OCR Text |
Show CALLED LOW CLASS OF ART Sweeping Indictment of Music to Which Song "Home, Sweet Home" Has Been Set. Though the oldest piece of English music in existence, "Summer is icu-men icu-men In" is quite modern in comparison compari-son with a score of the "Orestes" of Euripides, dating from the fourth century cen-tury B. C, which was exhibited at the international exhibition of music at Vienna some yearB ago. Even more ancient is the chant "The Blessing of the Priest." which was sung In the temple of Jerusalem before the captivity, captiv-ity, and 1b still In use In the Jewlth synagogues in Spain and Portugal. "Home, Sweet Home" the song of a homeless American once moved Robert Rob-ert Louis Stevenson to an outburst of passionate protest But it was the music rather than the words that roused hia Indignation. You will find the passage in "Across tho Plains": 1 have no idea whether musically this air Is to be considered good or bad; but It belongs to that class of art which may best be described as a brutal bru-tal assault upon the feelings. Pathos must be relieved by dignity nf treatment, treat-ment, declares an Lngl'iib writer. If you wallow naked in the pathetic, like the author of "Home, Sweet Home." you make your hearers weep in an unmanly un-manly fashion, and even yet while they are moved they despise themselves them-selves and hate the occasion of their weakness. |