MUSICAL COURIER
22
January 25, 1923
motto like this: “Day by day, in every way, I am getting better and better, and that cat, Screechini, is getting worse and worse.”
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It remained for Alfred B. Kuttner, writing in the New Republic not long ago, to pen the only disparaging criticism we ever have read of James G. Huneker’s essays: “The spectacle of Mr. Huneker forever wrapping himself in a veil of painted words and dancing his florid interpretation of every new form of art that swam within his ken was not always altogether edifying.”
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There is a note of tragedy occasionally, even at the Hippodrome. Recently R. H. Burnside, general director of the big playhouse, was asking a chorus girl how she happened to go on the stage. “Father was a petticoat manufacturer,” she replied, “so I had to go to work.”—Morning Telegraph.
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We shall rename that practising tenor downstairs Canute, because he fails to conquer the C.
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When we write a textbook on grammar or rhetoric we shall include the following sentences and ask the student to correct them:
When asked by the hostess to sing, the parlor performer replied: “Certainly. I have no cold, feel fine, and am able to do myself full justice.”
The prima donna refused to pose for the newspaper photographers.
He sang in English and his beautiful diction delighted the listeners.
The music critic applauded rapturously.
The vocal maestro to a new pupil: “So you have been studying with Signora X? You have an excellent method, sing and breathe properly, interpret correctly. She is a splendid teacher.”
As the concert manager took the young soprano’s $2,000, the latter exclaimed: “That is all the money I have in the world.” Moved to tears, the great impresario said to the youthful artist: “I would give you five cents to ride home with, but I believe the fresh air will be good for your voice.”
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The Rev. Dr. Charles M. Sheldon says that he sees few happy faces in New York. He evidently has not encountered the child whose mother has just told it, “Your music teacher is dead.”
Leonard Liebling.
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NOT SO
Eugene Jaesener, music editor of the Erie (Pa.) Daily Times, wrote a paragraph to this effect: “Isn’t it funny how, when some musical enterprise fails, some of the musical journals of the country take on that ‘I told you so’ attitude and write about the unfortunate affair in a seemingly rejoicing way. Note the Dippel enterprise and the writing of some musical journals about the failure.” To the best of our knowledge, the Musical Courier did not at any time take on an “I told you so” attitude, whatever that may be; but it thoroughly regrets any such happening as the Dippel failure. Dippel organized an excellent company and gave good performances, but he was optimistic far beyond measure in regard to his financial arrangements, which were sketchy. The trouble is that such a failure as Dippel’s, with the company actually stranded far from home, makes it hard for the next man, who may have the financial ability Dippel lacks, to go out and get backing. The Musical Courier heartily supported Dippel in the hope that he might succeed, for it is under some such plan as his (although he did not originate it) that opera eventually will be widely introduced into the smaller cities of the United States; but it was not surprised when the whole enterprise went to pieces and it certainly had anything but a feeling of rejoicing at the failure.
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OPERA GOUEIZED
^ The Saturday Evening Post has a clever satire on Coue’s methods as applied to the martyred tired-business-man who is dragged to heavy operas by the wife. He exercises the demon of boredom after this manner: Every day in every way the opera is getting better and better. In fact, it is getting so good I don’t believe it is the opera. No, sir-ree, it isn’t the opera! I’m at the Winter Garden! That fellow in the tin nightgown and whiskers who has been singing for twenty minutes without coming up for air, is really Frank Tinney! Ha, ha, ha! That’s a pretty good one he’s singing about the Irishman and the Jew! Some chorus too! Swan ballet, ’n’ everything ! Ha, ha, ha! This certainly is a good show. Every day in every way the opera is getting better and better.”
V ARI ATIONETTES
By the Editor-in-Chief
scenery and suggests how it might be made more realistic and convincing. No one really cares whether it is or not. The spectacle is frequent of an audience sitting interestedly through the performance of some minor opera company which thinks nothing of using the same scenery for Aida and Lucia. The music and the singers—chiefly the singers—receive as much applause as though Craig, Reinhardt, Urban, Bakst and Anisfeldt had built up the stage pictures, colors and costumes. Nothing can make opera a real art form.
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We know only one musician who does not read the Musical Courier. He is blind, and has it read to him.
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Perfumes found in an Egyptian tomb have held their scent thousands of years. It is surmised they were extracted from the fumes of standees’ row at the Metropolitan Opera House.
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Willa Cather wrote a novel, “David Gerhardt,” whose hero, she admits, is David Hochstein, the young American violinist who was killed in the late foolish and futile war. Speaking of the last time she saw him, Miss Cather said to a New York Herald reporter (December 24) : “He looked very handsome ; his face and the shape of his head were distinctly intellectual, not at all the Toscha-Mischa kind.” Ouch!
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M. B. H., always able to improve upon any jest, writes: “I read with interest about Wheelock, your Shakespearean bookmaker. But you were not in good form when he said ‘I’ll lay you two to one on Caesar.’ You should have answered: ‘Lay on, Mac-Duff.’ ”
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“In German composers,” ventures J. P. F., “one finds imagination and will properly balanced; in Russian, French and Italian composers, imagination rules over will; in American composers, I fear, will conquers imagination almost entirely.”
