THE PROMENADE TICKET.*
THE Promenade Concerts audience has been waiting for some time for its interpreter, and has now found one in Mr. A. H. Sidgwick, who has given us a witty and delightful book, full of genial criticism- of music, music-lovers, and would-be music-lovers. But while it is all about music, it is also fall of humanity ; and the composite diary form in which it is cast enables the writer to give us vivid portraits of half-a- dozen modern types, mostly high-spirited, engaging young people, the clash of whose divergent views is combined with a good comradeship very pleasant to witness. Nor is senti- ment lacking, though it is handled in a spirit of kindly irony. Above all, this is one of those happy books which belie the view that only the young can understand the young ; or, to be more specific, that an elderly reviewer cannot properly appreciate the fougue de tringt ans. There is an inevitable truth in this view, for we cannot entirely detach ourselves from our generation and share all the new hero-worship of our sons and daughters. But when they combine enthusiasm with rever- ence and independence with good humour—as Mr. Sidgwick does—elderly critics are disarmed, and if they disagree do so without querulousness. We feel quite sure that " G."— the late Sir George Grove, of whom there is more than one friendly mention in these pages—would have loved this book, and forgiven any disparagement of Brahma which it contains for its really splendid tribute to the genius of Beethoven.
The scheme of the book is a happy inspiration, yet so simple that—as often happens—any one might have thought of it. A benevolent uncle, now resident in the country, him- self an ex-Promenader, offers his nephew a season-ticket for the Promenade Concerts in return for a diary of his impressions. Newspaper musical criticism gives Mr. Clarke no satisfaction. He wants the unrecorded opinions of the normal, decently intelligent public, especially about Bach, Beethoven, Schumann, Brahma, and Wagner. Nigel Clarke —the nephew—is diffident of his own ability as a critic—" I can't play, and know very little about music and absolutely nothing about the technical side "—and being unable to guarantee regular attendance, suggests that he should pass on the ticket occasionally to his friends ; his uncle jumps at the idea of a mixed lot of opinions, and when the record is finished obtains the consent of the contributors to its publication. So much for the Prologue. As for the dramatis personae of the diary, Nigel Clarke, who is responsible for the bulk of the letters, is—in spite of his modest disclaimer—an extremely sen- sitive and intelligent critic, a scholar and a humorist, singularly catholic in his tastes, but holding Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart in especial reverence. "Henry," alias H. N. Melillo, is the wittiest, the most irreverent, and the most irresponsible of the commentators, with an incorrigible love for practical joking at the expense of prigs and superior persona. J. R. Harrison, the most consistently amusing of the band, is a wholesome, slangy, entirely honest young man, whose homely criticisms and blunders are often more illuminating than a wilderness of fine writing. Then we have Nigel's cousin, Rhoda Wharton, a vivacious young woman who unites an admiration for Brahms with a human passion for waltzes—as Brahma himself did— and her friend Delia Crawford-White, a folk-song enthusiast and somewhat of a predeuse. Lastly, there are two young clerks, whose musical education has been confined to the pianola and military bands. We do not intend to spoil Nigel's admirable commentaries on the Symphonies of Beethoven and Tchaikovsky by partial quotation. But the quality of his criticism may be illustrated in other ways, as, for example, by his remark on Wagner—for whose exuberance and titanic energy he has unstinted admiration—" I wish his operas did not start so early. That is the worst of Wagner. He had such a lot to say, and said it all." And again : " Going from the older Classics to Wagner is (technically) rather like going from a church service to a meeting of the Hungarian • The Promenade Ticket. By A. H. Sidgwick. London: Edward Arnold. [2s. 6d. net.] Parliament." Of Tchaikovsky he remarks that " in his vulgarest moments he is always ready to become suddenly inspired." The sincerity of Tchaikovsky's passion, in spite of its sensationalism and the violence of itr 'entreats, is eloquently defended in a letter which is immediately suc- ceeded by the following graceful homage to Mendelesohn:— " Three cheers for the 'Hebrides' overture ! It is a most inspiriting piece of music, and I don't care twopence if the senti- ment is a trifle second-band, as my friends tell me. After our soul-agonies of last night, it is pleasant to get some evidence in favour of this work : and there is no better evidence than the ' Hebrides' overture. Here at least was a man who loved music, and loved writing it, and wrote this particular piece with joy, and did it just as well as he could. If you tell me that he was a rid'. and successful Jew, I reply that it is quite irrelevant, and that it' is rude to make personal remarks. Why should it be assumed that genuine music can only be written by agonised Russians or unpopular Gentiles ?"
