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MUSICAL COURIER
played the expected light tenor voice and physical ebullience. In Robert Hutt we had a Walther of generous (somewhat too generous) figure, but of ringing voice with lyrical quality, of impetuous and romantic action, and of sound musical instincts and achievements. Meta Seinemeyer, the Eva, is a soprano of fresh and sweet tones, arch demeanor and traditional Nuremberg amplitude. Jessyka Koettrik was the Magdalena. Others in the cast were Heinz Bollmann, Benno Ziegler, Johannes Scheurich, Peter Hegar, Erik Schubert, Rudolf Heifer. As for the scenery—the music more than made up for it.
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We are laying odds on the prospective jockeys of the great International Philharmonic Handicap, as follows: Stokowski, 4-5, one of the favorites but likely to be kept out of the race by a previous engagement at another track.
Toscanini, 10-1, wintered badly, is sour tempered and track sore, and not likely to be entered.
Mengelberg; 2>^-l, international sprinter, unwilling to enter endurance event.
Bruno Walther, 4-1, coupled in the betting with Damrosch and Coates, all members of the same stable.
Theodore Spiering, 6-1, a fine performer, in splendid condition, and likely to be a dark horse.
Henry Hadley, 8-1, has held his own with the best of them, and good in any kind of going.
Felix Weingartner, 15-1, heavily engaged in European stake fixtures.
Nahan Franko, 25-1, has run excellent races at all distances and in splendid time.
Van Hoogstraten, 2-5, overwhelming favorite, based on the reports of observing rail birds, early morning dockers, and shrewd tonal tipsters.
The interest of the public is intense and heavy conjecturing is going on everywhere. Aside from those jockeys already mentioned, pools are selling on the field at 50-1.
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Half time dances should be written in half notes.
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Robert Nome, who writes for Blue Notes, an intimate musical monthly for orchestral players, is wasting his talents too obscurely, as this item proves:
Modern dairy farms are equipped with milking machines.
To calm the cows during milking time, phonographic records are played for them. One cow of a certain herd surrendered completely to the rhythm of Barn Yard Blues and shook and shimmied till she separated the cream from the milk, and churned the cream to butter. They call her Madame Butterfly. One day they turned loose Tschaikowsky’s Nut Cracker suite, and in a short time the barn was infested with squirrels.
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A conductor is one who travels in drawing rooms on trains.
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We have just finished reading a long article on music in the home and music for children. It was an old fashioned article. We have some modern ideas along those lines. For instance, we think that the girl worth while is the girl who does not try to play Liszt when she has a Moody & Sankey technic.
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And the worth while mother is the one who, when that girl gives a concert, says: “Well, she looked lovely anyway.”
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Which leads our thought to the fable about the piano teacher who put the very pretty pupil out of his class because she had no talent. Fable, we said.
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In some homes the children are made to practise Bach and in others they have a happy childhood.
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Nevertheless, with the new conception of the effect of music on morals, doubtless there are earnest devotees who can prove that Abel was slain by Cain because that naughty youth never had been taught music in the public schools or taken part in community singing.
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A musical old timer is one who can remember when nice girls didn’t know the plots of Thais, Pagliacci, Walküre and The Love of Three Kings'.
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Gigli, the tenor, has a new baby in his household, and it is interesting to note how quickly musical heredity asserts itself. The infant was presented with a little cart and insisted on making her illustrious father drag her about in it and play “horsey. When Mrs. Gigli asked the tot, “What are you doing?” the youngster answered: “I am hitching my wagon to a star.”
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Brahms may have conquered the world but he has
not yet mastered the Evening Post.
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A philosophical violinist asks: “If there were no poor fiddlers how; could we tell when we hear a good one?”	Leonard Liebling,
February 15, 1923
VARIATIONETTES
By the Editor-in-Chief
company will succede in making money at the Manhattan.
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A man named Aldrich writes in the New York Times (of February 12) as follows about a man named Liszt, whose ״Dance of Death was performed last Sunday afternoon at the New York Symphony concert:
The soloist was Alexander Siloti, the Russian pianist, who showed his devotion to his master, Liszt, by playing his Dance of Death, paraphrase of the Dies Irae. It takes a good deal of devotion to Liszt to undertake and go through with this piece. The impressive fragment of Gregorian melody upon which it is written has been much used by composers and considerably mauled by many of them; but this is the worst mauling it has had. Liszt subjected it to a process corresponding as nearly as may be to what is now known as “jazzing”; a veritable indignity.
And the man named Aldrich subjects himself to a process corresponding as nearly as may be to what still is known as talking “through his hat.” The man named Liszt never could conflict an indignity on a Catholic tune for two reasons, he was too good a Catholic and too good a musician. Also he had consummate musical taste. If the truth were known the man Liszt never did anything as vulgar and undignified as the paragraph written about him by the man Aldrich. Nothing that came from Liszt’s pen lacked interest, charm and refinement. Of course he wrote some music whose purpose was to entertain. So did Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart, Haydn and others. But the Dance of Death, one may be sure, was done with seriousness, devotion and musical feeling, and not with a desire to “jazz” a theme which was sacred to the man named Liszt. The Aldrich man adds to his report about Siloti: “He was much applauded and several times recalled.” This proves either that the audience enjoyed art or that it enjoyed a Catholic melody “jazzed.” Which seems more likely ? And, too, which is more reasonable to suppose, that the Liszt lacked in reverence or judgment, or that the Aldrich lacks in good taste and understanding ?
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More pardonable was the World’s account of the same concert, which said that Brahms’ fourth symphony was played, when in reality it was Tschaikowsky’s fourth which came to a hearing. Everyone knows that the composers wrote very much alike-each used a pen.
