Three - Day University Symposium On Music Criticism Popular Success

A popular as well as a professional success, last week's three-day "Symposium on Music Criticism" was marked by the high level of interest apparent at all the speaking sessions as well as at the three sell-out concerts.

Although after E. M. Forster's opening address the audience consisted primarily of leading musicians, critics, and educators, it still included everything from a seemingly lonely Robert Frost to a highly gregarious red-head from Wellesley, and all but the balcony of Sanders Theater was consistently well-filled.

Probably the first major result of the Symposium's success was the announcement Saturday that the University Press will publish all Symposium speeches in a volume to be ready in the fall.

The forthcoming publication of this book and the wide coverage the Symposium has already received in the music columns of major newspapers indicate that it may exert a strong influence on thinking in the music world. Exactly how it will affect actual criticism cannot be foretold, but as the meetings progressed it became increasingly evident that the discussions were taking place on two levels.

Forster, Wind Disagree

First, on the theoretical level, divergent points of view were expressed by Forster and Edgar Wind, professor of Philosophy at Smith College, in speeches concerned with the relation of criticism to art.

Where Forster took a frankly pessimistic view, claiming that a wide vold separated the critical and creative processes, Wind set forth the theory that the two were inseparable, and consequently of vital importance to each other.

On the second level, purely practical problems of music criticism were discussed. Miss Olga Samaroff, pianist, educator, and former music critic of the New York Post, hit the most basic of these when she pointed out the importance of critics in making or breaking artists.

Many of the speakers approved of Miss Samaroff's suggestions for decentralizing New York City's music monopoly