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Halley premiered ''Phaethon'' in 1928, at the age of 24. Audiences howled with rage. How dare he rewrite the classics! He would spend the next nineteen years in abject poverty, scraping for a living wherever he could.
Halley premiered ''Phaethon'' in 1928, at the age of 24. Audiences howled with rage. How dare he rewrite the classics! He would spend the next nineteen years in abject poverty, scraping for a living wherever he could.
He premiered his fourth to very good critical reviews and box-office receipts. Yet his overwhelming sense was that he had won a hollow victory. The critics said that his music was great only because he had suffered much in the creating of it. Halley considered that the critics missed the message. Worse yet, he strongly sensed that the critics would never accept the message even if they understood. Nor did he imagine that his audience understood his music any better than had the critics. His audience, in short, offered him pity, and pity was a thing he found patronizing, and even insulting.
He premiered his fourth concerto to very good critical reviews and box-office receipts. Yet his overwhelming sense was that he had won a hollow victory. The critics said that his music was great only because he had suffered much in the creating of it. Halley considered that the critics missed the message. Worse yet, he strongly sensed that the critics would never accept the message even if they understood. Nor did he imagine that his audience understood his music any better than had the critics. His audience, in short, offered him pity, and pity was a thing he found patronizing, and even insulting.
His final insight into what he called "the looter in spirit" came when he revived ''Phaethon'' in 1947, toward the second year of the great strike. Now audiences cheered. But they were cheering the struggling artist, with absolutely no appreciation for the work itself. Then and there he formed a resolution that his listeners would "never hear a note of [his] again."
His final insight into what he called "the looter in spirit" came when he revived ''Phaethon'' in 1947, toward the second year of the great strike. Now audiences cheered. But they were cheering the struggling artist, with absolutely no appreciation for the work itself. Then and there he formed a resolution that his listeners would "never hear a note of [his] again."