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Talk of musicians taking themselves seriously, they are nothing compared to Florenz Ziegfeld, who runs a well known leg-and-altogether-show. He advertises : “Ziegfeld Follies, glorifying the American girl, is beyond competition a national institution setting the standard for the world.”
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Tempering the advertisement to the moment also is one of the great American national institutions. Recently Paderewski gave a recital at Erie, Pa., and the same day the Daily Times of that city published this:
Paderewski
is one of the world’s greatest Pianists. His artistry appeals to us thru our sense of beauty and harmony and rhythm. Then should not the artistry of Charles Indich please us even more since it appeals to our sense of self-preservation?
Ask for Reservation for Sunday Dining Room Service Dinner.
Y Cafeteria
Operated by Charles Indich. Open Every Day and Sunday.
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The last thing we heard before returning to New York from the South was the definition of the initials of the Ku Klux Klan—K. K. K. The letters mean: No Katholiks, Koons, or Kikes.
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“Sexology” will be taught in the Chicago public schools. Why not simply have the young folks read all the opera librettos and let it go at that ?
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We know two opera singers who use the Coue formula in slightly altered versions. The first one, an opera tenor, says twenty times each morning and night: “Day by day, in every way, I cannot get better and better, for I am already perfect.” The second Coue devotee, an operatic soprano, murmurs her
Riddle: When is an opera singer a good conversationalist? If you don’t answer correctly on the first guess you have no talent whatsoever for riddles.
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However, should you be successful with the foregoing, try your hand at the following:
Pittsburgh Musical Institute
Pittsburgh, Pa., January 8, 1923.
Dear Variationettes:
Can you tell me if there is any set order for listing the personnel of a trio? I had always thought that it was the custom of listing the players as follows: violin, cello and piano. Mr. Russell, of our school, says that the piano should be listed first. I have been unable to find anything authoritative on this so I am appealing to you.
With kindest personal regards I am,
Sincerely yours,
Gaylord Yost.
Head of Violin Department.
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Fearing further gray hairs among those already in evidence, we turned the matter over to editor Frank Patterson, and his researches and ponderings produced the attached result :
I do not find that there is any rule for the listing of the personnel of a trio. On the Beethoven Association program the piano is put first, on other programs the violin is sometimes first, sometimes second. In Grove’s Dictionary of Music, article Beethoven, the list of his works, piano is always given first. I doubt if there is any rule, but in conversation among musicians the phrase is used “piano trio” to distinguish it from a string or other trios. In one program I find “trio for oboe, viola and piano.” It is rather puzzling.
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Times Square (New York) is the name of a piano piece by Emerson Whithorne. It ought to be a rattling composition.
XXX
From the Morning Telegraph: “Two masked bandits who tried to rob the Hawaiian treasury were driven off by a sixty-year-old native. I’ll wager he was playing a ukulele.”
XXX
On the letterhead of the Philharmonic Society of New York comes this:
. . . “The Fascist¡ have a hymn called Carmicia Nera (Black Shirt). One must hope that it is long enough.”— Variationettes, January 11.
To cover a multitude of shins?—Yours, Dep.
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And E. Fitzmaurice, of Lyon & Healy (Chicago) reports that on December 31 a young woman appeared at the sheet music counter of that establishment and inquired for “The polonaise by Major A Chopin.”
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A lady subscriber from Red Oak, la., writes under date of January 4 : “I am a constitutionalist, and you, as it appears in many of the articles in your periodical, are an anti-prohibitionist; therefore, may I ask you to please discontinue my subscription.” When the circulation manager laid the foregoing on our desk, he remarked : “The drinks are on you.” We shall not say whether they were or not, for fear that the Red Oak conscientious objector might send the paragraph to our local prohibition dictator, who might come to this office and look into the right hand lower drawer of our desk.
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For many opera goers their enjoyment and excitement would be enhanced considerably if the management would compel the singers to wear large price tags showing how much each one receives for the evening.
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A reader sends us a booklet with a note: “You might, like to read this during the next Parsifal performance you have to attend.” The booklet is called “Problems Confronting the Petroleum Industry.”
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We intend to give a prize to that Italian composer who shall abstain longest from writing an opera.
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As between Freud and Coué there no longer is any need for concert or opera performers to suffer from stage-fright.
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In the Smart Set for November : “They talk of the immorality of jazz: Such music, they say, is vicious, lecherous, demoralizing. Noise is never vicious, lecherous, demoralizing. The greatest of all aphrodisiacs is silence.” The greatest of all musical aphrodisiacs is Tristan and Isolde and while that lady and gentleman do not exactly make noise on the other hand they are far from silent. In fact, had Isolde stayed silent—but that is another story.
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Every once in a whilb an otherwise intelligent person breaks into print on the subject of our operatic