Chapter III: Foreword (3)

At the beginning of the musical season in October, 1898, a considerable storm was raised in Manchester by the action of the guarantors of the Hallé concerts, who had offered the post of conductor to Dr. Richter, instead of renewing Dr. Cowen's appointment. It fell to Johnstone to write the two leading articles on the subject which appeared in the _Manchester Guardian_ of October 4th and 17th. His clear and judicial summing up of the case left no room for questioning the right of the guarantors to act as they had done, while his special knowledge of Dr. Richter's immense services to musical art enabled him to write with authority on the great chance now open for Manchester's acceptance. In short, the point at issue lay between sentimental considerations and the good of the community, and Johnstone very naturally declared for the latter. Our reference to this controversy is intentionally brief, but its importance at the time was considerable. Johnstone was now recognised as a leader of musical opinion in Manchester, a position and influence which became greatly extended in the years that followed.

There is no doubt as to the kind of power that he exerted. He did not touch the actual administration of music in Manchester, in the College of Music, or the Hallé concerts, or elsewhere. He did not directly advise, therefore, in the choice of programmes, players, or singers. But he went to every performance of the slightest note, whether popular or not, and wrote about it incisively and heedfully, always preferring to praise and interpret, but hitting very hard when he thought it imperative to do so. He went to the prize exhibitions of the college pupils, and reviewed them (omitting names) with a sympathetic ear for promise. He lectured, often very well, at Mr. Rowley's Sunday gatherings in Ancoats, and also in the History Theatre of Owens College. As a lecturer, it may be observed, he suffered at times from having too much to say and failing to compress it perfectly. But he held an audience of unprofessional hearers with his sharply-cut and pungent style; and, in one respect he was a fortunately un-English lecturer, for his power of graphic gesture was quite noteworthy. These, however, were casual activities; presswork took almost all his strength. He did a vast amount of musical reviewing, and his room was stacked with the publications that he simply found it useless to criticise. But the notices of actual singing and playing were his main labour, as well as the pioneer articles on unknown or imperfectly appreciated works. These were of high value, and contain some of his best writing, being done at fuller leisure. As to the quality of his published utterances we may say no more; the articles we have saved for this book must speak for themselves. But, without doubt, his judgment was looked for, and welcomed or feared. He made it less easy for bad performers to come again. He was generous, preferring even a slight excess, to oncoming and unrecognised talent, or to remote and exotic kinds of talent which made the fashionable multitude impatient. He became the worthy and articulate voice of musical opinion in and beyond one of the English capitals of the art.

We could hardly illustrate the kind of power that Johnstone exerted better than by quoting what Canon Gorton writes concerning his connection with the Morecambe musical festival:--

