MUSICAL COURIER June 8, 1922 21 intend to move that hereafter the churches pay them in rubles so that it seems more. .׳* * ,* Count that day lost, whose low, descending sun, Sees not another opera singer off to Europe run. *t H K Philadelphia, May 27, 1922. Dear Musical Courier Editor: Through the editorial page of one of your recent issues I received the valuable information that an English composer, a certain Mr. Holbrook, is going to carry English composition into foreign countries. Without asking these foreign countries whether they do or do not wish to hear those English compositions he will, with genuine English modesty, bring them there personally and bodily. Too bad that this spirit of the commercial "commis voyageur” was not in the two greatest of all English composers “O’Handel” and “MacMendelssohn”; we might have known some of their work. By the way: I am collecting data on visiting composers. Could you tell me of any Russian and German composer that paid a professional visit to a foreign country before his music had become—in the best sense—popular there? What Russian or German composer visited a foreign country professionally without being invited to do so because of this popularity? Please help me out in this matter, if you can, and greatly oblige. Your oldest subscriber, occasional contributor and sincere admirer, Constantin Von Sternberg. »־ * K All the so-called “nuisance taxes” haven’t been repealed. There still is the twenty cents demanded by musical managers when they send one free passes “to be exchanged for tickets at the box office before 3 p. m. on the day of the concert.” *t *! •t J. P. F. wishes to know whether Moussorgsky’s “Song of the Flea” has biting harmonies. * *, The Tribune’s news index has it sequenced like this: Foreign, Washington, Domestic, Local, Sports, Markets, Shipping. That is the order of importance to the reader, as imagined by the editor. He leaves out Art and Music altogether. The inference is obvious. *Î «Ç *Ç “Music begins where speech ends,” an indignant auditor told a conversational couple at the last Philharmonic concert. *ç H *Î Colleague James Francis Cooke, of The Etude, has written a book full of good stuff called “Great Singers on the Art of Singing.” One of the most amusing of the many interesting anecdotes in the volume is told by Florence Easton, who was a member of the Berlin Royal Opera when Richard Strauss conducted his “Rosenkavalier” there. During one of its performances, Strauss went behind the scenes between the acts and said to Mme. Easton: “Will this awfully long opera ever end?” She said to him: “But, Dr. Strauss, you composed it yourself.” “Yes,” he answered, “but I never meant to conduct it.” Mme. Easton relates also a characteristic Caruso incident: “When I made my first appearance in Mascagni’s ‘Lodoletta’ I was obliged to go on with only twenty-four hours’ notice, without rehearsal, in an opera I had seen produced but once. I had studied the role only two weeks. While on the stage I was so entranced with the wonderful singing of Mr. Caruso that I forgot to come in at the right time. He said to me quickly, sotto voce, ‘Canta! canta! canta!’ and my stage experience enabled me to come in without letting the audience know of my There are 3,000,001 idle persons in America, the odd one being the chap who wrote to us last week asking in what year Caruso shaved off his mustache. « ־׳» ,* In the general scramble in Europe just now to profiteer from Americans, it is difficult to understand why Cosima and Siegfried Wagner are not running their Bayreuth show this summer. »5 *? *S The irreverent wish assails us that when the great American Symphony comes, it may have the workmanship of Beethoven, the melodiousness of Schubert, the depth of Brahms, the passion of Tschai-kowsky, and the brilliancy of Richard Strauss. , Nathan and Mencken, editors of The Smart Set, were eavesdropped by Major Owen Hatteras in a conversation on literature, and he records these passages concerning critics: Mencken . . . Have you ever met any musicians? Nathan Not since Prohibition. Mencken I mean creative musicians, not mere executants, however talented. Well, a few inquiries would convince you that a man may be a great composer, and yet quite balmy. Read Mozart’s letters. Ponder the philosophizings of Beethoven. Think of the private career of Schubert. Nathan Alas, I know eleven music critics. Mencken Then I rest my case. There is but one music critic in America who was even born sane. All save this one are not simply balmy; they are actual morons. But what has sanity to do with art? Shakespeare was a submastoid circular neurotic of the third declension, with hysterical overtones and plain evidences of pressure symptoms. Goethe had chronic interstitial dementia praecox, complicated by oedema of the left lobe of the medulla oblongata. Moliere was an hysteric of the third type, with acute agoraphobia. Dante had softening of--- Nathan In other words, you contend that the balmier the bird, the better the artist. What of, say, D’Annunzio? If you are right, this Gabe should be the Shakespeare of the twentieth century. Mencken Gabe isn’t balmy enough. Nathan Well, then, what of Gorki? Mencken You’re getting warm. But Maxie is balmy only in the second degree. Nathan Brieux ? Mencken Warmer still. But--- Nathan