MUSICAL CRITICS
Not until quite recently has musical criticism been taken seriously
either by the London or provincial Press. In the old days of the
sixties, when Wagner came to London (I am writing many miles away from
books, but surely it was in the sixties that Wagner visited us?), there
was not a single open-minded musical critic on the British Press. J. W.
Davison, the very powerful _Times_ critic, was not only a fool, but,
what is much more dangerous, he was a learned fool. He treated Wagner
shamefully, and he did more than his share to bring our country into
musical disrepute among the cultured men of other nations. Joseph
Bennett, of _The Daily Telegraph_, was a fluent writer who contrived
to say less in a full column than a man like Ernest Newman or R. A.
Streatfeild or Samuel Langford can say in a couple of lines. He footled
gaily for many years, wielded enormous power, and did nothing whatever
to advance the cause of music in England.
As a commercial asset, Joseph Bennett must have been invaluable to the
proprietors of _The Daily Telegraph_. For, like Davison, he had great
influence. People read him. Even in my own time, when an important
new work was produced, we used to question each other: “What does
Old Joe say?” And, most unfortunately, it mattered a great deal what
Old Joe did say, though anyone who knew much about music was very
well aware that nine times out of ten Bennett would be wrong. If he
damned a work—well, that work _was_ damned. No musical critic to-day
wields such power as his, though there are at least a score of writers
on music who have ten times his gifts. His present successor, for
example, Mr Robin Legge, is incomparably a finer musician, a much
more open-minded man, and a student of infinitely more culture, than
Bennett. Yet his influence, I imagine, is not so great as that of his
predecessor. One cannot say that Bennett stooped to his public, for
Bennett could not stoop; if he _had_ stooped, he would have disappeared
altogether. No: he _was_ the public: the people: the common people. He
had the point of view of the man in the back street.
But to-day things are changed. The musical critic is no longer
primarily a raconteur, a gossiper, a chatterer. As a rule, he is a
man of culture, of experience, of solid musical attainments. He earns
little—anything from one hundred and fifty pounds to five hundred
pounds a year, though, no doubt, in very rare instances, he may be
paid more than the latter figure. Musical criticism, therefore, is not
a profession that seduces the ambitious man, for the ambitious man of
materialistic views may more easily earn three times what the Press
has to offer him by selling imitation jewellery or doing anything else
that money-making people do. When E. A. Baughan, now dramatic critic
of _The Daily News_, was editing _The Musical Standard_ more than
twenty years ago, he wrote me a very earnest letter beseeching me not
to become a musical critic on account of the payment being so meagre.
“If you have a desk, stick to it; if you are a commercial traveller,
remain a commercial traveller” was his advice in essence. But I would
rather be a musical critic on one hundred and fifty pounds a year than
a stockbroker earning fifteen hundred pounds. I love money, but I love
music and journalism more, and the three years I spent in Manchester
with an income of three hundred pounds were full of happiness, brimful
of great days when I felt my mind growing and my spirit taking unto
itself wings.
E. A. Baughan is not, I think, a musician in the true sense of the
word, nor does he claim to be, but I imagine that, being musical and
having the itch for writing, he took the first journalistic work that
offered itself. That work was the editing of _The Musical Standard_.
Subsequently he went to _The Morning Leader_ as musical critic, and
then to _The Daily News_ as dramatic critic. He is sane, level-headed,
honest, but not conspicuously brilliant. His musical work, judged by a
high standard, was poor. He had not sufficient knowledge to guide him
to a right judgment when faced by a new problem. Hugo Wolf was such a
problem, and if ever Baughan reads now what he wrote about Hugo Wolf
some fifteen years ago, he must, I imagine, tingle with shame to the
tips of his toes.
As a dramatic critic he has secured an honourable and enviable
position. I used to meet him very frequently at first nights, and
always thought him a trifle _blasé_ and almost wholly devoid of
imagination, subtlety and true artistic feeling. He has not the
artist’s attitude towards life, and he would probably bring an action
for slander against you if you said he had.
* * * * *
I was never introduced to C. L. Graves, the musical critic of _The
Spectator_ and the well-known humorous writer, but on one occasion I
sat next to him at a very important concert, and in conversation found
him an extremely courteous but rather baffled man. His knowledge of
music is that of the cultured amateur. His mind but grudgingly admits
“advanced” work, and I, as a modern, regret that an intellect so
charming, so gracious, so able, should be even occasionally occupied in
passing judgment on work that has its being entirely outside his mental
horizon. But I doubt very much if _The Spectator_ has any influence on
the musical life of London, though I imagine that Dr Brewer, Mr T. H.
Noble, Sir Hubert Parry, Sir Charles V. Stanford and Sir Alexander
Mackenzie read Mr Graves with regularity and approval.
* * * * *
But the man whom all of us who write about music honour most of all
is Ernest Newman, of _The Birmingham Daily Post_. Here we have a
first-rate intellect functioning with absolute sureness and with
almost fierce rapidity. As a scholar, no man is better equipped; as
a writer, he ranks with the highest; for fearlessness and inflexible
intellectual honesty, he has no equal. His books on Wagner and Hugo
Wolf and the volume entitled _Musical Studies_ are head and shoulders
above any volumes of musical criticism ever published in our language.
