21
MUSICAL COURIER
chestra that she “had been set dreaming of a new world.” We should hate to have Lillie serve us hot coffee.
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“Now that they have a music of colors, making no sound, I suggest that some Burbank come along and cross-breed it with the victrola next door.”— Morning Telegraph.
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After all, Nero was the only violinist who really played with fire.
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And another piece of ancient musical history is that the band on Noah’s ship played a b-arkarolle as the vessel steamed from shore.
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Have you ever thought you had outgrown Wagner, avoided him for several years and then suddenly found yourself in your second Wagnerhood? We have.
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■ What happened during 1921:
More than 1,293,468 persons mispronounced Jeritza’s name.
Exactly 268,750 artists said to us, “I know you haven’t a moment,” and then made us read a bookful of press notices.
Of “second Carusos,” a few less than 100,000 were discovered but not produced.
Records show that one public violinist did not play Kreisler’s “Viennese Caprice” as an encore, —and he put it in his regular program.
Over 10,000,000,000 rumors were circulated about the Chicago Opera, and only one was right—that there would be a financial deficit for the year.
There were 2,453,954 guesses made why “Ernani” was revived—and not one was right.
Three vocalists did not try to sing for recording companies. Two were dead and the third was in prison.
By actual count, 82,469 violin strings broke during the most pianissimo moments of 82,469 symphonies.
No matter how many times “Parsifal” was given, it was given that many times too often.
In writing about “Lohengrin,” critics referred to Elsa 6,754 times as “ virginal,” and to Lohengrin 6,754 times as “the armored knight.”
Geraldine Farrar and Mary Garden both claim that each was called before the curtain more times than the other. Operatic statisticians have not yet given out the year’s figures as the complete reports from the claque leaders still are to be received.
Paderewski has pondered 12,765,439 times on the foolishness of giving up Chopin polonaises for the Polonaise premiership.
Fully 109,418,761 Americans have wondered what “II Trovatore” really means.
Nearly 80,000,000 persons who read the Musical Courier in 1921 vowed that it was bigger, better, newsier, snappier, more indispensable than ever.
One musical editor agreed with them.
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M. B. H. special deliveries to us: “Did you notice that Marie Rappold won in New Orleans last week at the odds of 12 to 1 ? If you did, don’t you agree with me that she is fine at bel canter?” Yes, and if she were a hurdle horse that goes over the sticks, she doubtless would be excellent at timbre.
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The recent death in Paris of A. Toxen Worm, one time publicity promoter for the Shubert theatrical interests, reminds us of what he said about De Segurola after he saw that singer bathing at Long Beach with his ubiquitous monocle stuck in his eye: “I suppose if he played Samson, he’d wear that thing in the last act, too.”
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An anonymous contributor donates these, but does not give the source:
A cablegram from Paris says that the wardrobe of the late Gaby Deslys has been bequeathed to an orphan home. “If you ask me,” Peggy O’Neil retorts, “those orphans are in for a hard winter.”
“A star,” according to Marcella D’Arville, “is any player who comes to rehearsal only when he or she wishes.”
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Congratulations to Papa Stokowski, if late London reports (where Mme. Stokowski is residing) are to be believed.
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Nilly: “I used to love Patti.”
Willy: “Chicken or oyster?”
Leonard Liebling.
January 19, 1922
VARIATIONS
By the Editor-in-Chief
Knowing that the great national schools of music in other countries are based upon folk song, he tries to find the American folk song, so as to base his music upon that. He utilizes negro tunes, and when they fail-to strike the common chord he devises themes based upon Indian melodies. What he fails to see is that the folk songs of Europe express the common racial emotions of a nation, not its geographical accidents.
A curious symptom of this feeling of disinheritance is the tendency of so many Americans to write what might be called the music of escape, music that far from attempting to affirm the composer’s relation to his day and age is a deliberate attempt to liberate himself by evoking alien and exotic moods and atmosphere. The publishers’ catalogues are full of Arab meditations, Persian dances, Hindu serenades, and countless similar attempts to get “anywhere out of the world.”
In one of his essays upon communal art, Henry Caro-Delvaille speaks of “the true Mediterranean esprit, the visible art philosophy of the French race, which is essentially plastic, accepting and delineating life, free alike from dogmatism and mysticism.” Try to frame a sentence like that about America. Try to make any generalization about the American spirit without using “liberty,” “free institutions,” “resourcefulness,” “opportunity” or other politico-economic terms if you would know what confronts the American artist, above all the American musician, when he attempts to become articulate to his countrymen. We simply have no common aesthetic emotions. _ No wonder our music flounders and stammers and trails off into incoherence !
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Edward Moore, critic of the Chicago Tribune, asks us pathetically whether music per se is immoral, as he read in the Berlin cable news that “the producers of Schnitzler’s ‘Reigen’ were freed because only the music was held to be immoral and the court ruled that music was beyond its jurisdiction.” Music never is, per se, immoral, and cannot create immoral impulses or atmosphere without the aid of an accompanying text, scene, or action. “Salome” has just been barred from the Chicago Opera. Wilde’s tale, and not Strauss’ music, is the cause of the ban. Play Strauss’ music away from the Wilde drama, and it is symphonic utterance, very characteristic and often very beautiful, but never capable of arousing-immoral thoughts or of stimulating to immoral deeds.
