Musical Progress Research Articles

The Instrumentation of the Band

At a meeting sponsored by the College Band Directors National Association at the MENC Conference in Chicago, the author set forth his beliefs why further musical progress for concert bands is unlikely unless a basic instrumentation is adopted.

Revolution, Totalitarianism, and Music

ALTHOUGH the interrelationship between music and the more extreme political ideologies in vogue from the time of the French Revolution until the first World War manifested itself primarily in the censorship of theatrical and patriotic music, the effects of modern totalitarianism upon the tonal art and its exponents have been far more diverse. Even before Hitler's advent to power, the NationalSocialists attempted to extend their policy of exaggerated nationalism to music. All radical innovations in musical technique were deemed degenerate, and linked to Semitic influence. This attitude was formulated definitively in Eichenauer's Musik und Rasse, in which it is baldly stated that each forward step in musical progress is due to Nordic influence, whereas each relapse into decay is of Near-Eastern (Jewish) origin. The elimination of Jewish and other non-Nazi composers, critics, conductors, and performers from the profession of music, and the boycott of compositions by men who either were non-Aryan or had expressed themselves in an advanced idiom were aspects of the act of purification which took place during the first years of the Third Reich. An attempt was made by Goebbels to forbid all art criticism, which was to be supplanted by mere description and contemplation. Most of the musical organizations existing before 1933 were suppressed, especially those which had been international in scope, and others, Aryan and conservative, were set up in their places. A positive, socialistic step was the campaign to provide cultural (especially musical) entertainment for the masses by assigning large blocks of concert and opera tickets to employees who were banded together under the auspices of the Kraft durch Freude organization and the Nationalsozialistische Kulturgemeinde. On the other side of the ledger, the German inheritance of folk-song was partially contaminated by its combination with new, hate-inspiring and militaristic texts, in order to stimulate the combative instincts of German youth. The artistic policy of Fascist Italy was comparatively liberal and constructive until it was revised as a result of National-Socialist indoctrination. Soon after the establishment of the Axis, Hitler's cultural principles of anti-modernism and anti-Semitism were adopted in Italy also. It is in Soviet Russia that the influence of an ideology upon the

CHERUBINI'S STRING-QUARTETS

N the department of chamber music, the position proper to Luigi Cherubini appears to us to be and similarly situated to that which, by rights, should be assigned to Muzio Clementi in the province of the pianoforte sonata. Fuller and richer in matter, and much more modern as regards manner, than the compositions-along similar lines-of the earlier classical school, the works of both the composers above mentioned, in the respective directions stated, cannot but be regarded as superior to any similar productions of their immediate period, with the exception of the more advanced chamber music and pianoforte sonatas of Mozart and Beethoven. Although, perhaps, exactly on the highway of sonata form development, they both constitute a delightful byway which only accompanies but frequently surpasses in beauty the main road of musical progress in this direction. Hence, no earnest student of musical composition, and no sincere lover of the art can afford to remain in ignorance of the existence of these works; while competent quartet-players on the one hand, and proficient pianists on the other, should make practical acquaintance with these more or less remarkable and interesting compositions. To assist in the prevention of the disaster first mentioned, and in the procuring of the desideratum last named, is only the motive underlying the perpetration of the present paper but constitutes the justification for its public presentation. Less in number than the similar productions of most of the classical composers, the string-quartets of Maria Luigi Carlo Zenobio Salvatore Cherubini are just about as numerous as his names-to wit, six. Of these works the last four were writtenone in each year-during the years 1834 to 1837. Concerning them Cherubini is said to have declared upon one occasion, to Ferdinand Hiller, that they only occupied him but actually contributed to his amusement, and that he not the least pretension in the matter. At this time the maestro was over 70 years of age, so that these quartets represent the composer at his most mature period, albeit at a time with reference to which one critic remarked that the head and heart of the Beethoven of France had remained young. Also, these later quartets were

