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MUSICAL COURIER
March 22, 1923
OH, THAT RIENZI O-VER-TURE!
The old gentleman on my left would do to check up on. He was unaccompanied, so probably present of his own free will.
So far so good.
With the first drumbeat, the young thing remained soul-fully intent, and the older unfortunate abated nothing of his expression of profound melancholy proper to such occasions.
The horns died down again and gave way to a sweet adagio passage for the strings, and Mr. Duggan rested. Then, as the trumpets came back, louder and more joyous, and broke into their march, he picked up his sticks again. I could see his head nod slightly with the •beat as he sat •with eyes cast upward like Saint Cecilia at the organ searching inspiration in the skies. Somehow there even seemed to be a shade of the saint’s gentle sadness hanging about his brows.
Trr-um trr-um, tr-um, trr-um.
It was a fine swinging march, and the gentleman with the nude cervical vertebrae let himself sway with it a bit.
Again the trumpets blared, and Mr. Duggan returned to the charge:
Trr-um, trr-um, boompety-boom, BOOM!
As I said, I know nothing of music. But I have stood considerable ragtime in my day. There was surely a certain I-know-not-what about those drums; a vague hint, a distant suggestion of that which makes the ragtime rag.
Could if be, I wondered, that Wagner is the father of today’s syncopation? Come to think of it, McLean says that the fans credit him with an assist on nearly everything else in modern music.
Another and more distinct touch of the jerky rhythm from the drums, and I glanced at my indicators. Feverishly the young thing was fluttering the leaves of her rule book. Someone was evidently offside. As for the old fellow, I thought a certain hopeful interest flashed into his face for an instant before he recovered the unsullied calm of his ennui. But as an indicator he was out of commission long since, so I found later—only a critic, and sulky at that because a fussy editor thought it looked well for him to drop in when his review of the evening was already in type.
Mr. Duggan bent to his task. A murmur swept the house. A hysterical, quickly smothered giggle from the first box, and a stout woman there collapsed behind her fan.
The fiddlers, their squiddling o’er, stared open-mouthed at Damboski, whose madly waving arms demanded more and even more fortissimo from the brasses.
But they could not drown out Mr. Duggan. Jiggling up and down in his seat, the little drummer plied the busy sticks masterfully, oblivious to all but his art. Now the trace of sadness in his features explained itself. Doubtless the poor fellow was thinking what he could do if he only had his steamboat whistle there, and his duck quacker, and his tom-tom. .
With that fine flourish of tympani at which the Merry Garden cavalier was used reluctantly to remove his encircling arm from the fair and desert Terpsichore for Bacchus—it was in those days—the overture came to its close.
In the dead silence which followed the final crash, Dambowski turned slowly toward the drummer, pointed a trembling baton at him, and in a shaking voice uttered the one word:
“GO!”
A bland smile spread itself over Mr. Duggan’s expressive countenance. He was not unaccustomed to special attention, ■and sometimes unbent to the extent of exchanging lightsome banter with patrons at nearby tables.
“Goin’ some, eh?” he countered easily. With a graceful motion of his hand he tossed his sticks high in the air, snatched them deftly as they fell, and turning to his instruments again, encored with a slight exhibition of technic.
Fixing a haggard Teuton eye upon him, a bass fiddler whispered: “If you vass me it should out go.’ ’
“Beat it while the beatin’s good,” translated a better educated neighbor.
And so, rather pained, rather puzzled, but preserving the dignity befitting his position in the world of music, Mr. Duggan shook the dust of the Symphony from his shoes for ever.
I am glad to be able to report that he nursed no resentment. Pity, rather, flushed his. artistic soul. For Mr. Duggan had seen men and cities, and was philosopher with a large charity for his fellows here below.
“It ain’t his fault,” he declared generously, speaking of Dambowski the next day. “He can’t help it. I suppose he ain’t never really had an opportunity of hearin’ any real live drummin’ hefore. He just can’t appreciate it, that’s all. But if I do say it myself, I had the house with me. Say! did you notice that heavy dame in the first box ? She had her face hid, but her shoulders sure was a-shimmyin’!”
By Stuart Murray
Copyrighted, 1923, by The Musical Courier Company.
Next to the dining-room to find the drummer himself.
Dambowski, poor benighted foreigner, had never seep ,one of our ragtime restaurants before. As it happened, the orchestra was rendering a semi-classical bit to give the diners an opportunity of snatching a bite, if Dambowski noticed the open space, probably he never imagined desecrating the “blessed hour of our dinners” with interlarded gyrations. Jazz was beyond his limited horizons as yet. So he listened to the little orchestra’s Intermezzo with professional interest, murmuring “Ain’t dot ni-ice!” and all unwitting of what came before and after suchlike intervals of peace.
Duggan was the drummer’s name. Mr. Duggan stood high in the ranks of his profession. With the true modesty of one who has really arrived, he required considerable pushing to admit himself one of the classiest, little stick rattlers that ever came over the pike.
Mr. Duggan greeted Dambowski with easy affability, on a footing of equality, and graciously remarked that he heard the Symphony was putting over some hot stuff this year.
