MUSIC.
THE COLLAPSE OF CRITICISM.
LOVERS of music ought to be deeply grateful to Herr Schonberg. For be more than anyone else is responsible for reducing to absurdity the self-protective generosity which of late has afflicted so many of our most intellectual critics. The standpoint adopted by their predecessors of the mid- and late Victorian eras no doubt left much to be desired in respect of sympathy and even courtesy. In their loyalty to composers of established reputation they were determined not to let the modern dogs have any chance at alb The treatment of Wagner on the one band, and of Schumann and Brahma on the other, by the lilendelesohnians—plas royalistes qua to roi—reflected little credit on the arbiters of taste in the Press from the "fifties" to the "eighties," and a rich anthology of ineptitudes can be compiled from the utterances of Chorley and Davison and Joseph Bennett, to mention no others. But when all allowances are made for their rigidity and prejudice, it may be admitted that they were animated in the main by an honest dislike of what they condemned. Cborley wielded a trenchant pen, reminding one at times of Hazlitt ; Davison was at least a thoroughly well equipped musician who did useful service in popularizing classical music as annotator of the old "Pop" pro- grammes; and Bennett in his later years attained to a reluctant appreciation of Wagner's genius. But while there is no gainsay- ing the fact that the modern critics are for the moat part better equipped in technical knowledge, their not unnatural desire to avoid the mistakes of their forerunners has led them into the opposite extreme. We have consequently readied a stage in which the Press, instead of acting as a brake on enthusiasm for modernity, has become its chief accelerator. Our musical writers have seceded from the Right and gone over almost in a body to the Extreme Left, They hold it their chief duty to practise an "intelligent anticipation," and with their eyes glued on the horizon they salute each rising sun, provided he is sufficiently ugly, with monotonous acclamation. In a sense this attitude is highly creditable to their humanity. The tragedies of unrecognized genius in the past at least indicate the need of caution. No one wishes to see a new Mozart go down to a pauper's grave, or a modern Schubert pass away without hearing his greatest masterpieces performed. But this undis- criminating tolerance of all that is new simply because it is new, while it may secure a hearing for the real thing, is the opportunity of the crank and the charlatan, and puts a premium on violence, extravagance, and anarchy. The voice of genius is not always the loudest : it is often still and small, mad it never was in greater danger of being submerged by the roarings of the thunder and the earthquake. Another curious illustration of the way in which the new generosity plays into the hands of impostors is to be found in the calculated insanity of some modern music. Great wits have often been near allied to madness, and the connexion may possibly tempt shrewd and ambitious mediocrities, despairing of achieving fame by normal means, to counterfeit insanity if they cannot command genius. Besides, they can rely on the secular compassion which has always been extended to mad people ; as the French proverb puts it, Dieu aide a trois series de peraonnes, aux foss, aux enfants, et aux irorognes, and some of them contrive to combine the worst qualities of all three classes. It has been said that the wisest of men can be made a fool of by a pretty woman if she is only pretty enough. The experience of the last few years inclines one to adopt an inverted paraphrase of this cynical dictum, and to say that the cleverest critic can be made a fool of by ugly music if it is only ugly enough. But it would be grossly unfair to saddle the musical world with a monopoly of miarolatry. Precisely similar tendencies have been manifested in quite as advanced a form both in painting and in belles-lettres. Old-fashioned people who would consider it a positive insult to the word "ugly" to apply it to many modern novels, see them hailed in many quarters as beautiful and delightful. Of the excesses of Post-Impressionism and Futurism it is not necessary to speak. But when we look at all these concurrent movements, it is hard to resist the con- clusion that the same bacillus of unrest and anarchy which infects politics and labour is also at work in the world of art. Wherever we turn our eyes we note the same desire to make a clean sweep of the past, to cast not merely the old masters, but all who write with sanity and restraint, on the scrap-heap, to break away from rule and tradition, to dethrone beauty, and to claim a special merit for emptying the entire contents of one's mind, without regard for the feelings of any one else.
But while we can hardly expect that artistic anarchy will be suppressed in the Botha manner by the wholesale deporta- tion of Futurist painters and composers, antidotes to pessimism are not wanting. Evidences of a healthy reaction are to be found in the continued popularity of Reeburn and Reynolds. Indeed, it might be argued that the "unfair competition " of the old English school had driven the moderns into extrava- gance out of sheer-desperation. Again, in spite of the expiry of the Pareifal copyright, the demand for seats at Bayreuth in 1914 has eclipsed all previous records. It is clear that Wagner is far from being a back number just yet, while Strauss has shown in his two latest operas a distinct reversion to Mozartian melody, Viennese waltz rhythms, and vocal coloratura. There remains the line taken by our enlightened critics with regard to the orchestral pieces of Schonberg, and this is perhaps one of the most striking signs of the approach of a reaction towards sanity. A very few cling with pathetic loyalty to the creed that a composer has the right to say any- thing in his own way. They admit that they cannot make head or tail of the later Schonberg, but that does not prove that he is not a great genius : give us time and we shall probably learn to love the method of continuous cacophony as we have learnt to love the intermittent cacophony of Strauss. The plaintive attitude of the cautions modernist who cannot bring himself to condemn what he does not really like because of the off chance that it "may be great" is effectively satirized by Mr. Hamilton Fyfe in the Daily Mail of January 22nd. But Mr. Hamilton Fyfe gives the impression that this attitude is more common in the Press than is really the case. As a matter of fact, Schonberg has proved the last straw to some of the most thoroughgoing champions of revolt. They see no method in his madness, no virtue in his ugliness, and in so many words they say "This will not do." The interesting and reassuring feature of the situation is that there is practically a consensus of opinion amongst critics of all schools—Right, Centre, and Left—that Schonberg is not merely an eccentric but a bad composer. The exceedingly able manifestoes in which he vindicates his anarchical methods make it clear that a respectful bearing is all that he can possibly expect, for, as he puts it, "the artist creates nothing that others regard as beautifuL" This, we may remark, is the gospel of pure selfishness in its most unadul- terated form, and is the flat antithesis of the views and practice of all great artists up till now. Perhaps the best comment from the point of view of the plain person is that of a writer in the Daily Graphic of the 19th inst.: "If centuries hence this music is acclaimed great (which is very doubtful), there is no reason why anyone should pretend to like or understand
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