MUSICAL COURIER
48
January il, 19 È È
cieties looking for a fine choral work of pleasing attributes, but not difficult, will find this just the thing. F. W. R.
(/. Fischer & Brother, New York)
Robin Goodfellow
Samuel Gaines likes picturesque things and ought to go in for symphonic poems after the Strauss dr Korngold manner. He has every trick of musical expression at his fingers’ ends and, like Strauss and Korngold and others of the modern school, writes his music as if it were more a study than the outpouring of inspiration. However, choral bodies who are after things to do will enjoy the performance of this highly difficult and expressive work. It demands a very wide range, from low E flat in the basses to high B flat in the sopranos. For mixed voices with two flutes.
The Yarn of the Nancy Bell
William Lester has made a most brilliant and humorous setting of Gilbert’s famous poem from the Bab Ballads. This is the sort of music that everybody likes, and it will be enthusiastically welcomed by male choruses all over the English-speaking world, and that is a good part of the world just now. For men’s voices.	F. P.
(Universal Edition, Vienna)
Second Caprice for Violin and Piano and First String
Quartet, Joan Manen; Metopes, Op. 29, Piano Solo, and Etudes for Piano, Op. 33, Karol Szymanowski;
Duet for Violin and Cello, and Sonata for Cello and Piano, Zoltán Kodaly
In a foreword to these compositions Joan Manen says that, after considerable trouble and sacrifice, he was able to obtain the right to revise some of his early works. He has designated these revised works with an A before the opus number. Thus these are A-15 and A-16. They are rather attractive compositions, yet one wonders why the composer should have been so anxious to have them reprinted. One would have thought that he would have let well enough alone and would rather have written new compositions to supersede these early works.
Szymanowski is one of those composers who write music that you like if you like it. It must demand a peculiar cast of mind to like it, yet we know that there are many who do —or pretend to. Personally this reviewer finds it entirely incomprehensible. It requires a transcendental virtuoso technic ׳to play, and those who can play it can find out for themselves what it is worth.
Kodaly is one of the most agreeable of the ultras, and this sonata for cello and piano will be found attractive. The harmony is curious, it is true, but logical, and there is a real melodic basis. The same is true of ׳the duet for violin and cello. It is unaccompanied, but is as attractive as it is possible to make this absurd form of composition which it is hardly possible to expect will interest concert audiences.
(/. & W. Chester, Ltd., London)
Hieroglyphs for Three Flutes, Celesta, Harp, Cup Bells, Piano, Two Mandolins and Two Guitars
A foreword says that the first performances of this work, by Daniel Ruyneman, were given at Amsterdam, The Hague and Rotterdam in 1918, under the auspices of the Society of Dutch Modern Music by some musicians conducted by Sem Dresden. It is explained that the cup bells consist of twenty-five copper bells with a range of two octaves, cast by John Taylor & Co., Loughborough, England. The composition itself is one of color entirely. Its melodic value is secondary, but as color-music it must be very attractive indeed. It should have an American hearing. Our music societies take notice!
Impromptus for Piano
Has this composer, Francis Poulenc, any talent ? Perhaps so, yet one cannot but wonder what it all amounts to, the
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Cuban Echoes (for Piano)
A tango, about grade three, by H. O. Osgood, whose songs are sung by McCormack, Hackett, Théo Karle, Colin O’Moore, Murphy, Werrenrath and other leading singers. It has marked Spanish spirit, although not especially gay, beginning rather in the sentimental mood. Songlike in the first portion, it runs into an animated trio, suggestive of the guitar, then a faster dance ; then comes a graceful section in slower tempo, with recapitulation in octaves, and a steady dying away to the finish, without «tard, and a peppy closing chord. Hits thé Spanish spirit exactly, indeed so truly that one might easily declare it the composition of a native.
Southern Birds and Home-Coming (for Piano)
. Katherine Ruth Heyman, so long known as. a first-class pianist, disciple of Stravinsky et al, who has concertized in Europe as well as America, has composed a bird imitation which is minutely descriptive and charming ; a delicate touch and facile technic,will make the piece very effective. Home-Coming is MacDowellish, and both pieces are astonishingly natural, considering the penchant this composer has for the distortions of the modernists; let us hope it is the rebound !
