Good Music Made Popular

MR. DANA PORTER: Mr. Reginald Stewart has been wise enough to realize that ever since the days of Sir Walter Raleigh„ man has been a smoking animal. At all places of entertainment in this country smoking is generally forbidden, with the exception of the Promenades, conducted by Mr. Stewart, and it may be that in this way he has succeeded in making man feel a bit more comfortable about the prospect of spending an evening listening to good music, that he has induced them to believe and has convinced them that good music is not necessarily some obscure mystery only dimly understood, perhaps, by some exclusive priesthood. He has convinced them that it is a simple pleasure and this could not be done and his very great success could not have been maintained unless he was a first class artist which we all know he is, and unless he had had that magnetic personality which has succeeded in bringing together and leading a first rate symphony orchestra and also in attracting over seven thousand people to hear him, himself, play the piano.

It is with very great pleasure that I call on Mr. Reginald Stewart.

(Mr. Stewart was received with prolonged applause.) MR. REGINALD STEWART: I must first of all tell you how very much I appreciate this very warm welcome you have given me today and I must thank you, Sir, for the very generous estimate you have made of my contribution this last summer. I hasten to assure you that the success of these concerts was not due to my efforts alone, but also to the energetic and devoted co-operation of many others who worked with me.

One of the nice things about the "Proms" was that I could express myself in music and did not have to express myself in words which is a much more difficult task. I was trying to think how uncomfortable Chauncey Depew was. He was making a tour of an art gallery and stopped opposite a picture of Daniel in the lion's den. One of the ladies said that she could never understand why Daniel looked so happy in such a tremendous predicament. Chauncey Depew, who had given many after dinner speeches, said that he was quite sure the reason was that he was quite sure that at the end of a meal, he would not be required to make a speech.

One of the other nice things about the "Proms" was that we were enabled to come into contact for the first time with a great many people who had never heard personal concerts and had thought of them as something too difficult for them to understand. We are very glad for this, as it is a great pity that the general public should regard good music, classical music, either as mere technical show or as something beyond their capacity to enjoy. After all, music is inherent in us all. It is fundamentally a part of our nature. We read of its early manifestation in the Book of Genesis-right at the beginning of things--of Jubal and his sons with their lyres, trumpets, cymbals and lutes. Further on in the Bible we read of David the warrior, statesman, poet, Icing and musician, expressing in song what he could not express in any other way-his devotion toward Jehovah, his God.

Music is the real universal speech of mankind. Wherever one goes in the world today one finds this same universal love of music manifesting itself in every tribe, nation, kingdom and people. There are just as many children beating drums and blowing horns in the jungles of Africa as there are in the drawing-rooms of America. Experts tell us that the folk music of the North American Indians is curiously similar to music in 'countries as remote as Siberia; so that this feeling that a proper understanding of music is beyond the capacity of the average person is quite unwarranted in most cases. Music is a part of our nature and we respond to it quite naturally. We may not always understand why music thrills us, as was the case of the "Prom" goer who wrote to me: "I do not know anything about music but I like the effect it has on me. I leave your concerts exhilerated and refreshed." (Applause.)

That is the case of a man who will not pay $2.00 or, $2.50 to hear music which he is quite sure he will not appreciate but will risk 25 cents to see what it is all about, especially if he is assured by some friend that on any programme there is bound to be something which he is sure to be able to understand. Now, once you get such a man into the hall, the trick is done. He looks about and sees seven or eight thousand other people there--ordinary folk like himself, to whom this same music evidently means a great deal. The blare of the trumpets, the clash of the cymbals and the ominous rolling of the tympani stir his pulse and excite him strangely, and by the time the conclusion of the concert is reached, the man has made the thrilling discovery that he too has joined the ranks of the music lovers. That is one case; there are literally hundreds that came to my attention, personally, during the summer business men, trades people, people in all walks of life wrote to me. I brought along a letter from a domestic, I thought you might be interested in: "May I say I was one of the many who attended last week's wonderful concert and I haven't minded one bit doing without a meal on more than one occasion in order to hear the sweetest, and the most thrilling music on this side of Heaven. My heart goes out in gratitude to you and all the other members of the orchestra who have made it possible for such as I to attend the concerts."

