NEWS OF FUTURISTIC MUSIC

That surprising evolutions in the art of music are still possible is periodically being proved. A decade ago, Wagner's principles were at last university accepted as the final musical laws on which the composers of the next century or so would base their compositions. Then Strauss began to develop them, instead of respecting them. That was nearly permissible; but then the French produced another type of music that was primarily instinctive, rather than logical. With difficulty the public began to appreciate and now Debussy is a "best-seller".

What next? The leading article of the Harvard Musical Review tells us. "A Note on Stravinsky", by E. B. Hill '94, gives a brief outline of the works of the Russian who seems to be again pushing music beyond the limits of reason or rapture. Though as yet practically unknown in America, his works are receiving wide attention abroad. The "Sacre de Printemps," a futuristic ballet, was recently declared by the gifted Florent Schmitt to be one of an immortal trio--the two others being "Tristan" and "Pelleas"!

The second article is by Arthur Whiting on "The Musical Layman"-- with emphasis on "man"; for Mr. Whiting, while gallantly thanking the American woman for her cultivation of the arts, sincerely regrets that real enjoyment of music should be limited to females and that androgynous abomination, the so-called "aesthete". Mr. Whiting's lectures, however, at various colleges, give him authority to say that the American males are beginning to realize the joy of aesthetics as well as athletics.

The third article is "An Impractical Suggestion," by J. N. Burk '16. We have often heard of the difficulties and vices of the making of a program for a concert; Mr. Burk goes so far as to wish that there would be no program at all; for one solitary symphony has quite enough in it for any intellect at one sitting. He also points out the errors of an unbalanced choice of compositions for a concert whereby one tour de force completely obliterates all the others, or at least totally ruins their effects. Any sensitive concert goer will say how true this is; but luckily, it is for the most part a vanishing evil. Notorious exceptions are the average song-recitals, when the "artist" places songs of all times and nations in a senseless and shameless promiscuity.

On the whole, this number of the Review is a very interesting one, though a trifle sparse in editorial commentary.