MUSICAL COURIER
22
February 1, 1923
headline over Réné . Devries’ signature : ‘Chicago Opera Loss Only Eighty Per Cent, of the Guarantee.’ The word ‘only’ is what hands me the laugh.” *, * »,
Marjorie Haynes communicates all the way from Monte Carlo : “Do you know why the music is so jolly at the Casino here? Because they bar minors.” *Ç *£ *Ï
Now that the male pianists nearly all have short hair the ladies of the keyboard are beginning to wear theirs long. Maria Carreras is the latest local recruit to the umbrageously crowned *T «î n
The dancers now having found their way to the concert platform, what steps ought to be taken—if any—to keep the jugglers, equilibrists, and acrobats within the vaudeville and circus boundaries? If any of them should think to do their stunts at Carnegie Hall to the accompaniment of classical tunes played by symphony orchestras, all will be lost. Musicians, rally while there still is time.
After all, it is the younger music critics who are the wisest. In New York nearly all of them have gone into business.
*,	* H
We told you recently what Ford, Carnegie, and other billionaires thought about subventioning orchestras. Maybe that is why Charles H. Battev, of Providence, sends us a circular about his play, A Fynans Seer, or the Rich ■Man Who Was Poor Toward the Fine Arts. Another play announced by the circular'is Singer and Poet, or the Wrong Kind of Singing Teacher, as Well as Wrong Kind of Editor.
*S *l •t
“Why the splendid isolation of Mozart symphonies in your orchestral programs?” J. P. F. interrogates. *, * *,
A morose humorist in the Evening Telegram complains that “The objection to a radio concert is that there is nobody’s foot to beat time back of your opera chair.”
*t «î »־׳
From Harmonia comes this tribute : “Carmen was sung in the Mexico City bullring a short while ago, and it pleased me to see that your column was manful enough not to say anything about ‘throwing the bull,’ a ‘bully performance,’ etc.”
H w, »,
A contemporary heads an article : “Philadelphia Flails Eminent Musicians.” Well “New York Rains Eminent Musicians.”
»? »?
“You define a ‘Pop’ concert as one where the listeners may pop in and out,” a St. Louis reader communicates, “but in our family we call it a Pop concert, because it is the only kind to which Pop can be made to go.”
«Ç *Ç K
F. P. A. takes us to task in The World because we said that Arthur Guiterman writes his rhymed book reviews (in Life) in couplets.. We should have said quatrains, and we hasten to clear Mr. Guiterman’s name of our vile accusation.
*î *Î *i
Apologies also to Theodore Roehl, the music critic of the New Orleans Item. A few issues ago we spoke of him as a pianist and a former pupil of Godowsky. Along comes the attached defense :
New Orleans, January 23, 1923.
Dear Variationettes :
For the love, of Mike, what are you trying to do to me?
Who in thunder ever told you I was a “former piano pupil of Godowsky”? I am very much afraid you have gotten me in bad, for I know of at least one person in New Orleans who’s going to think I am posing as a Godowsky pupil and that I gave you that information.
As a matter of fact, the closest I have ever been to the great pianist was the fifth row in the auditorium when he played here. And the only conversation I ever had with him was the one-sided conversation that took place when I wrote the usual and expected sweet nothings about his “singing tone,” his “impeccable technic,” his “super intelligence,” his abundant “fund of temperament” and his “delicate nuances.”
Please straighten out your dear readers on this by making due correction, won’t you, for everyone in New Orleans knows I am not a pianist and that I never studied with any great pianist. And they have already started to “kid” me about that and wonder how much I had to pay you for the mention. I don’t play the piano, though I have had my voice cultivated to a point where it gives me a good deal of pleasure and my listeners, I am sure, a corresponding amount of misery.
The information was given to us by Robert Hayne Tarrant, New Orleans impresario. We wrote to Mr. Roehl to invite his traducer to a meeting under the famous old duelling oaks in New Orleans, and to see to it that R. H. T. does not create any more pianists in an already overcrowded profession.
?*־׳«?«
A bridge enthusiast listening to a pianist hammering out a thunderous crescendo, whispered to his
s
V ARIATIONETTE
By the Editor-in-Chief
orchestra, and what looks well on a sheet of score-paper may not “sound” at all in actual performance.
There is only one way for a tyro composer to learn— really learn—form and instrumentation, and that is to hear his music played by an orchestra. That, in present-day America, is about the most difficult thing in the world for the tyro composer to manage. Hence our scheme, which is as follows:
Let some organization—the Juilliard Foundation, for instance, which seems to have much money and rather indeterminate aims—buy, say, ten extra rehearsals a season from every first-class symphony orchestra in the United States (they are not so numerous; the cost would be about $75,000 a year). These rehearsals would be devoted to reading orchestral music by Americans. There would be local committees of experts which would pass not upon the, merits of the music submitted but simply upon its literacy— i. e., whether it could be played at all. Otherwise there would be no requirements for acceptance. Any American could submit his music and have it played through by a good orchestra, under a competent conductor.
These readings would not be competitions or performances. There would be no audiences and no judges. . Instead, the young American anxious to learn his business could hear his orchestra scores played and hear his mistakes. That done, he could take his work home and, if he thought it good, revise it—or tear it up. After a season or two of such hearings the young American would have a valuable background of practical experience in addition to his theoretical knowledge. When MacDowell was living in Wiesbaden during the early eighties, the conductor of the local orchestra used to try over his orchestral compositions for him after rehearsals; MacDowell attributed much of his orchestral skill to these informal readings. Perhaps if we created a few more such opportunities we might develop a few more MacDowells.
Dr. Percy S. Grant is in danger of losing his pulpit because he denies the divinity of Christ. There is no punishment, however, for those who put aside the musical gods and worship false idols.