One feels that one would like to do much more for this humble lover of music and those she represents. After all, what right have we to presume a taste for the best to be the prerogative of the few? Is it because the general public have been conspicuously absent at high class concerts? If so, why have they been absent? How can we account for the seeming reluctance of the public to attend good concerts? Undoubtedly, formality has played a formidable role in discouraging their presence. Then, too, there seems to exist in most concerts a barrier between the artist and the audience. It is very difficult to say exactly of what this barrier consists. It is an intangible atmospheric quality--but very real, nevertheless. It almost seems as though a great gulf were fixed between the artist and the audience over which one may not pass to the other. It may be necessary, to have this traditional restraint in concerts though I very much doubt it. In any case, we must admit that it has a very cooling effect upon the audience.

I am never quite sure in my own mind whether or not the conductor is capable of breaking down that barrier. I am sure there are quite a number of people who look on the conductor as a rather useless animal whose contribution to the performance is confined to a violent waving of the hands and hair in such a manner as is best calculated to attract attention to himself; and that he must study his tailoring so that the ladies who attend his concerts may admire his shoulders and back and that as far as the orchestral players under him are concerned, it really doesn't matter what he does since they are sawing away without even looking at him. Then there are other people who look upon the conductor as a sort of a magician who can pull from the arms and mouths of his players in some mysterious way the beautiful sounds they hear. Neither is right; it is neither show nor magic, but the mastery of a complete sign language by which the conductor issues his commands and achieves his results. With the baton and a great number of movements of hand, wrist and arm, the conductor indicates the tempo and its changes, the dynamics, the expression, and in fact all the inner spirit and meaning of the music.

It has been suggested that it might possibly interest you to know something of the problems that confront a conductor before and during a symphonic performance.

Assuming that the conductor has mastered the actual technic of conducting, he first approaches a new orchestral work by studying the full score. To the average layman and to a great many musicians, a full score appears to be about as intricate as a blue print of a complicated engine. The blue print represents on paper every detail of the engine and likewise the musical score is an exact description on paper of every detail of the musical composition. Those of you who are familiar with the ordinary piano score with two staves will have some idea of what a conductor's score looks like when I tell you that instead of the two staves the eye is here called upon to comprehend any number from twenty-four to thirty in a glance. This seemingly impossible task can be accomplished by patient and systematic practice. Most conductors faced with the study of a new work begin by getting the architectural or general impression of the work. This is followed by a study of the individual parts, then comes the detailed study of the individual sections--strings, woodwind, brass and percussion. Then comes the mental hearing of the work, either in part or as a whole; and, finally, a piano transcription, as a means of checking up and ratifying mental concept.

When you see a building for the first time, scarcely anything more than the general type of architecture, the size, symmetry and colour, is made upon the mind. The details of construction, materials used, number of floors, style of windows and doors are only comprehended after closer study.

At the first view of the musical score,, the impression made is just about as general as in viewing a building. Closer study reveals the details of construction and the playing on the piano gives the harmonies and polyphonic (content of the work.

Some conductors learn the content of a score very quickly by listening to the orchestra as they rehearse. But no matter how astute a conductor is, his players always detect when they are being used as a means of a leader learning the score and their respect for him is lowered, and every conductor wants the respect of his players. Some go to great lengths to win it. There is a story of a young conductor who wished to impress his men with a display of sharp hearing. So he secretly wrote a false F sharp in the second bassoon parts of a particularly loud and boisterous passage. During the rehearsal he suddenly stopped the orchestra and cried out: "F. sharp, F. sharp in the second bassoon is wrong", only to be answered by the first basson player, "Beg pardon, Sir, the second bassoon is absent today."

Conditions now are much more satisfactory than they were a few years ago to the conductor, when the movie theatres gave the players such alluring contracts that symphonic performances and rehearsals could be treated with considerable indifference. In London it was quite customary for a new set of substitutes to appear in each of the rehearsals before the performance and a complete new set suddenly to appear at the concert. There is a perfectly true story of Sir Thomas Beecham, the well-known conductor appearing at the third rehearsal before the performance with the London Symphony Orchestra and on glancing over the band finding a completely new group of men. He looked around in dismay and eventually found one player--a flautist--whom he recognized as having been there before. "I congratulate you, Sir", he said, "on having attended three consecutive rehearsals". The player rose to his feet and courteously bowed to Sir Thomas, and said, "Thank you very much Sir Thomas, but I am sorry to have to tell you that I shall not be able to attend the concert." The increased amount of preparatory work involved in memorizing a score certainly gives one an increased insight into the composition and to be freed from the necessity of reading the printed page gives a much greater authority and command in the whole attitude of the conductor at the performance. We never read of an officer leading his troops to battle with his eyes glued on the map, and we have all heard of the conductors who have their heads in the score instead of the score in their heads.

