January 5, 1922
MUSICAL COURIER
ELEANOR SPENCER
Her latest photograph, taken in Berlin before her reappearance in the German capital for the first time since the outbreak of the war.
their pound of flesh in the form of seven encores. Rosen’s popular success here seems assured.
Eleanor Spencer's Success.
Eleanor Spencer, too, had an indisputable and very well deserved success. She appeared as soloist with the Bliith-ner Orchestra under Oskar Fried, and she pleaded with courage and ability for the recognition of American music, by playing the second MacDowell piano concerto (D minor, op. 23), a brilliant and musically solid work which deserves to occupy its place beside the favorite concertos for the instrument. Miss Spencer gave it a remarkably plastic and technically assured performance, and earned a veritable ovation for herself. She had the audience with her from the beginning of the concert, when she played Beethoven’s rarely heard little C major concerto in well controlled musicianly fashion, and she is sure of a warmhearted reception at her next Berlin appearance.
Oscar Fried at the same concert achieved merit by giving the first orchestral hearing in Germany to Ernest Bloch, whose significance as a composer of world standing is just beginning to dawn upon a few of the more progressive and liberal spirits of this country. It was the imaginatively impressionistic “Hiver-Printemps,” in which the influence of Wagner and Debussy (memories of the “Afternoon of a Faun” are irresistible) are not yet wholly absorbed by the vivid personality of the “Jewish” Bloch, even here subjective feeling guides the contemplative tone-poet he is still an impressionist, but an impressionist with a soul. Un-iconoclastic as it is, the work made an immediate impression on public and critics, and there is an audible cry for more Bloch. It is expected that both the Jewish Poems” and “Shelomo” will be heard during the present season.
More Novelties,
Ildebrando Pizzetti, perhaps the most gifted of all the younger Italians, has likewise written a quartet, which will be heard at a Pizzetti evening in the headquarters of the Musical Courier. At the first of these soirees of new music, Ernest Bloch’s viola suite had its German premiere and aroused the profound admiration of some of the leading critics and musicians of Berlin.
Another novelty for Berlin, the Palmgren “Metamor-phosen, for piano _ and orchestra, brilliantly played as it was by Victor Schioler with, the Philharmonic Orchestra, proved a disappointment. The rather obvious variations— often mere ornamentations—of a somewhat blatant theme in the style of a patriotic hymn, hardly deserve the designation of metamorphoses, for the theme undergoes no 0 ׳fganic	change. The orchestration is good, though
noisy Schioler, a Swedish pupil of Artur Schnabel, played with great technical command and certainty, as well as evident musical feeling, proving himself to be a candi-date_ for high pianistic honors.
High honors have already come to another pianist, Edwin rischer, the blond and vigorous Swiss who was the soloist at the third concert of the Furtwängler series.
,P'roved thM he deserves them, for he played the first Beethoven concerto with such striking rhythmic characterization and such fine differentiation of tone that it became a thing of absorbing interest and delight.
The Italians' Quartet Fever.
The foreign element was present also, in recent chamber music concerts, and the various organizations seemed to vie with each other m presenting the output of the younger Italians. _ Italy is giving notice of its serious musical intentions just now by a remarkable quantity of chamber music, and especially string quartets. Not only Casella whose whimsical quartet pieces we heard in Paris, and Malipiero, whose Berkshire prize winning quartet was heard here two weeks ago, but also Respighi, Alfano and Pizzetti have entered the lists.
Ottorino Respighi’s string quartet was played bv the Anbruch ensemble a few days ago and made a pleasing impression. Respighi’s is an outspoken lyrical temperament His music is neither biological, like the Germans nor theatrical like the Italians, but it is Italianate just the same, melodious and refreshingly free from “DebussvH״ ־ Siegfried Idyll” and “Waldweben” spoke through the^rst movement; rich modern harmonics bolster up a fine poetic (Continued on page 34)	*
ECONOMIC DEFLATION SETTING IN AT BERLIN
Concert Advertisements Reduced to Half of Last Year’s Space—Cheap Sunday Concerts the Rage—Foreign Element Strong—Max Rosen and Eleanor Spencer Play—Bloch Orchestral Works Heard for First Time in Germany— Furtwängler the Man of the Hour—Opera House as Musical Laboratory
verkauf.” Second (and this concerns chiefly the “also-rans”), concertizing, never profitable in Berlin, has become a terrible expense. An ordinary recital arrangement today costs more than a big orchestral concert cost two years ago. This scares the candidates for journalistic approval and makes oblivion attractive. Another form of “Ausver-kauf,” for soon only the foreigners will rent the halls.
Sunday Concerts the Rage.
The public, on the other hand, is still eager for music that is first-class and—cheap. It flocks to the orchestral concerts, to chamber music concerts of the well known organizations, to the few first-class soloists that are left, and (especially) to the dance soirées. The demand for Sunday music is particularly strong. Between the Nikisch, the Furtwängler and the Walter series there is not a Sunday without its “public rehearsal” at eleven-thirty, and since these are cheaper than the Monday nights, they are even more in demand. The overflow from the Philharmonie flocks to the Scala to hear Fried, to the “Ufa Palast” (Berlin’s biggest movie), the Deutsches Opernhaus, the new Theater am Kurfiirstendamm, or even Reinhardt’s Deutsches Theater, for some sort of a musical matinée.
On Sunday afternoons, the halls are crowded at still more popular prices. There are special monster concerts at Reinhardt’s Grosses Schauspielhaus ; there is a new “people’s art” series at the Philharmonie, a popular chamber series at the Singakademie, and the people’s symphony concerts of the Bliithner Orchestra at its own hall. It is all “popular” and lacks the incentive of private enterprise.
The Foreign Element Grows.
During the week, however, there is a distinct receding of the tide; and this has its visual demonstration in the Sunday newspaper. The advertisements for the week’s concerts, which occupied two whole pages about this time last year, are reduced to less than one. This is one pleasant feature. Another is the injection of the foreign element. Foreign musicians, thanks to the exchange, are attracted to Berlin more and more, and thus an occasional hearing is given to foreign works.
Two of the outstanding features of this week, for instance, had a decidedly American turn, namely the reappearance of Eleanor Spencer, and the first recital of Max Rosen, first acclaimed at a Fried concert last week. Rosen played with astonishing virtuosity and a fascinating sweetness of tone, and he made some old habitués’ hair stand on end by his fast—sometimes too fast—tempi. The Wieniawski concerto brought down the house, and at the end the fiddle-fans crowded round the platform and got
Berlin, December 13, 1921.—There is no doubt of it— the musical boom is over for a while. We are less swamped with concerts—good, bad and indifferent—and the public is obliged, by its pocketbook, to discriminate. In short,
WILHELM FURTWÄNGLER
A very characteristic silhouette of the most famous—and tallest—among the younger German conductors, who has become a matinee idol in half a dozen cities.
the season is less “prosperous;” the economic deflation which we advocated in these columns last year has come.
The cause is twofold. First, the stars, or most of them, are gone. The dove of peace has been a seducer and has depopulized the native cote. It is Germany’s artistic “Aus-
JEANNETTE VREELAND
Miss Vreeland’s voice, exquisite in color, poised in control, has been trained by skilled teachers. She is being introduced because she has attained that standard of artistic ability that is demanded by the public. Bookings are being made for concert and oratorio. Under exclusive direction of Walter Anderson, 62 W. 45th St,, NEW YORK