OUR TASTE IN MUSIC

3 1 R O U R T A S T E I N M U S I C H O R A T I O P A R K E R Vol. 7, no. 4, July 1918 The statement made not long ago in a weekly paper that we spend $600,000,000 yearly on our music is picturesque. It may be important or even true. At any rate it raises a question of aesthetic economics. Perhaps also it questions the value of money. What have we to show for it? Certainly we make sacrifices for our music. So did the German Emperor for his ancestor-dotted Siegesallee. Have we, too, acquired a gilded brick? The answer lies in our music, in the general preferences we have developed, in the growth and present condition of our appetite for good and our dread of bad musical art. With no wish to deny proper credit to those among our forefathers whose minds were turned to music and whose tastes were elevated, we must realize that serious music has no long history among us. One hundred years ago Beethoven was creating the finest models of formal music. Only a little afterwards our bestknown authority, our best composer, was Lowell Mason, who con- fined himself to very simple church music or choral music and was certainly more conservative than versatile. Undoubtedly he was a most useful man for his time and for our conditions, and typical of both. Fifty years later, all the Beethoven symphonies had been 3 2 P A R K E R Y heard in one or two eastern cities but, I think, not elsewhere in this country. Their influence when they were heard seems to have been immediate and irresistible. And of course this was not the only influence of the kind. A general public demand for good orchestral music developed rapidly rather less than fifty years ago and our thoughts began to flow freely in the broad, well-worn channel of European taste. Since then the knowledge and love of all kinds of good music have shown rapid and healthy increase among us, so that in recent years some of our cities have had practically all the best music which Europe has produced. We now have audiences well enough trained to appreciate such music at its true value; we have brought forth composers who express themselves fluently, sometimes even with unmistakable national characteristics ; and we have a great number of American performers who meet the most exacting European requirements. We have really caught up with the main procession of progress in music and are beginning one of our own. This condition is the result of incalculable cheerful labor and sacrifice, with results that have spread like fire from every active centre of music production and radiated in every direction. Foremost among those who minister to our highest needs are the admirable orchestral organizations in our great cities. They are few for a country so great as ours and their influence is not so wide as we wish it were. They come in contact with a mere fraction of one per cent of our population, but their service is of the best and their numbers are growing largely. Frankly educational e√orts in schools, colleges, or conservatories can safely be accepted at about their face value. They are sincere and usually skilful endeavors to foster among those interested a taste that shall make possible throughout life an intelligent enjoyment of good music. But there are other and perhaps wider activities contributing to the growth of public taste and showing where we stand. Choral societies with high aims are common, although they are now relatively less numerous than formerly and less influential. Chamber music of constantly increasing excellence has helped wonderfully to refine and educate; but it has perceptibly declined in its appeal, giving way perhaps to a wider desire for orchestra. Standards of individual performance are becoming constantly higher and saner. The charm of simple tonal beauty in singing or playing is not weaker O U R T A S T E I N M U S I C 3 3 R to...