THE MUSIC BOX

In regard to what was said recently about programming, it occurs to me that a good deal could still be said, especially on a more concrete level. In that other column I suggested, somewhat arbitrarily, three obligations, of a conductor, or any program-maker: obligations to the public, to composers living land dead, and to themselves. Getting off this plane of theoretical criticism I should like to mention what seem to me the ills of the modern concert program.

Which are: first, second, and third, lack of variety. There is too much nineteenth-century music played, and not enough seventeenth and eighteenth. There is too much repeating, even within this limited field, of a stock routine of standard works, not enough probing into minor musical literature. It is true, of course, that classical and pre-classical music exists largely in small forms, unfit for the symphony orchestra. But there are over a hundred symphonics by Haydn, suites from Bach, Telemann, and Handel. Why should we be forced to listen to ten performances of the Tchaikowski Pathetique for every one of the Mozart E-flat? Is it because classical music is comparatively quiet and unexciting that it is so neglected? The E-flat symphony is, in my opinion at least, a greater masterpiece than the Pathetique. Into its simplicity of form is poured a poignancy, a demoniac violence every bit as powerful as that of the other. Rarely played, the E-flat is treated lavishly compared to most eighteenth-century music; this last week-end it received, by chance, performances both in symphony Hall land in the NBC studies.

Soloists are about as uncooperative as possible in the matter of bringing music into performance. The average soloist would much rather do a concerto like the excessively hard-driven. Tchaikowski Piano Concerto because it is brilliant and showy, and leave it to an occasional Casadesus or Iturbi to do Mozart wrote about twenty-six concertos in all, of which at least half la dozen are among the world's greatest in the form. But one would never know this from what is played in concert. One would remain equally unacquainted with the extraordinary beautiful Schumann concerto. Instead one gets things like the Liszt concertos and the Brahms D-minor Concerto empty, blatant showpieces dug up by the soloists to exhibit their virtuosity.

Conductors are under no pressure to display virtuosity. Their programmatic short-comings beyond doubt result from what they think the public wants. But their obligation to present what is best in music is greater than to catering to public taste. Are they not bound to play now and then Don Quixote, thought by many to be Strauss's masterpiece, as well as Don Juan and Till Eulenspiegel? If Don Quixote is too pastoral, too serene, for this restless generation, are they not bound to educate the people to it? In short, is it not the musician's task to present what is great in music as well as what is merely liked