290 REPORTS FROM THE SECTIONS. 
amateurs, being engrossed with very different pursuits since their 
arrival in the “Colony, have mostly forgotten the use of their 
instrument, and can find neither time for private practise nor for 
rehearsals. All the same, say I, all honor to these valiant 
champions of art! Though working in a wrong direction, they 
thus direct the attention “of a certain number of persons to the 
Nevertheless, for the present, weighed by their own intrinsic 
worth, these attempts are far from putting music in its best light, 
for, as before said, high-class music requires high-class execution, 
and high-class execution can be obtained only from thoroughly 
educated musicians—tmusicians sufficiently masters of their instru- 
ments to perform to a nicety every si i 
parts. Now. 
of such artists here ? Assuredly not! Of course I speak only of 
those composing our orchestras and choruses, not of the fraternity 
to which I belong, nor of certain ladies and gentlemen I know 
who would be valuable acquisitions to our musical Societies, pm 
for their own doubtless valid reasons they stand aloof. der 
all these circumstances, acs it is not wonderful if, though often 
called upon to testify to the progress of music, and to endure high- 
class compositions, the public fail . fall in love with them. “Is 
that music?” they say. “Well, it is not worth the strain of 
listening to it, nor the trouble as expense we chats been at to 
take our families to hear it.” ‘They ar e in the main right, a 
what is worse, anythin g that repeatedly Miron tiry repeatedly fails 
must be considerably depreciated by the process. 
now endeavoured to trace to its natural causes what i 
Seti the state of humiliation in which music here vegetates, 
must hasten to the consideration of how we might to some oe 
raise its standard, and so, gradually winning new allies and admi- 
rers every year, finish by lifting the divine art to the pedestal it occu- 
pies in Europe. I begin, then, abruptly by deploring what seems to 
me the mistaken zeal of some music-lovers in proposing to build a 
new music-hall. That the wretched accommodation of our present 
-concert-rooms makes the attending a concert a very ng pe 
amusement is not to be denied, and no doubt de new hall would 
wali Forgot. in; 
being told we did not know what good m 
was in New South 
Wales to hear it added, “but you could eared ete finer hall!” 
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