The Enjoyment of Music Condensed from The Outlook W. J. Henderson What is Good Piano Playing? 1. Illusion of song sought by pianists. 2. Melody should be clear always. 3. Rhythm founded upon principles of meter in a poem. 4. High notes often obscured and melody lost. 5. Intellect and emotion each play its part. 100 many persons regard music To and its performance as some sort of mystery, comprehensible only to those possessed of special training, whereas to a certain extent any one who has a good ear and will apply common sense to his consideration of music can determine whether or not it is good music which he ought to enjoy. If music is an art at all, it is the Although art of beauty in sound. beauty has never been defined, the fact remains that there is a pretty In general consensus of opinion. regard to music the general view is that its fundamental beauty is the beauty of tone. Nothing is more generally misunderstood than what constitutes good piano performance. The million amateur pianists find that their greatest difficulty is to strike the notes written in all the "hard pieces" which the masters have given us. Yet the mechanical difficulties of fingering all those notes the composers never thought at all. They took that part of the execution for granted. So should we. False notes are simply forbidden. But while playing the right notes the pianist ought also to be able to make them sound beautiful. No matter how intricate or rapid the passage, the tone drawn from the piano must be beautiful-namely, to restore to living, breathing eloquence the instrumental song which sleeps on the printed page. The piano is an instrument of percussion, its tones being produced by the blows of hammers on metal strings. But the chief aim of the great artist is to disguise the percussive character of his instrument and to make it seem to sing. This semblance of singing is the greatest desideratum of all musical perform. What musicians mean by a singing tone is one that has a smooth and steady flow. The vocal quality is imparted by so performing that a series of singing tones in a musical phrase seem to be organically united. One note passes into the next without a noticeable break in the continuity of sound, yet the articulation between the two sounds is not blurred. ance. If the sounds produced by instruments or voices are harsh, rough, impure, or, in a word, noises rather than musical tones, beauty cannot exist. For that reason we may without hesitation assert that the chief object of all musical technic is the production of euphonious tone. When Liszt declared that three things were needed to make a pianist: "First, technic; second, tech nic; third, technic," he meant that a perfect and inexhaustible technic is essential to good piano playing, for the reason that without it nothing can be made to sound beautiful. The piano of today is capable of this indispensable requisite of musical beauty to a far greater degree than the early ones. We have better strings, better sounding-boards, better key actions, and better pedals. Yet the illusion of song has always been sought by pianists. Johanns Bach's son Emmanuel wrote: "Methinks music ought primarily to move the heart, and in this no performer will succeed by merely thumping. My chief endeavor has been to play as much as possible in a singing manner." Mozart cherished similar ideals. He demanded of the pianist a smooth gliding movement of the hands, so that the passages should flow like wine and oil. 2. But, while the singing melody is the basis of good piano music, as it is of all other music, it is not the whole of it. In the performance of certain types of melody, the staccato, or short, sharp touch is required. Yet a staccato should be played musically. Singers use the staccato, and the instrumental performer therefore can form a vocal ideal of this type of utterance. However, here enters another addition. The balance must not be destroyed. The listener must require the player to make the melody clear at all times and to give to the accordant or discordant notes precisely the amount of force needed to make them furnish the harmonic character of the performance. This is one of the most exacting requirements of artistic performance, for which the pianist must possess fingers and wrists trained to the utmost pliancy and independence, under such command that they execute his wishes automatically. 3. The rhythm of an instrumental composition is founded upon the same artistic principle as the lines of a poem, and the preservation of a clearly defined outline can be accomplished only by a correct treatment of the meter. Not all the angels; In heaven nor; The demons down; Under the sea; Can ever dissever my soul; The beautiful Annabel Lee. If you read it that way the rhythm -supposing it for the moment to be piano and not word music-is wholly destroyed. It is the business of a pianist to convey to the hearer a clear and unmistakable outline, so that he may recognize the phrases of a melody and the melody as a whole. If you hear a blurred and uncertain melody, groping, as it were, its way toward you, be sure there is something wrong with the perform ance. 4. One of the commonest faults in piano playing arises from the fact that the high notes are sounded by short strings with short vibrations; while the bass strings are long and have more enduring vibrations. Pianists often forget this and make the bass of a passage resound so that the high notes are obscured and the outline of the melody lost. Obviously a composer wishes that everything shall be heard, but in proper proportion. 