Dambowski passed a compliment on the musical culture (unappreciated by the great public) which is required of a really fine drummer. He also expressed a desire to discuss with Mr. Duggan the music of Mr. Duggan’s native land, of which he regretted his almost entire ignorance.
Mr. Duggan wondered if the old guy was tryin’ to kid somebody; but, puzzled, held his peace, shy for once of his own powers of divination. All his confidence returned at once, however, when Dambowski produced the overture music.
With every precaution lest artistic sensibilities be ruffled, the director worked around to the delicate question of whether Mr. Duggan felt his talents to be quite equal to the emergency. After all, the drummer’s part, while important, was not of extreme difficulty. First a touch or two and a long roll on the kettledrum, and the instrument did not have to be tuned during the playing of the number .	. . Of course, Mr. Duggan was familiar with the
kettledrums ?
Sure, Mr. Duggan had beat one of them things when he was with the Center City Royal White Hussars Band. And he’d played a lot of that overture stuff, too.
The rest of the score called only for a series of steady tum-tummings in marked march time, accompanying the trumpets. .	.	. Really it was scarcely necessary to ask
if Mr. Duggan anticipated any difficulty with the music. They might arrange to run it over with a piano first. . . .
Mr. Duggan declined the piano with a trace of impatience. And as for reading the music—he threw a disdainful glance over the'curiously written drummer’s part—why, blank it! Mr. Duggan told a waitin’ world he’d played harder stuff that that without no music!
This really seemed to leave nothing further to be said. If Dambowski felt qualms, he concealed them—funny peoples anyway, dese Americans—and let his confidence rest in McLean’s “pinch hitter.” But there did seem to be just the least trace of bewilderment in his eye at the opening smash of the next selection (entitled That Hoolygooly Bambalooly Dance, O Kid! or words to that effect) which ushered us out of the door.
“I only hope,” he murmured earnestly, “I only hope he give me dis evening some of dose—vot you call—hot stuffs!”
A little theory of my own, rather than special interest in Mr. Duggan, took me to the concert that evening. I know really nothing of music, but find simple diversion on such occasions in trying to distinguish the illuminati, or, as McLean styles them, the genuine Wagnerhounds, from the hoi polloi. And in the Rienzi Overture, I rather flattered myself I had discovered a test which should rank not far below the famous reagent which Mr. Sherlock Holmes had just come upon when the admiring doctor first met him.
The notion was that the hoi polloi would be on the qui vive for that opening note on the horn (as advertised) and would cast knowing glances at each other when it was blown.
Even so. The gentleman with the clean-shaven neck and his wife, just ahead, exchanged sly sidelong looks which said plainly enough that they felt themselves to be absorbing High Art in quantity. Others gave equally satisfactory results; and the overture was nearly half over before a long crescendo roll from the kettledrum recalled our new artist.
Then it seemed best to turn attention to the highbrow element for tips as to Mr. Duggan’s technic.
The highbrow element, while retaining a fiercely polite calm when one treads on their toes and tramples their best hat brims, let themselves go to the extent of pursed lips and a raised eyebrow (raise a couple if quite sure of one’s hand), when the music is not to their fancy).
As a first indicator, I picked a tense young thing, program in hand, three rows forward. She was obviously there in the grim determination of becoming cultured at any cost.
MUCK AGAIN REPLACES MENGELBERG IN AMSTERDAM
Twenty-fifth Annual Performance of St. Matthew Passion Earns Ovation and a Fine Painting for Dutch Conductor-
Other News
drama are well known, and from beginning to end in this performance one felt the sure hand of a master directing the whole with profound knowledge, bringing out of the score all •the marvels of passion and beauty. The part of Isolde was superbly sung by Helene Wildbrunn, of the Berlin Opera; Tristan, by Otto Wolff, of Munich; Bran-gane, by Maria Olszewska, of Hamburg.
Twenty-fifth Annual Performance of Bach’s Passion Music.
Before leaving for America, Mr. Mengelberg gave us several beautiful concerts, the culminating point in these being the St. Matthew Passion of Bach. For the last twenty-five years this masterpiece has been presented to the Amsterdam public at Easter-tide, but this year it was given earlier because of Mengelberg’s departure. This per-(Continued on page 10)
Amsterdam, February 15.—Before Mengelberg’s departure for America there was much speculation as to who would replace him as conductor of the Concertgebouw. Much to the delight of Amsterdam, Dr. Karl Muck again consented to fill the vacancy. Until Muck’s arrival, Max Fiedler conducted the orchestra with his customary temperament and rhythmic energy. Fiedler’s enthusiasm for Brahms is well known and a performance of the fourth symphony at one of the concerts was extraordinary. _ Dr. Muck, who upon his first appearance was enthusiastically welcomed, began his series with a beautiful Beethoven program.
