MUSICAL COURIER
20
March 23, 1922
it costs literally thousands, thousands and thousands of crowns per day even to exist in Austria. Frau Prassenag rents a small apartment of a kitchen and two small rooms and even in this bit of space she harbors four lodgers. This is her only source of income except for contributions. If any kind hearted reader of this paper would like to assist this last member of a famous family, the Musical Courier can tell him or her how to get in touch with Frau Prassenag. We recently saw a receipt for money received from America signed by her, and her handwriting is astonishingly firm for a woman of her age.
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MUSIC NO NUISANCE
The Supreme Court of the State of New York, in the person of Justice Newburger, has ruled that music is no nuisance. A house owner on East Thirty-fifth street, in the Murray Hill district, asked an injunction against a voice teacher next door, claiming that the wall between his living room and hers was so thin that he could not converse with anyone in the room or talk over the telephone when a lesson was being given. The teacher in her defense stated that she did not permit her pupils to yell, as charged, and submitted an affidavit from a neighbor on the other side, who swore that the lessons had never bothered him.
Justice Newburger decided that the teaching did not violate the Murray Hill district restrictive covenant, preventing the use of property for business purposes, and said further: “Some annoyance may possibly always be suffered by the presence of a neighbor in whose premises any kind of a noise occurs. Ordinarily the sound of a singing voice would scarcely be noticeable in adjoining premises if separated by adequate independent walls. I should not feel warranted in granting a preliminary injunction on so slender a foundation as that instruction in singing conducted in an orderly and proper manner in this great city teeming with multifarious activities is, per se, to be adjudged a nuisance.”
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MULCTING AMERICANS AGAIN
Anent a recent letter to the editor, sent by a kindly disposed but somewhat indiscriminately pro-German lady in Monterey, Mexico, protesting against our article on “Mulcting Americans,” it is interesting to learn that the Munich police authorities have now so systematized their method that any American arriving in Munich is held up to the tune of something like $3 for the privilege of staying a maximum of a week, at the end of which there is another raid on his pocketbook. Before entering the state of Bavaria at all, from any other part of Germany or other country, he must get a special visé (besides the German one) from the Bavarian envoy, which also costs money. If he omits to do this through ignorance or otherwise, he is liable to a heavy fine, which is ruthlessly imposed. In a number of cases Americans as well as other foreigners have been sent to prison.
To the Bavarian official, being a foreigner is evidently a form of crime in itself. That is their privilege, of course, but Americans intending to go to the Munich Festival or Oberammergau Passion Plays ought to take these facts into consideration, especially as they will be asked to pay three-fold or even higher for seats and admission. It is, moreover, not a favorable influence upon the “proper surroundings and atmosphere” of Bayreuth, where Siegfried intends to reopen his “great father’s Festspielhaus” next year.
But what has all this to do with the sufferings of the German people, which our correspondent cites as “the other side of the question” and their supposed giving of precedence to foreigners? The letter from Germany which the good lady quoted is typical, and contains the usual complaints of the German middle class (which in general is hardest hit, it is true). The real cause of their troubles lies not with the foreigners, but with the greedy native himself. We make bold to say that at no time since the armistice has there been in Germany a real scarcity of goods. However, every time the exchange takes a drop, the tradesmen, little or big, shouts “Ausverkauft”—until the prices have risen to the desired level. It is an old trick. The foreigner who buys in Germany, even at low prices, does not harm the country as the credulous public is made to believe, but helps it—helps it pay those reparations which are a hard burden indeed, but which an inadequate and unfair system of taxation make an especially hard burden upon the poor. The quickest way to prove this assertion would be a temporary boycot of Germany by importers and travelers. Our reception, even in Bavaria, might become more cordial after a lesson of that sort!
at home and hear the Portland performances, which are to be broadcast by radiophone.
“Monteux gives strings play in Schubert piece” was the Tribune headline of the last Boston Symphony concert review. The diagram to go with this will be published, so it is said, a week from next Wednesday.

The family of the late Alexander Scriabin is very anxious to get in touch with Albert La Liberte, a friend of theirs who came to this country some time ago and whose whereabouts are unknown. If this should meet his eye or that of anyone who knows him, please communicate with the Musical Courier. •-----------------------—-—
“When in doubt, play trumps,” goes the old saying, and Willem Mengelberg’s trump is Liszt’s “Les Preludes.” It may not be the best music in the world but it certainly does give the little Dutch conductor a chance to wring out of it all the agony there is in an orchestra. Last Tuesday evening he let New York hear it for the “steenth” time in two halfseasons.
