March 2 9, 1923
being hired out for chamber music and other concerts, for which the budget is small.	H. L.
The New Wave of Patriotism.
The revival of patriotic feeling which we mentioned at the beginning of this letter has had a curious revival of community singing in its wake. For three years after the war it was impossible to hear a patriotic song except in the private haunts of patriotic students and secret reactionary clubs. Today one cannot go anywhere without running the danger to be obliged to stand up for Deutschland über Alles or the Watch on the Rhine. A remarkable demonstration that occurred recently in the revival premiere of Schiller’s William Tell at the State Theater, is being repeated nightly by audiences that fill the big theater despite the exorbitant prices o-f seats. In the scene between the conspirators on the Rütli, when they grasp each others’ hands and pronounce the famous oath : “One united people of brethren we shall be,”, those in the audience grasp each others’ hands as weÿ; ‘ raise them high during the oath, and then break into the national hymn. Woe to him who does not follow the crowd! Yesterday an American missionary, not understanding what it was all about, barely escaped being lynched.
In all the theaters now there are entr’acte speakers appealing for financial help for the Ruhr—quite like in the war—and the passions of people are to my mind being roused in a dangerous manner. Between the acts of operas, singers in costumes wander about the corridors collecting money, and a great proportion of the concerts are given for the benefit of the Ruhr population. Music, as ever, is being used to rouse people’s feelings for the struggle of man against man.
The Ruhr Orchestras Visit Berlin.
A demonstration of some magnitude was staged today at the Grosses Schauspielhaus, Berlin’s mammoth circus-theater, when the united forces of three Ruhr district orchestras, from Essen, Bochum and Dortmund, gave a monster concert for the occupied district. The program, consisting of popular items by Bruckner, Beethoven and Brahms, was conducted successively by Rudolf Schulz-Dornburg, Wilhelm Sieben and Max Fiedler, the three conductors of the three orchestras. Since the affair, which of course rallied all of musical and pseudo-musical Berlin, was more political than artistic, it is not necessary to mention details, except to say that the Symphonic Music by Rudi Stephan, a young German composer who fell during the war, was added and, conducted by Schulz-Dorn-burg, aroused the greatest interest.
Fewer Foreigners.
Political conditions and their consequences—including the unprecented rise in prices, which, fatally co-incident this time with a rise in the currency, have ceased to make Berlin a happy hunting ground—are driving away foreigners of all kinds, and are of course thinning the ranks of foreign concert givers. There are fewer “Valuta concerts” than formerly, because “valuta” itself has become a chimera. The last to remain, however, are the Americans, for the Americans that are still here are on the whole more permanent visitors and the reason for the presence lies beyond the mere “press notice recital” that draws the artists of all races and—grades to Berlin.
There is, for instance, Composer George Antheil, who far from coveting the appproval of the local critics, seems to desire to rouse their ire and indeed to turn all music upside down. This “pianist-futurist,” hails from South Trenton, New Jersey, and he wants to “make music as hard as nails.” One Berlin critic pities him for this desire, without knowing in the least what it is all about. Some, who have experienced Leo Ornstein, think that it is another attempted short-cut, à l’Américaine, to novelty and fame. But it is by no means all fake. George Antheil, a true American synthesis of uncouth cleverness, brilliant intuition and impudent disregard of fundamentals, is a big talent. He might be a genius if his remarkable yet superficial grasp of the essentials of musical material were placed in the service of a deep and compelling inward urge. The question is : Will the glitter and clatter of his easily-made music prevent George Antheil-from finding his soul?
George Antheil’s Musical Mechanisms. Meanwhile, in complete avoidance of all esoteric complication, he abhors sentimentality and worships jazz. He wants to create the absolute, the “hard, musical object,” according to his own confession in the program introduction. Modern banality and modern mechanisms are the sources of his inspiration—aside from Stravinsky, without whom Antheil is unthinkable. His dissonances are merciless, of course, and too often have the flavor of false harmony; but his rhythm, though persistently “ragged,” is compelling, often interesting, and his dynamics form a sort of super-rhythm that holds the whole together in lieu of form.
