23
March 1, 1923
difficult score does not add to the seriousness of the occasion. (A bass clarinetist in action is in itself a fair cause for laughter.) One of the players had the utmost difficulty in keeping a straight face when he was not busy, though he performed his part with real virtuosity (as did all his fellows.) One sympathized with him. And Louis Gruenberg, conducting (a fine job he made of it, too) was compelled by the rhythmic exigencies to calisthenics that did not exactly add to the harmony of the picture. No, we should prefer our Pierrot Lunaire orchestra behind a screen, where Schonberg originally placed it.
More important than the question of whether the soloist wears plain black or “not a Pierrot costume, but a dress suggesting the idea of Pierrot” (whatever that may be), is the question of whether every word spoken by her can be heard—and at the International Guild performance very little was to be understood. It also would have been well to have the part given by a person whose mother tongue was German. Nor do we believe that Schoenberg ever intended to have the speaker read the poems from a book.
Schoenberg protested against the performance here by the International Guild, whether on artistic grounds or because he had the entirely legitimate ambition to come over here and attempt to earn some real money with this eccentric novelty, we do not know. It was only through the personal appeal of a visiting British artist to Schoenberg’s publisher —not to Schoenberg—that permission was finally obtained (from the publisher) for the performance, long after rehearsals had begun. And now that the Society has permission, why not give another performance of it? Shall all those interminable rehearsals go to waste? If the performance was not ideal, it was at least good; and though we did not like the work, it interested us, and we should be very glad to have another opportunity to hear it—as would, we are sure, many of our fellow critics—for no mind can form a final decision, pro or con, in one hearing of a work of that size.
We should especially like to find out if we can agree with Mrs. Reis that the work “is not meant to be theatrical.” For us it was nothing but.
MUSICAL COURIER
to all lovers of music and devotees of the orchestral art.”
—-----<S>---
PIERROT AGAIN
The Musical Courier has received the following letter from Mrs. Arthur M. Reis, chairman of the executive committee of the International Composers’ Guild:
To the Musical Courier:
In your issue of February 8, in an editorial called Not Fair Play, you protest against the manner in which Pierrot Lunaire was presented by the International Composers’ Guild. It seems to us that Fair Play, would have been to have inquired further as to the manner in which_ Schonberg has authorized the recent presentation of this work before giving so much publicity to your protest.
While it is true that the first performance given in Berlin under Schonberg’s direction did hide the instrumentalists, this form of presentation was not considered successful. In subsequent performances, one which Edgar Varese heard in Berlin last October, another performance heard by Darius Milhaud in Vienna, and another conducted by Milhaud in Paris, the players were all in full sight of the audience, as it has been found that only in this way could one get a better balanced ensemble and a better quality of sound. In all these performances already mentioned and others recently produced, it has always been a woman who has taken the voice part.
In regard to the costume, Madame Albertine Zehme, who created the role, did not wear a Pierrot costume, but a dress suggesting the idea of Pierrot. The entire black dress worn by Miss Torpadie seemed to us a dignified and adequate appearance for a work which is not meant to be theatrical.
It is but little to expect that an organization like the International Composers’ Guild would inform themselves of the traditions concerning Pierrot Lunaire and the best way to present any composer’s intentions in bringing their work to the American audience.
We would appreciate your courtesy in making public this statement as you have already done in the protest from a member of your own staff.—Yours truly,
(Signed) Claire R. Reis.
Executive Chairman.
February IS, 1923.
Doubtless Mrs. Reis is correct in saying that Schoenberg has changed his mind in regard to the method of presentation. Her information is more recent than ours. But one can only regret that he has done so. Seeing seven or eight earnest gentlemen in evening clothes scraping and blowing at the
May Peterson gave ten encores when she appeared recently in Vancouver, B. C.
Susan Smock Boice holds periodical beginners’ recitals, in which the pupils give friendly criticism.
Fifty violinists of the Malkin Conservatory formed an ensemble which played at De Witt Clinton High School.
Organist Dupre is on the last month of a transcontinental tour.
A composition recital by students or faculty members was given at the American Institute of Applied Music.
Sascha Jacobsen is now under the management of Daniel Mayer.
Guy Maier and Lee Pattison are booking very rapidly for their farewell American tour.
