MUSICAL COURIER
22
February 2, 19 2 2
money in the world is now in America. It can not matter to the student whether the artists are born in America or not, nor whether the art-works are made in America or not. They are here, both the artists and the art works, and that is all that matters very much.
Also, it may be added, it is a bad thing for young artists to break all association with their own country and to get European ideas into their heads— European ideas as to the commercial side of their profession and the way to make a success. Some of those foreign educated Americans come home with high-brow ideas and a belief, among other stupid Europeanisms, that it is unethical to advertise and that art is to be spelled with a big A and held sacred. Those ideas are only held by those Europeans who are too inefficient to get to America. Those who are big enough to get to America believe in spelling art with a small a, and Advertising with -a big A. They understand that a book on a shelf may be as snug as a bug in a rug—and just about as useless to mankind. The bigger the message, the bigger the audience it should reach.
Europe has one value for the singer, and one only. It is useful as a place to get stage routine, and that is a matter of small-town opera, a matter of managers, not teachers. Learn to sing here! When you are finished and ready, try to get in an American opera. If you can not do that (if opera and not concert is your aim) try Europe—Italy, France or Germany. But some Americans have started right here and stayed right here, and are better off for having done it. A European reputation is no longer necessary in America.
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UNFORTUNATE
Artur Schnabel is a pianist of the very first rank. He has everything a pianist needs—a masterful technic, an engaging tone, warm and capable of the utmost shading in cantabile, full and rich in brilliant or loud passages; also he is a musician of parts and by no means confined to the interpretation of any one school of piano literature. The classicists, the romanticists, the modernists—all are played by hint with equal sympathy. He has long enjoyed a reputation second to none in Central Europe, a reputation thoroughly deserved. Mr. Schnabel came to America for the first time about a month ago, and, unfortunately for his career here, made the mistake of thinking that it was his mission to educate the American public in matters pianistical, apparently not realizing that said public, having listened to all the finest pianists of the last half a century or so, stands in no particular need of education.
Mr. Schnabel played at his first recital—and it was Christmas afternoon, when everybody was struggling with an overdose of food, as it was—the Schumann fantasy, a Schubert sonata and a Brahms sonata; at his second recital he played no less than four Beethoven sonatas and added the thirty-two variations for good measure; at his third, he played a Weber sonata, four Schubert impromptus and a Chopin sonata. Any one of these programs is a pretty stiff dose of music. The result was that the audience dwindled steadily as the series progressed, a mere corporal’s squad having interest enough to turn up for the third recital at Town Hall.
Mr. Schnabel was warned before he came here by his manager that the programs he had selected, while they would be heartily welcomed in any of the Central European cities that know what he is and what he can do, were not of the sort to attract American hearers to a pianist quite unknown here. We, personally, told him the same thing and asked him for his own sake to lighten at least the second and third programs, but he was obstinate and the result is that if Mr. Schnabel ever wants to make a career in this country, he will have to start over in a different way.
There is nothing personal in this editorial. Mr. Schnabel, an old friend of ours from European prewar days, is taken as the subject merely because he is the particularly shining example among a number of foreign artists who seem to come over with the idea that they are Messiahs appointed to lead America out of the musical wilderness. America does not want to be led and does not need to be led. Mr. Schnabel and his kind are without doubt perfectly honest in their beliefs, but they are mistaken. No sensible person would think of following the six volumes of “Jean Christophe” by the fat ones of “The Newcomes” and then putting Dostoievsky’s “Crime and Punishment” on top of the other two; and even one who is most greedy for music hesitates before such heavy, unrelieved programs as Mr. Schnabel has offered. It is too bad that such fine artists as he should kill themselves for America by an obstinacy which has a foundation only in an entirely mistaken artistic purpose.