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Also in Paris the courts do not try to put music into a straight jacket, but, according to latest reports (a cable to the Herald, January 15) they do define the limitations of music criticism, or, rather, _ criticism of musicians. Agnes Borgo, a Paris singer, sued the newspaper Comoedia and its critic for 100,-000 francs, because (as the Herald intimates) her voice was compared to a steam whistle or something of the kind.־ The court ruled in favor of the plaintiff and in handing down his decision the judge said: “Critics must not compare a singer’s voice with a steam whistle or incite the public to make such a demonstration as will insure that a singer will never sing in opera again. At the same time they must not use language incompatible with the terms proper to a serious criticism of a singer. Persons asking a public verdict on their artistic efforts must, expect the critics to express their professional views, but at the same time they must be protected against excessively violent expressions of personal prejudice.” The judgment was that the defendant pay all the costs connected with the litigation and publish the verdict of the court. Music criticism in this country should be regulated in the same manner. Too often it takes the form of ridicule and even abuse and the victim ought to have some effective means of redress. Critics are not official executioners.
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J. P. F. admonishes in this fashion: “Why do you read only in the summer ? I have been thinking upon the subject and I do not understand why you neglect your reading in the winter. You should read in the winter. I have selected some new books for you, and they are Liberty Hyde Bailey’s The Principles of Vegetable Gardening,” Alexander Wetmore’s “A Study of the Body Temperature of Birds,” Emory R. Johnson’s “Principles of Railroad. Transportation,” H. M. Vernon’s “Industrial Fatigue and Efficiency,” F. Van Zandt Lane’s “Motor Truck Transportation,” G. Keating’s “Agricultural Progress in Western India,” and Wallace Notestein and Frances Helen Relfe’s “Commons Debates For 1629.”
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Lillie, a waitress in a Kansas City restaurant on Walnut’ street, heard her first symphony concert there recently and wrote to the manager of the or-
Deems Taylor, of the World, is the queerest music critic we know and soon will be expelled from the guild by his brethren, for he writes common sense about music, addresses his articles to ordinary people and couches them in plain English. For instance this:
The self-styled music-lover in this country too often brings little more genuine comprehension to music. He is likely to be a highbrow (defined as a person educated above his intelligence), with all the mental obtuseness and snobbishness of his class. He divides music into “popular”— meaning light—and “classical”—meaning pretentious. Now there is good music and bad, and the composer’s pretensions have little to do with the case. Compare, for ex-, ample, the first act finale of Victor Herbert’s “Mile. Modiste” with such vulgar rubbish as “Donna e mobile.” Yet because the latter is sung by tenors at the Metropolitan, the highbrow solemnly catalogues it as “classical,” abolishing the work of Herbert, Berlin, and Kern, three greatly gifted men, with the adjective “popular.” In general, he is the faithful guardian of the Puritan tradition, always sniffing the air for a definite “message” or moral, seeking sermons in tones, books in running arpeggios. It never occurs to him that just as words are the language of intellect, so is music the language of emotion, that its whole excuse for existence is perfection in saying what lies just above and beyond words, and that if you can reduce a composer’s message to words you automatically render St meaningless.
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Strong words, too, are Taylor’s “Music” chapter in the recently published “Civilization in the United States.” He explains that the lot of the American composer is made a hard one because of the complete unconsciousness of his fellow countrymen that art is related to life. He feels a sense of futility and unreality, a more than suspicion that America doesn’t want him, that he doesn’t fit in, that his art is regarded with a sort of good natured contempt, and that if most American music is trivial, not many Americans would know the difference if it were profound. In the minds of most of his compatriots music ranks only as an entertainment and a diversion, slightly above embroidery and unthinkably below ’baseball. At best, what the American musician gets is unintelligent admiration, not as an artist but as a freak. Blind Tom, the negro pianist, still is a remembered and admired figure in American musical history; and Blind Tom was an idiot. To an American the process of musical composition is a mysterious and incomprehensible trick—like swordswallowing or levitation—and as such he admires it; but he does not respect it. He cannot understand how any normal he-man can spend his life thinking-up tunes and putting them down on paper. Tunes are pleasant things, of course, especially when they make your feet go or take you back to the days when you went straw-riding; but as for taking them seriously and calling it work—man’s work—to think them up, any one who thinks that can be dismissed as a crank.
If the crank could make money, ah! that is different. Taylor points out rightly that earning power is regarded by Americans as the proper measure by which to grade artists. “This system of evaluation is not quite as crass as it sounds. America has so long been the land of opportunity; we have so long gloried in her supremacy as the place to make a living, that we have an instinctive conviction that if a man is really doing a good job he must inevitably make money at it. . . . Since such trades are so unprofitable, we argue, those who pursue them are presumably incompetent. The one class of composer whom the American does take seriously is the writer of musical comedy and popular songs, not only because he can make money but because he provides honest, understandable entertainment for man and beast. That, perhaps, is why our light music is the best of its kind in the world.” In consequence, the serious American composer works more or less in a vacuum. He is out of things, and he knows it. If he attempts to say something through his art that will be intelligible to his countrymen, he is baffled by the realization that his countrymen don’t understand his language. He wants to write music, and being human, wants it understood. Taylor continues :
But the minute he tries to express himself he betrays the fact that he does not know what he wants to express. Any significant work of art is inevitably based on the artist's relation and reaction to life. But the American composer’s relation to the common life is unreal. His activities strike his fellows as unimportant and slightly irrational. He can’t lay his finger upon the great, throbbing common pulse of America because for him there is none. So he tries this, that and the other, hoping by luck to stumble upon the thing he wants to say. He tries desperately to be American.