Elena Gerhardt sailed on the Berengaria February 20 to open an English tour in Liverpool February 27.
Ernest Davis will sing leading tenor roles in three performances with the Kansas City Opera Company.
Mitja Nikisch will appear with the New York Symphony, Chicago, Minneapolis and Cincinnati orchestras next season.
Effa Ellis Perfield will give two demonstrations of her work at Magna-Chordia Hall in the near future.
Mary Potter has been booked for thirty re-engagements in New England and Middle Western cities.
All four soloists at Dr. Dickinson’s lecture at Union Theological Seminary were from the Regneas studio.
The first conference of delegates of the International Society for Contemporary Music was held in London and a constitution adopted.
Nellie and Sara Kouns will begin their fourth English tour in London on March 12.
Mischa Levitzki will be next season’s first soloist with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra.
Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn will go to Spain for material to enlarge the Spanish section of their repertory.
Annie Louise David has opened a studio in East Orange.
New York is to have its fourth Music Week from April 29 to May 5.
An operatic program was given at the A. Russ Patterson studios on the evening of February 22.
Chaliapin paid tribute to Americans at a Russian Opera performance in Chicago.
Adelaide Fischer believes that children instinctively like the best in music.
A broadcasting studio for WJZ has been opened in the Waldorf-Astoria.
Baltimore recently had its first Sunday night concert.
Samuel Richards Gaines, composer and teacher of voice, has a record as a prize winner.
Sevcik has arrived in Chicago to begin his classes at Bush Conservatory.
The MacDowell Colony Fund shows a healthy increase.
The American Lyceum, Madrid, Spain, offers two prizes of 1,000 pesetas each for collections of popular songs.
Owing to engagements in the United States, Schipa has declined a South American tour.
The Cincinnati Orchestra is to have a pension fund.
A memorial concert for Louis Rozsa took place at the Hippodrome last Sunday afternoon.
Seismit-Doda’s oldest pupil is seventy-five and his youngest six years old.
The Rubinstein Club, Mrs. William Rogers Chapman, president, will present Leginska in recital this season.
Max Liebling is in the Lenox Hill Hospital as the result of being struck by a taxicab.	G. N.
I SEE THAT
Guiomar Novaes had a sold-out house for her all-Chopin program in New York on February 24.
William Martin, an American tenor, is scheduled to make his debut at the Opera Comique, Paris, in May.
The Ukrainian National Chorus was enthusiastically received in Mexico.
Marie Novello, pianist, will play for the Verdi Club on March 7.	.
The Tonkiinstlerverein of Finland will constitute the Finnish section of the International Society for Contemporary Music.	_	.	.
Rhythm is the basic foundation of music, and rhythm is of the soul and is universal.—J. Landseer Mackenzie.
The Vienna Philharmonic has received an offer for another South American tour.
P. A. Tirindelli played for royalty in Rome, Italy, on February 22.	_	.
There will be a summer session at the Fountainebleau School
of Music from June 24 to September 24.
Idelle Patterson has been engaged for the third consecutive year as soloist at the American Music Festival.
The Musicians’ Club of New York invites membership without entrance fee or war tax.
Ursula Greville, the Scotch soprano, sailed for home on February 20.
Edwin Evans has been awarded the Palms of the Academy of the French Government in recognition of his service in behalf of modern music.
John Powell will play an all-Chopin program at his second New York recital, March 17.
Maria Jeritza will start her first American concert tour next week.	_	. .
London has concerts for children, for which the admission fee is one penny.
Moving picture theaters are cooperating with the Ohio State Department of Education in a music memory contest.
The International Opera and Theater Festival, planned for Berlin in August, has been abandoned.
Roderick White is off for Europe and will play extensively in France, Spain and Germany.
Mrs. Noble McConnell entertained 400 guests in honor of Elizabeth J. Edwards’ debut at a Mozart Society concert.
Six thousand singers will take part in the 300th anniversary of the founding of Goteborg (Sweden).
The Ithaca Conservatory of Music is planning a six-day community institute from April 2 to April 7.
Olga Steeb, pianist from California, was a recent visitor in New York.
Edwin Franko Goldman has been vacationing in Palm
Beach.
Pavlowa’s next American tour will open in New York on October 8.