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One treat next season will be “Der Rosenkava-lier” at the Metropolitan, with Paul Bender from Munich as Ochs—the best one that ever sang a high F—and the rest of the cast mainly selected from the new German artists who will be brought over, the management having definitely decided not to engage any German artists who are already here. This, by the way, is the only Strauss opera that the Metropolitan will give next winter. “Salome” and “Ariadne” will not come—if ever—before the season after next at the earliest.
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It is with particular pleasure that the Musical Courier announces the engagement of Frederick Gunster, American tenor, as assisting artist for the forthcoming spring tour of Geraldine Farrar. The engagement is a great compliment to Gunster for it represents recognition by Miss Farrar of the fact that this tenor’s highly finished and deeply musical work is of a quality to rank worthily in association with her own distinguished art. The Gunster career has been conducted modestly, and with uncommon dignity, and the growth of his audiences has been gradual but steady. Now the Gunster gifts will have a chance to reveal themselves before many very large parterres of listeners and under the most brilliant and representative conditions.
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It would be interesting to know what is paying for the current expenses of the Caruso American Memorial Foundation while the million dollar fund is being raised. Presumably the office rent and salaries of the executive manager, of the publicity man and two or three secretaries have to be paid, so it would seem that the income from, say, the first $200,000 to be collected would have to be devoted to the running expenses. To judge by the size and appearance of the audiences at the concerts already given in New York for the Foundation, the results have not been particularly satisfactory. The idea of this memorial is a splendid one. It would be too bad if the plans should not be carried through in an energetic and dignified manner worthy of the great singer for whom it is named.
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As a direct result of a number of articles that have appeared from time to time in the Musical Courier, a certain thriving and prosperous Western city suddenly finds itself on the map and literature concerning itself and district much in demand. The Board of Trade has received more than one hundred and fifty requests from people in the East. This information is related in detail in a clipping from the leading newspaper of the district just received in this office. It must be added in strict justice that a major portion of this successful propaganda is due to the excellent, comprehensive and live-wire reports of the Musical Courier correspondent in the city referred to, and to the fact that the Musical Courier is read by the sort of people that count. The motto is: If you want to get on the map, tell the Musical Courier.
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SCHUBERT’S NIECE
The story that the niece of Franz Schubert, a woman of seventy-five and still living in Vienna, has been placed beyond want by friends is not true. It is so that Frau Emma Prassenag (nee Schubert, a daughter of the composer’s brother, Ferdinand) has received help from friends in America amounting to several hundred dollars, which translated into Austrian money means today millions of crowns—but
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New York Thursday, March 23, 1922 No. 2189
It is hard to understand the mental processes of burglars who selected a sheet music shop as a scene for their operations. The best they could expect to find there are notes—and non-negotiable ones at that.
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The daily papers recently published an interview with Mischa Elman, made in Germany, in which the statement that he would prefer to marry an English girl to an American was attributed to him. Mischa issued a flat denial—but the really interesting thing would be to know how the girls felt about it.
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Raoul Ginsbourg, the operatic impresario at Monte Carlo, is nothing if not original. In three novelties recently produced, he went back for one to 450 B. C., “words by Confucius, music by Chin-Sang.” Another of his librettists was the late King Solomon, who, with his eight hundred wives, ought indeed to have been able to write the champion love song of the world.
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Composers on the other side have been busy embalming the memory of Debussy in compositions. Eugene Goossens has written a “Hommage a Debussy,” recently published by the Chester house of London, and the same firm has issued another hommage, by Manuel De Falla, of which the Daily Telegraph cruelly remarked: “If he had meant to prove that music died with Debussy he couldn’t have done it more effectively.”
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Mr. Gatti-Casazza would have been interested to see an advertisement which appeared in the Paris edition of the Chicago Tribune early this month. It read as follows: “At the Opera, Wednesday, March 8, a rare treat will be offered to Americans, ‘Boris Godounoff,’ by Moussorgsky. This Russian masterpiece has never been performed in America and is considered by critics as one of the greatest chef d’oeuvres of the time.” And, as our Paris correspondent comments, “this is no attempt to deceive. It is just plain ignorance.”
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This week the Chicago Opera Association is giving five performances in the Public Auditorium at Portland, Ore., having selected that city—as Portland points out with pride—and passed by Seattle, Tacoma and Spokane on account of lack of sufficiently large theaters in those places. The Musical Courier correspondent writes that W. T. Pangle, Portland’s local manager, had sold $36,000 worth of tickets by mail before the box office was even opened. And although the three sister cities were passed by, those good citizens who have a radio receiver can sit