can you imagine cathedral with
out the silver chime of bells? Can yol
think of a church without the voice
Of the choir, and the rounded notes o
solo singers? Music is an art of time
1t takes sound, and gives its meaning
and beauty by putting together" The
notes our ears recognize in combina
tons regulated by the same rhythm
the beat, the swing, the time of move
ment-the same rhythm that is the
spirit Of the dance. In some ways
music is a more wonderful art than
any other. 1t goes way beyond the
senses, though we stake it in" with
our ears, we feel" Architecture,
Sculpture, Painting, the Dance, the
Opera (partIy with our ears.)
But though we "feel" melody and
music in a bodily" way, through our
ear, it has magic power no other art
possesses. Something in harmony,
inside the arrangement of tones-as
mysterious as the other something
called inspiration which puts the
soul into all Art-calls up pictures Fin
u.s." speaks to something mysterious
in ourselves. It is not just that our
lSRzrenjoys the lovely sounds. The
Something behind the sounds calls up
bbfFIN sorts Of dream-pictures and
kvisiqps-colors, glorious crimsons and
\ gdaflets, or dull browns and greys
sun-gold yellows and autumn browns
purple twilights, towering ranges Of
whole mountain peaks, storms, spring
countrysides, cities under the sea
strange faces! That is the mystic side
of Music And again, music gives its
soul to the mute glories of the worlds
master buildings-its temples, cathe.
drals and palaces. When music
sounds in the marble halls of architec.
ture, the architecture is no longer
frozen music" it has a voice and il
speaks. Music can be architecture
voice. 1t can give architecture tht
soul Of tone!
| Opera, like the Dance may be called
a child of music, for Opera is the chile
Of Music and the Drama-Opera i;
drama set to music! And this chile
was born in the early days of the
world just like her sister, the Dance
which is rhythm usually put together
in bodily movement with Music
Opera, Architecture, Sculpture, Paint
ing, like the Dance, all are blood rela-
tons. And all these arts-Architec-
ture, Sculpture, Painting, Music
Opera and the Dance express life!
Ludwig Van Beethoven 1770-1s27
On the occasion of the hundredtE
anniversary of his death, the entire
civilized world unites TO do honor tc
the memory of great genius who:
contribution to the sum Of joy, nobit
| ity and beauty in this world gives hin
an immortal place amongst the bene
factors of humanity
A man-human above all things. HI
sprang from lowly and insignificant
people. His mother was cook, hi
father drunken musician. His child
hood was a succession of miseries
Lessons of a scottish teacher after be
ing dragged, drugged with sleep, from
his cot in the middle Of the night
Poverty, privation, toll, a loveless life
but never encouragement. The worl'
and the woes that man makes can no
extinguish the divine fire. Recogni
ton came to him, finally.
In middle age-in an age when re
publicanism was treason, he dared B
republican. even while he commando
the support of courtiers and princes
When to be liberal was to be hereti,
he lived large religion Of humanisr
without disrespect to establishe
orthodoxy. When perfumed aristc
Gratis eyed askance his stodgy hgurl
, grotesque manners, absurd garb, h
! snarled and flashed and played til
{ pettiness Of them. Too great to be ID
lnored, too poor to be respected, to