Leading Articles in the Reviews. 



71 



BRITISH MUSIC AND THE PEOPLE. 



SuMK I'lRPosKFiri, Work. 



-Mk. Reginald R. Buckley contributes to the 

 December number of the Millj^ttte Monthly on& of his 

 interesting articles on British Music and the People. 



FOLK-.\RT. 



He instances the work of Mr. Weston NichoU with 

 the Black Dyke Band, and wishes that more com- 

 posers would study the brass bands, for in writing 

 for them composers are brought into touch with the 

 actual folk who do the work of the world but who 

 have not yet formed standards of their own. He 

 tells of Mr. Cecil J. Sharp and his labours in con- 

 nection with the recording of folk-songs and folk- 

 dances, and thinks that every club in the country 

 should learn the songs and the dances, and the 

 children the old musical games. 



CHARACTERISTIC COMPOSITIONS. 



While folk-art is coming to life again in country 

 places, certain composers have been writing for the 

 people. Mr. Rutland Boughton has produced a 

 setting of Bulwer l.ytlon's " Invincible Armada " and 

 a setting of Edward Carpenter's " High in My 

 Chamber." The latter work, under the title of 

 " Midnight," describes the sorrow, the poverty, the 

 grinding care, and the crime of a great city, and is a 

 musical picture of the dark hours. The chorus and 

 orchestra, themselves city folk, join in the picture. 



Another composer. Mr. Vaughan Williams, has 

 given us a great choral work, "A Sea Symphony." 

 Unlike the view held by .Mr. Boughton, his idea is 

 that the worker wants to be taken out of himself, as 

 far as possible away from the cities, liut, like Mr. 

 Boughton, he has set a series of folk-songs lor a 

 large body of voice;, and he uses the orchestra for 

 works based upon tr.iditional tunes. Professor Cran- 

 ville Bantock, who has a passion for Eastern things, 

 has produced a choral and orchestral setting of 

 " Omar Khayyam," and, hearing it, you are caught 

 up into another world. 



WORK ANIi INSPIRATION. 



Mr. Walford I);ivios's " Everyman " music is as full 

 of the spirit of medi.eval Britain as is .Mr. Bantock's 

 vision of Persia. .Vmong other pieces which .Mr 

 Buckley thinks the people would do well to study are 

 Sir Edward Elgars "Go, Song of .Mine." If one 

 looks at the works of our better com[)Osers, he con- 

 cludes, they stand for ideas as well as music-making. In 

 this essentially British art of choral song we are mack- 

 partakers of a great banquet, which is ins|)iralion, 

 after the duties that are our daily labour. W ork and 

 inspiration are the greatest things in the wdrUl. 



l^ndon Stories, \)\ John o' London, is running its 

 fascinating course. Part VI,, for example, coniaiiis 

 a number of quaint in< idents and (juaintt-r illustra- 

 tions. I'hey deal with Queen Catherine's trial, 

 .Sheridan, Thomas Couits. the banker, George Illiot 

 in London, i'oni Moore's comic duel, and other 

 curious cases. 



THE NATION'S BAIRNS. 



Ti!E Local Govirnment Reiie-w for December 

 summarises the annual report of the Chief Medical 

 Officer of the Board of Education. Examination was 

 required in one and a half million children. Defec- 

 tive nutrition was found to bj the most important of 

 all physical ills from which schoolchildren suffer. 



SHOWER BATHS. 



Uncleanliness is rife ; half the girls' heads in ten 

 urban areas were found to be unclean, and in ten 

 rural areas thirty per cent. : — 



.\s part of llie cimpaign against uncleanliness, it is noted that 

 the provision of shower baths is engaging the attention of a 

 numljer of education authorities. Shower baths have recently 

 been sanctioned in connection with new elementary schools at 

 D.ulinglon, Mossley, Grays (iissex), Hanwell (Middlesex), 

 Torquay and Pontypridd, w hile at Warrington, Sheffield, and 

 Pontypridd an installation has been introduced in connection 

 with existing schools. In all these cases the installation has 

 consisted of a series of shower baths (usually from ten to twenty) 

 and suitable accommodation for undressing. The provision 

 serves in most cases for children from neighbouring schools as 

 well as for those attending the school to which the bath is 

 attached. The bath is usually available for all children, and 

 avowedly forms part of the training of the child, and is super- 

 vised by ihe teaching slalf. .\s a rule the children are bathed 

 once a week. 



CLINICS. 



Clinics have been established in Bradford, Brighton, 

 Nottingham, Sheffield, Oldham, and other towns: — 



Speaking generally, it may be said that out of the 6,000,000 

 children registered on the books of ihe public elementary 

 schools of Kngland and Wales, about 10 per cent, suffer from 

 a serious defect in vision, from 3 to 5 per cent, suffer from 

 defective hearing, i to 3 per cent, have suppurating e.irs, 6 ;o 

 8 per cent, have .ideuoids or enlarged tonsils of sufficient degree 

 to obstruct the nose or throat, ami thus to require surgical 

 irealmenl, .about 40 percent, suffer from extensive and injurious 

 decay of the teeth, about 30 to 40 per cent, have unclean heads 

 or bodies, alx>ut I per cent, suffer from ringworm, I per cent, 

 from tuberculosis in re.adily recognisable form, from I to 2 per 

 cent, are afflicted with heart disease, and a considerable per- 

 centage of children are >ufl'cring from a greater or less degree of 

 malnuirilion. 



- POETRY IN THE MAGAZINES. 

 A New I'oem hv Tiiackkrav. 



L-xNUARV Cfr///;/// publishes a poem by Thackeray 

 which, after eighty years, is now published for the 

 tirst time in the magazine which was his own. The 

 lines Were written when Thackeray visited Saxe- 

 Weimar in the year 1831. They are lines which will 

 not recommend 'Thackeray to the teetotaler or to 

 till- over-scrupulous!y devout : — 



Now all Demons are r.irt save ihc one that's called Care, 

 Hut we've need of no priest to dismay him, 

 I'lir e.asy's the spell ilie dull spirit to quell, 

 In the rc<l sea of Wine you shoidd lay him. 

 .S|. Peter in Heaven liaih c.nre of tin- keys. 

 If his brother .St. John's a Iruihteller. 

 When I join him .ibove \\\ be happy to ease 

 1 he old boy of the keys of the cellar ; 

 < )r if banished eNewhere as a sinner who ne'er 

 I lath listened to pr.iyer or to preacher. 

 Then may I be cursed with perpetual thirst. 

 And to quench it an cmptiless pitcher. 



