Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB
[blocks in formation]

A FRENCH ARTIST AT THE FRONT

The artist who is seen making sketches is M. Lobel-Kiche, who is one of the men who have been commissioned by the French Government to make pictorial records which may be used as a permanent memorial of the great war. Even in the midst of her stupendous struggle France cannot forget her interest in art

[graphic][ocr errors][merged small]

A THRILLING PICTURE OF THE FOREST FIRES IN CANADA

The picture was "taken by firelight, and realistically portrays the tragedy which has befallen many of Canada's homes. See The Outlook of August 9 for

editorial comment

[graphic][subsumed]

SPORTS OF THE AUSTRALIAN NAVAL RESERVES

The photograph shows a striking exhibition seen at the annual meeting of the Australian Naval Reserve at Sydney, New South Wales. In the obstacle race pictured the agility of the young sailors in feats of climbing augurs well for their usefulness when confronted with the exigencies of their profession

[graphic]

A DIVER PREPARING TO DESCEND TO BRING UP THE UNEXPLODED SHELLS

[graphic][merged small]

SOME OF THE SHELLS RECOVERED FROM THE DEPTHS
RECOVERING SHELLS FROM NEW YORK HARBOR AFTER THE

"BLACK TOM" EXPLOSION

Large numbers of the shells that were sent to the bottom of the bay after the recent terrific explosion in New York Harbor have been recovered. They will be returned to the munitions works to be recharged,

[ocr errors]

eir temporary submersion having merely injured the powder inclosed in them, without lessening their value otherwise

"E

Ε

A GREAT ENGLISH MUSICIAN'

BY DANIEL GREGORY MASON

NGLISH music, no music," said Schumann long ago; and Germany had seen little reason to revise the unfavorable verdict until, in 1899 and 1900, Edward Elgar produced two masterpieces, one in pure instrumental music, the "Enigma" Variations; the other a cantata, "The Dream of Gerontius." German appreciation, the more coveted the longer withheld, was cordial enough when it came. The Variations, produced in November, 1901, in Berlin, under Weingartner, were pronounced by a leading critic to rank with Brahms's Haydn Variations," and even above them as regards the exploitation and handling of the orchestra." "Gerontius," heard in Düsseldorf only a month later, won its composer a laurel wreath, a Tusch from the orchestra, and the highest critical praise. The seal of German approval was thus placed on a reputation which had grown steadily but slowly. Born in 1857, Elgar reached general recognition in England only with" King Olaf " in 1896. In 1900 he was honored with the degree of Doctor of Music by the University of Cambridge for his achievement in "Gerontius," even though the work perhaps puzzled as much as it edified the British public as a whole, bred on Handel and Mendelssohn. The prophet was helped in his own country by foreign praise, however, and in 1904 a knighthood for him was included among the King's birthday honors. Since the production of his two fine symphonies in 1908 and 1911 Sir Edward Elgar has been recognized as one of the foremost living composers.

The contribution of German approval to this entirely merited fame is here emphasized because it directs our attention to an essential point about Elgar-a point in which he differs from many of his compatriots. Elgar is English in character, but cosmopolitan in sympathies, style, and workmanship. In other words, while retaining the personal and racial quality natural to all sincere art, he has been magnanimous, intelligent, and unconventional enough to break through the charmed circle of insularity which has kept so many English composers from vital contact with the world.

The author wishes to express his indebtedness to Mr. H. W. Gray, American representative of Novello, Ewer & Co., for the loan of the Elgar scores used in preparing this article.

Such insularity cannot but be fatal to art. It is bad enough when it confines the artist to narrow native models. It is even worse when, ignoring native music of the finest quality, such as that of Purcell, it follows blindly, through timidity or inertia, traditions imported by foreigners of inferior grade. Generations of English musicians have stultified themselves in imitating Handel's burly ponderousness and Mendelssohn's somewhat vapid elegance. They have turned a deaf ear, not only to the greater contemporaries of these idols-to Bach and to Schumann-but also to the more modern thought of Wagner, Franck, Tschaikowsky, and Brahms. They have been correct and respectable in an art which lives only through intense personal emotion. They have narrowed their sympathies. They have been national in an age of dawning internationalism.

Elgar, on the contrary, together with a few others whose work deserves to be better known than it is, has had the courage to aspire to a cosmopolitan breadth of style. He has made up for the lack of what are called "educational advantages" by something far more valuable-—an insatiable intellectual curiosity. Self-taught except for a few violin lessons in youth, he has been all his life a tireless listener, observer, and student. When he was a boy, having no text-books on musical form, he wrote a whole symphony in imitation of Mozart's in G minor, "following the leader" with admirable and fruitful docility. As a youth he would play violin, at the last desk oftentimes, in any orchestra to which he could gain admission, for the sake of the experience; and between rehearsals would laboriously collate the instrumental parts to find out why a certain passage sounded well or ill. He would travel two hundred and fifty miles to London, from his home in Worcester, to hear a Crystal Palace Saturday concert, returning late at night. Knowing well that any potent individuality like his own grows by what it assimilates, he has had none of the small man's fear of injuring by the study of others his "individuality." The internal evidence of his works shows that there are few modern scores he has left unpondered; yet no living composer

« AnteriorContinuar »