21
MUSICAL COURIER
April 13, 1922
house the monkeys, and you will find, too, swings and trapezes for them to practise and play upon. Why should not the city, by the same token, build a house for its musicians and provide them with pianos and violins to practice and play upon?”
H H *s
Why not ?
Letters like this come frequently to our desk:
Davis, W. Va., April 5, 1922.
Dear Sir :
You will be surprised to hear from me, a perfect stranger. I am a young man and am considered a good violinist. I am going to ask a great favor of you and I am sure you could help me. I would like to ask you if there is any possible way you could help me to get an orchestra violin, one that is loud in tone. I have an old violin but broke it a short while ago and it is not much good now. I am crazy to make good on the violin but am not working steady now and I cannot afford to buy one. There are so many rich people in this world I am sure there *is some one that would be glad to get me a violin, so I can keep up my studies. If there is any possible way you could help me, I am sure you would never regret it as you would be helping a poor man that is anxious to make good on the violin. If I could get one I would be the happiest man around here. I would be glad to hear good news from you to a poor violinist.
I will thank you from the bottom of my heart for your kindness. Yours,
Geo. Farrell, Davis, W. Va.
Mr. Farrell evidently does not know that the many rich people in this world, some of them not at all charitable, some a little bit charitable, and some very charitable, are not inclined as a rule to respond to an appeal of the kind he makes, particularly when it comes from a city other than their own. However, some one may wish to help Mr. Farrell after reading his letter and after making proper investigation, for, without reflection upon him, it is not an unknown piece of deception for impostors to do begging of that kind through the mails. What we do not understand is why there should not be in Davis, W. Va., some one with enough kindness and spare money to help Mr. Farrell secure his violin. New York is so far away, and it has so many needy citizens of its own to help.
*S *e
Unmusical as it is, we cannot refrain from reprinting the attached, which appeared some time ago in the Saturday Evening Post, and was written by Baron Rosen:
There may be some faint glimmer of hope that thinking mankind will some day awaken to a realization of the fact that most of the causes of strife between nations, of distrust, of rivalry, of conflicts of supposed interests are not realities, but merely creatures of the brain of an infinitely small minority, phantoms that would vanish into thin air in the light of reason, or else they are artificially created, fostered and exploited in the interests of those few who seek in international strife and conflicts and wars the satisfaction of their ambitions or of their greed. To take but a few of the empty slogans which have so often served to befuddle and to excite the minds of the multitude, what is the meaning of hegemony and what would be its practical use to the nation which could glory in its possession? What is the meaning of the various keys, such as the key to the Mediterranean, or the key to this or that ocean or continent, or of such profound sayings as “The Power which would conquer Constantinople would be the mistress of the world,” and so forth?
All such really meaningless slogans are being thoughtlessly repeated by millions of mortals until they become articles of faith, and deluded peoples are willing and eager to shed rivers of blood in their name.
K »i »5
“Observer” uses lavender ink to inform us: “I happened to see you at breakfast the other morning at the C. & L. restaurant and I noticed that you took grapefruit. Is that what makes you so sour?” Maybe; but “Observer” did not observe that we use no sugar in our coffee. That’s what makes us so bitter.
»5 *i
At Mrs. Margot Asquith’s farewell lecture here she told her ■Waldorf-Astoria audience that America is inclined to develop intelligence rather than intellect, a point which had truth to recommend it, but whose exposition she did not accomplish happily so far as the listeners in our immediate neighborhood were concerned. “Intellect and a love for art are developed through leisure,” she said; “in America you hurry and scurry too much. You all seem to be trying to get somewhere all the time. In England the working classes have more leisure, in fact, they take it. There are more holidays, there is more week-ending, from Fridays to Tuesdays, and there are so many lovely places within easy reach of the cities. Then, too, there is riding, and pheasant shooting, so beloved by us English.” A lady (a noted soprano) sitting within earshot of us remarked rather audibly: “Well, if the American working classes had the time and the money, there
VARIATIONETTES
By the Editor-iii-Ghief
singers, and if in order to please her and her friends she is to sing every Tosca, every Butterfly, every Manon and every other role she chooses, what chance has an innocent bystander ever to hear the adorable Bori or the silvervoiced Muzio in one of them ? It is not quite fair to those of us who are fed up on disrobing scenes and trick atomizers.