Tolstoi ? Mencken You win ! K «i n Alfred Seligsberg never kept his promise to write another book, after his recent “Invalid Europe.” Why not a volume,. Alfred, called “Metropolitan Subways,” telling what you know about the inside, outside and the middle of grand opera and grand opera artists at the Thirty-ninth Street Acropolis of Lyric Art? You may put us down as a paid subscriber to the first volume, and a bidder for quotation rights in this column. * *T, »־. Philip Hale, like all great writers and thinkers, permits himself a pun and merryjest once in awhile. Look upon those from the Boston Herald of not long ago: WE THINK HE WILL. The study of names in any language is an unfailing joy. We learn from a program of La Scala in Milan that the stage manager is Willy Wirk. He will as long as Arturo Toscanini is over him. ENGAGE YOUR PASSAGE AT ONCE AND AVOID THE RUSH. “London is delighted with the royal announcement of court to be held June 8. . . . Debutantes are to be re- ceived wearing three seven-inch South African ostrich What do opera-goers argue about in the summer, now that Farrar and Jeritza are gone? * *, * We understand that at the forthcoming organists’ convention the members from the rural communities All artists should aim high—especially William Tell when he shoots the apple from his son’s head, in Rossini’s opera of that name. * », * Evidently the Jews do not claim everything, like the Tammany tribe at election time. We are in receipt of the attached corrective letter: Dear Editor-in-Chief: Referring to the “Variationettes” in your issue of May 25, would you mind informing me who confided to you that Bizet and Bruch were Jews? It seems to me it takes more than marrying the daughter of a Jew, or transcribing a Jewish temple song for the cello, to become my fellow-religionist. Very truly yours, Siegfried Jacobssohn. By the way, Bruch wrote also “Moses,” “The Flight to Egypt,” and a volume of “Hebrew Songs.” * r, *. Hilaire Belloc is out with a book called “The Jews” (Houghton, Mifflin Co.). His pages are not complimentary to the race in spite of his evident desire to pile up everything he can adduce to their credit. It is the way he does it that makes the reader suspicious. Belloc thinks that the Jews should be segregated because of the incessant friction between them and the Christians. This should please the Zionists. * * * Personally we stopped worrying about the Jewish question at about the same time as we graduated from Haydn sonatas and cast out our belief in Santa Claus. .׳׳» * « By any chance, may a sea song rightfully be called a Nep-tune? *t »5 H From The World: “A city magistrate recently ruled that “music when continued for thirteen hours by a phonograph, is agony.” Correct. It should be either twelve or fourteen hours. n There is a shortage of great Americans in the Hall of Fame at the New York University. We suggest a statue of that wonderful compatriot who first discarded the high hat and full dress at the Opera, and went there attired in a Fedora and a dinner coat. *T. *, * It is to be hoped that pianists took the strong hint put forth in this column some months ago to the effect that Arthur Hinton’s D minor piano concerto (published by J. Fischer & Brother) is a ripping good work and one that would richly repay public performance. It has melodic attractiveness, is serious without being pedantic, and gives wide opportunities for the display of moving cantilena as well as of a brilliant technic. We are reminded to speak again of the delightful and dashing Hinton concerto because J. Fischer & Brother forward to us a letter received by them from Gottfried Federlein, formerly a noted music critic, and an intimate friend of Wagner. The communication reads: My dear Mr. Fischer: Let me tell you what I think of Hinton’s concerto, which you were kind enough to send me. As an artistic achievement the impression which the work gives, as a whole, is profound. In imagination and development of ideas it must be described as inspired. One is inclined to exclaim: “Almost too much of the good and beautiful.” The development of the very interesting themes, which are animated with so much rhythmic variety, is captivating throughout. The solo part, especially, interested me very mucR and after devoting much attention to the work I am convinced that Hinton is a composer who, writing in the modern style, yet offers no insurmountable difficulties to the pianist, and is very clear-headed. I do not know to which movement to give the preference. The more I read or played the work, the more I recognized the beauties of each movement. How deeply conceived is the adagio! What a touching transition into the last movement! It seems ■to me as if Hinton must have based his work on a definite “program.” By the publication of this opus you have done a great service to art, which seems all the more valuable when one appreciates, in contrast, the small material gain which such a piece will bring to you. I most ardently hope that you־ may soon have an opportunity of hearing a performance of it. My heartiest thanks for your very kind gift. Your old friend, (Signed) Gottfried Federlein. * ־« Speaking of material gain for a composer who writes a concerto and a publisher who issues it, we shall think of them affectionately the next time—the