Shortly following this concert, he conducted a performance of Tristan and Isolde at the Amsterdam Theater, which must be mentioned here, since it stood out as one of the most artistic events of the season so far. Dr. Muck’s talent and routined experience in Wagnerian music and
WHY anyone but a flutist should find artistic aid and comfort in the wine of Alboni’s table d’hote, it is hard to say. Yet Dambowski did not seem to mind it. It appears that the puckery beverage eyen had something to do with his frequenting the dingy little eating house. The first time he came •there, McLean says, the waiter dropped a cube of ice into his glass—the Alboni clientele took ice in its wine. Fuming, Dambowski immediately fished it out and dashed it to the floor with a flourish and a furious:	“Barbarian!” And thereafter the wily
Alboni, with a sympathetic comprehension of the delights of dramatic gesture, ordered in ice once a fortnight or so, that his patron might enjoy the innocent pleasure of a repetition.
Anyway, there he was, as usual on the evenings he was to conduct the symphony. There also was McLean, thanks to the Post, which, with the good old notion of keeping the good jobs in the family, had promoted him from the sporting page to the musical column overnight. And there, thanks to McLean, was I.
Dambowski, discussing a sonata movement with waving hands and eloquent fingers, or chuckling over his mishaps in three continents, fortunately diverted too fastidious attention from Signor Alboni’s minuscule portions. His accent can no more be set down in cold type than can the vers-libristes’ rhythms (so they say). He was the son. of a Russian professor and a German Jewess, was brought up here and there, had traveled everywhere with precarious musical troupes, and spoke half^ the tongues of Europe with painstaking distinctness of mispronunciation. A recent arrival on our shores, he had wisely chosen McLean as a guide to the intricacies of United States idiom.
There was •to be a Wagner anniversary program that evening, I gathered; something in the way of a review of the master’s work. As a sample of his earlier manner, and a number which would not keep late-comers chatting too long without the doors, the Rienzi overture had been chosen to lead off with.
“Orchestrated like for a boom-boom military band,” grumbled Dambowski. “And all my good violins sitting der vit scarcely not’ing to do but sometime a leetle . . . vat you call? . . .” And he twiddled his fingers suggestively.
“Squiddle,” prompted McLean.
“Ah, yes! skveedle,” cried the musician enthusiastically, as though it were precisely the word for which he had been ransacking his memory. “Skveedle, vat a fine good vord. Veil, dat’s about all my good violins have to do every leettle sometimes in dat Rienzi overture. But den, der is also my fine trumpets, real vons. No . . . vat you call? . . . no fake—anoder good vord—■vit cornets. No, sir, real exactly trumpets vat blow vile dose drums tum-tum-tum all de vile. De peoples will like it dose drums and dose trumpets.”
Our orchestra was not a large one. In cold truth, its first reason for being was that our hated rivals down-state had a band. However, the brass choir was really something to be proud of. Neglected in favor of the strings in many a larger organization, the horns had a friend in Dambowski, and he had chosen the Rienzi overture to show off his fine real exactly trumpets in the stirring final measures where they are accompanied by the steady pound-ing of the drums.
McLean and his colleagues had liberally advertised this number in their daily puffs, knowing it to be the sort of thing to round up society mezzo-brows, whether they knew a trumpet from a trombone or not. Perhaps they and Dambowski laughed in their sleeves, but it was all in the good cause of selling the orchestra to the gold-lined population.
“And de peoples vill say ‘Ah! Ah!”’ chuckled Dambowski, his keen grey eyes twinkling. “You have tol’ dem, is it not, dat a German critic vonce writes fee-e-efty-nine pages, oh-so-deep, upon dat first opening note alone of the horn? Tell dem also—Hallo-o! our friend Schaeffer who comes . . .”
For a moment the concertmeister paused in the doorway. His round, pink little face, naturally cut to fit a stein, was drawn down mournfully in the corners. Then approaching with measured solemn tread, he threw ■back his cape, extended his hands palms upward, and exclaimed in a hollow voice:
“The drummer!”
One pair of ears—and one pair of eyes—were all too few to grasp the ensuing conversation in its entirety. But as the torrent of polyglot palaver flowed around about and the ׳hands waved madly overhead, I managed to catch the idea. It was what Dambowski, proud of his colloquial command, called “anoder jinxes.”
Twenty-odd fiddlers in his orchestra, four or five cellos, basses, a couple of what not—and one drummer—and he was sick—and of all the pieces ■that ever were, the Rienzi overture was as nothing without the drums.
It was a tense moment. Signor Alboni, watching anxiously from the kitchen door, was on the point of sending in a chunk of ice to be smashed.
“Can’t someone else bat—I mean drum—for him? suggested McLean. “Get another.”
“Anoder? Vere?”
“Oh, there are plenty of drummers around this_ town. 1 know one up the street in the Merry Gardens Café.
“Can he drum?” demanded Dambowski.
“Can he?” replied the cheerful reporter. “7 say he can!
The drummer’s part of the score was sent for, and we hastened off to the Merry Gardens.
If the Rienzi overture minus the tympani is as the very hole in the zero, as Dambowski said, what then is the orchestra of a foxtrot eating palace without its drums and traps at eight-thirty o'clock of an evening?
Only McLean’s wheedling tongue could have persuaded the proprietor of the Merry Gardens that his drummer helping out the Symphony could be turned into a tremendous piece of publicity; that his patrons’ feet would not chill at this hint of highbrowism; and that the rest of his players could fill the interval with Hearts and Flowers stuff.