5. Finally, as to interpretation. This brings us to indeterminate quantities, for, while it is easy enough to de_ cide when the interpreter is entirely wrong, it is impossible to pronounce a conclusive verdict when several admittedly great artists disagree. The true artist assimilates his composition. It becomes a part of his own artistic organization. When he gives it back to the public, he gives himself as nourished by Beethoven, Chopin, or Schumann. But at least the thoughtful listener can study the manifestations of the performer's temperament. Intellect and emotion must each play its proportionate part. Piano playing which is merely a bewildering exhibition of technical "virtuosity," as it is called, is worthy of admiration for just what it is, but it is far from being the supreme achievement of the pianist. Critics demand always that a pianist shall show ability to interpret some work of high intellectual design. An idol has been made of Gadowsky because of his extraordinary technic, but many of us would rather listen to an erratic but imaginative child like Guiomar Novaes. The Outlook, Dec. 20, '22. I Plants and Men Condensed from Hearst's International Luther Burbank "The world's foremost botanist tells what science has done for plants. Also he hints what it may do for mankind." F we had depended upon nature we should have but few useful forms of plant life and none of the best forms. Take corn. Originally it was a Mexican grass, with a few kernels on each stalk and no cob. The patient labor of Mexican Indians for perhaps 10,000 years was required to evolve what we know as corn. Intelligence, which the Indians possessed, was necessary to select and cross the proper types. Yet I have taken Mexican grass and in 18 years produced excellent corn. I crossed an English walnut tree with a California walnut, securing a tree that, at the age of ten years, is as tall and as large as the normal walnut tree is at the age of 100 years. By crossing the two types, I combined the best qualities of the two. A great variety of seedlings followed. Some were very tall and some were very short. Some grew more than six feet the first year and some less than an inch. By breeding from those that grew most rapidly in three generations I had the tree, now ten years old, that is nearly three feet through at the ground and more than sixty feet tall. It will not be long before we shall be compelled to develop paper trees. The printing presses are eating up our forests more rapidly than they grow. What will soon be needed is a tree, suitable for conversion into pulp, that will grow rapidly and to great size. Such a tree can be produced. A few months ago, a Japanese silk producer visited me and asked me if I could produce a mulberry tree, the leaves of which should be extraordinarily large and tender. I have produced it, and the tender leaves are ten times the size of an ordinary mulberry leaf. This tree eventually should have a great effect upon the output of silk, and perhaps a considerable effect on its price. I have originated a new type of wheat that should add hundreds of millions of bushels a year to the world's wheat crop. On California land that would produce but 21 bushels to the acre of the best wheat hitherto known, I have produced 49.5 bushels. I have had reports on it from Australia, Canada, Minnesota, and every great wheat-growing area in the world. Everywhere it is a success. A few years ago, I took the California poppy and turned it red. Now, in a great field of yellow poppies. the ordinary observer would note no difference in color. But I could see faint suggestions of red in some of these flowers. The seeds from those that showed faint traces of crimson were selected and from them were produced poppies that were more and more plainly tinged. In a few seasons the crimson poppy came into existence. Walnuts had thick shells and small meats. I made the meats large and the shells as thin as paper. I even grew some without shells, but had to abandon them because the birds ate the meats. The cactus was an ugly desert plant, covered with spines sharp as needles. I took off the needles. The cactus leaves are excellent fodder for cattle, and the so-called prickly pears that grow on the cactus have been converted into so great a delicacy that two of them are served in the New York hotels for a dollar. A great demand has arisen for sunflower seed. It is good poultry food and from it also made an excellent substitute for olive oil. But hitherto birds have eaten a large percentage of the seeds. ones. I have rem edied this by producing a sunflower on a stalk little more than knee-high, the blosson of which is pointed directly toward the ground. A bird would almost have to lie on its back to eat the seed. Moreover, each flower contains five times as many seeds as the old flower. But with all I have done and am doing the surface has only been scratched. The great discoveries and the great creations are yet to be made. And what a fruitful field it is. Create a kind of corn that has an extra kernel to the ear and more than 5,000,000 bushels are thereby added to each year's corn crop. It is entirely possible to create plants so good that each acre of land will produce ten times as much food as it creates today. More