I N contemplating the psychology of peoples' musical admirations, one observes that they may be placed into two distinct classes: those who are wholly or partially discontented with the Past and pleased solely with the Present, and those who are wholly discontented with the Present and pleased solely with the Past. And each of these classes has, or thinks it has, its justification for its discontent: for on the one hand, there are those who commit the fault of looking upon the whole of modernity, like Nordau, as a kind of moral disease; a kind of temptation of St. Anthony to allure them away from the path of old musical righteousness; or, on the other hand, there are those who go to the opposite extreme, as certain young "futurist" composers are said to have done, and look upon modern music as the only music, condemning its forerunning creators as "good for noughts" or antiquated idlers, meaning nothing to us now in our far greater stage of artistic evolution. Without wishing, as Walter Pater puts it, to offer "uncomplimentary assistance to the readers' wit", I am constrained for the sake of form to state that both these attitudes are wrong, but that the latter, however horrifying to all the Mrs. Grundys, is a healthier and more progressive one than the former. And were these said old ladies to burrow a little below the surface of things, they might forgive their brother Futurists, instead of condemning them wholesale as they do.There is, in fact,-to deal first with these arch blasphemersa certain species of artistic discontent which does not go hand in hand with that sour mien and pouting lip concomitant with ordinary work-a-day discontentment. However objectionable this former species might, on the surface, appear to be-yet it
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. Musical Times Publications Ltd. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Musical Times. AROUND the turn of the century British music had got into an academic rut. The most respected names in the British musical field were those of Parry, Stanford, Mackenzie and Stainer.These men were respected because they were eminently respectable, being good, serious composers who broke no rules and contravened none of the musical conventions of the day.Such was the position when, almost simultaneously, a handful of young composers appeared on the scene who refused to toe the academic line and who shocked the professors and the staider section of the public by choosing to go their own rebellious ways regardless of the consequences. One of these pioneers -for if we are just we will recognize them as such-was Josef Holbrooke, born eighty years ago (on 5 July) at Croydon, Surrey, and destined to become a composer of amazing versatility and courage. Nothing was too formidable for him to tackle, and even before his early thirties he had composed an entire operatic trilogy of massive proportions as well as the impressive number of lesser-dimensional works with which he had already pleased or shocked the public.Being, like Schumann before him, a composer with literary tastes, he derived much inspiration from the written word, and especially from the imaginative tales of Edgar Allan Poe. It was, in fact, when Holbrooke was only twenty-two that his conception of The Raven as a tone-poem first brought him into prominence after a performance of that work at the Crystal Palace in 1900. Later on followed other tone-poems inspired by the American master of prose, as also The Bells for chorus and orchestra, performed in Birmingham in 1906. Prior to that, in 1904, his Queen Mab had been featured at one of the Leeds Festivals. And deservedly so; for as Norman Demuth was moved to declare in his enlightening book Musical Trends in the Twentieth Century, both 'Queen Mab and The Bells . . .
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
customersupport@researchsolutions.com
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.