The Two Attitudes

Abstract

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

Music, Theosophical spirituality, and empire: the British modernist composers Cyril Scott and John Foulds

“…Despite all of which, he may be considered the most stimulating figure in the musical world to-day. 48 Likewise, Scott discussed Grainger in opposition to Schoenberg, whom he labels a 'Futurist', 49 as a great harmonic inventor, who 'does not lead us into the excruciating'. 50 As said before, Scott and Foulds found a common ground in Theosophy.…”