MUSICAL COURIER
23
January 18, 1923
selfmade music because it begins at the bottom of the keyboard and works itself up.
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It is a goad thing that the bobbed hair style ceased or else the hair caressing and hair pulling scenes in Pelleas and Melisande would have had to be eliminated.
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The Morning Telegraph reports that Darius Milhaud, our French visitor, has written an opera called Mrebenne Egaree, which leads one to wonder whether it follows the Wagner style in Mrienzi or Puccini’s in Mboheme.
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Enesco’s Roumanian rhapsody, played here the other day, made Willy say to Nilly: “I thought there were only Hungarian rhapsodies.” “Oh, no,” answered Nilly sweetly, “there are Roumanian rhapsodies, too.” “Well,” exclaimed Willy, “what in the hell have the Roumanians got to rhapsodize about?”
Leonard Liebling.
be original not to, but on the whole we think it would be even more novel to have him stabbed and fall instantly dead on his face, without uttering a sound. One thing we are sure of, and that is that we are sure of, and that is that the heroine will remain standing and in perfect health until the fall of the curtain. We think there will be no claque. * *
We nominate Gatti Casazza as the proper person to run Ireland. The job would be easy for him.
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From The Conning Tower, in the New York Tribune (January 4) :
THE MATING SEASON.
I married him Because
He playdd Mozart to me.
Now he plays Mozart to other girls.
Am I going to divorce him?
I am not.
I much prefer Richard Strauss.
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One of the worst jokes we’ve heard in a long time is Willy’s remark that Liszt’s second rhapsody is
say about the Austrians’ attitude towards Americans. Anyone acquainted with the psychology of the Viennese can but laugh at his assertion that a waiter “refused to serve him because he was an Ausländer” (“and Ausländer means American always”). Mr. Steiner’s “American friends at Vienna,” Addie Funk and “Richard” Piccaver (whose Christian name is Alfred), should have dispelled his silly ideas on the subject just as readily as they dispelled my mistaken impression as to Mr. Steiner’s “Americanism,” Mr. Steiner, who claims intimate friendship with the American tenor (whose Christian name he is unable to quote correctly), is about as much of an American as myself or any other European man who has spent a given number of years on the other side. And the Vienna hotel clerk who charged Mr. Steiner “15,000 Kronen for a room with an added cost of forty per cent because he was an American,” surely had no difficulty in ascertaining from his passport that the birthplace of his guest was considerably nearer to Czernowitz, Austria (now Roumania), than to New York, U. S. A. The forty per cent increase, moreover, represents a municipal tax which every hotel is compelled to collect from any guest, American, Roumanian, or even Austrian. And by the way, considering that the Crown was quoted at 81,000 to the dollar at the time, does Mr. Steiner consider 21,000 Crowns (equal to twenty-six cents) an exorbitant price (inclusive of the forty per cent increase) for a hotel room? Does he recall that the price of a similar room in Vienna was, at least, one dollar in peace time? And considering that the price of a meal, according to his own quotation (which is far in excess of the truth), is 40,000 Crowns (or fifty cents), does he still think 3,000,000 Crowns a night a poor salary for a singer at an opera house? The fact is that the Vienna Staatsoper, for instance, is paying practically the highest salaries in all Europe to its singers, which accounts for the fact that, in spite of tremendously high admission prices, the management is unable to make both ends meet. Let Mr. Steiner ask his “friend” “Richard” Piccaver about it 1 Mr. Steiner’s more famous colleagues of the vocal fraternity (among them Alfred Piccaver, Leo Slezak, Richard Mayr, or Michael Bohnen) also might have been able to show him a dozen or two restaurants at Vienna where he could have gotten all the nourishment desired by him, thus relieving him of the deplorable necessity of “losing thirty pounds during his visit to Vienna.’( True enough ’tis that, unfortunately, thousands of native Viennese are unable to secure food —not for want of opportunity, however, but for lack of funds. And equally true, alas 1 that men like Mr. Steiner, whose very presence helps to increase the cost of commodities at Vienna, still find prices there high, even though they are a mere fraction of American prices or, for that matter, of the prices which any visitor was obliged to pay at Vienna in pre-war times.
