21
March 16, 1922
are helping him do it. He assumes that every man in his orchestra has the same passionate interest in music that he has. Last spring, when the National Symphony Orchestra was finally merged with the Philharmonic, the news of the merger arrived while Mengelberg was rehearsing his men. The announcement took him by surprise; it meant the end of the National Symphony, and, for all he knew, of his own career as conductor in America. Yet when the bulletin had been read he took up his stick and said, simply: “Gentlemen, that may be true or not. I do not know. But it does not concern us now. We are artists; let us make music.” And the rehearsal went on.
*I *i *t
From Edmund A. Stein, local manager of the Chicago Opera season in St. Paul, we receive the attached, which dignity compels us not to answer:
St Paul, Minn., March 8, 1922.
Dear Mr. Liebling:
If you were filling mail orders for seats for a grand opera season and should run across one from a lady who writes—
“Please give me an end seat as I am very large, near the center,”
would you call in the architect or a surgeon? I confess I am stumped.
“Yours in “perplexion,”	E. A. Stein.
H tt H
Another variation of the ancient “What Are Keats?” joke:
What Are Brahms?
She—Tell me, are you fond of Brahms?
He—Oh, very! But I think I like shredded wheat biscuits even better.—Life.
*	»5	*
Oppenheim, the English novelist who is visiting here, says that the world still is full of plots for stories, plays, and operas. As for instance, the good musical comedy plot represented by the stories cabled from Paris last week about the duel between the old and new editors of the Figaro.
!׳* ,׳* *
Perhaps musicians are wrong and the most important thing in the world is not their art. Maybe to the rest of mankind the real epochal happenings of last week were the arrest of Gandhi in India and the dropping of egg prices in New York to the lowest level reached in a decade.
*?»?»?
There is a ballet of chickens in “Snegourotchka” but not the kind—you know the rest of the paragraph.
׳* ׳« *
“Was it only a coincidence?” asks “Br.” innocently, “that I saw Mengelberg standing in front of a Broadway motor shop window bearing the sign ‘Peerless,’ and that a few moments later and a few blocks away I saw Andres De Segurola and Anna Fitziu, recently disengaged matrimonially, passing by the ‘Liberty’ motor place?”
The Riviera Music Company of Chicago sends us a world shattering bulletin, to wit:
Miss Vera Earle, the grand opera star, appearing with Sells Floto Circus, announces that she will use the popular fox trot hit, “Karma,” this Summer, in the spectacular production, “A Night in Cairo,” with a chorus of 200 voices. “Karma” is published by the Riviera Music Company, Chicago, and is one of the outstanding hits of the year.
r * *
The merry jesting of our correspondents is continued by “Eep,” who declares: “If April proves to be a rainy month I shall write a song called ‘Say It With Showers.’ ”
»S *t H
Not so blithe and gay is this communication:
Wichita, Kans., March 8, 1922.
Mr. Leonard Liebling, New York:
Dear Sir:
You may not realize it, but our contribution to the cause of American music and the stabilizing of our national art within the past nine months have been tremendous.
Your laudatory criticisms of certain inferior artists and your contemptuous casting aside of other great artists who are not of your nationality; your misstatements editorially, absolute refutations of statements you have made previously in order to gain a point, have made us keenly alive to the existing situation and we are acting accordingly.
Yours truly,
Allen Proctor, Wichita, Kans.
If Mr. Proctor will be good enough to tell us what in Hellmesberger he is talking about, we should feel considerably enlightened. To set him right on one point at least, let us state that we were born in New York City, and, resultingly, are an Amur-rican. Now let “we” act accordingly.
H *i *
The very recent discovery by scientists that Salome was an acrobat must have been known to Mary Garden long ago.
H H
Willy (at vocal recital) : “What’s he bellowing?” Nilly: “Wolf’s ‘The Rat Catcher.’ ”
Willy: “Well, he’s got a large enough trap.”
Leonard Liebling.