To come back to the public's reluctance to attend concerts, I feel that another reason is that there has been, in certain musical quarters, evidence of a desire to keep music for the select few who were considered capable of understanding it. Possibly this has been brought about through the diminishing audiences, which led artists to take consolation in the thought that they had reached such high levels of interpretative genius that only the select few who had enough intellectual development could follow them into the rarified atmosphere of the upper regions.

Small, select audiences have become the rule rather than the exception. Music halls have been diminishing in size and the trend for the last few years has been toward the smaller more intimate concert.

During these same years, however, a vast radio public has been hearing, more or less unconsciously, some of the world's greatest music performed by the greatest artists. The Symphony which formerly might have been heard in Toronto once in five years could now be heard five times in one month and thus a rich mine of musical appreciation has been developing under the surface, unperceived by the musicians as a whole. The Promenade experiment was a sort of preliminary drilling into the mine to ascertain the depth and quality of the ore which so few suspected lay beneath our feet. Now the full treasures are becoming apparent on every hand and in the most unlikely quarters. Where people have taken no interest in art„ enthusiasm bubbles forth; art having taken an interest in them.

It has always been my hope that I might be able to make a vital contribution to the more general appreciation of music in Toronto and I am happy to think that some of you feel that this hope has already been realized, at least in part. I say, in part, because I am quite (convinced that there is a potential audience five times the size of that witnessed last summer in Toronto.

(Applause.)

Nothing can be done, however, for this new material until a concert hall large enough to accommodate them is available. There is not one building in Toronto perfectly designed for music, of sufficient size to make possible the greatest performances at really popular prices. Such a concert hall must definitely be planned for in the immediate future if this new era in Toronto's musical development is to be carried through to its full fruition.

Had I ventured such talk 'as this a year ago I'd have been dubbed a deluded visionary. Who would have believed that there were ten thousand people in this city who would attend a symphony concert weekly--even if you gave it to them gratis? The "Proms" have established that fact and I am still talking sense when I say there is a potential audience of at least 15,000 to hear the best music in Toronto. (Applause).

The large music hall is the solution to every financial problem with which our musical organizations are faced. If concerts which are now being performed to relatively small audiences at tremendous cost to a few public-spirited guarantors, could be given to the mass of the people at prices that would fit every pocket, they would meet with such overwhelming response as to eliminate deficits altogether.

I wish with all my heart that the performance of the St. John Passion which our Bach Choir gives annually to 1,200 or 1,500 people in a relatively small hall„ could be given in a place seating comfortably an audience five tunes that size. At present this is impossible as the size of the halls available make it imperative that comparatively high prices be charged if a substantial deficit is to be avoided.

I am sure as I am of anything that our whole "Prom" audience would flock to hear the "Passion," if they could hear it at prices from 25 cents to $1.00, and when I think of how they would enjoy it, it grieves me very much to think I can not do this thing.

The Mendelssohn Choir's magnificent performance of Bach's B Minor Mass a few weeks ago should have been heard by 10,000 instead of by 2,600. Why wasn't it? Because the largest hall only seats 2,800, and in order to make the concert self-sustaining, prices have to be charged which would keep away the other 7,200 even if the building were large enough to accommodate them.

When are we going to be able to say to the people "Come and hear the greatest orchestras, the greatest choirs, and the greatest artists in the world at prices from 35 cents to $1.00" (Applause). You may answer, "As sooty as such a building can be demonstrated to be a profitable investment." But I don't think we should wait until then. Surely there are enough public-spirited men and women of means in Toronto who will 'get together and take advantage of the present co-operative feeling of civic, provincial, and dominion authorities toward public building projects, and by personal contributions aided by public subscription, raise the funds necessary to present the building, debt-free, to the citizens of Toronto.

This is the thought I would leave with you, Gentlemen, and I assure you I shall not rest until much more has been accomplished for the music-loving, but economically restricted people of Toronto-something strong, fine, something permanent, that will be of inestimable value, both educationally and socially, and that will spread abroad throughout our citizenry the happiness that music was meant to bring them. (Hearty applause).

MR. DANA PORTER: Mr. Stewart has very kindly consented to supplement this most interesting and most delightful address with two selections on the piano.

Mr. Stewart delighted his audience by playing two selections from the compositions of Franz Liszt: The Etude in B Flat; and Rhapsody Number 15.

To the persistent demand for an encore, he responded by playing the Liebestraum also a Liszt Composition.