(supported by The Daily Telegraph and Morning Post, the H.B.C. and Oxford University Press)
From contemporaneous reviews
“It is an important affair and teams of composers, critics, artists, and well-enough-to-do amateurs have journeyed from most of the world’ capitals to be present. For eight days the interest of music lovers the world over has centred on London, and night after night the Queen’s Hall and Broadcasting house Concert Hall have been filled with the musical intelligensia of the world. From New York to Melbourne, Barcelona to Cracow, from Copenhagen and Rome they have come, the composers and the conductors and the critics.”
–Arnold Gyde, “Birmingham Personalities at Modern Music Festival: Gathering of World’s Music Lovers,” Evening Despatch [Birmingham], June 24, 1938, p. 5.
“[T]his is the right way in which to hear contemporary music–not sandwiched with classics (they do not sandwich Matisse between Tintorettos at picture galleries) but exhibited on its own terms, in bulk, before an audience willingly interested. This time there was an overflowing audience.”
–Richard Capell, “Bela Bartok and Others – English Humour and Magyar Passion,”
Daily Telegraph [London], June 21, 1938, p. 10.
“If modern music is to be assimilated or assessed at anything like its correct value, it must be administered in reasonably small doses. The recent London festival of the International Society of [sic] Contemporary Music was, therefore, under a disadvantage at the outset, for it presented literally large chunks of modernism. While this enabled many composers to have their work performed, on the other hand it did not help the writer to form an impartial judgment of the music toward the ‘finals’ of the session. Critics are but human.”
–(unattributed?) “Contemporary Music Performed at London,”
Springfield Weekly Republican [Springfield, Massachusetts USA], p. 11.
“There was no exciting challenge; there was nothing freakish. An inquisitor from Düsseldorf or Weimar could not have conscientiously included any of these pieces in his collection of ‘entartete Musik.’ In 1938, while audiences are more tolerant, the I.S.C.M.’s composers are tamer than at the stormy dayspring in the far-off 1920’s.”
–Richard Capell, “I.S.C.M. Chamber Music: Serious Central Europeans,”
Daily Telegraph [London], June 20, 1938, p. 10.
“The prospect of listening for a couple of hours to experimental music does not attract audiences. Concert-room etiquette imposes greater restrictions than the picture-show; one may ignore or move away from an unpleasant painting; one may not leave the concert room while a performance is in progress without discourtesy. This is the fact which more than any other explains why the public will patronize an exhibition of new pictures and fight shy of a concert of new music, even though the one may be worth the other. The committee responsible for this year’s programs, however, saw to it that no single work exceeded a reasonable time-limit–which is what some previous committees overlooked. If some compositions seemed longer than they actually were, the fault lay mainly in the methods some moderns affect.
…
“[T]he value of this festival is not necessarily in the worth of many of its novelties but in the birdseye view it offers of contemporary movements, in the opportunity it provides for first-rate performances and the consequent test of work. It also satisfies all concerned: no work failed to elicit a friendly welcome; no composer; no composer present failed to make his bow to the public in acknowledgement. After the bitter controversies about great music in the last century it is good to know that all that has been changed and composers and conductors from the ends of the earth can meet in friendship once a year to exchange counsel and compliments.”
–Ferruccio Bonavia, “New Music in London: The I.S.C.M. Sixteenth Meeting Has Abundant Vitality and Interest,”
The New York Times, July 17, 1938, p. 122 [available online].
“Because the public needs time to appreciate first-rate music and because even competent listeners cannot always, at first hearing, tell a crackpot musician from a genius, the work of contemporary highbrow composers is unpopular. … To combat this deafness and muteness, societies of intrepid and hard-eared listeners have been formed, who sit through concerts of contemporary music almost without flinching. Chief among these devoted bands is the International Society for Contemporary Music, which last week opened its 16th annual festival in London.
…
“But musical compositions, unlike dogs, horses and tennis games, cannot be judged on points. Not even the modernist composers and well-known conductors of the society’s international jury know for sure whether they are picking a sunrise or a dodo. Ultimate decision rests with the musical public. And very few of the musical public attend the festivals of the International Society for Contemporary Music. The audiences (made up of composers, executant musicians, esthetes, theorists, critics, future-boosters) do not go primarily to enjoy the music, but to keep from missing something. Cheers are as scarce as hen’s teeth, but hisses are as common as chickweed.
— (unattributed), “International Egg Rolling,” Time, June 27, 1938.
“No musical event within my memory has ever had such generous support and publicity. … [T]hose foreign composers who have been fortunate enough to have their works performed may return to their homes all the happier for the warmth of the welcome accorded them by musical London. … But there is less affinity between the advanced present-day music to be heard at contemporary music festivals, and the long line of music such as never ceased to develop, to be different, yet be modern. There is certainly something different in the ‘new’ music. It is written in a new language which is likely to remain a question of politics until it is understood. There is this to be said for the young composers whose works are being performed at the Contemporary Music Festival, they are accomplished technicians and orchestrators.”
— Havergal Brian, “The Nature of Modern Music,”
Musical Opinion, July 1938, p. 868.
“Judging from the great number of empty seats …, the society’s still wares do not particularly commend themselves to London music-lovers.”
— Ernest Newman, “Contemporary Music,” London Sunday Times
reprinted in The Leader-Post (Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada)
15 July 1938, p. 15.
“[F]år også ISMC’s musikfester en dobbeltl betydning, dels den rent saglige: at vise hvordan der komponeres idag, og dels den politiske: at fastslå et internationalt kulturelt sammenho1d på trods af de reaktionæ-re strømninger i tiden. Disse musikfester har derfor den allerstørste værdi selv om, paradoksalt sagt, de opførte værker er uden værdi. Og nægtes kan det ikke, at mange af de værker, der opførtes i London 1938 (for slet ikke at tale om Paris 1937), i virkeligheden kun havde betydning, fordi de, derved at de blev fremført her, bekræftede viljen til internationalt kulturelt samarbejde.”
(“ISCM’s music festivals also have a dual significance, partly the purely objective: to show how to compose today, and partly the political: to establish an international cultural cohesion in spite of the reactionary currents of the time. These music festivals therefore have the greatest value even though, paradoxically, the works performed are of no value. And it cannot be denied that many of the works performed in London in 1938 (not to mention Paris in 1937 at all) were in fact only significant because, by being performed here, they confirmed the will for international cultural co-operation.”)
— Gunnar Heerup, “Tanker ved ISCM’s XVI musikfest i London 1938” (“Thoughts on ISCM’s XVI music festival in London 1938”),
DMT Årgang 13 (1938) No. 8, pp. 188-192 [in Danish, English translation via DeepL].