MUSICAL COURIER
VARIATIONETTES
By the Editor-in-Chief
sued, Michael H. Gornston’s ‘Operating Engineer’s Catechism of Steam Engineering’ (publisher, Van Nostrand) and Candace Wheeler’s ‘The Development of Embroidery in America’ (publisher, Harpers).” Embroidery for us ? Well, there are different kinds. For instance, in Variation VI of Ernest Schelling’s clever and colorful “Impressions From an Artist’s Life” (played at the Philharmonic concert last Sunday by the composer and in picturesque and rousing style) there are passages which Lawrence Gilman’s program notes speak of as “embroidery by the piano.”
*, *i t?
Mr. Gilman, God bless him, is not averse to making the concertgoer unknit his brows and smile once in a while. In last Sunday’s program notes there was this, apropos of the final number, Johann Strauss’ “Wiener Blut”:
Who would not choose to hear, on any program, one of the best of the Strauss waltzes, rather than a tenuous and
derivative “Tableau symphonique” by Monsieur ---------, or
a vacuous “Tondichtung ffir grosses Orchester” by Herr
------; or even a feebly respectable suite or symphony by
the worthy Mr. ------- of Wappingers Falls, N. Y. ?
And again, Gilman had his tongue in his cheek when he wrote about Weber’s “Invitation to the Dance”:
According to Weber’s wife, the composer set forth the following delectable program for his music:
“Bars 1-5, first appearance of the dancer. Bars 5-9, the lady’s evasive reply. Bars 9-13, his more pressing invitation. Bars 13-16, her consent. Bars 16-19, he bagins conversation. Bars 19-21, her reply. Bars 21-23, he speaks with greater warmth. Bars 23-25, the sympathetic agreement. Bars 25-27, the dance begins; he addresses her with regard to it. Bars 27-29, her answer. Bars 29-31, they take their places. Bars 31-35, waiting for the commencement of the dance. The dance. The conclusion of the dance, his thanks, her reply, and their retirement.”
Our advice to the concert-goer, however, is not to try to count the bars, read the program, and listen to the music all at the same time.
*i »£	»?
How lovingly, conscientiously, irresistibly, Mengelberg led the two waltzes, and, in fact, all of the pieces on the program. He radiated magnetism, brilliancy, personality. One felt that the leader felt the music. He throbbed and quivered and exulted with it. It shot him through and through like an electric current and he was a human rheostat giving out illuminated sparks. The secret of Mengelberg’s hold on his hearers is penetrated with keen insight by Deems Taylor, who put his findings into the best summing up that has been made of the fascinating Amsterdam leader:
In his two seasons here Willem Mengelberg has shown himself to be one of the greatest conductors, if not the very greatest, in the world. Under his baton the men play with an elasticity of tempo, a nicety of phrasing and a subtlety and beauty of tone color that one would hardly expect even from a virtuoso string quartet. His hold upon his players seems to be absolute. They follow his slightest gesture with complete understanding and eager obedience. They almost invariably applaud him, and after some particularly brilliant concert they are more than likely to give him a recall of their own, after the audience has started to leave. It is this cordial relation between himself and his men that puts the final touch of inspiration upon his work. For, after all, conducting an orchestra is an intensely personal matter. A great drillmaster can exact perfect obedience from his men, but the greatest drillmaster in the world cannot get inspired playing out of a body of instrumentalists if they happen to dislike him.
Aside from his technical gifts, the attribute that makes Mengelberg so successful in handling an orchestra is one that every great artist possesses—enthusiasm. His interest in everything he plays is unflagging and utterly real. His attitude, toward both players and audience, the moment he steps upon the conductor’s platform is: “lust you listen! This piece we’re going to play is the greatest music ever written, and it’s just my luck to have the finest orchestra in the world here to play it!” It would be impossible, one imagines, for him to give a perfunctory performance of anything. Unless he could find something in the music to stir him he would probably be unable to lift the baton. Some-' times he is moved by strange causes; witness his devotion to Mahler. But moved he always is, and genuinely so. He must have conducted Beethoven’s “Pastoral” symphony hundreds of times in his career; yet when he played it at his first afternoon concert this year any one watching him beat the opening bars would have sworn that a world premiere was beginning.
