MUSICAL COURIER 20 May 17, 1923 MIXERS If parents realized what an important part social gifts play in the march towards success they would do everything in their power to induce their children to become good mixers. The importance of it cannot be exaggerated. The mixer gets things of which the recluse never even hears. For the artist nothing could be more likely to bring opportunities. And artists are often studious, solitary, unsociable. The hours and hours spent in the studio, practicing, dreaming of coming opportunity and preparing for it, fit them badly for the game of mixing, getting around, seeking people. Yet it is the artist who gets around, has a lot of friends, meets a lot of people, and who will, other things being equal, be thought of by those who hold opportunity in their hands, rather than a stranger, rarely seen, soon forgotten. It is so in business, and it is doubly true in art. And above all is it true in teaching, in getting pupils. As an adjunct to advertising it is invaluable. To see a teacher in some public place, and to recognize him from the pictures of him you have seen in the papers, impresses him on the mind, gives a certain personal touch to the publicity that is worthy of consideration. True, the mixer must not be “queer?’ and there is less queerness in music today than ever in the history of the world. He must know how to make himself liked. He must not be so wrapped up in himself that he can think of nothing else. He must be sympathetic, must be able to talk about other things than the abstract side of art, must be able to leave his business in his studio and come down to earth when he gets outside of it. But all of these things are inborn in most people if only they will take the trouble not to keep them buried out of sight, as a good many do. Also, they do well who leave their animosities and their jealousies at home. And the whole musical profession would gain enormously if it could be made an ethical rule of common understanding that such baggage be chained to the hearthstone or buried in the coal cellar. Musicians do not get together. That statement has been made so often that we cannot but believe it. The question is, why? Well, one of the things that prevents musicians from getting together is the fact that they cannot talk shop without taking violent sides for this or that or other feature of the profession. And another one of the things that keeps musicians from getting together, and keeps them from being mixers in the ordinary sense of the word, is the fact that a great many of them are afflicted with the inferiority complex. (No! We are not talking about you. Don’t get mad!) But you know, gentle (or otherwise) reader, that is a deplorable fact. And it results in boasting. And that is also a deplorable fact. To be able to talk only about yourself is not conducive of successful mixing. Music is curious in this particular. The business man will talk shop, talk about his business, the line in which he is interested, without ever giving one the impression that he is taking all the credit to himself for any extraordinary achievement. But in music it is otherwise. There are certain musicians, not many, fortunately, who radiate an aura of “gaze upon me —I am it.” If they only knew how much harm they do to themselves by this attitude they would adopt stern measures of repression. With that aura they become impossible as mixers and they not only injure themselves but also the entire profession. Still more to be pitied, because it does not seem to be their own fault, are the quiet kind, the stay-at-homes. Perhaps they could correct it if they would. It must hurt to see all sorts of opportunities go to lesser artists simply because they are Johnny-on-the-spot, know what is going on, easy to get at, always everywhere, active go-getters. There are a few who cannot mix. But they are few indeed. Most of the non-mixers are in that class simply because they do not realize the importance of it. musicians know nothing. They are not fitted by nature or training to be successful in operations against professional stock manipulators. The sensible adage has it “Put not your trust in money, but your money in trust.” -----§>----- Vienna reports bring the news that Mme. Jeritza reappeared in the theater where she first won her reputation, the Vienna Staatsoper, and aroused tremendous enthusiasm in the title role of Tosca. Responding to the ovations, Mme. Jeritza made a short speech in which she spoke kind words for America and the Americans, telling how much they had done to help Austria. ------------ Edouard Ganche, president of the Société Frederic Chopin, of Paris, has, with the permission of the French Government, proposed to the Polish Government that Chopin’s body, which lies buried in the famous cemetery Père la Chaise in Paris, be transferred to Poland. It is said that Chopin himself expressed a wish that his body should lie in the soil of his fatherland after it had regained its freedom. -----®------ The National League of Women Voters has announced the greatest twelve living American women “who have contributed most in their respective fields to the betterment of the world.” In music the N. L. W. V. gives first place to Louise Homer. It is not easy to discover how Mrs. Homer has bettered the world any more, or as much, as Mrs. H. H. A. Beach, the famous composer of notable songs and symphonic works. -----<3>---- Tessie F. Coleridge-Taylor, of London, widow of the composer, is anxious to procure a copy of a book called Hands of Famous Artists, in which there is a photograph of her late husband’s hand. Mrs. Coleridge-Taylor believes that the work was published in Chicago some time after 1904. Anybody knowing where a copy of the book can be