On the whole, however, his bark is worse than his bite: his Sonata sauvage is hardly wild enough, his Aeroplane Sonata too much of glider, his Death of the Machine not deadly at all, while the Jazz Sonata, after all, was not more jazzy than the rest. The Fireworks and Profane Waltzes are a clever salon piece for hardened ears, and the Primer for Ambitious Modernists more or less witty caricatures of contemporary styles. Nothing American, at any rate, has intrigued people so much as this apparently shy youngster from South Trenton. But there ought to be a salvage corps to take care of such precious gifts, for the sake of Uncle Sam.
Another American Composer.
Another American composer, of the opposite sex, gave a fair demonstration of talent and ability at a concert of the Berlin Symphony, under Camillo Hildebrand. Carita von Horst, née Partello, is an American lady wedded to a German baron, and was in pre-war days closely connected with the Grand Ducal court of Coburg, its opera and music school, and her hospitable home is well remembered by numerous American guests. Mme. von Horst has recently composed a three-act opera, The Two Fools, and portions of this were performed at this concert. While it is hardly possible to get an adequate idea of the whole work from this disconnected fragment, they sufficed nevertheless to show that she is progressive in her ideas and knows how to make skillful^ use of modern harmonic color. Her music, following in its general tendency the French impressionistic methods, has much charm of color, besides being fluent and interesting.	César Saerchinger.
14	MUSICAL COURIER
NEW CHORAL MUSIC A PROMINENT
FEATURE IN BERLIN CONCERTS
Kaminski s Sixty-ninth Psalm Achieves Popular Success—Rentsch’s Erwartung a Noble Work—Singakademie Migrates— Wave of Patriotism Spreading Through Germany Brings Ruhr Orchestras to Berlin—Two American Composers Arouse Attention
Kaminski’s Sixty-ninth Psalm, for solo, chorus and orchestra. Kaminski, who despite his name is a German, belongs to the so-called Munich school of composers, though he actually studied in Berlin under Profs. Klatte and Juon. His name first aroused attention at the German Tonkiinst-lerfest in 1921 in Nuremberg, where this same psalm had its very first hearing anywhere. This second performance was Kaminski’s very first chance to be heard in the city of Berlin.
The composition was received with evident enthusiasm by the public and deserves this distinction to a certain degree by the grandeur of its conception and the unusual contrapuntal skill displayed. Technically and aesthetically, however, the score manifests obvious defects. Max Reger’s over-charged contrapuntal style seems to be Kaminski’s ideal, and Reger’s tendency toward Cyclopean and rather roughly designed construction has left distinct traces in the younger man’s score. An excess of polyphonic treatment produces that characteristic thickness of sound which tires the ear after a short time. The dullness of tone color and the absence of delicate transitions are also a consequence of this style of writing.
The heaping-up of masses of sound—eruptions of an ecstatic temperament—nevertheless produced a startling effect, which largely accounts for the undisputed popular success of this work. Kaminski’s manner of writing is typically that of a certain class of neo-Germanic composers whose principal aim is the exhibition of strength and massive weight. The performance of the difficult composition was excellent, thanks to Prof. Ochs and his well-schooled chorus. The boys’ choir, however, to which a considerable part of the score is allotted, failed in purity of intonation, besides causing some critical moments in the performance which were, fortunately, overcome by the conductor’s skill.
More Choral Novelties.
Since Prof. Ochs has retired within the walls of the Hochschule (all the concerts of his chorus are given at the Hochschule Hall) the Bruno Kittel Chorus has gradually been replacing the former Philharmonic Chorus in the general musical life. Kittel’s chorus is now in excellent trim, has an abundance of youthful, fresh voices and is tech- ■ nically equal to high technical demands. Its most recent program promised a six-part Ave Maria by Werner Wolff, the able conductor of the Hamburg Opera. At the rehearsals this work was seen to be an excellent test of creative talent, but at the last moment the performance had to be put off for some mysterious reason—ostensibly because of a defect in the organ. On the same program figured a new composition by Arno Rentsch. This setting for chorus and orchestra of Holderlin’s ode, Erwartung, is distinguished by noble melodic invention, and reproduced a sound atmosphere akin to the exalted beauty of the famous poem. The composer attests, moreover, a remarkable skill in the treatment of the choral body.