All great men have it, of course, this priceless ability to get excited over the habitual. Roosevelt had it. He could say, “Honesty is the best policy” with the air of Newton discovering the law of gravitation. And to him it was a discovery; and people suddenly believed it because he did. Fritz Kreisler has it. When he plays the Beethoven concerto you realize that he plays it because he loves it and .believes that it is great music, not simply because it is the thing a violinist ought to play.
Arturo Toscanini possessed exactly that gift of divine surprise. He could make anything sound interesting, because he believed in whatever he played. But Mengelberg is perhaps the greater of the two; for not only does he believe in the thing he is doing but he has faith in the people who
M. B. H. writes; “I read what you wrote recently about the banquets in Japan. Now I know what is meant when the political columns contain references to the Tokio Diet.”
*t H H
Theo Karle was asked how he liked “The Love for Three Oranges,” and he answered: “Orange, East Orange, or West Orange?” (New Jersey papers please copy.)
ÎÇ- ^	^
Some individuals who need help ask for it un-blushingly and not unskillfully. There is that Los Angeles composer who types us under date of February 24 :
Dear Mr. Liebling:
I notice you write of Nietzsche quite as I wrote and still write of him ; only you get your writings only in your own paper whereas I get mine in other persons’ papers, notably in the Los Angeles Times, and, indeed, even during the war.
“Also, Kamerad!”
“What I desire to invite your attention to more than anything else is the song entitled (“intitulée”) “Oh, Girl, Wherever You Are,” a professional copy of which I herewith enclose.”	.
“What!” you exclaim. “A girl song and no picture ot no girl on the title page?”	...
Therefore, I say, it’s news and worthy of mention m the Musical Courier.
I have undertaken in this composition to exploit our friend, Nikolas K. Beerich’s, theory that there is an essential unity of the arts, and, after you have lamped this composition, I guess you’ll agree I have in a way succeeded in unifying the art of etching, the art of poetry, the art of music in the song; and, also, the art of painting; and, when the song’s sung,_ the vocal art.
Some unification.
I wish you could see your way clear to say something of this innovation in the Musical Courier. The fellow in the picture, you will notice, is in the posture in which all humanity has been in at some time or other—or eventually will be.	Very truly,
Charles Fritsche.
*S *î n
Overheard while the editorial boots were being-polished :
“Gee, I’m tired.”
“What from?”
“Up late last night.”
“Dancing ?”
“No; poker.”
“You ought to live in the country, same’s^ I do. Bed at nine, up at six. Seven o’clock train for town.”
“Well, that’s all right for those who like it.”
“It’s great.”
“It’s deadly. What do you do until nine o’clock ?” “Read, or talk. And I’ve got a radio apparatus to play with. Say, let me tell you what happened last night. I ‘tuned in’ on a radio concert going on over at Roselle, N. J., and I heard some of the finest tenor singing I ever came across in my life. I said to my wife, ‘If I didn’t know Caruso is dead I’d swear he’s the performer.’ Well, when the singing stopped, the fellow in charge at the concert said to the hearers, ‘What you have been listening to is an amplified Caruso record of that artist’s early days at the Metropolitan Opera House.’ Wasn’t that a ghostly and wonderful thing? To have come out of the air a performance given fifteen years ago or more by a man who now is dead ?”
“Yep. I’ll pay the bootblack.”
“No, I’ll pay.”
“It’s paid. Bye-bye. Regards to Caruso.”
“So long. You’ll be living in the country some
day•”
“Not till they bury me there. Bye-bye.”
“So long.”
»? ft *»
As now established officially, Caruso did _ not leave his throat to the Naples Museum. Unofficially speaking, the foregoing little story proves that he left his throat to the whole world.
m n, n
J. P. F. sputters: “What’s the tale about Kreisler playing violin before the United States Senate? I suppose he performed folk-law music for them. Anyway, can you imagine such a thing happening-before the House of Lords in London? It can be imagined very easily, and, of course, the work played w'ould be Grieg’s “Peer Gynt.”
*Ç *Ç
To us musical folks the real sick man of Europe appears to be Apollo.
“Now that the summer nears” reminds Hal Sims, “and your warm weather reading approaches, do not forget two of the most exciting new books, just is-