Then there is a fascinating passage on the happy divorce, in the sphere of orchestral music, of musical from intellectual emancipation :—
" The musical revolntitnaries know nothing whatever of Higher Thought. When they are not employed in slaughtering the academics. or jumping with both feet through the conserva- tories of musical orthodoxy, they are mostly normal and amiable people who could not tell you the difference between the poor-rate and the birth-rate. Their interest is primarily in music ; they think and feel in terms of music, and when they try to express them- selves in the medium of words they are so profoundly unintelligible, even to each other, that no harm is done. And their audience— the good, solid orchestral audience of London—mostly follows snit. The first question for them is, Do I like this music ? ' and' not How does this music square with Mr. Jones's views on the purpose of life ? '
By way of contrast we may give J. R. Harrison's ingenuous remarks on transposing instruments and funeral marches d propos of the " Eroica " Symphony :— " By the way, what a topping thing the horn is. I looked it up in that book you lent me, which gave a picture of it, so I recognised it. The book says with the horn (and some other instruments) you don't have to play the notes which are written, but other notes ; only they are written like that so that if you are playing different sorts of horns you only have to do the same sort of thing (when the note written is the same) to produce different notes really, if you see what I mean. It must be a corker to play, The second movement is a Funeral March for Napoleon, written before he died ; Beethoven was a great admirer of his at the time, but changed his mind later. It is a grand thing. There is a bit for the oboe in the middle (I found that also in your book) : it has rather a bleating sound, but I like it. Then the first tune comes back again. Most funeral marches seem to cheer up in the middle and then become gloomy again. I suppose the idea is, (1) the poor old boy's dead ; (2) well, after all, he's probably gone to heaven ; (3) still, anyhow, the poor old boy's dead. I'm afraid this is rather irreverent, but you see what I mean."
A month later the progress of his musical education is shown in his comments on The Flying Dutchman overture :- " We started with The Flying Dutchman overture, which I still like, though it strikes me as artificial compared with W.'s later work. Perhaps artificial' isn't quite the word, but what I mean is this. A lot of it is simply noise put in to imitate the sea and so forth,—very jolly, but only noise and not meaning anything ; whereas in W.'s later works, even if there's the dickens of a noise going on (which there generally is), it is mostly made up of bits of motifs which mean something—that is, if you know them, which don't: but I understand it is so. What sounds like a share- holders' meeting moving an amendment is really a combination of Siegfried's youth and several love affairs and somebody's spear and a serpent and the redemption of mankind—i.s. a lot of ideas which are in W.'s mind at the time. So in a way it all develops naturally—though of course he chooses what bits to put in, and in what key : whereas in the El. D. its merely noise."
We have left ourselves no space to deal with "Henry's " cruel practical joke on the folk-song enthusiasts, or Delia's inimit- ably precious letter on Strauss, Humperdinck, and Coleridge Taylor, or the laconic but self-revealing contributions of the clerks, or Nigel's well-deserved " slating " of certain modern pseudo-religious compositions in the luscious-Oriental style " belonging to what Henry calls the Peach-Brandy-and-Eternity School." But we have said enough to indicate the scope and quality of the entertainment provided by Mr. Sidgwick. The little book—it only runs to some two hundred pages—is a triumph of impersonation and a mine of good humour and good sense.
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