MUSICAL COURIER 20 April 5, 1923 PEOPLE’S SONGS Kenneth S. Clark, secretary of the newly organized Committee on People’s Songs, reports “activity.” This movement, it will be remembered, was inaugurated at last summer’s Recreation Congress at Atlantic City. Peter W. Dykema was appointed chairman of the new committee, and characterizes the objects of the organization as an effort “to discover, inspire and foster worthy songs which shall express the life and ideals of the American people. The committee has no conception that it can say to the writers of songs, ‘Come, sit down and write an abiding American folk song of patriotism, sentiment, humor or what not.’ It does, however, maintain that while no man can tell when he will produce something that has permanent value, he is more likely to do something worth while if he has a large purpose in mind and if he is assured that, when it is produced, a body of sympathetic and influential men and women will strive to give it adequate recognition.” This is a clear statement, and serves to correct the sensational reports made by a news-avid press at the time of the Recreation Congress when this movement was first proposed. According to the press, the committee was going to “kill” jazz, and such a proposal naturally aroused opposition, as there are many musicians who believe that jazz will ultimately lead to something like a national idiom. Nothing, however, was further from the committee’s intentions than to war on jazz by any active means except that of fair competition by placing in the hands of the public music of another sort. The committee is a large one, numbering some forty or more members—musicians, poets, dramatists, sociologists and community song-leaders. The first action has been to address a request to community song-leaders in all parts of the country to make up lists of what they consider the best American songs used in community singing. The songs have been listed in the order of the number of votes that each one received, with the following result: A merica the Beautiful, Old Folks at Home, My Old Kentucky Home, Battle Hymn of the Republic, America, Old Black Joe, Carry Me Back to Old Virginny, Star Spangled Banner, Sweet Adeline, There’s a Long Long Trail, Dixie, Till We Meet Again, Levee Song, Home Sweet Home, Lil Liza Jane, Let the Rest of the World Go By, A Perfect Day, Sweet Genevieve, When You and I Were Young, Columbia the Gem of the Ocean, Good Night Ladies, Juanita, Old Macdonald Had a Farm, Stein Song, My Bonnie, For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow, Howdy, Mother Machree, Silver Threads Among the Gold, Smiles. An interesting list, as anyone will acknowledge, and the question immediately suggests itself to us: “How many of these songs are known to the ordinary musically inclined young person who has never come under the influence of community singing?” We tried it around among a few of our acquaintances, with the result that it was discovered that most of the list was perfectly familiar, but there was some doubt about America the Beautiful, Till We Meet Again, the Levee Song, Lil Liza Jane (some people had never even heard of that one), Old Macdonald Had a Farm, Howdy. When the tune was demanded there was a good deal of hesitation about nearly all of them, that is, some people knew one, some another, but not a single one of those questioned knew the whole list. Nothing could better illustrate the importance of the work that this Committee on People’s Songs proposes to do. If it did nothing else than to get these songs into the homes so that every one on the entire list was as familiar as Home Sweet Home it would be well repaid for the effort. If, in addition to this, it can get some new songs of the best sort and put them in the homes it will be doubly repaid and the nation doubly fortunate. How many people in the whole United States know the words of all of the above list of songs? That, after all, is one of the most important questions, for knowledge of the words is the first element of hearty, pleasurable singing. self here. Next season, somewhat strengthened, it is due here' for an even longer season and a tour of the country. It will be heartily welcomed. The standard of its performances has been, on the whole, decidedly high. The summer crop of rumors has begun to sprout unusually early this year. Among them is one to the effect that the Metropolitan Opera contemplates an extension of its regular season next winter by one or two weeks. -----®----- When the Hippodrome is torn down—and it will be torn down before next season—where are the big fellows who always sing