"Our festival was born in 1891. From the first it was organised entirely apart from any pecuniary object; it brought us some delightful music, as we set our own test pieces, and its aim was essentially educational. Our special correspondent from the _Manchester Guardian_ did not arrive on the scene until 1899. We had grown accustomed to unstinted praise, the judges exhausted the adjectives in the language in describing the excellence of the singing, composers told us that they had never heard their part-songs so perfectly rendered. We thought we were perfect. Then came a bomb from the critic (April 27th, 1899). He was not in touch with us or cognisant with our aim, nor did he allow for our limitations. Much of the music seemed to him unworthy; the competitive or sporting element annoyed him; he saw rocks ahead, rocks on which others had been wrecked. He wrote: 'The array of talent is no doubt imposing, but far too much of the music is of an inferior stamp. It should not be forgotten that the end and aim of such festivals is to foster a taste for music. But the taste for inferior music needs no fostering. If, therefore, the organisers of these festivals prescribe second-rate works for the competitions, they simply destroy the _raison d'être_ of these competitions. It is music as an art--not music as a sport or trade--that requires fostering. There is a danger that such concerts may degenerate into a vulgar pot-hunting business, and one would like to see everything done, both as regards the music prescribed and the conduct of the proceedings of the festival itself, to guard against that danger.' I do not claim to know much about music, but I recognise good English when I see it. I saw that 'our special correspondent' was a master of his craft. I replied at once in the _Manchester Guardian_ rejecting his interpretation of our motives, and still more the motives which brought choirs to our Festival. I said that 'no chastening was joyous' and urged that the critic should have patience, that we were then walking and that some day we would run, and expressed a hope that he might be there to see. I afterwards called upon him at the Reform Club, and this commenced a friendship, the memory of which I shall always hold as a matter of pride. He henceforth became for us 'the critic.' We not only awaited his arrival, but in choice of music Mr. Howson (the choir-master) even applied an additional test: 'This will test the choir, but will it also satisfy Mr. Arthur Johnstone's taste?' The choir were conscious ever of his presence. The judges were in the box giving their awards, but 'Mr. Johnstone is in the grand circle, what does he think?' I heard him once appeal to his wife; 'Am I not always open to conviction?' With his first article in view, and with the knowledge of what subsequently he did for us, I could but allow that he made good his claim, for he became the most stalwart defender of our Morecambe musical festival--'a movement,' he wrote in 1903 'that is one of the most genuine and hopeful things in the musical England of to-day.' Again he complained that 'little or nothing has been done by the teachers of music in Manchester to encourage the musical revival that for a good many years had been going on in the North of England, and more particularly in Lancashire.' Later, he wrote a remarkable article in reply to the strictures of Mr. J. Spencer Curwen. Mr. Curwen had questioned whether our festivals help choral music in the long run, and proceeded to comfort us by saying that 'we were entering upon a dangerous path. The more success you have, the nearer you will approach to the state of things which exists in Wales.' To this belated warning Mr. Johnstone replied (October 5th, 1903): 'The peculiar evils enumerated by Mr. Spencer Curwen as being fostered by competitions were observed a good many years ago by those who are organising meetings in North Lancashire. Indeed, one may say the observation of these evils was the point of departure in Lancashire, and we are, therefore, a little tired of these strictures on the choirs got up to learn certain pieces, dispersing immediately afterwards; on fragmentary performances, and the rest of the black things on Mr. Curwen's list. It is evident that Mr. Curwen is entirely without knowledge of the best Lancashire choirs formed by the influence of competition in their own neighbourhood. These choirs have as strong a principle of cohesion as any in the world. Their repertory is exceedingly wide. Their organisers show immense enterprise in unearthing the treasures of the old English and Italian madrigal writers and of the finest modern part-song writers. Let Mr. Curwen go to Morecambe next spring; his ideas on the subject of musical competition will be pretty thoroughly revolutionised.' Yes, Mr. Johnstone was open to conviction, sought nothing less than the truth, was at infinite pains to obtain it--_O si sic omnes_. But the debt we owe to him was not merely because he was a critic keen to discern the good, not merely because he proved a fearless champion. He became a friend always ready to discuss methods of development, and to place his exact and wide knowledge at our disposal, and after we had formed our plans it was a great gain to Mr. Howson and myself to test their wisdom by his opinion. He spoke frequently of the capacity for conducting which the festival revealed, and inveighed against the star system, whether among vocalists, instrumentalists, or conductors--and of these last he had in his mind's eye several whom he maintained we ought to rely upon. It does not fall to me to speak of him as a friend, as a delightful companion, as a courteous gentleman--one whom I married and one whom, alas! I buried in the prime of his powers."

Johnstone took the position he had thus made with increasing seriousness, and worked during the Manchester musical season harder than ever. In the summer he went abroad, but not entirely for rest. He greatly expanded his knowledge, and also his musical reputation and that of his paper, by his visit to festivals at Bayreuth, at Oberammergau, at Düsseldorf, and at Vienna. Forced to choose, we have hardly been able, within these limits, to quote from the contributions he sent home. The last of his foreign journeys was unlike all the others, which had been taken alone. The words quoted above from the letter of January, 1902, were no longer to be true, though the desired companionship came late. A solitary life in lodgings, and the absence of domestic ties to one of his affectionate and home-loving nature (which lay behind his gipsy habits) could not be compensated even by hosts of friends; but brighter days were in store. In June, 1902, he became engaged to Miss Lucy Morris, a Manchester lady who had won considerable distinction at Cambridge; and henceforward the most human of interests gave fresh inspiration to his life and work.

Their marriage took place two years later, on June 28th, 1904, quietly at Morecambe. The friend of both, Canon Gorton, married them, and another friend, Mr. Howson, undertook the musical part of the ceremony, which was performed by the Morecambe Madrigal Society and the church choir. There never was a wedding with better music, and for once the hackneyed description, "the service was fully choral," might have been used with a real meaning. The honeymoon was spent on the Riffel Alp: afterwards the travellers attended the Bayreuth festival, returning to Manchester at the end of August, where they went to live at Tarnhelm (named after the magic helmet of the "Ring") in Victoria Park. A few more months of happiness remained to Johnstone. On Thursday, December 8th, he was taken seriously ill, but though in considerable pain he attended a concert in the evening, and wrote a notice of the performance. The next morning his condition was worse, and on Saturday he was operated upon for appendicitis. But relief came too late, and on Friday, December 16th, his sufferings ended. He had just completed his forty-third year: he was in the plenitude of his intellectual powers, and had entered upon the happiest and most useful period of his life.

