MUSICAL COURIER
June 15, 1922
13
modernist like Stravinsky. And this possibility opens up a pleasing vista of future achievement.
For what is to prevent the composition of orchestra scores without the orchestra? Why must an orchestra score be first written and then reduced for the player-piano? Why not write orchestra scores directly for the player-piano? The process would be entirely different. Instead of having the color of oboe or cello in mind the composer would simply indicate relative degrees of dynamic force. And that, in fact, is what actually often happens in the production of an orchestral score. The composer sketches in his score, indicating the notes that must be “heard.” He then decides, in making the actual score, what instruments must be used to bring out these notes with the proper force.
It has already been tried, but has not as yet become a recognized art-form as, apparently, the house of Playel believes it ultimately will be. The day may come when every composer will be his own cutter, perforating his own master-roll and perfecting it in his own studio, sending it, when complete, not to the music publisher or conductor, but to the music-roll manufacturer.
Why not?
Plans for Columbus, Ohio, Spring Festival
William Wylie, who is arranging a Spring Festival for Columbus, Ohio, announces that it will take place in Memorial Hall on April 23 and 24, 1923, and will possibly be extended to another day. It will be under the auspices of the^ Columbus Women’s Association of Commerce. Early in the fall, Robert W. Roberts, who is supervisor of music in the public schools, will begin to rehearse a chorus of 250 trained voices. It is planned to give a modern opera and a standard oratorio for which a quartet of established artists will be engaged for the solo parts.
A full symphony orchestra, composed entirely of local musicians—sixty-five in number—will be trained by Fred L. Neddermeyer. An afternoon of the festival will be devoted _ to a competition between local singers, pianists and violinists.
Dr. Erb, F. A. G. O., Gives Recital
At Trinity Lutheran Church, Carthage, 111., June 1, Dr. J. Lawrence Erb, F. A. G. O., gave a recital of principally modern organ music. The Bach toccata and fugue in D minor started the program and was followed by compositions by Renaud, Guilmant, Kinder and Erb, the last-named being his own triumphal march in D flat. Dr. Erb is perhaps best known as managing director of the American Institute of Applied Music, Kate S. Chittenden, dean.
Engagements for Henry Gurney
Henry Gurney includes the following dates among his recent and forthcoming engagements: June 1, Atlantic City, N. J.; 15, Philadelphia, Pa.; 16, “Rose Maiden,” Pottsville,’ Pa.; 23, recital, Lancaster, Pa.; 24, Camden, N. T ; Tulv 18 and 23, Newark, Del.	y
Those instrumental colors are real things and they add greatly to the fundamental musical idea which is the basis of their use. But their loss in reduction for piano does not necessarily mean that there can be no proper black-and-white interpretation of the orchestra score. It devolves upon the maker of the piano reduction to determine the relative^ force of these various instruments and to place_ thern in the player-piano roll with exactly this relative intensity, just as the black-and-white artist or etcher determines the intensity of light and shade in the landscape which he strives to immortalize on paper.
. Thanks to the ingenuity of the manufacturers of player-pianos this has now become mechanically possible. It depends, of course, upon the skill of the editor—in the case of Stravinsky, of the composer himself. And a still more interesting and important feature of this case, as related in Musique et Instruments, is that Stravinsky authorizes the use of the recorded player-piano reduction of his scores in order to indicate to conductors how they shall be interpreted. Stravinsky himself gave the conductor, Riihlmann, the roll of his “Sacre du Printemps” so that Riihlmann might become familiar with the composer’s exact intentions previous to a recent performance of that work.
This brings us to another point unheard of and unimagined in music of the traditional schools. In modern music there is what has been named (by O. G. Sonneck) “dynamic counterpoint.” This means that certain notes of the harmony, certain melodies in the score, are to be brought out, to be, perhaps one might say, accented” (though that term is misleading). To put it in simpler language, certain notes are to be played “forte” while others simultaneously are played “piano.” In the old scores this was almost never the case. The score as a .whole had certain degrees of loud or soft. Except in very rare cases everybody (or every Jinger'on the two hands) played “piano” or “forte” at the same time.
Accents on Inner Notes.
Although, in piano playing, a separate control of each finger is _ taught, it is, actually, largely theoretical. Very few pianists, even among the great artists, can accent any one of the inner notes of full fortissimo chords. And in the older orchestra scores the accent of inner notes was very often accidental simply because of the technical difficulties relative to the writing for brass instruments before they were provided with valves. The modern composer has resources which render possible full chords of any color, perfectly balanced, and he adds to this resource the device of writing certain instruments in a different dynamic shade from the rest, bringing out the “high-lights” in a way that is very effective.
Except for the orchestral color the player-piano can now do all of this. It can emphasize any one note or any number of notes. It has become, in a way, a super-pianist. It can do things that no single pianist can do, things that would be exceedingly difficult, if not entirely impossible, even for two or three pianists playing simultaneously. It can make a perfect black-and-white reproduction of any conception of the composer’s mind, even of the mind of a
SARTOR RESARTUS
or
Every Man His Own Tailor By Frank Patterson
According to Musique et Instruments, a Parisian journal devoted to the interests of the piano and musical instrument trades, Igor Stravinsky, far famed modernist, has become vitally interested in the artistic possibilities of the player-piano. He has superintended the reduction for the recording piano of his great orchestral compositions, “Pulcinella,” “Petrouchka” and “Sacré du Printemps,” and he appears to have become convinced that the player-piano offers the composer a means of pianistic expression unhampered by the limitations of possible finger execution.
In the same article it. is stated that the house of Pleyel, the ancient and honorable home of one of the oldest names in the French piano world, “which, it would seem, would find itself forced to adhere to the most rigid tradition, accepts, on the contrary, the player-piano, not as a mere accident but as the inevitable ultimate goal” of the piano and the pianist.
It will, even now, be remembered with what scorn pianists, and, indeed, nearly all musicians, received the invention of this “mechanical” instrument and all other “machine made” music. It was only with the gradual growth of perfected reproducing devices, and the widespread popularity of these instruments, which placed the art of the world’s greatest artists within the reach of every music lover and carried into the home what had previously been confined of necessity to the concert hall, that musicians began to acknowledge the possibility of such instruments being an adjunct, not an enemy, of art.
In the reduction of the orchestra score to the player-piano music roll one should invariably bear in mind a comparison between this reduction and the black-and-white artist’s, reduction of nature. The painter in color loses little or nothing of the object he places on canvas except, to some extent, perspective. But the black-and-white artist must exercise his skill and genius in determining the relative intensity of light and shade of the colors of nature. He must reduce the red, green and blues of nature to their relative black and white values so as to give the impression, not of the color, indeed, but of the scene with all its beauty of relative light and shade.
Color, it is true, is found in music in a two-fold sense : in the sense of harmony-color and in the sense of the tone-color of the instruments upon which the music is played. “Touch” may enter into this, but must, in the present consideration, be disregarded, for mere touch on the piano can obviously not make up for the loss in the reduction for the piano of, for instance, the notes played in the orchestra by the oboe, the violin, the cello, the harp, or any other instrument.