Music produced on such a basis could only lack the vital characteristics necessary to take any hold on the people, who, having heard the originals, shewed themselves perfectly indifferent to the imitations, however well disguised they proved to be. They came to the conclusion that their country was not sufficiently endowed with music to produce composers of original gifts and, as a natural consequence, turned to the foreigner to look for all serious musical effort.
This belief has become so deeply seated in the mind of the average Englishman, that he not only long ago ceased to expect any original effort from the native composer, but went a step further, a natural one perhaps, and argued that if he were inferior to the foreigner as a writer of music, he must necessarily be equally so as a teacher.
Hence the extraordinary condition of things that has prevailed so long.
Foreign teachers are numbered by thousands,
many of them holding foremost positions in the leading institutions. They bring with them their own national instincts and characteristics, and, obviously, the greater their gifts the more powerfully must their influence operate against the ideal of a national school of British music.
Sir Edward Elgar, speaking at Birmingham, urged the young English composers "to draw their inspiration from their own country, their own literature, and their own climate. Only by doing so could they arrive at an English art."
If this be true, and I doubt not that most thinking people will agree, the present state of things is unceasingly working towards making the idea impossible of realisation. It must be borne in mind that there are hundreds, even thousands, of students taught by perhaps three masters of different nationalities, leaving our schools yearly, and who consequently spread broad-cast the mixed impressions they have received. Not only is the influence undesirable, but this constant augmentation of the already congested state of the profession makes it more and more difficult for the young native to earn a living wage, and compels him to direct his thoughts and energies rather to this end than the development of his artistic capabilities. The more one thinks on this practical point, the more serious it seems.
That it has not escaped the attention of the resident foreign musicians is shewn by an illuminating story told in a pamphlet published
a little while since, in which one of them advises young Englishmen to émigrâte (emigrate)!
To properly explain the attitude in the past, of the people generally, towards music and musicians, it is necessary to go back some centuries and examine the causes which led up to it.