[From Manx Quarterly, #3 November 1907]

MUSIC FESTIVALS. CONFERENCE IN LONDON.

PAPER BY MRS. F. H. LAUGHTON, OF PEEL.

We quots from the London "Times" of July 3rd, the following, to which we have added Mrs Laughton's paper, as being of local interest :

The third conference of the Association of Musical Competition Festivals was held yesterday in the King's Room at Messrs Broadwood's premises, Conduit-street. Lady Mary Forbes-Trefusis presided, and announced in her opening address that the membership of the association had increased during the year from 200 to 400. Mr J. A. Fuller-Maitland submitted a report on Mr Fielding's scheme of a prize competition for a short secular choral work. The committee had decided to offer a prize of £5 for such a work, to occupy not more than half an hour in performance. Especial attention is to be given to the choice of words, and the copyright of the competition selected is to remain the property of the composer.

Miss Wakefield read a paper on "How to put Competition Festivals on a Permanent Footing." That much-to-be-desired condition of things could, she said, only be arrived at by each festival itself. The work of the undertaking should be as widely spread and divided up as could possibly be arranged, for only in that way could its staying powers be arrived at. More attention should also be given to the perfecting of competition festival machinery. Every musical oentre, however small, ought to be properly constituted, with executive committee, chairman, secretary, and treasurer. Everything which went to form any good business organization should be adopted and utilized to the needs of these competition festivals. She did not share the feeling which some had that competitions and festivals would never answer together. She held that the two could be easily worked together and that the competitions lost their chief interest and their binding, enduring power when the festival was trot the most important part of the undertaking. Endeavour should be made to arouse a genuine popular interest, not a fictitious one, in the festivals. Finance was the crux of the whole question. The subscriptions should be aimed at to be a third of whit was required for the whole. They could not expect, with noState support formusic, that they should do without private support. To obtain subscriptions a good system of collectors was needful. It had been computed by Dr McNaaght that 50,000 competitors went in for examination this year; he travelled 5,000 miles to carry out the examinations and had heard at least 600 choirs. These were splendid competition results-let them see to it that they were permanent.

Mrs Peake (Doncaster), Mr Fowler (Bristol), Lady Winefride Cary-Elwes Brigg), Mrs Laughton (treasurer of the Manx Festival), and Canon Rawsley spoke on the question of finance.

Mrs Laughton said : In responding to Miss Wakefield's very cordial invitation to join in the discussion to-day on the financial side of competitive festivals, I feel that possibly a word of apology may be due to you for my being hers at all, representing as I do quite the smallest festival centre of the Association-the Isle of Mau. What however we lack in size, we try to make up by enthusiasm, and the fact of our having carried on a competitive festival for sixteen years may not only justify our existence, but perhaps may explain why Miss Wakefield has asked me-the hon. secretary and treasurer of the Manx Festival-to say a few words to-day as to how we manage our scheme. We are a very small community ; so small, that peraoually I am often amazed at what our people can accomplish in connection with our three days festival. Our population numbers about 54,000 all toldmen, women, and children ; yet from this number we have to draw Committee, competitors, prize donors, and audience. If all the inhabitants of the Island were popped down in the centre of one of your large London parks, their presence would scarcely be noticed. We are not a rich community, and in so many ways are we handicapped that I think the fact that we have been able for sixteen years successfully do carry on a Competitive festival, should be a distinct encouragement to all the younger centres, who may, at first, find the way thorny and difficult. I do not przsume to offer our plane and methods as suitable to all places. According to our Insular needs and necessities we have been fairly able to make our Institution a stable and lasting one, and an Educative force (applause), whilst, most important of all, we have financially made both ends meet (applause). With regard to our sources of income, we are not able in the Isle of Man to raise a substantial guarantee fund, as, I notice, is done in several large centres. Instoad, we collect yearly a prize fund of at least £50, which insures us against a deficit. We have no high prices for admittance to either competitions or concert; if we had we should lose much of the popular support given to us, and one of our objects is to interest all classes and educate audience as well as competitors. Our charge for entrance to the competitions is sixpence, and to the concert which ends our three days' work, one shilling, with an extra shilling or sixpence for reserved seats at the latter. Our "gate" for the three days of the festival is usually about £280, £190 of which is taken at the concert. Generally we have an audience of 5,000 and upwards at the concert (loud applause), and during the competitions there are very large numbers present. I may say that we are fortunate in Douglas in having a very fine hall which is available for our work (hear, hear, from Dr McNaught, and applause), and which adds much, with its spaciousness, etc., to the comfort and convenience of all concerned. Competitors entry fees bring us in about J15 or £16. As to our expenditure, our handicap comes in at once in the long prices we have to pay for adjudicators, accompanist, and any professional help we may require from the adjacent Isle. During the winter months we have only one service daily from the mainland, and this necessitates two days for the journey to and fro, in addition to the three days of festival, which materially adds to the fees that have to be charged. We do not give large prizes. Last year the chief choral prizes were raised to £LO 10s, first; and £7 7a second. In the other choral classes they range from £4 to £2, and in the vocal and instrumental solo and duet classes, £1 first, and 10s sec.)nd satisfies the competitors. In the junior choral classes we give challenge banners to the choirs, with a first prize of £1 10s. In every class we give certificates of merit, which are much appreciated. We pay half the travelling expenses of choirs from outside Douglas. This we consider a very excellent way of helping all choirs that compete, and whose expenses are heavy. The net results of our festivals for the last three years areas follows : -