As to the balance of the letter—that about “melodic gems” and “inner genius” and “political barriers” and the rest—F. P. has looked high and low for the sort of compositions by American composers that he wrote about, and has been unable to find them except in the works of MacDowell, and even there they are rare. When F. P. hears of a neglected genius, he says, “Show him to me,” but the showing never materializes. If there were neglected geniuses in this or any other country, there would be manuscripts lying hid away somewhere from past generations that would compare favorably with the works of those composers who are recognized the world over as great. F. P. has challenged those who claim the existence of such neglected genius to bring forth their works, but the works have never materialized. They are great, those works, in the minds of their creators and their friends. To the average unbiased, but practical and unemotional, musician they are not great at all.
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“SALOME” AGAIN
It is a pity that the “Salome” question should again be placed in the limelight by the proposal to give it in aid of Devastated France. Letters of protest and otherwise are coming to the press, and one of them, addressed to the New York Times, deserves some further mention. In the first place the writer of this letter, Adrian Van Muffling, compares “Salome” with “Tristan,” “Tosca” and “Walküre.” His letter, which is evidently in reply to a letter from Ogden Bowers on the same subject, says: “I would ask Mr. Bowers two questions: Has he ever heard ‘Salome?’ And, if so, did he understand it? I doubt it. Also, has he ever heard ‘Tristan and Isolde,’ or the second act of ‘Tosca,’ or the first act of ‘Walküre?’ I am sure he does not in the least object to the ‘moral tone’ of the above operas. . . .” Further on he says of “Salome”: “The story of itself is nothing. Does any one believe that it would ever have been objected to if written to the mellifluous orchestrations of Massenet or Puccini? The Metropolitan some years ago, and the Chicago opera directors more recently, simply made themselves ridiculous in the eyes of all true lovers of art.”
That is as it may be. To most people the objection to “Salome” is not Strauss and his orchestration, but Oscar Wilde and the degeneracy he imagined and depicted in the character of the heroine. This woman is made to appear so insanely degenerate in her love ( ?) for the prophet that, failing to win him otherwise, she persuades the king to have him beheaded, and then fondles the severed head. That is a plain statement in plain words of what takes place on the stage. Some Salomes make it less repugnant than others, and some make it utterly ridiculous. One prima donna brought out a woolly head that looked like a floor mop nailed to a bread board—nailed fast, for although she turned it upside down it never fell off. Everybody joined in the general laugh that spoiled the sublimity (?) of the entire final scene.
Most people object to this final scene because it is not art. It is just silly, and remains so in spite of the magnificence of the Strauss music. Furthermore, there is nothing whatever in “Tristan” or “Tosca” or the “Walküre” which can be compared with it, not even the brother and sister love in the latter opera. Under no circumstances can the normal love of a man for a woman, however much it may be extra legal, be compared with this thing that Salome perhaps believed to be love for Jokanaan. It is utterly unnatural and too far removed from normal feeling to cause any thrill in any of us except the few who can close their minds to the meaning of the play in their admiration and enjoyment of the music.	^
STAY HERE!
A correspondent writes asking the Musical Courier to furnish information as to where in Italy it is best to study singing and who are the best teachers. In answer we would say that the best part of Italy in which to study singing or any other branch of music is in the United States. If you must have Italians there are almost as many in the United States as there are in Italy. The best Italian opera in the world is in New York and the next best is in Chicago—or is the Chicago opera French ?_ The best teachers in the world, Italian or otherwise, are in the United States. New York offers far more musically than any other city in the world. Not only is the opera the best, but the orchestras, the artists who come here, the whole musical life and all of its various features, are the best.
Art is largely a matter of money. Where money is, there will be found art. The best artists will flock there, because there they will find the best market for their wares. And pretty nearly all of the
DISGRUNTLED
The Musical Courier has received the following letter:
Apropos of F. P.’s splendid article in the Musical Courier of January 5, called “Phantoms of Fame,” allow me to ask F. P. a few questions which I think may _ prove of interest to more than one “American who is not simple and practical.”
