Without the assistance of modern mechanical aids the music-lover had either to listen to the music-making of his friends or of players at a concert, or he had to attempt to interpret for himself. The first was inconvenient and unsatisfactory. The selection of music was not his own but that of others; the time and place were not of his choosing. The alternative was even worse, since his appreciation was limited by his interpretive powers and marred by his deficiencies. The owner of a modern player-piano has the whole world of piano-music and a wealth of arrangements at his command. Even the lover of orchestral, instrumental, or vocal music has access, through the gramophone and the wireless, to a passable substitute for the real thing.
What effect will this have upon pianoforte music? In the first place, we shall gradually rid ourselves of misplaced pride in the amateur’s very limited technical powers. We shall no longer praise So and So for being able to play Chopin’s Studies after a fashion, but shall consider him either a fool for wasting his time trying when he could much more easily enjoy Cortot’s performance of them, or sympathize with the poverty that prevents his purchasing this mechanical aid. Secondly, we shall not waste time and kill natural love of music by the dreary routine of “teaching the piano.” Instead, we shall teach appreciation. If all the energy spent in acquiring a very inadequate technique were diverted to the real business of appreciation, we should be a more musical nation. Thirdly, we shall cease to tolerate the incompetent player now so often foisted upon us or even sought for want of any better, and the ostentatious “virtuoso” executant.
Before very long the piano-player will cost no more than an ordinary piano; in fact the ordinary instrument will no longer be manufactured. In our schools “piano-playing” will be erased from the curriculum and classes in appreciation substituted.
But what about non-pianoforte music? There is a big difference. While the piano-player produces exactly the same kind of musical tone as the hand-played instrument, the gramophone, or the wireless, does not reproduce at all exactly the timbre, quality or volume of the instruments recorded. It provides not the real thing but a substitute, which, though excellent, can never be entirely satisfactory. We do not care to assert dogmatically what science will or will not make possible in the future; at least, however, it is extremely doubtful that a mechanical violin as adequate as the mechanical piano will ever be invented. Wind instruments depend less upon human manipulation—the organ, for instance, is nothing but an imperfect essay in this direction. This is but idle speculation, however. As a practical proposition we may say that the perfect mechanical reproduction of music will be confined to the pianoforte.
So we are left with these problems. Shall we be tempted to seek the shadow and lose the substance—listen in often, but never attend an orchestral or chamber concert or a violin or vocal recital? The chances are that we shall, unless opportunities to enjoy the latter are greater than at present. Considerable loss would result. The ears of the next generation would become attuned to a diminished variety of tonal experiences, for one thing. For another, the psychological, even physical effects of large gradations in the volume of tone, such as can be experienced only in the concert-room, should not willingly be relinquished. And, again, it is not by any means the same thing to listen to music in the company of others, in the atmosphere of the concert-room, as it is to enjoy music in solitude. We may sometimes prefer the latter, but that fact does not remove the difference.
The second problem is that, though there is little physical or moral good to be found in solo instrumental playing, such good does result from singing and partaking in concerted music. There is no good reason why we should play the piano—rather than listen to it; but there are many reasons why we should sing or play in chamber or orchestral music. By all means let us listen to more music of all kinds; increased facilities for listening should not, however, decrease our desire to perform when performance can benefit us.
Taking all these considerations together we may assume:
(1) that pianoforte playing will decline though much more pianoforte music will be enjoyed.
(2) that much of the practical energy now devoted to the pianoforte will be directed to the study of other instruments.
(3) that, unless our musical life is to increase in volume but diminish in quality, more and not less concert-going and concerted instrumental playing and choral singing must be provided.