But though his knowledge of music is encyclopædic, music is but one
of many subjects upon which he is an authority. Under another name
he has published a volume on philosophy which, on its appearance,
created something like a sensation; unfortunately, this book ceased to
be procurable within a few weeks of its publication. Poetry, French
and German literature, sociology and psychology are but a few of the
subjects upon which he is as well qualified to write as he is on music.
Why does he hide himself in Birmingham? Well, if you are a musical
critic in London, it is impossible to do any solid work. All day and
almost every day you are at concerts and operas, and you are sadly in
danger of becoming a mere reporter. Newman’s post in Birmingham leaves
him some leisure in which to write more important work.
I never think of Newman without wondering if ever he will be given the
chance to achieve the work that is nearest his heart. That work is a
full and complete history of music. For this task he is intellectually
well equipped, but the labour in which it would involve him calls for
years of leisure. Time and again he has planned work—notably, a book
on Montaigne—which, for lack of leisure, he has been compelled to
abandon. He was made for finer things than newspaper work, and though
he has made an indelible impression on musical thought in this and
other countries, his life will be largely wasted if the latter half of
it has to be spent in writing daily criticism and occasional articles.
Newman’s psychology is peculiarly complex. Though there is a vein of
cruelty in him, he is yet sensitive to the suffering of other people. I
was with him on one occasion when Bantock told him that a certain enemy
of his (Newman’s) had just died. The effect of this news on Newman was
to me most unexpected. He started a little. “Good God!” he said; “poor,
poor devil.” And for the rest of the evening he sat gloomy and silent.
The thought of death is intolerable to him. His repulsion from it is as
much physical as nervous. Though, on occasion, a stern and relentless
critic, he reacts morbidly to criticism of himself. He is highly
strung, imaginative, rationalistic; he believes little and trusts not
at all, loves intensely and hates bitterly. Vain he is, also, and he
clings almost despairingly to what remains of his youth.
It is some few years since I saw Newman in close intimacy, but when
he was on the staff of _The Manchester Guardian_ and, later on, when
he removed to Birmingham, I was at his house very frequently, and a
very small circle of friends used to pass long evenings in delicious
fooling. In those days Newman could throw off twenty-five years of
his age and become a high-spirited and impish boy. I remember one
night when, a _macabre_ mood or, rather, a mood of extravagantly high
spirits having descended upon us, one of our company, a lady, simulated
sudden illness and death. We dressed her in a shroud, placed pennies
on her eyes and candles at her head and feet. But in the middle of
this foolery, Newman disappeared, and when it was all over and he had
returned, he was in a sombre mood. It was not because we had trifled
with a terrible fact in life that he was disturbed and distrait, but
because we had unwittingly cut into his shrinking mind and hurt it by
reminding him of something he would fain forget. Insanity repelled him
in the same violent manner, and all who knew him intimately when he
was writing his book on Hugo Wolf will remember that Wolf’s warped and
poisoned psychology obsessed and dominated him.
But often Newman would spend an evening in playing modern songs to
us—Bantock’s _Ferishtah’s Fancies_, Wolf’s _Mörike Lieder_, and so on.
I can see him now as, his clever, rather saturnine face abundantly
alive, he described Richard Strauss’s _Ein Heldenleben_, telling us how
the music of the harps stained the texture of the music in a magical
way, like one flinging wine on some secretly coloured fabric. Those
evenings are to me among the most valued of my life. I remember how my
wife and I used to walk home under a long avenue of trees very late in
the spring nights, the gummy smell of buds in our nostrils, Newman’s
voice still in our ears, and our minds fermenting deliciously with a
kind of happiness we had not experienced before.
Those days are gone for ever: days of a recovered youth; evenings that
were romantic just because they were evenings; nights when, in silence,
one dreamed long and long, the body sunk deep in unconsciousness, the
soul ranging and mounting and, in the morning, returning to its home
subtly changed and infinitely refreshed.... Newman opened for me a
world which, but for him, I do not think I ever should have beheld;
nor, indeed, should I ever have been aware of that world’s existence.
* * * * *
I have written of Samuel Langford elsewhere in this book, and I have
little to add here. He succeeded Newman on _The Manchester Guardian_,
and I recall the curiosity with which many of us read his first
articles, fearing that anything he might write must of necessity fall
so far below Newman’s high standard as to be unreadable. We were soon
reassured. Langford and Newman have little in common, and there is no
basis upon which one can compare them. And, at first, Langford had to
feel his way, to master his _métier_, to acquire some of his literary
technique....