F. P. says that he had a conversation with the leading protagonist of American music among the music publishers. And while conversing with this publisher, the said protagonist told him that the reason our American composers are not successful in producing high grade compositions is because they are unwilling to carry out the said publishers' friendly suggestions, but instead “they go chasing false ideals and are false to themselves and their own natures in so doing”—quite a bump of ego, we’ll say.
However, since F. P. is evidently quite a brilliant person, suppose he puts himself in the place of the composer we are going to discuss throughout this article.
Suppose F. P. was of American birth, had studied in this country and abroad with the best masters, and was the composer of scores of compositions that are being sung and played all over the world.
And suppose that among the American composers he was considered one of the best, but on account of petty silliness the venerable (?) music journals in this country practically ostracize him, while, on the other hand, insignificant, aping upstarts who have nothing to say have their names blazoned from the housetops as wonderful geniuses.
Suppose that F. P., besides being the composer of scores of short pieces—mostly church music—was also the composer of four grand operas, several symphonies, sonatas, trios, quartets, etc., compositions that the late Anton Seidl used considerably on his programs, but which are entirely neglected by present day conductors, while Schoenberg, Cassella and other modernists, with their imbecilic vaporings of degenerate nothings are being featured considerably. Wouldn’t that ruffle his placid temper a bit?
Then, if two of F. P.’s grand operas were translated into the German language and were to be produced in Germany when the war intervened—the Germans thinking well enough of these operas to give them a production, while our own superior American opera companies, the Metropolitan and Chicago, can’t even, find time to give them a hearing, would he still keep smiling?
And if, right at the present time, F. P. had a trio and two violin sonatas that are considered exceptional by musicians who have heard them, but which are going begging to get on a program. If these compositions were by a novice, one could partly excuse it all, but they are by a man who has been successfully composing for more than thirty years, composing wonderful melodic gems—but finds his own countrymen the biggest hindrance to his success if he dares leave his little world of church anthems.
For more than thirty years this man has been fighting a he-man’s fight, only to find that it is utterly useless.^ His royalties and playing net him a tidy income, and while lie continues to compose, it is not so much for the financial gain, but as an outlet for the voice of his inner genius. He has scores of beautiful compositions that he does not even bother to send to his publishers.
F. P. is evidently a person of erudition. If he is sincere about the propagation of American music let him use his prolific pen towards breaking down the political barriers that exist in music circles, especially in New York! Let him get after some of the Deans (?) who hold their positions and leaderships because some Angel takes a personal interest in them, instead of their merits 1
Platitudinous rantings about the lack of melody in American compositions will get him nowhere. Let F. P. use his efforts to make it an easy matter for a composer to have his works played and judged by musicians instead of pigmy minded musical egotists! And further—let him fight to have our government encourage the arts the same as most European countries are doing 1
Until then, F. P.’s and the publishers’ advice to American composers is as useless as tear-gas at an Irish wake.
A. S.M.
This certainly requires an answer. The writer suggests that he has in mind some one who is the composer of scores of compositions that are being sung and played all over the world—perhaps himself —a man who is considered among the best of American composers, and “on account of petty silliness the venerable musical journals in this country practically ostracize him.”
Such a man does not exist. There is no American-born composer who has written scores of compositions that are sung and played all over the world, and who is considered to be one of the best of our composers, who is ostracized by the musical journals! Such a state of affairs simply could never possibly arise, because every musical journal in this country is hoping that the great American composer is on his way, and all of them will do their best to push him along.
In the next paragraph he supposes that the late Anton Seidl put the works of this composer on his programs, but that they are now neglected. But we all of us know perfectly well that Seidl did not unearth the great American composer, and if the compositions have had a hearing and failed to make good, why should they be repeated ?
As for the statement in the next paragraph that the Metropolitan and Chicago companies cannot even find time to give the operas of this composer a hearing, that also is not true. The Metropolitan and Chicago companies do find time to hear or examine American operas, and they are anxious to find the great American opera, since they are often blamed, unjustly, for not finding it. When it arrives, you may be sure they will know it and give it a public hearing.