Shaw and Philistines....

I can't get away form the dammed Shaw book. The passage below made me laugh so hard that I almost fell off the sofa.

About Alfieri's Overture to "Saul" GBS writes:

It is a fair specimen of a modern concert overture, being provided with a program which instructs us as to the intention of the various passages. Thus the trombone solos, shich, we should mention, were played without any of the noisy vulgarity which our experience elsewhere has led us to associate with that instrument, are illustrative of the wrath of Saul; the harp indicates the soothing minstrelay of David; and when a trumpet and side drum leave the orchestra and perform vigorously in the lobby, we know that the Philistines are approaching, and that the end of the overture is at hand.

No wonder we have never heard of the composer Alfieri and his forgotten "Saul" What way is that to depict Philistines? Any self respecting Philistine would be insulted. A trumpet and side drum in the lobby? At least they were playing vigorously.

Shaw has it right. Most program music just doesn't make it. And my feeling is that to add a program to abstract music is even more annoying than listening to a trumet hand side drum pretend to be Philistines. Shaw again:

Excepting such brief suggestions as Beethoven prefixed to he movements of a very few of his works, or the fanciful titles which Schumann gave to his pianoforte pieces, detailed programs seem to be a complete mistake. They may impart a certain interest to a composition for those who are incapable of appreciating abstract music, but they do so at the expense of the dignity of an art whose true province is foreign to the illustration of the commonplace and material detail.


The sun just came out, a fox just wandered through the back garden. I'm going for a bike ride. I hope I don't run into any Philistines...