MU SI C.
MUSIC IN THE NATIONAL GALLERY.
TEE nation is coming into its own again. It does not yet know this, but the process began on Tuesday at the National Gallery, at three in the afternoon, to be precise. At that hour four
students of the Royal College of Music—two girls, first violin and violoncello, and two young men, second violin and viola—set
up their music stands under the Dome and began to play, first a quartet by Beethoven, and then one by Haydn, to a fortuitous audience of about 800 to 1,000 people, who stood for
the most part in delighted silence and drank the double cup of enchantment with eyes and ears. As the harmony of concerted strings recalled to earth the beatified spirits of those who east their spells within Vienna's fated walls or beside the Danube's stream, the hearers were transported. The sweet airs that echoed round the spacious halls moved not only the listening men and women. They seemed to bear an enchantment to the Pictures, and beyond them to those who left the record of their passion on canvas and panel. One did not expect the soldier saint, with his crystal sword, to step down from the wall, but rather the poet who imagined and portrayed him as the guard of the gracious Virgin and the divine Child wisely beautiful in his innocence. It mattered not that the music was the
growth of so different an age and so changed a spirit. All beauties meet at the centre and are one. The painters of the great age would have wanted little teaching to glory in Beethoven and to love Haydn. And so the rhythmic spell of the music
made one long to call to them to share our joys :-
As when Ancestral Pictures look gravely from the Walls, Upon the youthful Baron who treads their echoing Halts. And while he builds new turrets, the thrice ennobled heir, Would gladly call his grandsire his home and feast to share.. So from dim Tuscan cloisters that shade each holy urn, We fain would call them hither, our sweeter lore to learn.
• • And little would they grudge us our greater strength of soul, Their partners in the Torch-race, though nearer to the goal."
Many of those who gazed at the " Ansidei Madonna " and thought of Raphael's graciousness, who envisaged Signorelli's luminous gravity, Francia's benevolence and Perugino's noble simplicity ; or who saw the white lilies bursting from the new opened sepulchre of the Madonna, must have longed on this fashion.
Once more we must express our gratitude to the trustees and the officials of the nation's Gallery for their courage and their deep sympathy of comprehension. There can be no-doubt that these concerts have coma to stay. We hope that the music will be kept simple and unambitious in its presentment. It must, of course, never be vulgar or ill-rendered, but it should have about it just that touch of eager innocence which was supplied by the youthful ladies and gentlemen who so delighted us on Tuesday. Youth's gracious aplomb is a thing to conjure
Previous page
