We teachers charge enough for our lessons to make it possible for us to devote an evening a week "to art for art's sake"; invite our pupils, talk, sing, take up the biographies of the old masters, do ensemble work; study the oratories and operas. I am sure this would help create a greater love and understanding of the better things in music, for the more we hear it, the more we love it. This would go further in helping to create a love and understanding of "art for art's sake," and would be a greater test of our sincerity.
Debussy, the well-known composer of Peleas and Melisande, says in an article on "Art for Art's Sake": "Don't talk to me about elevating public taste. That is the greatest 'bluff' one can din into your ears. Just think for a moment what the public is composed of. How many in the audience understand music? How many devote themselves to music during the day? An infinitesimal number. The rest, where do they come from? From offices, stores, business houses of some kind, or they come from teas and gossip, and then they go to hear the opera. Most of them are tired after a day's work or idleness, and such people you expect to take an interest in serious music. Impossible! No; the only thing you can do for the public is to lift it, for one moment, out of its daily thoughts, and with that we have to be content. Under such conditions, what difference does it make whether you have German, Italian or French opera? There is no immovable truth in art. You cannot say this is so or so, and what difference do the means make as long as the end is accomplished? If Italian opera is more effective than German opera, what does it matter? All art is untruth. You may have been told that art is eternal because it is true, but there you are mistaken."
ANDREAS DIPPEL
Of the Metropolitan Grand Opera and General Manager of the Chicago Grand Opera, who through his tireless and skillful service is meeting with great success in the establishing of permanent Grand Opera in the larger cities west of New York, is an enthusiastic supporter of the Grand Opera in the vernacular, giving the many excellent American singers an opportunity to make their début in this country and in their own language. Mr. Dippel predicts the time is not far distant when New York will establish the home of the National Grand Opera.
EDUCATING THE MASSES.
THE MUSICIAN who refuses to make certain concessions to the public gives proof of courage, but not of wisdom. One cannot expect to go before an audience and sing over their heads, and by so doing educate them up to one's own standard of music.
You must reach down from your lofty ideals and meet the public on its own ground.
For example, in creating a love for the grand opera (which the people, especially of the west, up to a few years ago have had no chance of hearing), you must proceed gradually, carefully and with tact.
Teachers of voice culture should organize grand opera study clubs, give concerts, using selections from the popular grand opera—I mean by popular grand opera "Il Trovatore," "Carmen," "Faust," etc. These operas contain airs that are attractive, and can be followed by the masses.