Our entries have steadily risen year by year, and though I consider 250 is "high water mark" in this respect for the Island, the last two years they have reached between 280 and 290. We started in a very small way with very few classes, each year adding some new feature as the scheme grew and the work developed. One point in the management of Competitive Festivals I always consider necessary is to keep a very keen ear open to all " ¢rumbles" (laughter and applause). I am a great believer in grumblers, at all events in connection with music competitions, and I always encourage them, as thereby one gets at-what I think is very necessary-the other side of the question. One is not obliged to take as gospel all that comes to the surface from grumblers, but by listening to all they have to say one can generally sift the real from the imaginary grievances, and thus one is able to smooth down and explain away the little tangles and irritations that must arise in the stress and heat of competition. Also we have to remember that the competitors are the necessary life and soul of competition festivals, and therefore they require much consideration, and a general and all-round spirit "of give-and-take" must prevail, else will the wheels drive but heavily. We always have a sort of grumbling meeting every year soon after the Festival (hear, hair) when delegates from the competing choirs attend, and when everyone airs their pet grievance, and things are generally smoothed down. This we find most useful (applause). I think I may say-from our experience that the most difficult period of a competition festival movement arrives some five or seven years after the start. The novelty is then worn off, and some of the competitors begin to tire, and the question arises " What does this all lead to ?"' Then it is that the Committee may have to make extra efforts to keep the movement going. Good "staying power" is much needed. Afterwards the thing settles down more into a groove. We found that gradually as our funds increased (eventually attaining to the dignity of a balance of three figures) the opportunity of enlarging and solidifying our foundation appeared. Young students-brought forward by our competitions -needed help to pursue their studies both at home and away. Our surplus funds have been utilized to make them yearly grants ; and also when our choirs have competed at any of the large English festivals we have accorded them a small grant in aid of their expenses. Further, through the kindness of friends, we have been enabled to establish a Manx Music Scholarship at the Royal Academy of Magic worth £50 a year (loud applause). Thus have we gradually become the centre of all musical work and interest in the Island, and s,) is our work firmly established on a wide and use'ul basis. We have quite a colony of young Manx students at the R.C.M. and the R.A.M., and our young people feel that the Insular competitions are but a first stepping-stone in their musical education, and our competitions flourish accordingly (loud and prolonged applause).

At the conclusioin of Mrs L tughton's piper Dr McNaught paid a very hi;h tribute to the singing of the Manx choirs at Morecambe. He related how Mr Loooey's choir had worked up until they bad this year carried off the Challenge Shield. He said that he retained a very strong and vivid recollection of the singing of that choir, in fact, he had never heard finer.

We understand that several others also complimented Mrs Laughton upon the fine singing of the Manx choirs and upon the work and position of the Manx Music Festival.

At the afternoon session Dr H. Walford Davies delivered an address on ' Maintenance of Pitch in Choral Music." He said the flattening in sound was almost always due to carelessness. People stumbled about to look after its cause, but seldom looked for its cure. It was not, as some people imagiued, inevitable. Singers, especially small choir boys, should be told that it was vulgar, and when they got flat the remedy was to call their attention to the fact. That was usu-illy sufficient. The tenors wore most frequently the culprits, and the major-third of the chord ciused the trouble. When this happened it was an excellent thing to thump the fifth of the chord on the instrument available. That brought the singer up to the proper pitch.

Mr W. H. Hadow, in an address on " My Impressions of Competition Festivals," contrasted the present day musical festival with the hybrid, miscellaneous entertainment which used to represent the arts in our country districts. Those performances were deplorable, and still more deplorable was the absence of any kind of criticism. The most potent ioArument in eliminating them from England had been the musical festival. It had given the country district something better to do and to think about, and it had made the national need the need of good music. But he was not quite certain that the works selected for competition by choirs were not occasionally a little too difficult, that the, tasks set them were not sometimes a little greater than it was reas enable to expect the choirs to accomplish satisfactorily. Sometimes he was not quite sure whether there was not too much attention paid to the solo singer. The festival existed mainly to encourage and improve corporate singing. He disagreed with the suggestion that festivals were bad in so far as they were competitive. Competition when it was personal was liable to all sorts of evils and diseases; when it was corporate, when it was not for ones own erd, but for one's institution, it was, he believed, an entirely wholesome and healthy thing. The musical competition festivals were beginning from the old penny-reading level, and they were getting hold of people who had never known what it was to sing Bach or Mozart before, and they were lifting them to a higher level-to meet the level of the great experts and the great festivals.

A paper on " Music Competitions for Girls' Clubs" was read by the Hun. Maude Stanley, and Dr McNaught delivered an address on " Points from Competition Schedules."

Dr Elgar, in a letter expressing regret at inabilitv to be present, suggested that at every competition a Prize should be offered for the " most artistic" effort.