There is one thing that freezes a musician more than the deadliest physical cold, and that is the spiritual chill of an unresponsive audience!
I still feel the impulse to give young writers a hearing, and I believe I have played more unpublished compositions than any other band leader in the country.
Is it not the business of the conductor to convey to the public in its dramatic form the central idea of a composition; and how can he convey that idea successfully if he does not enter heart and soul into the life of the music and the tale it unfolds?
I can almost always write music; at any hour of the twenty-four, if I put pencil to paper, music comes.
I had found English audiences highly satisfactory. They are the best listeners in the world. Perhaps the music-lovers of some of our larger cities equal the English, but I do not believe they can be surpassed in that respect.
There is much modern music that is better adapted to a wind combination than to a string, although for obvious reasons originally scored for an orchestra. If in such cases the interpretation is equal to the composition the balance of a wind combination is more satisfying.