types of plants are being created than ever before because the law of geometrical progression is at work. As more types come into existence, the opportunity for crossing is enormously increased. Similarly, the United States is now the scene of such curious crossing of human beings as never before took place anywhere. This is due to the fact that SO many representatives of SO many types were never before assembled in any country. As a consequence, we are producing more lunatics, more criminals, more men of fine ability and more men of little or no ability than any other na tion. Great men are always the products of mixed types. China does not mix much. Behold the result. If what we call civilization is to endure, some way must be found to produce more of the fit and fewer of the unfit. There is no escape from this conclusion. Otherwise, we shall be overwhelmed. In human breeding, as in plant breeding, there is no substitute for intelligert selection and crossing. Crossing, even when guided by intelligence, produces a host of inferior types along with a few good Wherever you see a person of very unusual abilities, you may be sure that somewhere, not far back in his line, was some exceedingly fortunate crossing of types. Human be ings make little attempt at selection. The most brilliant are not crossed with the most stupid. But at that, the high peak is pretty well leveled down in a few generations. When superiority in human beings persists for a number of generations it is because there was at least fortunate if not intelligent selection in the crossing of types. Nature is so plastic that it is a crime to waste her forces. Instead of doing so little, we might do so much, Racial improvement, like plant improvement, is all a matter of heredity, environment, selection and crossing of types. We can do with plant life almost what we will. Why should we neglect to do with human stock what we will? Plant life is no more plastic than human life. Among the billions of common people who have lived have been a few who, in wisdom, understanding and perception, were as marvelous as my 10-year-old walnut tree is at its age. But when nature blindly produces a superior type it as blindly allows it to disappear. Plant breeders do not do that. The strongest conviction I have, after 60 years' work with plant life, is that what can be done with plants can be done with human beings-and must be done if our civilization is not to be overwhelmed by the unfit. Plant life I am convinced, is not more plastic than human life. Hearst's, Jan. '23. K What the Woman's Party Wants Condensed from Collier's, The National Weekly Alva E. Belmont, President of the National Woman's Party HE third party which is soon go Ting to enter the American po litical arena is the National Woman's party. Wise politicians of the other parties will do well to note that fact, and with it the fact that this party is well organized, has carefully defined aims, and above all, it has votes. We have a definite goal to reach, and we cannot reach that goal over either the Democratic or the Republican road. For our goal itself is a third party, a woman's third party, a permanent political party. Wom en are one-half of the population of this country, and we believe that that half should have its own political organization to stand for its own aspirations and ideals and political beliefs. We intend to keep our political standards higher than they are accustomed to be kept, and if a party of opposition wants to compete with us, it too will have to raise its standards. Such a condition would obviously react to the benefit, not of women, not of men, but of all Americans. It would mean the presence in politics of both the man's and the woman's point of view, whereas hitherto we have had but the one point of view. Surely the whole is better than either half. There follows on this page the Declaration of Principles of the Woman's party. It is the first polit ical platform ever written from the party to the individual. It is the first time that any party has ever shown its members what they can get out of the party. Furthermore, it is a guiding chart drawn up by women for women. In it are none of the sophistries or will-o-thewisps so bounteously supplied the woman voter by the established political parties. These things, then, are the principles that you must adopt if you are anxious to help complete the work which must be completed. Declaration of Principles (Adopted by the Conference of National and State Officers of the National Woman's Party, November 11, 1922.) WHEREAS, women today, although enfranchised, are still in every way subordinate to men before the law, in government, in educational opportunities, in the professions, in the church, in industry, and in the home; BE IT RESOLVED, That as a part of our campaign to remove all forms of the subjection of women, we shall work for the following immediate objects: 1. That women shall no longer be regarded and shall no longer regard themselves as inferior to men, but the equality of the sexes shall be recognized. 2. That women shall no longer be the governed half of society, but shall participate equally with men in the direction of life. 3. That women shall no longer be denied equal educational opportunities with men, but the same opportunities shall be given to both sexes in all schools, colleges, and universities which are supported in any way by public funds. |