The thirteenth biennial festival of the National Federation of Music Clubs is scheduled for Asheville in june.^
The Newark Festival will be held one week earlier this year than usual, April 25-27.
Judson House, Irene Williams and other_ members of the Cosi Fan Tutte Company were lost in the quicksands of the Salt River desert, but were rescued by Indians.
INSIDE STUFF
It is no secret that the recent and sudden change in the Philharmonic conductorship rested on the long established principle that kissing goes by favor. Very secret, it was, very—everybody sneaking around on tiptoe, with his finger to his lips, keeping as quiet as quiet could be and even quieter than that. We have been waiting, however, to hear an explosion, for we knew that several heads had been sadly sored. The first one to pop is Oswald Garrison Villard, proprietor of The Nation, formerly for many years one of the directors of the Philharmonic Society. In his issue of February 28 he printed the following, entitled Josef Stransky Resigns. Without taking the position of endorsing what he says (especially the part about a municipalized orchestra, in which project we have no faith at all (the Musical Courier reprints the article in full, by permission, as it throws light from the inside upon a subject that has been kept dark—very dark indeed!—up to the present. The floor for Mr. Villard!
“The resignation of Josef Stransky after twelve years of service with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra came as a shock to the followers of the oldest of our American orchestras. That he had been intrigued against for years by cliques in the fashionable world was notorious; certain of our musical critics long criticized him harshly. He was a mere time-beater; he lacked inspiration; Beethoven was beyond him, and the moderns, too; he could not properly accompany soloists; he was not in the same class with Stokowski or Bodanzky, or some one else who in addition to being a good conductor was also a society pet. How could the Philharmonic directors retain him?
“Well, they retained him because he took a rundown orchestra and welded it into a superb machine. He proved to be not only a drillmaster, but a splendid one. More than that, the public liked him, and the attendance at the concerts steadily increased. Whereas the subscription lists brought in only $25,-000 a year when he took hold, today the subscribers pay in $128,000. That, reply the critics, means nothing; the public always runs after false gods. But some time ago the newspaper critics began to change their tone; grudging praise stole in now and then. He had conducted a splendid concert; the audience had been tremendously enthusiastic. He even led a Brahms symphony well; ‘Mr. Stransky was at his best last night.’ The ‘standing-room only’ sign regularly began to appear on Wagner and Tschaikowsky nights—and on others, too. Mr. Stransky’s preeminence as a program-maker was admitted by all; no one has equaled him here. And yet now that his contract has expired he is allowed to ‘resign.’ The ‘new crowd’ in the Philharmonic has won another victory!
“The ‘new crowd’ came in two years ago when the National Symphony Orchestra was amalgamated with the Philharmonic. That was an entirely unnecessary organization started by those opposed to Stransky. Its enormous deficits for the two years of its existence made its fashionable backers ready to merge with the agreement that Stransky should conduct the first half year and Mengelberg the second. Now Stransky is to be succeeded by Van Hoog-straten, The truth has leaked out that one or two wealthy women offered the Philharmonic a large annual stipend upon condition that Mr. Stransky be dropped. As the Philharmonic’s deficits are still very large the offer has been accepted. Mr. Stransky goes; the banknotes come in. An admirable conductor, not a brilliant one nor a genius, but a hardworking, high-minded gentleman and musician, who has found his way into the hearts of a large section of the public, is rewarded for his constructive work of twelve years with a year’s extra pay and the request that he find another job.
“We have dwelt upon this incident because it illustrates clearly the weakness of that system under which our great orchestras are dependent upon our rich men and women for support. If the art really progresses under the rule of these Maecenases it is more or less accidental. Again, the incident illustrates afresh the constant injury done to the cause by cliques. One very rich man has for years supported an orchestra in New York simply and solely because of his interest in the conductor; the orchestra has in no way been necessary for the musical development of the city, which not only has its own orchestra, but is visited by those from Cincinnati, Philadelphia and Boston. When one surveys the duplication of effort, the creation of orchestras by groups merely to give their own favorites an opportunity—like the new City Symphony of New York, conducted by Dirk Foch—one has to ask oneself whether a municipalized orchestra would not in the long run mean more for the cause of music in America. Certainly, the fate of Mr. Stransky cannot but be a discouragement