Our respective newspaper offices were situated near each other, and on
our way from the Free Trade Hall he used often to persuade me to drink
with him before we began our work. “We shall do each other good,” he
would say. And his short, ungainly figure, with its thick neck carrying
a nobly-shaped head, would make its way to the bar where, placing a
pile of music on the counter, he would turn to me and talk, both of
us forgetting to order our drinks, and neither of us caring for the
lateness of the hour.... Next morning, he would frequently come round
to my house immediately after breakfast, look in at the window of my
study, and wave a newspaper in the air. I was always deep in work, for
at that time I reviewed eight or ten books every week, but I remember
no occasion on which I did not welcome him most gladly. And sometimes
I would spend an afternoon in his great garden, worshipping flowers,
and watch him as, with fumbling hands, he turned the face of a blossom
to the sky and looked at it with I know not what thoughts. I know
nothing of horticulture, but Langford knows everything, and often he
would talk, more to himself than to me, about the deep mysteries of his
science. And, saying farewell at the little gate, he would sometimes
crush into my arms a large sheaf of coloured leaves and flowers, wave
an awkward hand, and shamble back to his low-built, picturesque house
set deep in blooms. Though twenty years my senior, neither he nor I
felt the long spell of years lying between us. And sometimes I am
tempted to go back to Manchester to renew a friendship for the loss of
which all the great happiness that London has brought me has, it seems
at times, been but inadequate compensation.
* * * * *
During my three years as musical critic on _The Manchester Courier_ I
had some curious experiences, and to me the most curious of them all
was the persistent manner in which attempts were made by people in
Berlin to enlist my sympathies on behalf of an extremely able musician,
Oskar Fried. It almost seemed to me that a secret society existed in
Germany for the sole purpose of getting Oskar Fried a job in England.
Letters written in English came to me from total strangers, informing
me at great length and with stupid tautology that Fried was the one
hope of musical Young Germany. He had Ideals; he was a Leader; he had
the Prophetic Vision; he was the man who was going to promote and lead
a new Romantic Movement. “Very good,” said I to myself, “but what on
earth has all this to do with me?”
I was not long in finding out. A young Englishman resident in Berlin,
and obviously deeply saturated with the German spirit, wrote to me to
say that, in his opinion, Fried was the only man in Europe to fill the
post that Dr Richter had vacated as conductor of the Hallé Concerts
Society in Manchester. The letter arrived at a time when various
musicians were being, as it were, “tried” as conductors of the Hallé
Concerts, and my unknown correspondent was anxious that Fried should be
invited to conduct one or two concerts. To this letter I sent a polite
but non-committal reply. I knew Oskar Fried’s name just as I knew the
names of a dozen pushing German conductors; but I knew no more. My
persistent correspondent, to whom I will give the name of Purvis, wrote
again, sending me a typewritten copy of a book he had written on his
friend. It was a highfalutin document of idolatry. Fried was his idol,
and Purvis gushed and gushed and gushed again. But the whole thing was
done with truly Germanic thoroughness. I felt that I was being “got
at,” and though I resented it, I was greatly amused. I led him on. I
was anxious to see this gushing disciple, this seeming advertising
agent, this, as it appeared to me, wholly Germanised Englishman. So I
replied to him a second time, and one evening he called upon me. He
was a boy of twenty-one with a beard, a manner that was intended to be
ingratiating but was intolerably insolent, and a self-assurance truly
Napoleonic. He tickled me hugely and, as I have more than a grain of
malice in me, I opened out to him, flattered him heavily, and talked
music with him. But, though he loved the flattery, he was level-headed
enough to stick to his point—that I should do all in my power to secure
for Oskar Fried the Hallé conductorship. And he ended the interview
with the astonishing announcement that Fried had already been engaged
by the Hallé Concerts Society to conduct two of their concerts.
By what devious and subterranean ways this was achieved, I do not know,
but I have no doubt that scores of influential Germans in Manchester
were approached in a similar way to what I was.
Oskar Fried, with his idolatrous lackey, came uninvited to my house.
They arrived at ten and left at six. I found Fried a very remarkable
man—magnetic, of forceful personality, but with the manners and point
of view of a gutter-snipe. He asked me point-blank what I could do for
him.
“In what way?” I asked him, through Purvis, our interpreter.
“It is obvious in what way,” returned Purvis, without passing on the
question to Fried.
“Well,” said I, “I have already written about Fried in the papers.
And, really, I have no influence. I am not very popular with the Hallé
Concerts Society people, and if I were to begin to recommend Fried....
But, in any case, I have not yet heard your friend conduct. It is
impossible for me to recommend a man of whose talents I know nothing
save by hearsay. You see that, don’t you?”
“I’m afraid I don’t,” said Purvis. “You are a musical critic in
Manchester, whilst I am a musical critic in Berlin, and I tell you that
Fried is the man you want here. Surely that is enough? You must take it
from me. _I_ say it.”
I smiled and, glancing at Fried, watched his thin, eager face, with its
peering eyes which looked inquiringly first at Purvis and then at me.
Purvis came next day and the day after that, and I began to wonder
in precisely what relation he stood to Fried. When together, they
seemed to be just business friends, and it occurred to me that the
long typewritten _Life of Fried_ that Purvis had written was merely
a gigantic piece of bluff. Finally, I decided to cut both men adrift
altogether, and the next time Purvis called I was out.
When I heard Fried conduct, I at once recognised his great powers: he
had undoubted genius. But he was never invited to become the permanent
conductor of the Hallé Concerts Society. Perchance his table manners
were adversely reported upon by Dr Brodsky, or Mr Gustave Behrens, or
the discreet and reserved Mr Forsyth.