As Fiora in the “Love of Three Kings” Lucrezia Bori achieved a personal success such as is vouchsafed to few, nowadays, and made the role indisputably her own; yet when the management occasionally asks Muzio to sing the part, is there weeping and wailing from the Bori camp? There is not! Does Florence Easton tear her hair and curse her fate every time Jeritza sings Elsa? Not so’s one could notice it! As for Galli-Curci, Alda, Muzio and Matzenauer—do any of these throw a fit every time a new artist is^ engaged? But if not, why not? Is it because a true artist never fears competition?
Instead of voting Gatti a brute for letting Farrar go, why not a little praise for having secured us Jeritza? Of course she is a foreigner, as the Musical Courier itself so unkindly remarked a few weeks ago, yet so was Farrar a foreigner when she walked into the Royal Opera in Berlin some twenty-odd years ago, and knocked the spots off all their local talent (A rather good example of the law of compensation, I should say). The fact remains that Jeritza was not engaged to irritate Miss Farrar or anyone else. She was engaged because she is a magnificent artist and one who might prove a strong box-office magnet as well. True, Gatti still had Farrar though he had lost Caruso, but while the Farrarites usually are many in the house, it is hardly a mistake for a director to have two singers of equal drawing power (at least not if he’s a business man).
As for this sympathy drive which apparently is being arranged by Miss Farrar s friends, isn t it extremely undignified, to say; the least? It is too late to say “it could all have been accomplished so differently,” but for the sake of that pride which she holds so dear, would it not be well for her sympathetic but misguided friends to Stop telling the world that she's been "thrown out”? It isn t true, and it can t possibly help her on her forthcoming concert tour. Don’t make her sorely tried spirit pray “Oh Lord! Save me from my friends 1” Amen.
Juliette Sanborn,
690. East Fifth street.
*e »t
True friends of music are overjoyed at the prospect of a municipal school of music for New York City, but some of them also are overcome with a sense of fear that such an institution might fall into the wrong directive hands and through artistic maladministration fail to fulfill the high ethical mission and practical musical purposes for which it primarily is intended. Mayor Hylan, Chamberlain Berolz-heimer, and the other gentlemen who are the chief sponsors of the plan for an art school to serve as a peace memorial should expect to be deluged at once with advice, requests, suggestions, demands and possibly even threats, all the pressure bearing upon the question of the selection of the temporary committees and the permanent officers, directors and artistic heads and assistants. As soon as it becomes generally known that about $25,000,000 will be required for the purchase of the needed site, the erection of the buildings and their equipment, the aforementioned city officials will serve as veritable targets for the contract and job hunters and had best prepare to spend all their waking time behind the thickest kind of a bombproof Now comes the heyday for all the army of musical doctrinaires, faddists, theorists, cranks, grafters, intriguants and legitimate vendors of tonal art and merchandise. Poor Mayor Hylan, poor Chamberlain Berolzheimer! We do not envy them. Big as their task is, however, we feel that they will accomplish it, for they happen to be a very hard working, very sincere and honest, and very practical and perspicacious pair. When they are finished with their plans and prospectuses, all the friends of music should feel satisfied, for it is purposed to give representation to every form of the art—orchestral, operatic, creative, interpretative, pedagogical, theoretical, historical, psychological, aesthetic, vocal, instrumental, recreative, etc. It is intended also to try in some measure to co-ordinate within the wide boundaries of the municipal undertaking all the separate musical movements and projects now operating in this city. The idea and the ideal are splendid. Now let us see how widely, intensely and harmoniously the musicians and other persons identified with musical interests in our metropolis shall help to make the municipal school of music and art a successful reality.