there going for their Sunday concerts? Some of them to the Manhattan Opera House, we know; but there seems to be no available hall with much more than half the seating capacity of the Hippodrome, so it seems either like higher priced tickets or lower receipts. -----®----- If it is true that the post of conductor of the City Symphony Orchestra is vacant—as a well authenticated rumor states—it seems foolish to duplicate things by organizing a new orchestra for Josef Stran-sky. Why not make Mr. Stransky conductor of the City Symphony, weeding the poor and discontented players out of the organization, filling up their places with some of the good men who are destined for the State Orchestra, and make one organization out of it under a director whose value has long been proved here ? ----------- The Metropolitan is always very secretive about new artists and doubtless there will be no announcement until just before Mr. Gatti-Casazza sails for Europe sometime in May. But we shall be surprised if at least two members of the German company which finished its season here last week are not on the Metropolitan roster for next season, Marcella Roess-ler, soprano, and Frederick Schorr, baritone. Alexander Kipnis, the bass, has already been engaged for the Chicago Civic Opera. One hears, too, that Maria Ivogtin will be a regular member of the German company here next season and it would not be surprising if Claire Dux were also on the list. -----־?>----- . On March 23, Mrs. Freer, opera organizer, earnest and energetic American booster (if only we had a few more such!) spoke to the world and his wife in a dozen States by means of the radio. She made an address. In it she attacked everything foreign in America, everything that refuses to be Americanized. She objects to foreign-language newspapers, to artistic snobbism that wants things foreign because they are foreign, opera in other languages than English, exclusion of operas by Americans whether they are good or not, and so on. She is perfectly right. That operas by Americans, including such first rate writers as Chadwick and Cadman, should be relegated to the realm of chamber music opera while foreign operas no better are given all the facilities of our greatest opera houses is an outrage, and Mrs. Freer is perfectly right to tell the world that it is. -----®----- Europe is more fortunate than we in one way. It has the occasional privilege of hearing John McCormack sing in opera as well as in concert. We well remember the pleasure it gave us to learn ’way back in 1914 in Paris that Mr. McCormack, whom we had always thought of as a singer of songs and ballads, was a magnificent singer of Rossini, and that he was second to none as a Mozart interpreter. Visitors to Monte Carlo have just heard him at the opera there in several roles, and in June he will sing in the Mozart Festival at Baden-Baden. In the meanwhile he will undertake the most extensive concert tour he has ever made in Europe, having been engaged for two appearances in Berlin with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Bruno Walter conducting; also for recitals in that city and in Prague, Paris, Copenhagen, Christiania, Stockholm and Leipsic. He will be back for his next American tour in October, his first concert being scheduled for Boston on the 7th of that month. -------- The German Opera Company, which has been playing at the Manhattan and the Lexington Theater for the last seven weeks, closed its season here last Saturday evening. It has given fifty-six performances of fourteen different operas. Forty of these were Wagner’s operas, divided among his entire repertory, except Rienzi (promised for next season) and Parsifal. The balance of the repertory was made up of Marta, Fidelio, Haerisel und Gretel, Der Freischuetz and the Merry Wives of Windsor. - The company is playing this week in Boston, and after finishing there will visit Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Detroit. The outcome of the performances has been highly satisfactory. The company was handicapped with considerable accumulated debts when it arrived here and it would have gone on the financial rocks if some public spirited Americans had not come to its rescue; but with its working capital assured, the actual receipts have probably been equal to, if not a little in excess of the expenditures. It has demonstrated that a good all round company can sustain it- JV\USICAL(§WIER U/eekly Review Of TH£ Worlds Music Published every Thursday by the MUSICAL COURIER COMPANY, INC. ERNEST F. EILERT............................President WILLI AM GEPPERT........................Vice- Presi de. t ALVIN L. SCHMOEGER......................Sec. and Treas. 