This cruel and sudden ending to Johnstone's career, at a moment when he had reason to be reconciled to life and to forgive circumstance, when he was wider in his critical sympathies and more thoroughly master of his means of expression than ever before, and when his public influence was strong, stirred the musical society of north-western England. North and South are two different nations--neighbours that often carefully ignore and misunderstand each other. This appears to be specially the case in musical criticism. The London press said much too little. But the word "provincial" has no application to the musical energies of Manchester. It is like one of the great German towns, Munich or Frankfurt, being wholly independent of the capital, of which it is not a colony. The mark made by Johnstone in this region was attested in a measure that he would never have foreseen. The _Manchester Guardian_, besides giving an honourable obituary notice to its critic, received far more letters in his honour, expressing sorrow at his early death and admiration of his character, than it found space to print, although the most salient of them filled its columns. They were written with knowledge, not by laymen, but by persons with whom Johnstone had worked and had dealt faithfully, sometimes stringently. The remark of Canon Gorton, "I began my friendship with a quarrel," might be echoed more than once. Johnstone's clean, hard literary thrust, or _punch_, free from noisy hammering violence, was a not infrequent introduction to his acquaintance. It was given with a will, but in a spirit thoroughly, and to third parties amusingly, impersonal. The letters as a whole give a clear notion of the intelligent professional view concerning him; of his honesty, catholicity, and knowledge. He had been everywhere, he counted, and when he had gone he was missed.

One of Johnstone's brothers in the craft, Mr. Ernest Newman, after referring to a dispute which had led to their friendship, spoke of him as "the best and strongest Englishman of our time in this line." Dr. Adolph Brodsky, after praising in especial Johnstone's accounts of pianoforte performances, singled out his services in breaking down the popular prejudice in England against Bach. Others wrote of his musical erudition and his "laudable desire to prevent anything in the form of charlatanism from finding a place in the musical assemblies of Manchester." Canon Gorton, who, as we quoted above, wrote with gratitude of the high stimulus given by Johnstone to those local efforts which save music from being unduly centralised in the bigger cities, and his pertinent remarks upon the rarity and value of great musical critics claim quotation, as they bring home the public sense of loss in Johnstone's death.

"He held a high view of his office, and would make a sacrifice of self rather than a sacrifice of truth. It is difficult to calculate the extent of your loss. Musicians succeed musicians; they being dead may yet speak. But the critic's words are ephemeral; they remain in the files of the newspapers. For musicians there are schools; but what school is there for critics? In music we need guides, men with a wide horizon, a general culture, men unfettered by musical faction, with definite ideals, with command of the English tongue, of courage and of true instinct. Such an one, I take it, was Mr. Arthur Johnstone. Who will fill his place?"

Upon this precise statement of the case we could not try to improve. We can only add some words upon the nature of the man apart from his profession. In an estimate of Johnstone's character the foremost place must be assigned to his love of truth in all things; this virtue was the touchstone he applied to his friends and to all artistic work. M. Vantyn happily quotes, as the most appropriate motto for him, Locke's words, "To love truth for truth's sake is the principal part of human perfection in this world and the seed-plot of all other virtues," adding by way of comment, "In everything, in all intercourse, upon all occasions, under all circumstances, whether in enjoyment, in work, in serious intercourse, he was a gentleman in the strictest sense of the word." Next we may place his wonderful sympathy with the oppressed in every class. Even where there was much that roused his anger in the sinner, as in the case of Oscar Wilde, he was indignant at the merciless treatment he received, and pleaded for a minor punishment. Where his sympathy could have free play he was tender in the extreme, he would take infinite personal trouble, and give all that his modest means permitted. He was fond of animals, he disliked the idea of killing them in "sport," and was glad that most of his intimate friends shared his view. But he was not unreasonable on this point; and, to take the real test question, he was not absolutely opposed to vivisection under stringent conditions. For all his early talk of the "joy of life" he was more anxious to secure it for others than for himself. He was tolerant under his armour, and would rebuke pointless severity by saying, "Well, well, there is something wrong with almost everybody;" but he did not extend this indulgence to the cruel and pedantic. His youthful rebelliousness, apartness, and questioning of society did not all vanish, but were taken up and transformed into a more flexible temper; for they had never been the mere plant of nihilism and vanity, that a selfish nature manures in its barren private garden. Some of his friends valued, above all, his total lack of the small inquisitiveness, which he resented more than anything in others. He was deep in his work or in the minor preparations for the day, and did not trouble much about his friends' affairs. But when anything was doing, he emerged at once. When one of his old companions was in suspense over illness at home, and yet could do nothing but wait, Johnstone planned for him and personally conducted an elaborate series of distractions and amusements covering about four hours--not an easy thing to do in Manchester--each of them appearing to be improvised as it came. The trouble over, he relapsed into thought and went his ways. There were many such incidents. A picturesque and noble character of this kind, with its traits of quaintness, claims thus much record, and the more so that reticence made it less easy to discover. To the public the journalist is such a mere spectral hand and pen, writing by lamplight, without a face or form behind it, as we hear of in a certain class of old ghost-stories. Johnstone had become more than this to many of his readers. But they could not know him as a man. It is well, therefore, to lift so much of his privacy as may enable them partially to do so. He went through the world scornful of its common valuations, appraising for himself, watching with a certain isolation, and always preferring (if he must choose) liberty to happiness, and rightful pride to obvious advantage. But he was all the more human for that.