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Serenata Gioiosa (for Violin)
Domenico Brescia is the composer of this very original work, which begins on the G string, with singing tone; continues in higher position, with double-tones, and ends with spirit, all very light and charming.
Valse Limpide and Valse Heroique (for Piano)
Edward Collins, too, has been bit by the modernists, for hardly a measure in these two waltzes does what it starts out to do, or what one expects. Double notes- in the first, with fast octaves, make it difficult. It ends on a 6-5 chord. Why? The composer would say, well, why not? The second waltz is loud, full of chords, and thumps in the bass, but it is hard to find anything heroic in it. Such as like this sort of music will find it; others will wonder.
(Carl Fischer, Netv York, Boston, Chicago)
Gavotte-Caprice, Lettre de Chopin, From the Cottonfields, Castles in Spain, and Melody (Lully) (for Violin)
The name of Albert Spalding and picture of that wideawake representative American violinist appears on the title-page of these five pieces, four of them being original works, and the last a classic of the XVII Century, transcribed for either violin or cello. The Gavotte-Caprice, dedicated to Leon Sametini, is more caprice than gavotte, with many original turns and unusual modulations; double stopping in sixths, etc., make it difficult to perform. The Chopin-esque piece is a replica of that great piano composer’s style, being in the form of a mazurka. The Cottonfield piece is a classic negro-dance, in A minor-major. Castles in Spain, dedicated to Arthur Whiting, has Spanish characteristics galore, like a Zapateado, such as was made familiar in Sarasate’s Spanish pieces. All four pieces are distinctly modernistic, with harmonies which will interest, if not enchant one, The classic melody by Lully is transcribed for the G string of the violin, and is unmistakably ancient; it is a soulful song. All five pieces have fingering and every detail of performance marked, making them useful either for concert playing or for the advanced student’s study.
{Harold Flammer, Inc., Netv York)
Wistful (for Organ)
One of a series of piano pieces, arranged for organ by George M. Vail, the original being by that graceful modern composer, Rudolf Friml. It is sweetly pretty music, not deep, but appealing in its gracefulness and feeling.
Baby-Land (for Voice)
Reminiscent of Nevin’s Sweetes’ Lil’ Feller; a cradle song of charm, sure to please, by Clarence E. Wheeler, who shows special gift for straight-away tunefulness and refined harmony. For high and low voices.
(G. Schirmer, Inc., New York)
Home (Song)
Alexander MacFadyen, a composer who is following in MacDowell’s footsteps, with many fine piano pieces and songs to his credit, took Grave Van Valkenburg Vilas’ poem of two stanzas, with its unusual “tears of delight” and descriptive allusion to home, and set it to very ingratiating music, something like a slow waltz. The left hand plays the melody, later aided by the right, during the song, double notes making an attractive accompaniment-fingers’ ends and, like Strauss and Korngold and others by force of simple melody. For mezzo-soprano, range from low E to high F sharp. “To Agnes Timme.”
(/. Fischer & Brother, New York and Birmingham, Eng.)
The Spanish Gypsies (Choral Dance Suite)
By this title is meant a series of Spanish dance movements for chorus, including a bolero, a tango and a waltz. It is unique in this respect, in being dance music, sung in conjunction with piano or orchestra accompaniment; and there are three arrangements, namely, for mixed voices, for two-part women’s voices, and for three-part women’s voices. The Chicago composer, William Lester, has in Margaret Lester a romantic and imaginative poet, whose verse is full of real Spanish tinge, echoed in every bit of the Lester music. Melodious throughout, strikingly singable, effective in contrasts of rhythm, harmony and melody, with full understanding of choral composition, all this is found in the little octavo work of half a hundred pages. The first section is called nocturne-serenade, going gracefully, in bolero fashion; the second, yclept The Danza, is a lively tango, full of delicate effects, with brilliant ending; the last movement, Pasquita, is in the style of the slow, sentimental Spanish waltz, languorous, yet with strong rhythm, with moments of gay abandon. There is a middle section of conspicuous vocal tunefulness, followed by increase in speed to the first tempo, the original minor tonic now becoming major, ending joyously. Choral so-
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