20
January 4, 192 3
BRIAGING OUT THE YOUNG HOPEFUL
Some time ago—in November, to be exact— Adela Tucker Gulbrandsen told MUSICAL COURIER readers about the activities of the Philadelphia Music Club in its efforts to give aid to the young professional. It was something to think about, and, with the aid of a supplementary article by the same writer in the Keynote of the Philadelphia Music Club, the editor has taken thought and found it entertaining and perhaps instructive.
Mrs. Gulbrandsen is Chairman of Auditions of the Philadelphia Music Club and is likewise a successful professional lyric soprano and recitalist herself, so she knows what she is talking about both in the matter of self accomplishment and the observation of others at the beginning stage of their careers.
For about a million years, aged grown-ups just simply took it for granted that the young idea was all wrong in everything anyway (and every day in every way getting more incorrect), which simply meant that the old were getting older and older and ever less able to understand aspirations and the silly flopping about of children unable to stand on their own feet, yet mighty anxious to enter foot races with the best, and perfectly sure they would win.
The Philadelphia Music Club is one of the clubs (there are many now associated with the Federation) that has made up its mind that the old idea of endless and futile opposition was all wrong, and that the way to help the young idea is to give them a chance. But, as we learn from the writings of Mrs. Gulbrandsen, that had its drawbacks, or, at least, its original development demanded modifications and revisions.
Incentive was removed by “the atmosphere of perpetually pleased auditions, of easily secured engagements, of admiration unspiced by criticism.” And it developed, apparently, that this atmosphere was doing a little harm along with the good, or, at least, not doing quite as much good as it ought to be doing. Still, as Mrs. Gulbrandsen writes, “It would seem a waste of good material to drop, so to speak, this small catch back into the stream and take the chance of hooking it again when it may have arrived at fulfillment of its early promise.”
So a sort of conditional acceptance of immature talent was devised, with a promise of ultimate complete acceptance should the talent continue to develop and become really worth while.. And so the young idea is mothered and sheperded until it grows up and gets ready to walk (or fly) with its own legs (or wings).
For the great weakness and blemish in American art (and American life) is the fact that our committees are “perfectly human and hate to be hated.” America has built up around itself a regular Chinese wall of politeness—sometimes called consideration and kindness—which prevents people from saying what they think about pretty nearly everything which borders on the personal. It is thoroughly destructive, and would be far more so if the people were willing to live up to it in their actions, especially when those actions demand the expenditure of time.
It may seem a queer sort of philosophy to fit a queer sort of psychology, but it is an actual fact that the best protector of American art that has so far appeared on the horizon is the average American’s dislike of being bored. The American may fear to tell the truth and say that a young artist is bad even if he thinks so, but he is not afraid to stay away from a concert when he believes that he will be bored by the offering. And this has had a most beneficial restraining effect by way of acting as a counterbalance to our stupid and insincere eternal praise.
As it is, we are making a little progress simply by the rule of elimination. Many are called but few are chosen. And if the Philadelphia Music Club, and other such clubs, makes its ideal high enough, and its demands upon young talent stern enough, an immense amount of good will be done by spreading a gospel of honest, fearless criticism.
That is what we need: honest, fearless criticism. It is only by that method that we can avoid the danger of becoming (or remaining) a nation of artistic mediocrity.
MUSICAL COURIER
about commensurate with his talents. So why refer to him in that hyperbolic manner? It does him no service. And without doubt the crowning glory of his career is the fact that the Friends of Music are going to do a piece of his this winter, the first time one of his compositions has been performed in this country. This is a just reward, and of course due in no way to the fact that Conductor Artur Bo-danzky used to study with Zemlinsky when he (Artur) was a little boy.
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It is said that the visit of the company of the Vienna Volksoper to London, announced some time ago, is made doubtful by Director Felix Weingart-ner, who returned from his South American trip to find fault with his assistant director’s conduct of affairs while he had been away. The English contract, on which the Volksoper had accepted an advance of 2,000 guineas, some of which is already spent, called for the production of Josef Holbrooke’s opera, Children of the Don, in Vienna, and Wein-gartner is said to have been unkind enough to base one of his objections to his assistant on the grounds that Mr. Holbrooke was not well enough known in Vienna to make a production of one of his operas there worth while.
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Although Lawrence Gilman and we sometimes disagree about the actual value of Johannes Brahms, a paragraph like this from one of his last week’s Philharmonic programs makes it even worth while to sit through the New World Symphony (to.which it refers) once more: “As for the symphony itself, it is heard quite calmly nowadays, unaccompanied by polemical agitation. Lifelong friendships are no longer disrupted nor conjugal affections strained by heated debate of the question whether the Czech note or the Ethiopian note predominates in the music —-whether the symphony is ‘the utterance of a Bohemian peasant suffering from nostalgia in a strange distant land, or the result of Dr. Dvorak’s second-story work among the treasuries of negro melodies. For most hearers, it is the rhythmic and melodic charm of the music, its gusto and spontaneity and poetic charm, that survive (although the unwary should be warned that as a composer, Dvorak, like Wagner and Tschaikowsky, is no longer received among the Best People).”