437 Fifth Avenue, S, E. Corner 39th Street, New York Telephone to all Departments: 4292, 4293, 4294, Murray Hill Cable address: Musicurier, New York Member of Merchants' Association of New York, National Publishers' Association, The Fifth Avenue Association of New York, Music Industries Chamber of Commerce, The New York Rotary Club, Honoraiy Member American Optimists. ALVIN L. SCHMOEGER LEONARD LIEBLING H. O. OSGOOD WILLIAM GEPPERT l CLARENCE LUCAS J׳ RENE DEVRIES ) J. ALBERT RIKER f CHICAGO HEADQUARTERS—Jeannette Cox, 820 to 830 Orchestra Building, Chicago. Telephone, Harrison 6110. BOSTON AND NEW ENGLAND—31 Symphony Chambers, 246 Huntington Ave., Boston. Telephone, Back Bay 5554. LONDON, ENG.—Cesar Saerchinger (in charge), Selson House, 85 Queen Victoria Street. London.E.C. Telephone 440 City. Cable address Musicurier. London. BERLIN, GERMANY—Cesar Sabbohingbb, SehellingstraiRe, 9, Berlin W. 9. Telephone Nollendorf 6589. Cable address Musicurier, Berlin. PARIS, FRANCE—Loomis Taylor, 40 Bue Spontinl. For the names and addresses of other offices, correspondents and representatives apply at the main office. SUBSCRIPTIONS: Domestic, Five Dollars; Canadian. Six Dollars. Foreign, Six Dollars and Twenty-five cents. Single Copies, Fifteen Cents at Newsstands. Back Numbers, Twenty-five Cents. American News Company, New York, General Distributing Agents. Western News Company, Chicago, Western Distributing Agents. New England News Co., Eastern Distributing Agents. Australasian News Co., Ltd., Agents for Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, Tasmania. Agents for New Zealand, New Zealand News Co., Ltd.. Wellington. European Agents, The International News Company, Ltd., Bream’s Building, London, E. C. 4, England. The MUSICAL COURIER is for sale at the principal newsstands and music stores in the United States and in the leading music houses, hotels ani kiosques in Europe. Copy for advertising in the MUSICAL COURIER should be in the hands of the Advertising Department before four o'clock on the Friday previous to the date of publication. Entered as Second Class Matter, January 8, 1883, at the Post Office at New York, N. Y., under the act of March 3, 1879. THE MUSICAL COURIER EXTRA Published every Saturday by Musical Courier Company Devoted to the interests of the Piano Trade. New York Thursday, April S, 1923 No. 2243 Some critics do not seem to understand the difference between evolution and revolution. ----------- Another reason why Schubert did not complete his Unfinished symphony is because it sounds excellent as it is. ----------- That still, silent man is the one who never advised Dr. Noble how to spend the money of the Juilliard Foundation. The still silent man is deaf and dumb. -----־»---- One almost loses patience waiting for the passing out of Tschaikowsky’s music which the prescient critics have been announcing as imminent for the past twenty years or so. -----«>---- The music of Europe being general property so far as its enjoyment is concerned, there does not seem to be anything else this country could gain by joining the League of Nations. ----------- Beethoven’s Fidelio was revived last week but not the young man who purchased a ticket in the belief that all grand operas are like Pagliacci, the only lyric stage he ever had heard. —---------- There is a tribe in the Caucasus who think that people on the other side of the world walk upside down. One of the tribe must have seen the impresario of a small opera company on pay day. -----«----- Science is being stretched to its uttermost limits as it is, without being asked—by a facetious morning paper—to discover some way of inducting nightingale glands so as to restore a prima donna’s fading voice. -------------------------®----- There is a scarcity of baritones at the Metropolitan just now which has already caused one change in the repertory, another being avoided only through the readiness of that sterling artist, Giuseppe De Luca, to step into the breach and sing Gerard in Chenier last Saturday, though the role had been out of his repertory for twenty-two years. Three of the Metropolitan baritones have passed away during the last year■—Laurenti, Rosza and Leonhardt; two others have been affected with throat trouble, so as not to be able to sing all the season; and now Ruffo has finished his season and Danise is laid up, so that out of fifteen baritones, Mr. Gatti only had four first part singers available at the beginning of this week. And, as it happened, the repertory was of such a nature that two of these did not fit into it.