The final advice which Mr. Steiner ventures to give his readers is: “Stay in America. It is the only place just now.” What inspired this advice and, most likely, the rest of his interview as well, is a certain over-zealous and ill-applied patriotism. _ Mr. Steiner’s patriotism for America is, to be sure, very justified, for America has done wonders for him. It has made a fortune for the immigrant, and put him in a position to sell his lucrative drug store later on, to embark on a musical career. Personally, knowing America from many years’ experience, I understand the position of some of the minor American music teachers who look askance at the host of American students flocking to Europe year after year. Their number, to be sure, is smaller now than in pre-war times, and America is gradually gaining its full independence from the venerable old superstition that Europe had the monopoly on “musical atmosphere.” Mr. Steiner’s patriotism is commendable in itself. But I strongly protest against the methods which he applies to achieve his end and which do little credit to the profession of which Mr. Steiner purports to be a member. Surely I am free from bias and suspicion, and I fully realize all the shortcomings as well as the advantages which Vienna offers. But I think too highly of the warm-hearted, sorely stricken populace of Austria to keep silently aloof when I find it unjustly attacked.
Patriotism starts at home. Mr. Steiner’s advice is eminently patriotic. So, by all means, let him practice it himself first of all.
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Yvonne Gall, the French soprano who sang for several years with the Chicago Opera, is an artist as versatile as she is accomplished. The first time we saw her she was singing Marguerite in Faust; the next time, Gilda in Rigoletto; the next time, the leading role in a dramatic and Wagner-like opera by Bachelet, the name of which escapes us at the moment; and now it is announced that she is to sing Isolde, which the Opera Comique, Paris, will put on this coming spring.
PALPITANT PATRIOTISM
The ire of our Vienna correspondent, Paul Bech-ert, has been aroused by a certain ex-Austrian, who emigrated to America many years ago, became a citizen, and, so it is said, after having made sufficient money in the drug business, sold out in favor of music. This American went back to his native land with dollars in his pocket last summer, and when he returned to New York, aired his patronizing “American” views about Austria in a way that, to use a vulgarism, captured the goat of our correspondent. Now then, gentle readers, the floor for Mr. Bechert!
For four long years well-meaning visiting foreigners have fed the world at large on touching stories concerning the fate of the once glorious and mighty Austrian capital, and the Viennese themselves have done no little to encourage the belief that theirs was the most pitiful fate on earth. They have, with a certain masochist vengeance, delighted in hearing their town alluded to as “the dead city.” Vienna has cried wolf so long and so loudly no wonder the world is beginning to believe her and to turn the tables on her.
Whatever pitiful tales the Viennese themselves have spread broadcast about their beautiful city, Julius Steiner, said to be a vocal teacher and singer, is going them one better. Having returned to America, after an all-summer visit to the Austrian capital, he hastened to tell a representative of a music paper some terrible things about life at Vienna.
“In Vienna,” said Mr. Steiner, “there are hundreds of musicians looking for engagements, and there is no market for them. An old friend of mine, who sings professionally under the name of James Robinson and who has lived in Vienna for years with his wife and children, recently secured an engagement in Switzerland, which was the talk of his musical associates for weeks. On meeting, they said to each other: ‘Have you heard the great news? Robinson has an engagement in Switzerland for November at twenty francs. . . .’ At the leading opera houses the principal singers receive 3,000,000 crowns a performance, which is about $37 in American money. . . .”
Now, assuming for a moment that Mr. Steiner’s assertion were true (which it surely isn’t), and that a Swiss manager really had the sad courage to offer a singer twenty francs ($4) a night—what conclusions would that permit of concerning conditions at Vienna, where singers “get $37 a night at the leading opera houses?” And isn’t the fact that even Mr. Robinson (who was worth twenty francs a night to a Swiss manager) was able to secure an engagement at the Vienna Volksoper (where, by the way, he failed, owing to his vocal shortcomings) in itself a contradiction to Mr. Steiner’s statement that “hundreds of musicians” are vainly looking for a job at Vienna? Has Mr. Steiner ever been to the office of a New York theatrical manager to see the veritable bread line of artists who want work at any price—in America, mind you, not in Austria ?
The truth is that at no time have young singers had as much of a chance at Vienna (or, for that matter, anywhere in Austria) as just now. The rosters of the theater are depleted, owing to the many “Valuta” tours of their stars, and managers eagerly embrace any opportunity to discover new talent. The Vienna Staatsoper, once the most conservative and exclusive among the European opera houses, is a shining example of this state of things. There is a full baker’s dozen of young, even unexperienced girls and men who stepped from the Conservatory right into the leading roles at the Staatsoper, almost without even a trial. Marie Rajdl is one case, Rosette Anday another, and Mr. Fischer a third illustration; all young singers, talented but not always sufficiently experienced to cope with the big roles in so large a theater—yet readily entrusted with them by the management.
