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Agenbite of Inwit, whole no. 4, Spring 1944
Page 13
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Agenbite of Inwit -- Spring, 1944 -- Page Thirteen ************************************ A BAS MOSIQUE! Or Why Wollheim Was Lynched The following is the secret records of the Inquisition, wherein Brother John B. Michel questioned, Citizen Wollheim answered, and your editor took it all down. JBM: Mr. Wollheim, how long have you been an enemy of music? DAW: Mr. Michel (Herr Bones), I have been enemy of music, or, more strictly speaking, music's severest critic, since the age of 9, when I had survived my third term of Walter Damorsch's Concerts for Children. At that time I realized that my only response to the great masterpieces was one of infinite boredom. I took note that the whole point of the courses, given by the eminent -- and still accepted authority of music -- Damorsch, was to instil in his youthful audience the predigested fossilization of opinion derived on the subject by that self-appointed and self-renewing clique which has formulated the "appreciation of music" philosophy of the present adult world. I realized then that all such opinion is derived through imitation and through artificial ensemination, rather than through any natural or inwardly-felt feeling. Music, in short, was a subject on which it is necessary for a sane man to see the world clearly to formulate his own opinions -- without any consideration for the balderdash which has gone before. JBM: Mr. Wollheim -- you speak of adult opinions arrived at by yourself at the puny age of 9. Is it not a fact, Mr. Wollheim, that like your well-known hatred for butter, your hatred of the divine art of music was forced upon you by a neurotic outside influence? Can we really say that at this early age you were honestly capable of making a mature analysis of a subject that has some six thousand years of human development behind it? Which has reached unprecedented heights of complexity and virtuosity? DAW: Mr. Michel, you betray your own incomprehension of a simple question. I did not say that I had achieved my present viewpoint on music at the age of 9. I said then that at that age, I only realized that I had to disregard all previous viewpoints. My present viewpoint on music began to assume clear form not earlier than ten years after that initial point and has been increasing and modifying with the acquisition of further data to support my original thesis. JBM: Mr. Wollheim, have you made a thorough study of the subject of music? DAW: Mr. Michel, do you consider five years attendance at one of the most widely esteemed courses in symphonic music for youth to be of any merit? Further, I must call to your attention that I have always been subjected to the playing of all types and varieties of music, both through the family influence, and the influence of my pseudo-science-minded friends. JBM: Mr. Wollheim, every word you have thus far spoken in support of your own case, shrieks aloud the fact that your weak character has allowed itself to be browbeaten by a course of instruction passed and understood with ease by many of our greatest minds. Are you thereby not betraying a sensitive fear of music because, crushed under the weight of amassed data on music and music itself, you are fleeing, unable to face the music? DAW: The very hysterical and abusive nature of your question bespeaks the paucity of your ground. I accept your statement of the course of instruction, with is passed and "understood" with ease by
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Agenbite of Inwit -- Spring, 1944 -- Page Thirteen ************************************ A BAS MOSIQUE! Or Why Wollheim Was Lynched The following is the secret records of the Inquisition, wherein Brother John B. Michel questioned, Citizen Wollheim answered, and your editor took it all down. JBM: Mr. Wollheim, how long have you been an enemy of music? DAW: Mr. Michel (Herr Bones), I have been enemy of music, or, more strictly speaking, music's severest critic, since the age of 9, when I had survived my third term of Walter Damorsch's Concerts for Children. At that time I realized that my only response to the great masterpieces was one of infinite boredom. I took note that the whole point of the courses, given by the eminent -- and still accepted authority of music -- Damorsch, was to instil in his youthful audience the predigested fossilization of opinion derived on the subject by that self-appointed and self-renewing clique which has formulated the "appreciation of music" philosophy of the present adult world. I realized then that all such opinion is derived through imitation and through artificial ensemination, rather than through any natural or inwardly-felt feeling. Music, in short, was a subject on which it is necessary for a sane man to see the world clearly to formulate his own opinions -- without any consideration for the balderdash which has gone before. JBM: Mr. Wollheim -- you speak of adult opinions arrived at by yourself at the puny age of 9. Is it not a fact, Mr. Wollheim, that like your well-known hatred for butter, your hatred of the divine art of music was forced upon you by a neurotic outside influence? Can we really say that at this early age you were honestly capable of making a mature analysis of a subject that has some six thousand years of human development behind it? Which has reached unprecedented heights of complexity and virtuosity? DAW: Mr. Michel, you betray your own incomprehension of a simple question. I did not say that I had achieved my present viewpoint on music at the age of 9. I said then that at that age, I only realized that I had to disregard all previous viewpoints. My present viewpoint on music began to assume clear form not earlier than ten years after that initial point and has been increasing and modifying with the acquisition of further data to support my original thesis. JBM: Mr. Wollheim, have you made a thorough study of the subject of music? DAW: Mr. Michel, do you consider five years attendance at one of the most widely esteemed courses in symphonic music for youth to be of any merit? Further, I must call to your attention that I have always been subjected to the playing of all types and varieties of music, both through the family influence, and the influence of my pseudo-science-minded friends. JBM: Mr. Wollheim, every word you have thus far spoken in support of your own case, shrieks aloud the fact that your weak character has allowed itself to be browbeaten by a course of instruction passed and understood with ease by many of our greatest minds. Are you thereby not betraying a sensitive fear of music because, crushed under the weight of amassed data on music and music itself, you are fleeing, unable to face the music? DAW: The very hysterical and abusive nature of your question bespeaks the paucity of your ground. I accept your statement of the course of instruction, with is passed and "understood" with ease by
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