Singakademie Forced to Emigrate.
In opposition to Prof. Ochs, who has revolutionized the methods of choral singing, Prof. Schumann, the director of the famous old Singakademie, has for a long time been considered a conservative musician. But of late the two opponents have approached each other more and more in their aesthetic convictions and musical practices. This was particularly noticeable in Schumann’s remarkable and highly impressive interpretation of Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis, which preserved all the sterling traditional qualities of the famous Singakademie Choir without lacking that vividness and that rhythmical verve and dynamic power to which Siegfried Ochs has accustomed Berlin audiences. The solo parts, too, were in able hands, notably those of Hilde Eiger, the Berlin contralto, and Hans Vaterhaus, of Zurich, who has become a celebrity in Berlin concert halls by his achievements as a song interpreter.
This performance, by the way, was a sign of the times —of the critical state of affairs in Germany, which demands a greater amount of economizing and exhaustion of economic resources than' ever before. For the first time in its history of more than a century the Singakademie has been forced to emigrate from its own beautiful home and give concerts in large churches and in the big Philharmonic, in order to increase the size of its audiences and reduce its own expenditures. In the meantime its own hall
Berlin, March 1.—A feature of the month of February, otherwise without exciting musical moments, has been a certain revival of interest in choral music. This has in part been due to the accidental juxtaposition of interesting concerts by the various leading choruses of Berlin, and partly to the sudden revival of patriotism in connection with the_ events in the Ruhr. This latter feature, of course, is entirety fortuitous, but it is nevertheless felt in an intensified religious feeling and consequent interest in the doings of the church choirs, such as the famous Berlin Domchor (Cathedral Choir) which is still one of the finest boy choirs in the world and gives its regular weekly concerts as in the days before the war, under the direction of the same choirmaster, namely Georg Riidel.
Berlin’s Leading Choruses.
Aside from the crack boys’ choir of the Protestant Cathedral, the leading choruses of Berlin are the venerable Singakademie, still under the leadership of Prof. Georg Schumann, the composer of Ruth and other choral works known ip America; the Bruno Kittel Choir, named after its conductor, which has become the leading choral utility since the demise of Prof. Siegfried Ochs’ Philharmonic Chorus two years ago; and this same Prof. Ochs Hochschulchor—• the reorganized chorus of the State High School for Music —which comprises some of the elements of the old Philharmonic Choir. That there are in Berlin a number of other choral organizations capable of executing big musical tasks was proved by the recently repeated performance of Mahler’s Symphony of the Thousand under Dr. Heinz Unger (already recorded in the Musical Courier), in which none of the above-named leading organizations took part.
Hochschule Chorus Presents Big Novelty.
At the most recent concert of the Hochschule Choir, Prof. Ochs presented a novelty that had been looked forward to with keen interest by the critics, namely Heinrich
19 2 3 - 1 9 2 4 No w Booking
GEORGES
MIQUELLE
EMINENT FRENCH 9CELLIST
BOSTON POST (O. Downes):
Mr. Miquelle played beautifully. We know of few ׳cellists who unite his sound technique, his sure musicianship and sincerity of feeling, with the finesse of style and the exquisite sense of proportion which are characteristics of his “school” of playing.
BOSTON GLOBE:
He chose the Lalo concerto and played it with considerable technical skill as well as sound musicianship.
BOSTON TRANSCRIPT:
Mr. Miquelle is well known as a thorough artist. ... To say that a musician is an “artist” means that he produces a beautiful tone on his instrument, that through his tone he conveys poetic ideas or feelings and that he does this with ease and spontaneity. Mr. Miquelle plays musically —but he does more — he plays as if playing the cello were natural pleasures instead of an artificially acquired accomplishment.
(also in Christian Science Monitor, Advertiser, etc.)
Management of Anita Doris Chase, 230 Boylston Street, Boston, Mass.
STEINERT PIANO