Essays - Furioso Crescendo ... - 1978

OPUS - Faculty of Music Student Journal

(Vol. 14 No. 2, October 1978)

My loneliest day in Canada was one just eleven years ago, when I first started teaching at UWO, and one of the students from my Piano Lit. Class stormed into the music library (located in the miniature theatre of the lovely Silverwood building) threw the books I had given her to read on the table and protested loudly and contempously: "What do I need to know this for!" I had innocently thought that the subject for my lecture was an eye-opening, ear-opening one: the new use of light in Baroque paintings (Rembrandt, etc.) paralleling the new use of sound (Monteverdi). A sweet lady librarian related the incident to me with sadness and dismay. It seemed indeed inconceivable, unnatural, that a fairly talented young person could grow up to university age believing to possess such powers as to be able, simply by 'practising,' to re-create out of a vacuum a whole world of musical and artistic imagination; that she should resent the offer of new insights, resist (as she did through the year) the encouragement to explore larger dimensions; that she was unable to greet each new discovery with the joy that marks the truly gifted.
This memory surfaced after my recent lecture on Proportion, when a few students voiced their perplexity ("Do I have to know all that?"), as it does each time I meet students who blissfully hold the conviction that only in their practice room, by physical effort alone, somehow sublime musical intelligence (their own as well as the composer's) shall be expressed.
In 1967, I became aware, especially in my Theory classes that an essential ingredient was missing from my students' experience and was the root of many problems. Before coming to Canada I had asked many colleagues in the American Midwest what I should expect to find in the unknown culture up North. They didn't know much, of course, but they did assure me about one wonderful thing I could count on:" Oh -they said in an envious tone-up there there's the CBC!" Then at Indiana U. my next -door neighbours, during my last summer there, were from a small town in Quebec. In order to withstand la nostalgie at an alien campus, they had brought with them lots of recordings of their beloved chansonniers, Vigneult, Leyrac, Deschamps. The young housewife told me about the Jeunesses Musicales programs she attended at school, and I had thus formed an image of a whole musical network reaching the from the air-ways to the schools and theatres; all the strata of all Canadian communities, which were supportive of their musicians, enthusiastic about the talents in their midst.
I discovered that London, Ont., a city of a quarter million people did not have CBC programs, no classical music from the air-waves, when I realized that my theory students could only solve harmonic questions on paper, but were unable to recognize aurally any chord, or style, or composer. In order to be able to appeal to an aural experience already in their possession, I remember learning Beatle' songs at that time and inventing exercises which could have some real meaning , based on terms of reference which were known, and trying to develop skills from them. Early and continuous exposure to classical music, such as the radio was able to offer to my generation in Europe -even during the war-was that essential, missing, ingredient in the background of most of our students who did not come from the larger countries.
Those of you who have followed Prof. McKellar's reports in the Western News know what a long and frustrating struggle it has been to arrive, finally, at the privilege of having civilized programming on the radio. Not ideal, not yet on AM, but just part of a civilized musical world at last. Again I an forming an image of a future network-community, reaching larger strata of society in the sharing and support of programs, of musicians, of performers; an image of possibilities to establish common means and patterns of recognition, to create the needed awareness of interdependence among musicians and listeners.
It was therefore with sadness and dismay that I noticed the absence of music students, first at the Chamber Orchestra concert in which two soloists from our faculty participated, then at most of the CBC festival concerts. "It's the same everywhere" said a guest artist with a resigned shrug. "What do you mean by everywhere?" I replied. "Well, not in Europe -he smiled-, not even in Quebec…" What is the meaning, for the future of music, of musical life in Canada, if out of a community of seven-hundred young musicians-in-training, only a dozen find the time, or find it important or interesting enough to participate, to support a musical event that justifies their training?
Only if we "let Music by the teacher" as a Great Russian master said, only by exposure, by aural experience, gathered by means of radio, but above all by live concerts, can we hope that our words in lessons and in courses acquire real meaning, and connect, and fructify. I have visions of students writing papers on music in Berlin in the 1920's on Messiaen, on Scarlatti, making preanouncements, expressing their likes and dislikes, approval or not…all without having ever heard the music live, heard a performer bringing it to life for an audience. And it was done this past week, for all to hear and learn from it and store images and impressions.
I hear all the excuses, alibics, and justifications. I know. But I persevere in asking anyone that listens if he or she is aware of the meaning of all this, long-range meaning, for their individual future and the community's future. Horowitz found it necessary some time ago to state, during a CBC interview, that his former pupil R.Turini did not receive from Canadians the support a performer of his stature deserved. The other day, only the Quebec government paid homage to Andre Laplante by financing his New York debut; there was cheering by Huilliard students in the balconies, gala reception, interviews. He won in Moscow; but, as Hepziback Menuhin pointed out on CBC, he had already done well before in several international competitions, and it seemed to mean nothing to his country…"He has spiritually as well as technical mastery-she said-and that very rare ability to start making music before he starts touching the keys." It has been said already that the gesture of the Quebec government was a political one. But that may be convenient as well as true. I do recall what it meant for Stratford when ten years ago the Prime Minister lived there in a train during the Festival, calling attention by his presence to the importance of attending the theatre.
But participation must start with the students: they do not believe me when I say that the stimulation of a live performance (whether inspiring or disappointing), makes it easier to write essays and prepare for tests, and, above all, shortens the needed practicing time. I'll never forget those sacred expressions on the faces of our freshman history classes, the other day when I made my brief "operatic scene" on behalf of the CBC Festival. How many ask themselves what is the meaning of being a musician today? What forces, what aspirations propel them to study, to practice? What place in the community do they strive for? What will they contribute to forming a supportive musical community? For whom are they going to play, to sing? Do they worry? Do they care?
I must stop, or I may not be able to sleep. I must not think that tomorrow (Oct.26) at noon, in various Canadian centres, groups of artists, actors, even clowns, will protest and bring their petitions to mayors and other officials because of the cuts in the arts grants. I may think of what I would say to these officials (mostly untrained, yet in charge of support and indeed survival for many artistic concerns), had they been present in the half-empty halls of the CBC London festival; how would I persuade them to disregard the poor attendance? None of them would of course 'reach for the gun at the mentioning of the word Kultar' as a certain fellow put it some 40 years ago, but on what basis would they see the necessity to go on financing such ventures? If the government criterion is audience response, won't the CBC programs themselves further deteriorate into endless entertainment, in order to reach the desired wider, more ignorant, audiences? I must not think about what Garold Moore said, about quantity becoming Quality…About excellence being measured by recognition, and therefore making only the popular important. Is Louis Lortie right, when he tells our students that in Quebec the greater support of local performers is due to the fact that the community there is more unified and therefore identifies more with the artists it produces?
Should I continue to hope that a community of 700 students could, and maybe will succeed in transforming the audience situation in another few years? If they could only set their goals straight, clarify their priorities. They should first understand that the notion of success, which drives them, is a matter of by-product. Will they be able to learn OF WHAT?