We may here say something about his piano playing. Johnstone, of course, never professed to be more than an amateur. He was quite aware that the difference in executive skill between the professional and the best amateur is almost as great in music as in billiards; and that, to paraphrase Matthew Arnold's saying, "Technique is three-fourths of musical performance." As to the remaining fourth his playing stood on a very high level. Even in undergraduate days the charm of his rendering was considerable, always carefully thought out and individual. If he had never heard a piece performed, his insight was remarkable, lighting instinctively upon what one realised was the best way of playing it. His touch was very delicate; he never forced the tone out of a piano, and always avoided anything that might be called hard hitting. He liked best playing something in the style of a Rubinstein barcarolle, where the music should speak through a veil of sound. But his strength really lay in a fine sense of rhythm, a rare gift even among great pianists. Whatever piece he attempted he took at the proper pace, even if occasionally a note might be missed or a passage blurred, rather than give a false idea of it by playing too slowly; what was altogether beyond his powers he left alone. On his return from the Cologne Conservatoire his actual execution was at its best, the fingers strong and lissom; and, being at the top of his physical health, his playing was full of almost exuberant vitality. A weak circulation was always a trial, and it was his habit to warm his fingers at a fire, when possible, before sitting down to the piano. It was perhaps a small talent, but singularly dainty and cultivated, for which our memory of twenty-five years is profoundly grateful.

We might expect that the qualities he aimed at in his own playing would be those that most attracted him in the great pianists of his period. Of course he admired at their full value those transcendent players, Rubinstein, Sophie Menter, Paderewski, Rosenthal; but there are also artists equally unapproachable in their own delicate way, such as Pachmann, Godowsky, Reisenauer, Siloti, and it was from them he received the greatest personal pleasure.

As critic his first object was to explain the qualities and scope of the music (in Pater's words, "to disengage its virtue"); to show, if a classic, why it had attained its position, if modern, why it should command serious attention. He never assumed too much musical knowledge on the part of his readers, avoiding the use of technical expressions, still more of stereotyped phrases. Bad work and slovenly performance he could chastise unsparingly, but he never wrote harshly when he recognised genuine effort, and he was very generous in his praise of young performers, and often attended minor concerts at some inconvenience to encourage rising artists. His style was clear and precise, rather expository in tone; coloured when the occasion demanded, and occasionally enriched with allusions to other arts. Thus the elaborate tracery of Gothic architecture exhibited in Strasburg Cathedral (a favourite figure) is employed to illustrate Bach and contrasted with the formal classicism of earlier composers, and the Palladian style of Handel; Elgar's "Dream of Gerontius" is compared to some "jewelled _ciboire_ of the Middle Ages;" a pianist's playing of arabesque passages reminds him of the "arrogance and costly unreason of fine jewellery." His discernment of any new work of permanent value was quick and unerring; we may instance his early estimate of Elgar and indeed of Strauss too (for his position then was uncertain) as having been in advance of general musical opinion, though unquestioned at the present day. Tchaïkovsky's Pathetic Symphony was a more obvious discovery; here he showed his critical power rather in quenching the popular enthusiasm (which he had at first assisted in creating) for this work when the public seemed to have lost all sense of proportion, by reminding his readers that after all "Tchaïkovsky and Dvoràk are inspired barbarians and must not be put on the same level with Beethoven and Schumann." Mention too should be made of his appreciation of Liszt, whose services to music are too frequently ignored--the creator of the modern pianoforte technique, the brilliant and original composer, and the generous friend of Wagner.

In their choice of the articles of which this volume is composed the editors have given special prominence to those on the works of Sir Edward Elgar and Herr Richard Strauss, the two composers of our time who, as Johnstone considered, would bear the largest share in influencing the cause of musical development. Many of the articles were written on the first production of important works, and, in Elgar's case, further impressions are given of later performances of the same work. Those on the great acknowledged masters, if they cannot add much more to our stock of actual knowledge, are interesting as confessions of a sound musical faith. It is also true that the sum of potential energy in the works of these great masters is infinite; in this sense, that they strike a new flash out of every fresh and apprehensive mind. They can beget generations of critics, each with another thing to say. Such criticism is not a mere absorptive or passive process; it is re-creation: it puts into fresh terms, by the art of words, some of the impressions that have been built up of sound without language; or it tells those who have felt the same thing what they did not clearly know or remember that they had felt. The power to explain music is rarer than competence in judging books. It may be thought that amongst Englishmen of our generation Arthur Johnstone had as large a share as any of this re-creative genius.

Musical Criticisms