MUSIC FOR THE MASSES.
THE British Broadcasting Company began its career by misestimating the mentality of its audiences. The majority of people in England are fond of music, but theirs is an undis- scriminating fondness, devoid of the energy to send them exploring on their own account. The public, as a whole, takes readily to the diversions that are near at hand—it prefers Hampstead Heath to the Pyrenees—and the publishers of commercial music have only to display their productions to secure a hungry and unquestioning market. Yet public taste is by no means wholly debased. It speedily rejects the wares of its exploiters as soon as their novelty has dimmed, and passes on to a newer fashion and a further disillusionment. It is quick to discern the slightest spark of merit in the mass of mediocrity that is continually offered for its consumption. Tipperary was tried and proved in the crucible of patriotic emotions, and it came very near to permanence as the one folk tune of the twentieth century. A musician could see its weaknesses in an instant, the public eventually discovered them, and for this it should have credit. Tipperary was a good tune and it was nearly a great tune. In higher forms of music the intricate texture, the subtle relationship of keys and rhythms, of themes and counter-themes are beyond the comprehension of an audience that has not even mastered its musical pothooks and hangers. But the greatest tunes are essentially a public possession. A surprising list could be made of the folk music, of the movements by Handel, Bach, Beethoven, Weber, Wagner, Chopin that are perman- ently treasured by the Philistines. In its transitory day, Yes, we have no bananas, though aided by a colossal expen- diture in advertising, could not be compared as a business proposition with the lasting popularity of the Largo of Handel.
There is nothing fanciful in the contention that the public does not obtain full mental satisfaction from inferior dance music and sentimental ballads. The British Broadcasting Company is learning this now that it has improved the general standard of its musical programmes. Unfortunately it has not wholly grasped the educational value of its symphony and chamber concerts. They are designed exclusively for musical listeners, but perforce wireless observes no distinctions of this kind, and these concerts are also heard by thousands of people hitherto innocent of such diversions as Stravinsky's Firebird or the Conversations of Mr. Bliss. The company might well induce its official music critic, Mr. Percy Scholes, to prime the audiences between each item in the programme, and the Radio Times, the official organ of the British Broad- casting Company, should contain an extensive preparatory discussion of all but the simplest music.. A very wide public is being initiated into good symphonic music for the first time, and it is in the hands of the British Broadcasting Company to send that public away bewildered and resentful, or to create from it a nation of intelligent concert-goers.
The serious lover of music must still hesitate before he can accept broadcasting entirely without reservations. Nothing approaching perfection in transmission and reproduction of sound can be expected. The instruments are primitive. At any moment outside elements, atmospheric obstructions and so forth, that science cannot control, may descend upon the listener and entirely snatch away the imperfect source of his pleasure. At best only a distorted and impoverished version of orchestral music can be reproduced by any normal Instrument, and a late concert-goer, refused admittance and fuming in the corridors of the Queen's Hall until the com- pletion of an item in the programme, has a far clearer impres- sion of the music than has a " listener." The dances from Borodin's Prince Igor, which are, in effect, a succession of barbaric splashes of orchestral colour, were performed at the last wireless symphony concert. The instrument upon which the present writer listened a few miles away was a magnificent affair with any number of valves, and operated by an expert, but, as on other occasions, only a travesty of the music could be heard. The drone accompaniment for violas, bassoons and drums in the Dance of the Savage Men was reduced to a buzz of indefinite quality, and above this the wild theme of the clarinet sounded hopelessly feeble and forlorn. In the General Dance, instruments of percussion are used in an exhilarating fashion, but, possibly because these instruments are placed at the back of the orchestra far away from the microphone, the introduction for kettledrum and big drum became a macabre and dismal rattling, and the glockenspiel, when audible, was no more resonant than a triangle. Often, of course, the reproduction approximated to truth, and although a raucous solo on the horn, below a shimmering of strings, entirely destroyed the beautiful close to the Lullaby in Stravinsky's Firebird, the brass in the finale was magnificently clear.
Judged by ordinary musical standards, broadcasting is a very poor substitute for an actual concert. It is the counter- part in music to a cheap reproduction of a painting, but like the reproduction it has the undeniable advantage of circulating far more widely than does the original. Stevenson declared that the only pleasures a large income could buy are a yacht and a string quartet. Wireless brings the quartet, the orchestra, the opera company within everyone's reach, but although broadcasting offers a continual change of programmes it has not yet displaced its rival the gramophone as the supreme medium for reproducing music. If wireless has shown amazing precocity in the few years of its existence, the gramophone has made a correspondingly rapid develop- ment. In quality of performance the gramophone is far ahead, and it has many obvious advantages for the musician. Two recent innovations in particular arc noteworthy. The Columbia Company has produced a perfected instrument, known as the Grafonola, which reproduces the fine Columbia records of string quartet music with utmost fidelity. A less well-known instrument, the Duophone, marks perhaps a more sensational advance, since it is able to retain the fullness of the lower part of the orchestra, which is mostly lost on an ordinary gramophone. This is done by means of two sound boxes, one attracting the coarser vibrations and the other attracting the finer. The combination of the two streams of sound is carefully synchronized, but it seemed to me that in extremely high notes, such as the harmonics of the violin, the synchronization was not wholly perfect and one set of sounds arrived before the other. This aberration was notice- able only in quartet music ; the instrument is at its best with the orchestra. The tones of the lower brass are rich and rounded, the timpani arc almost as resonant as in actuality, and the reedy tone of a solo 'cello and the true colour of strings in unison is well preserved. Indeed the Duophone stands apart from all other instruments in its power to recapture the richness and volume of an intricate score. C. I LANN.
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