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Owing to the Lincoln holiday exigencies, it is possible to publish in these columns only a few words about the opening at the Manhattan Opera House last Monday evening of what is known as the Wagnerian Opera Festival. Musical Courier readers are aware that it is a private undertaking conceived through New York enterprise. The company arrived here a short time ago and owing to insufficient financial reserve encountered inconveniences in several neighboring cities, but with the help of local sinews of war managed to give its promised performances there, and also to make its scheduled opening in New York. It is understood that certain limited financial guarantees have been forthcoming here and if the public will step forward and assist encouragingly at the box office our Wagnerian visitors will be able to pay their production bills, to settle bed and food accounts, and perhaps even to festivalize a bit in our happy city. The company deserves support, let every one know that. Its conductor, Leo Blech, has done wonders with an orchestra assembled here from the four ends of the Musical Union, and he has rehearsed his forces into a fine ensemble that performs not only technically amazingly well but also with taste, feeling and musical finish. Blech is one of the very big men of the baton without any question.^ He revealed an intimate knowledge of the Meistersinger score and he knew how to make it reveal all its beauties. And what beauties they are, and how one’s senses bathe in the luscious melodies and the intriguing harmonic waves on which they float. But enough of this, or we will find ourself trying to discover Wagner. Blech had a tiptop cast of singers at his command. Friedrich Plaschke was a magnificent Hans Sachs, becomingly orotund, sonorous, tender, sentimental, authoritative, humorous, noble. He has a voice and style that will delight all those who meet them. The same may be said of Alexander Kipnis, the Pogner. He, too, is a huge fellow, with a large voice which he is able to temper down into languishing pianissimos when he desires. His Wagnerian manner, diction and delivery are perfect. De-sider Zador was the Beckmesser, and gave a sharply etched and strikingly effective portrayal of that delightful old rogue. Paul Schwarz, the David, dis-
In the daily newspaper world it is a dreadful heresy for one journal to mention another, and it is an almost unspeakable crime to praise any paper except one’s own. That is one reason why the concerts given by the New York Evening Mail are not mentioned by its contemporaries in the field of the dailies. Another reason why they are not noticed is because they are good. If the concerts were bad, or poorly attended, or stood in harsh esteem artistically, the rest of the press would rend them in pieces. We have attended two of the series at the De Witt Clinton School in West Fifty-ninth street, and more than a season elapsed between our visits, so that we were enabled to judge properly of the progress made in the interval. Last Sunday night’s audience filled the huge auditorium, and a dozen policemen were on hand to align the throng of music seekers for it seemed that everyone was on hand early to secure a good seat, all of them being unreserved. Charles D. Isaacson is in charge of the concerts. He procures the artists (all of whom appear gratis), arranges the programs, explains them to the listeners, reads them excerpts (from his own Face to Face with Great Musicians) about the composers and pieces about to be heard, and through his natural demeanor and cheery personality establishes on the stage and among the auditors an atmosphere of informality and easy friendliness which manifests itself in an entire absence of the stiffness and frigidity customary in the average “professional” concert halls. We heard a fine program splendidly played by excellent artists. Many of the best known singers and players have assisted at these concerts, arid most of them' voluntarily have offered themselves for return “engagements.” We heard Mr. Isaacson tell about the musical work being done through the Evening Mail. It appears that on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday afternoons and evenings of this week he is producing the concerts in various schools and auditoriums and next Saturday evening lie is due with his troupe at one of the insane asylums. “How does Mr. Isaacson escape the asylum so long ? asked a speaker later in the evening.
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Mr. Isaacson announced that about 4,000 concerts have been given to date by the Evening Mail. If the audiences we studied were a fair example of the rest of those who attended the lengthy series, it may be stated unreservedly that Mr. Isaacson and the Mail are doing a fine and useful work. They claim that they are educating audiences to know music, but it would be nearer the truth to say that they are educating the artists to know their audiences; that is, to know them informally, personally, humanly. There is an indescribable atmosphere of that sort of thing at the Mail concerts. The attention of the listeners is complete and absorbing, their enthusiasm, when they like a selection or rendering, is unlimited, and reaches across the footlights. Between the stage and the audience the usual chasm seems bridged over. The artist who makes a hit at these concerts has gained several thousand lifelong friends and hundreds of faithful ticket purchasers when his paid recitals are forthcoming. We said that the Mail entertainments educate audiences and artists. They have educated also one musical editor who was grateful for the chance to tell the gathering that he would have been there even if the concert had been given by the War Cry or the Police Gazette for it had brought him face to face with a great audience.
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Speaking of the friendship between artists and audiences—a typical development of this democratic period—brother Chase has'■ this in his newsy New York Times column of last Sunday:
Dame Melba paid an unexpected visit to Covent Garden Theater to exchange a few words with members of the queue waiting to gain, admission to the theater, where the famous singer was appearing that night as Mimi m La Boheme. Since 11 o’clock on Friday night people had been waiting outside the theater, and on learning of this Dame Melba decided to proceed to Covent Garden, which she reached shortly before noon. Driving up to the gallery queue in her car Dame Melba was immediately surrounded by a cheering crowd, who left their places in the queue in order, if possible, to exchange a word with her. \ oung persons, men and women and waiting messenger boys excitedly pushed forward in the throng with the object ot obtaining her autograph. Standing in the muddy road Dame Melba patiently affixed her signature to the programs and pieces of paper that were presented to her. She was loudly cheered as her car drove away.
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We will beat Mr. Isaacson to that insane asylum next Saturday by three or four days if eager inquirers do riot stop asking us who will succeed Stransky at the Philharmonic and whether the German opera