*>, » *>
The writer of these lines was present at the City Hall meeting where many persons gathered to tell Mayor Hylan why he should approve the bill authorizing the city to acquire land for the peace memorial project of Commissioner Berolzheimer, and said, amng other things: “At the Zoo, supported by the city, you will find a splendid building in which to
Mosquitoes multiply at the rate of about three million per week, originating from one papa and mama. If left to propagate unreservedly there soon would be as many mosquitoes as there are impresarios in New York who have plans for making grand opera profitable.
“Mother” inquires: “When should a child begin to study singing?” As soon as father has left the house to go to work.
*t n
It was suggested by a grim person at the latest meeting of the Music Students’ League that among the committees appointed by its president, J. Fletcher Shera, should be one whose task it would be to make the unmusical public musical.
* r r
The New York Times of April 4 alludes to this paper as “The Musical Carrier.” All told, not a bad
At a public dinner given to Willem Mengelberg last week, Walter Damrosch referred in his speech to “the claque, a body of men hired to applaud at the Metropolitan Opera House and at some symphonic concerts given by guest conductors.” Considering that he named the Metropolitan, Mr. Damrosch should have designated also the guest conductors he had in mind. In fact, one feels inclined to say that it was his duty to name such conductors. Is a “guest” conductor the temporary and invited leader of a resident New York orchestra or does the term include also the baton heads of the visiting organizations from out of town ? The former class included, this winter, d’Indy, Coates and Mengelberg,^ and the out of town directors were Gabrilowitsch, Sokoloff, Stokowski and Monteux. As the New York Philharmonic had three leaders besides Mengelberg, would Messrs. Stransky, Hadley and Bodanzky also come within Mr. Damrosch’s idea of what constitutes a “guest” conductor ? Speak up, Mr. Damrosch, for it would be interesting and the public really is entitled to know.
5*	־׳»	,*
When the Metropolitan Opera chiefs were interrogated by the reporters regarding a “claque” at that institution, they expressed surprise. We express surprise that the chiefs expressed surprise. Otto H. Kahn, leading executive at the Metropolitan, declared that he considers the claque “an abominable practice,” thereby admitting indirectly that it exists. The Musical Courier has stated often that a paid claque exists at the Metropolitan, and nearly every frequent operagoer knows that it exists* It would be very easy for the Metropolitan Opera authorities to kick out the claque if they desired sincerely to do so. However, the claque is there and operates openly and without molestation. The inference is obvious.
* ,׳* *
Is there, too, a claque that uses pens instead of palms ? At any rate, we are publishing the attached letter principally because its writer had the courtesy and courage to sign her name. The subject of the communication does not move us profoundly and it is beginning to become tiresome, as we are in receipt of similar letters with amazing regularity and with singular unanimity of viewpoint. This is the last Farrar defense we shall print in this column:
Brooklyn, New York, April 4, 1922.
My dear Mr. Liebling:
Why all this hysteria over Farrar’s leaving the Metropolitan? Judging from some of the letters which are finding their way into print, most of the lady’s admirers are grossly misinformed as to the facts of the case.
In the first place Miss Farrar has not been thrown out nor “fired” by an ungrateful board of directors. On the contrary, she is leaving of her own accord, primarily because she feels herself insulted by a contract which does not call for quite as many performances as she would like to sing, and secondarily, because under the terms of the new contract she would be expected occasionally to allow a sister artist to sing such of her roles as the management might select.
Nothing so very terrible about that, is there? Such celebrated and well loved artists as la Galli-Curci, Easton, Bori, and a number of others of equal rank seem to see no offense in such terms and are quite happy to sign just such a contract. Mr. Gatti has explained his side of the matter briefly by saying that “in order to provide the subscribers the greatest variety of talent it is unwise to allow any one person or group of persons to dominate the repertoire or to maintain a strangle-hold upon certain roles.”
Such a decision is excellent and must appeal to everyone Whose fondness for a favorite singer has not completely smothered his common sense. Miss Farrar has a lot of followers, granted, but so have a lot of the other