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How would you like to play the violin, with Jascha Heifetz, Efrem Zimbalist, Mischa Elman, Bronislaw Hubermann, and Leon Sametini all sitting side by side on the same long settee and listening to you? That’s what Sascha Jacobsen did the other evening at a studio party which Henry Hadley got up, and he played beautifully, too—the first two movements of the Franck sonata, with Benno Moiseiwitsch sharing the honors at the piano, while Ethel Leginska listened to her fellow pianist. And to begin the program, with Hadley at the piano, Felix Salmond, Hans Kindler and Horace Britt had played a Requiem by Popper for three cellos and piano, a melodious bit that sounded like real music as played by those four fine musicians. There was another famous cellist there, too—•Victor Herbert; and Alma Gluck, and many others almost as well known in the musical world as those named. Not the least interesting moment was when Hartwell Cabell, one of the best known New York corporation lawyers, sat down at the piano and played part of the Rachmaninoff cello sonata with Felix Salmond. American corporation lawyers don’t do that as a rule. And who says this city isn’t the present center of the musical world?
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UNION HOURS
The Metropolitan starts the New Year with a burst of enthusiasm, the Broadway house having no less than five evening and three matinee performances of opera this week, not to speak of the Sunday evening concert that begins it and a Tuesday night performance in Brooklyn, a grand total of ten. This doubtless means plenty of money in the box office, but it hardly leads to keeping up the high Metropolitan standard of performance. The roster of the company is so large that it does not mean overwork for the singers, but the lot of the orchestra players is not to be envied. They earn a lot of money, but pay for it in exhaustion, for there are long rehearsals in addition to the performances. The Metropolitan Orchestra has always been a magnificent organization but—we followed a Tristan with the score the other evening—it is not to be wondered at if the playing in familiar works is getting a little ragged. There are limits to human possibilities and playing in a first class orchestra demands something more from the nerves than, for instance, running a lathe forty-four hours a week. The choristers also show the wear of constant strain—and no wonder! But the balance sheet never gets ruled with red ink; which, after all, is the true test of Art!
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THE MUSICAL COURIER EXTRA Published every Saturday by Musical Courier Company
Devoted to the interests of the Piano Trade.
New York, Thursday, January 4, 1923. No. 2230.
Toscha Seidel, violinist, back from Europe, has matured decidedly in those two years. The temperament is still there, but it avoids those extremes that sometimes detracted from his interpretative work before. He got a fine welcome at Carnegie Hall New Year’s Day, and thoroughly deserved it.
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No, gentle reader, you may not believe that a well known, recognized composer deliberately and with his eyes open went to work and wrote a quartet for four baritones in a serious work; but it’s true, and his name was Camille Saint-Saëns. Percy Rector Stephens discovered it in his setting of .the Nineteenth Psalm and he and Reinald Werrenrath, with the assistance of two promising young baritones from the Stephens studio, sang it for the information and entertainment of a party of friends who were there the other evening. What’s more, it sounds very well and is not difficult. The distinguished quartet had to repeat it at once. Why not do it publicly some day, Brother Stephens ?
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The election of Judge Florence E. Allen, of the Court of Common Pleas of Cleveland, to the bench of the Supreme Court of Ohio, has attracted nationwide comment in the press. Miss Allen is the first woman to become State Supreme Court Judge in America. Her election is of special interest to our readers for the reason that she was formerly a member of the Musical Courier’s foreign staff. She was for several years a collaborator of Arthur M. Abell in Berlin, a decade and a half ago. Miss Allen is now considered one of the greatest legal minds in this country. She is also a good musician and an excellent pianist. The Musical Courier congratulates its former staff member!
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Glancing through an issue of Musikblaetter des Anbruch (Vienna), the journal of the more or less advanced in Germany and Austria and house organ ,of the Universal Edition, we chanced upon an editorial reference to Alexander Zemlinsky which called him “one of the greatest musicians of the present, who, unfortunately, does not find that general recognition which he deserves.” The only reason reference is made here to that sentence is because it so aptly illustrates what music in Central Europe is suffering from nowadays, viz., false valuations. Zemlinsky began as a conductor of operetta in Vienna, graduated to the Volksoper there and has ,been at the Prague Opera for the last ten years. As a composer, he has never written anything that has made a place for itself. As a teacher, he was the principal instructor of.Erick Korngold and deserves credit for not having interfered with the youngster’s unconventional tendencies. In other words, Zemlinsky is an excellent musician who has made a career