obtained will please write to the London correspondent of the Musical Courier, Clarence Lucas, 103 Bryne Road, London, S. W. 12, England. ■——«>------- Owen Johnson, in that delightful story of “prep” school life, Skippy Bedelle, remembers hearing Weber and Fields sing “For I really must love someone, And it might as well be you.” (Mr. Johnson, by the way, misquotes the text.) Now we’ve known several dozen once-young ladies who were members of the “Original Sextet” from Florodora, but hanged if we can recall that Lew and Joe were attached to the male contingent of that famous organization. Didn’t they do a parody on it ? Perhaps that is what sticks in Mr. Johnson’s mind. -----<$>---- On March 19 there was a celebration at the Verdi Home for Aged Musicians at Milan, the occasion being the day of the patron saint, John (Giuseppe), of the noble founder of the. house. There was a concert, of course with an all-Verdi program, in which some of the aged inmates of the home participated, Giuseppe Milani, an eighty-one year old baritone, sang a scene and an aria from one of the early operas. The oldest inmate is a Calabrian, Paolo Alcibiades, ninety years, who spent forty of them as leader of a band. Longest at the home is a soprano, Palmira Scaini, from Cremona, who was once celebrated for her performance of Oscar, the page, in the Masked Ball. ——S>—— “Rockefeller Fund Donated $76,757,040 in Last Ten Years,” said a headline in last Monday’s paper. Most of this money was divided between public health, medical education and war relief, with some ten million going to miscellaneous philanthropies. A magnificent record ! And did a dollar or two go to music or some other of the fine arts? Well, perhaps. One thing—there is reasonable surety that all this vast sum was intelligently administered by the institutions to which it was presented ; which, by the way, is more than can be said for some of the donations that have been made and are being made to music. ------------ With her recent arrival in London, Anna Pavlowa, famous star of the dance, completed a trip around the world made in less than a year. She left London last summer, came here, crossed the continent without stopping for a performance, sailed across the Pacific and went to Tokio for a tour beginning September 10. After performances in the principal cities of Japan, she and her company appeared in Shanghai, Hong-Kong, Manila, Java, Bombay, Calcutta and Cairo. From Cairo she went to Paris and is now at home in London where she will rest through the summer in preparation for an American •tour which begins next October, again under the Hurok management. Mme. Pavlowa’s trip in the East was, incidentally, a great success both financially and artistically. JV\USICAL(0VR1ER U/eekly Review or me Worlds Music Published every Thursday by the MUSICAL COURIER COMPANY, INC ERNEST F. EILERT...............................................President WILLIAM GEPPERT............................................Vice-President 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, Honorary Member American Optimists. General Manager ALVIN L. SCHMOEGER. .......Editor-in-Chief .......Associate Editors General Representatives LEONARD LIEBLING H. O. 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New York Thursday, May 17, 1923 No. 2249 Are we a wise public or simply a wealthy one ? -----<$----- Philadelphia had a mouth organ contest recently, which at least marks an advance in art over the dancing marathon competitions being held in other cities. •----------- No, Eucalyptia, a person who begins every sentence with the pronoun “I” is not necessarily a famous tenor or baritone. Sometimes she is a soprano. -------- Someone has computed that there are 5,000 languages in the world. Wrong. The number is 5,001, with the language used by most vocalists when they deliver songs in English. ------------ A Berlin critic, Dr. Schmidt, trying to be severe, wrote of pianist Ignaz Friedman: “He plays with the waltzes as a cat might with a mouse.” In both cases the execution is highly effective, one should say. --------------------------------- Switzerland is to have a great “Festival of Youth and Joy” at Geneva, June 6 to 8. The originator and director is E. Jaques-Dalcroze, who will conduct and direct the dances of his pupils, who participate in the festival which will call for the services of over 700 actors, singers and dancers. -----<$>— Mrs. McHie, a New York woman who seems never before to have sprung into the limelight, earned some two column headlines the other day by announcing that she had decided to leave her entire fortune to the S. P. C. A. for a dog hospital because she could not stand-the sound of St. Thomas’ Choir, which insists on singing across the street from her every Sunday morning. Never having heard St. Thomas’ Choir we shall, until the receipt of further information, remain strictly neutral. -----־*>---- Texas is out after all sorts of records. The last we knew it had the long distance dancing to its credit and now it appears to have added long distance piano playing to it, T. J. Kennedy having tickled the ivories—as perhaps they call it in Texas—for a total continuous stretch of sixty-six hours and twenty-two minutes. The former record finished, so to say, way behind the flag. It was a meagre twenty-nine hours and belonged to Howard Roth, of Toledo. --------------------------------- Now that the summer season is almost here and musicians are in possession of their season’s profits, and have a long vacation in which to get into mischief, the Musical Courier would like to warn them once more against speculation in Wall Street. Better stick to sharps in music than to try to conquer the sharps in the stock market. It is a game of which