*, *t *
Is a Mussolini needed in music?
׳« * .*
A jokester took to the Metropolitan Opera House a little sign reading “English Spoken Here,” but at the last moment he lacked the courage to nail it up in the lobby as he had intended.
*	n
The Ruhr episode is developing into an Aufruhr.
H «?■ *S
Cognac and Carmen are among the French products being boycotted by the Germans in Berlin.
*	*. *
On a recent concert tour which carried him through Indiana, Mischa Levitzki found that he had to make several trips to cities where he was scheduled to appear, by jumps which necessitated uncomfortably early rising. One morning, when he was due to reach a town shortly after dawn, he was startled suddenly from his sleep by the conductor’s calling loudly, “Mishawaka—Mishawaka.” Levitzki heard the call and said to himself sleepily but proudly, “Fame is a curious thing!” At that moment it occurred to him to raise the window-shade, and on the station sign-post he read: “Mishawaka.”
* * *?
Lewiston, Me., January 26, 1923.
Dear Variationettes :
The other day, in our Northern town, we had to sit through hours of a supposedly new musical comedy. It was according to press notices, “The Most—,” “The Greatest—,” etc., “of its kind ever produced.” At its conclusion we came out exhausted with the deadly old tunes and the deadly old jokes resurrected from the tombs of the Egyptian Pharaohs and tumbled out of mummified wrappings for the edification of the public. It made us think of Peddie’s little tweedle in the treble, in his humoreske column that he regularly runs in a state paper while not especially engaged in inviting Galli-Curci and Paderewski, etc., to come up and entertain the folks. “What is a libretto, dad?” Peddie makes the little boy ask his father, whereupon the old man solemnly replies, “A libretto, my son, is a home for old jokes.” And do you know, the only thing lacking was that he ought to have added that a musical comedy is the place where you take them out in the park for an airing.
Yours,
L. N. F.
», * *
If this were spring and the weather forecaster were to predict light airs for next day, we would have material for a good musical paragraph.
*? * *
An old timer is one who says he can remember when they could sing at the Metropolitan.
K *?
Another old timer is one who can remember when conductors used to lead their own orchestras all
“Proving the true economic relation of grand opera to business,” writes R. McK., “your Musical Courier of January 25 announces in a naively proud
When Kingsbery Foster was prospecting around the country recently he registered at a small town hotel where half the time of the proprietor was spent in conversing with his guests. “What’s your business?” he asked Foster. “I’m an impresario,” replied the manager. “Impresario—impresario?” asked the puzzled boniface, scratching his head; “oh, yes, I know. One of them played here a couple of weeks ago, and he took a live rabbit and two hens out of Deacon Snipgrass’ hat.”
*t »* •t
Many part-songs deserve just that name and nothing else.
*, * *
The Jewish Musical World, in Yiddish, monthly, is to make its initial appearance in New York in February, and announces itself as “the first music magazine in the Yiddish language ever published in this country.” Its editor writes to the Musical Courier editor and asks him whether he sympathizes with the aims of the forthcoming paper. He does, provided its aims are to collect news, get subscribers, and procure advertisements. Among the list of contributors promised by the Jewish Musical World are A. Baron, Platon Brounoff, Charles D. Isaacson, Leo Orn-stein, Josiah Zuro, and “Beethoven II.” Any relation to Washington II ?
n *e «t
In the Morning Telegraph:	“Why haven’t
makers or advertisers of musical instruments called attention to the fact that purchase of their goods would be ‘a sound investment’ ?” Also, that they would add to the good tone of any household? •tux
We are living in wonderful times. If you are able to think up a good new name for a health food or a new soft drink, you could make more money out of your idea than if you were to create a whole new symphony.
H H K
Conductors on wheels, these baton gentlemen who keep traveling from orchestra to orchestra.
»Î H H
The unsuccessful musician waits for something to turn up. That’s Micawberizing. Thé successful musician lets people know what he can do. That’s advertising.
»? «Ç n
An Illinois pastor has whistling solos in his church to increase the attendance. Just now the Jews are agitating a “Go to Synagogue Week.” Why not try jewsharp solos in their houses of worship?
XXX
Seeing a musty volume on our bookshelf, called “Memories of an Old Organist,” we are reminded that memories are an incumbrance and reminiscence is a disease.
*	* H
Some persons chide us for our frequent references to horse racing. But there is the scholarly Marx, who wrote : “The pianoforte is the racecourse of imagination.” He was right, to judge by the way soipe of the pianists hoof it over the keys.
H «X »t
A Finnish musical magazine sends us a marked copy of a poem, for reviewing, it is to be presumed. This is the final stirring stanza :
Niin se rauhast’ myrskyn muuttuu Myrskyst’ taasen ilohon Elohonsa milloin suuttuu Milloin kaipaa kalmistoon.
The sentiment of the lines is lofty but there is a limp in the meter, it seems to us.
*î *î *Î
“A Welsh gipsy who lives in the town of Llaner-chymedd has made a harp from old boxes with an ordinary pine spar as an upright.” That’s nothing. We knew a girl pianist who could make mincemeat out of any ordinary Chopin ballade or Beethoven sonata.
n *t »S
We are glad to find Deems Taylor (in the World) endorsing an idea which we suggested several years ago to most of the orchestral conductors of this country. We trust that Mr. Taylor may be more successful in bringing the scheme to fruition than we were : Prize competitions and all-American orchestral programs have their place, and do at least no harm ; but the American composer as a class today needs something beyond prizes and the cheers of his friends. He needs most of all a chance to learn his trade. One can learn the theory of symphonic composition out of books, just as one can learn the theory of orchestration; but theory has astonishingly little to do with practice. The symphony that sounds impressive on the piano may shrink and leak alarmingly when it gets to the