“The tradition is fading,” says Mr. Steiner, and the famous old singers are “ausgesungen” by now. Quite right! Tradition is fading and the general standard is gradually lowering, because the great stars who used to uphold tradition and standard are “sung out,” or absent “guesting,” and the young ones get their chance too soon and, frequently, too indiscriminately. Which proves that there is a great market for young singers in Austria-greater than ever, in fact. I defy Mr. Steiner to disclose the name of the “American singer and former pupil of Marcella Sembrich” who, as Mr. Steiner relates, “sold all her possessions down to her clothes while waiting for an engagement in the Austrian capital.” What a pity Mr. Steiner does not consider himself at liberty to give details beyond the fact that the unfortunate young woman “offered him her fur coat in exchange for several _ lessons.” Here is a singing teacher who does not hide his light under a bushel!
It is positively silly to read what Mr. Steiner has to
knew “that there is no more ‘bookish’ man in the entire land than yourself.” Wheelock arose, thought a moment, and said that as he looked about he was reminded of the talented folk who used to foregather with Dr. Johnson at the inn, and of the play of wit and flow of reason which must have enlivened many a party over which Shakespeare presided at his beloved tavern. “Shakespeare is my favorite author,” Wheelock went on, “and I find in him my chief source of solace and enjoyment. I might truthfully say that he guides my inner life altogether. I read him constantly because he tells me everything completely which other authors only hint at. The average man does not realize how important it is to know Shakespeare. I regard it as nothing less than a tragedy that he is so generally neglected in favor of magazine and novel reading. Shakespeare is my God, my religion.” Then followed nothing less than a marvelous dissertation on the author, with dozens of beautifully recited quotations to show how the Shakespearean philosophy fits almost every phase and situation in modern everyday life. When Wheelock finished, he received an ovation. He had made the hit of the evening. The next time we saw him at Belmont Park, plying his profession, a horse named Csesar was running. Separating a five-dollar bill from our meager bankroll, we offered it to Wheelock with the remark: “I come not to praise Caesar, but to bet on him.” Reaching over, the Shakespearean bookmaker answered as quick as a flash, “Out, damned five-spot,” and grabbed our banknote.
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Apropos of horse-racing, Paderewski is to give a recital in New Orleans on January 29, and in honor of the event the local turf association has named one of the events of that day the Paderewski Purse and expects the pianist to be present to see it. Who dare say now that New Orleans is not a thoroughly musical city?
K H
A grand opera company is forming in Dublin. Tristan, with the hero, the heroine, friend Kurwenal, and numerous other corpses strewing the stage, ought to be one of the popular works in the repertory of the organization.
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While only a few children now believe in Santa Claus, a great many grown ups still think that grand opera is the acme of musical art.
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And for those to whom every opera star glitters, let it be said that on the lyric stage, as well as in the heavens, there are stars of the tenth magnitude.
»s * »?
Frank Tinney, the actor, tells a story about performing at a penitentiary, and the prisoners objecting on the ground that it was not in their sentence. We first heard the jest in our infant days, during the wet autumn of 1881, when Remenyi, the violinist, told it in connection with his visit to the Elmira Reformatory. No, we were not an inmate.
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Deems Taylor is a critic—perhaps the only one in New York—who is able to write about grand opera without taking it or himself too seriously. In the New York World of January 7 he has the following lightsome reflections:
Every time any one mentions the possibility of making opera intelligible to the average American by having it sung in English, some horrified purist points out what a desecration such translation would be to the work of the librettist and how the poetry and charm of the original text would vanish. This seems, generally speaking, doubtful. We have been reading over a number of Verdi’s librettos recently and find that the most incorrigibly unilingual American can gather much of their import, and even some of their poetry, if he but knows the English for “infelice,” “anima stanca, “il mio desio,” “addio,” “andiamo” and “padre mio.”
We are thinking, by the way, of writing an opera that shall be absolutely original, something along the lines of the play that Heywood Broun proposed writing a while ago. We have not worked out the plot yet, but we are certain of some of the dramatic detail. The hero, of course, will be a ■bass and the villain a tenor. The heroine will be a mezzo-soprano, because most mezzo-sopranos are comparatively slim. In the first act the heroine s old nurse, a coloratura soprano, will deliver a long narrative in the presence of the hero. She will face upstage during the entire number, directing all her remarks to him, and he will never once look out at the audience. He will then sing an important aria without coming down to the footlights, and when he comes to the high note will keep both arms close
by his sides.	.,	.
The second act will probably take place in an inn. I he peasants will be gathered around tables drinking, and there will be enough drinks to go around. The minor villain comes in and starts a drinking song, but is set upon by the infuriated peasantry and lynched. The heroine men enters, disguised as a boy, and is instantly recognized by every one in the room. At this point the Angelus will not ring and the peasants will not line up reverently for an unaccompanied number, but the landlord will enter and will not have on red stockings.
Concerning the last act we are as yet a little hazy, as we have not yet decided whether to kill the hero. It would