The Florence Festival
THE city of Florence has set an example to all organizers of -festivals in its Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. The celebra- tions, which were begun in April and will continue until early June, have been arranged in such a Way as to catch visitors and to hold them. So thank delightful things are to be seen and heard that niu.sicians and others will find the city even more dangerously alluring than before. With the co-operation of the Italian Government, facilities for travelling, for residence and for Sight-Seeing have been so arranged that holiday-makers from' almost every country are
being compelled to conic in. • .
In addition to the ordinary tourists, FlOrence has attracted a distinguished assembly of Critics; composers and men of the theatre. They arrived towards the end of Apia to take part in the International Congress of Music, which Was 'the first event of its kind and the cornerstone 'of the Maggio Musicale; With Paul Bekker, Henri Piunieres, 'Professor Edward Dent and Guido Gatti among its leading personalities, the critics' convention was already an impressive body ; and when the Congress was opened- in the beautiful Sala dei Dueeento in the Palazzo Vecchio in the presence of the Duca d'Aosta, With trumpets sounding and- banners flying, the Occasion shone with reflected glory ; so Much so that some of the critics were overawed by their sudden prominence, and, in their lectures, either Marred the substance by fcirdng the note of eloquence or, being 'unnerved,- failed to rise tb
their unexpected importance. • -
Not all the contributions' Were worthy of an interriatiohal event. Many Were too ling; -a-'"feW Were ljuite ordinary. The German critics erred on the side of abstract theorizing with a minimum of reality for basis. Characteristic of this manner of thinking was Herbert -Fleisher's paper on The New Music," in which he asserted.that the musical automaton is considered by the youngest school of composers as an instrument with original qualities of aesthetic euphony. In his view, these composers have no desire to obtain either sound photograph or a mechanical copy of instrumental music, but, on the contrary, are aiming at a music which is mechanized in its intimate sound structure. That, of course, is enlightening to those who -find themselves in the dark whenever they turn on the wireless for a conceri, of contemporary music; but it will not necessarily increase their desire to listen. A more lucid and reasonable discourse on the same subject /was that of Ernie Vuillermoz, who indicated some of the lines along which machine-music could assist the development of the artist. There were some lively speeches on the subject of music criticism. During this session the younger Italian critics made a brave show, notably Luigi Ronga, the author of an interesting study of Frescobaldi, and Guido Pannain, whose book on contemporary composers was recently reviewed in The Spectator. The one revealed how, greatly indebted Italian criticism is to German investigations and systems, especially those represented by Adolf Weissmann, Paul Bekker and Ernst Bilcken ; the other made a good point in declaring that no criticism is of any real value unless it is based on the idea of music as style ; and, lest he should be accused of offering a counsel of per- fection, he immediately gave his definition of style as "form conquered and produced," with the further qualifications that it is wholly of him who creates it and that it has a virtue of expansion peculiar to itself. He did not explain how this test can be applied to one such as Stravinsky, whose development has lacked precisely this virtue of expansion and consists of a series of abrupt and separate manifestations.
The schedule of the Congress included only two English representatives. I am not in a position to judge the value of my own lecture, but I hope I shall not be suspected of excessive partiality in saying that Professor Dent's lucid, fluent account of opera in England and his paper on international music exchanges were among the finest of all the expositions. In addition he paid the Italians the compliment of speaking in their own language. Each of the other lectures was given in the speaker's native tongue, while the rest followed with translations printed in Italian, French, German and English.
Music does not, live by theory alone, and the Congress was made the more vital by being contrasted with per- formances, not of the new music (which, after all, has yet to burgeon from its theories), but of early nineteenth-century opera. Of three revivals, Spontini's La Vestale was least justified, in spite of the enticement of Rosa Ponselles singing. In Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia Gigli sang the charming, irrelevant melodies with most delicate artistry ; but this again is a work that can hardly take its place in the repertory. Verdi's Nahum, on the other hand, has already regained its position as a result of the new production at Florence, especially as the nationalist theme is there so exuberantly sounded. Young Verdi was a noisy fellow but, in his fiery enthusiasm, irresistible, BASIL MAINE,
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