The Interpretation of Greek Music

Inadequacy of our Theory. To whoever may desire to understand the music of ancient Greece, I would recommend that he put away from his mind that sense of superiority which our progress in counterpoint, harmony, form and orchestration has engendered, and devote his attention to the shortcomings of our music, for they relate to those very matters concerning which Greek music has the most to teach us.Our music has come down to us from remote ages through the Greek system. The first stage in its progress was marked by the collection of a multiplicity of Harmonies and modes, not unlike those upon which the classical music of India is based. Of the diatonic scales, some were soft, employing septimal or soft intervals, and others were hard, employing semitones, and major and minor tones, differing among themselves in the order in which these intervals were strung together. The Greeks may have added to this collection. Their chief contributions to musical progress, however, were instrumental heterophony and the science of intervals. They were driven to the use of the former by the tyranny of the ‘metrici’. Thus the long and short of Greek poetry led indirectly to the harmonic system of music, which is one of the main achievements of European civilisation. The foundations of musical science were laid by Pythagoras. The results of his labours were soon apparent in the classification of the enormous number of scales in use, the adoption of a musical notation based upon an intricate system of correlated keys, and the art of modulation. In the break-up of Roman and Greek civilisation, the subtle distinctions between the various Harmonies were the first features of the music to go under. Curiously enough, the innovations introduced by the master minds of Greece survived in the art of modulation, and the contrapuntal tradition. A new series of keys was invented. This degenerated, under the growing influence of keyed instruments, and the craze for unlimited modulation, into the musical freak of equal temperament, in which a scale, grotesquely out of focus, is set up as a standard and basis of theory. Players on the pianoforte and organ perform tempered music in tempered tones to admiring audiences.

TONIC-SOL-FA: PRO AND CON

N two articles in the April, 1918, number of The Musical Quarterly, the Tonic-Sol-Fa system comes in for hearty praise, which in truth it well deserves. As I gather that the system is not in such universal use in the United States as it has been in England, I may perhaps be allowed to refer to some aspects of its working in the country of its origin. The time has gone by when one was obliged to take sides about it, and either to enlist as a whole-hearted partisan of T.S.F. eschewing all music that could not easily be written in it, or else to be classed among the high-brow musicians who knew nothing about it and cared less, condemning it as superficial and associated with the 'lower orders' and non-conformity in general. In the present day, one may recognize, without going thereby in peril of one's life, that it has defects as well as merits, and that it is eminently useful in certain ways, though in others it has the effect of keeping back musical progress. It is obvious that its great asset, the constant reference to the tonic of the key, is nothing new; this was recognized under the Hexachordal system, just as clearly as the principle of the movable Do, though that was called by the original name of Ut. The truth of Just Intonation is contained in the T.S.F. modulator, though it is a curious fact that this is not intentionally or expressly taught. The fact that G sharp and A flat are not the same note, though the same key has to serve for both on the piano, is conveyed, or might be conveyed to the pupils of T.S.F., but by a very singular accident, the modulator which hangs on the wall of every elementary school in England, and the book which the teacher holds in his hand, were formerly at variance as to which note is the higher. This discrepancy remained unnoticed so long, that it is fair to conclude that the valuable information contained in the system was not turned to much account in practical teaching. Consciously or unconsciously, the pupils of T.S.F. do sing better in tune than other children, and this of itself is no light matter. The ease with which a single part of a vocal composition can be read is of course a very great advantage. As long as the

The Balalaïka

It may seem impossible, in these times of musical progress and emulation, that a family of instruments possessing unusual musical attributes should be in vogue in a large portion of Europe and yet be unknown to musicians generally. Nevertheless, such is the fact. Outside Russia the peculiar charm of the balalaïka (pronounced bàl-a-like-ka) is unknown. In our standard works on orchestration it is not mentioned, although its claims for association with the modern orchestra for special effects are as great as those of the mandoline, guitar, saxophone, surrusophone, or ophicleide.