June 21, 1923 MUSICAL COURIER 20 THIS AMERICANISM These remarks were made to us the other day hy (and here is the joke of it!) a foreign musician who has lived for many long years in America. “Some of these Americanizers make me sick,” said he. “They spout and blow about nationalism and patriotism and A mericanism till you’d think they were really and truly whole-heartedly in favor of American music and American artists. And then, the first thing you know, they are boasting and smirking about having met this or that new arrival from abroad—in a box with them at some concert—invited to a tea to meet them, and so on. “You see, I know just how you born Americans must feel about it. I’ve been over here so long that I’ve lost that exotic charm that the American public seems to love so devotedly. I guess I look and act and talk just like an American, and so I am just as much nowhere as you born Americans. If I’d had sense I never would have lost that accent and foreign manner. “But, you see, I was fooled by the Americanism talk I heard. I thought I would be welcomed all the more as soon as I became American. When I first came over to this country I walked right in and took my slice of the pie just as if I had helped make it. The people handed it to me on a silver platter. And I said to myself: ,This is bully. If they treat an outsider like that they will serve the native or the naturalized citizen on gold studded with diamonds.’ “So I set right out to be one of the boys. And now look at me! I’m just nothing but a local teacher. I make a good income, sure. But if I want to rise any higher I am blocked by this very Americanism that I worked so hard and thought it such an honor to acquire. So there you are. “Americanism, indeed! That is just talky-talky stuff! It listens good, but when it comes to buying the bacon, the talkers are only takers of foreign shares. They are not one bit thrilled at meeting Jones or Smith or Brown, but let them meet Jonsky or Smithowitz or Brownberg and they are all ready and willing, and too delighted to fall down and worship, even when these newcomers are second-raters. “No American musician, or musician living in America, has any feeling of opposition towards the great artists who visit these shores. They are all right. The whole country benefits from these visits. They are making America musical and acting as feeders to music teachers as only great artists can, by giving people love of music and the desire to become musicians. “But there are others who have no especial standing at home, but who get by with a bluff in America simply because the worshipers lose their heads, overwhelmed by the romantic appeal, or whatever it is, of the exotic. How they do ‘get my goat,’ that bunch! How I do kick myself when I think that I might just as well have played the same game of bluff and have annexed a top position somewhere. “Americanism! Ye gods! Here I am, in spirit and manner and appearance a full-blooded American! And what do I get for it? Just simply a deduction from my earning capacity. “Do you know how I feel? I feel like I was shut down under a closed cellar door—you know, one of those cellar doors that fold over level with the ground and padlock on the outside. I may push as much as I like from underneath, but I can never escape from that cellar. The door won’t open. Why? Because the dragon whose name is ‘Distance-Lends-En-chantment’ is sitting on it holding it down. “That is the idol America worships, and for veneration even the golden calf is not in the same class with it. It is not only in music but in pretty nearly everything. A foreign title, a foreign art work, foreign dresses, foreign travel! American slogans are: See America First (from abroad), Patronize the Neighborhood Merchant (if he sells imported goods), Travel on American Ships (that fly the British or French or Dutch flag), Feed Europe’s Poor (let America’s poor starve). At least, that seems to be the attitude of some people.” We remarked: “Friend, you are bitter.” “Well, aren’t you bitter?” “No,” we replied. “We were born here.” “And a man can get accustomed even to being hung, is that it?” The answer rests with the public. What are you going to do about it? Huberman will treat the public to the famous violin concerto by that immortal master of masters, Hermann Goetz. (Now is the time to subscribe!) -----<*>--- If you. have gleaned your only knowledge of Goethe’s Faust from Gounod’s work by the same name, then read the poet-philosopher’s grandiose drama and see how a work of genius was butchered to make an operatic holiday. -----<*>--- It was a neat slip of the pen that made us say last week that Leipsic has just been celebrating the 200th anniversary of the death of Johann Sebastian Bach. What it did celebrate was the coming of the second century since he began the work in that city which won him immortality. Bach began his work in Leipsic in 1723, and lived there in glory and honor until July 28, 1750, the date of his death. -----«>---- I f you want to know what was the matter with the concert business last season, read what R. E. Johnston, a manager of truly wide and long experience, has to say about it in another column of this issue. Mr. Johnston is inclined to place the blame upon the radio. His explanation is at least״ novel and ingenious and can be accepted as accounting for a great deal. Has anyone anything more plausible to offer? ----- Composers are supposed to put their experiences into their music. To judge by some of the scores of American composers they must have gained most of their experiences at Baptist meetings, Christian Endeavor revivals, Methodist strawberry orgies, playing lotto, charades, and button-button, and on walks with their grandparents and botany excursions with school teachers. ---------- The World condenses itself on its front page every morning. And what do you think the leading line in Foreign Affairs was last Thursday? The troubles of President Li Yuan Hung? The disturbances in Bulgaria? The German mark at 100,000 to the dollar ? Oh, no, nothing so trifling as any of these. Here was what headed the foreign news: “Jascha Heifetz offered $6.37 wage to play in Paris restaurant.” The editor is a student of human nature. ---------------------------$>— The series of articles by Lily Strickland-Anderson on music in India, which were recently published in the Musical Courier, aroused great interest. The writer is a pioneer in a new and almost unlimited field, and her researches resulted in her being made a member of the India Research Society just before she left to return here, where she will spend the summer. Our readers will be glad to know that a second series on Indian music from her pen will be published during the coming fall. — Felix Weingartner celebrated his sixtieth anniversary on June 2, and has been celebrating ever since by keeping extremely busy. His come-back to London, where he received a tremendous welcome, was impressive, and when he finished there he hurried back to the Continent to conduct the Meistersinger at the Zurich International Festival. The sixtieth birthday is coming to be regarded only as the central point of middle age. Evidently Weingartner feels that way about it. When will America see him again ? —S>-—■ All that is needed to justify the Musical Courier’s oft repeated warnings to musicians to stay away from Wall Street is a reading of the newspapers, which daily announce the collapse of well known stock brokerage concerns for millions, of dollars. In nearly every instance there has been almost a total loss on the part of investors. Musicians who have money to spare should let stocks and bonds be and buy a home and other real estate so as to be able to own something tangible for their outlay. ---------------------------<$>---- In one way John McCormack is particularly fortunate in his experience in Europe; over here he became known first as a singer of popular ballads, but it took him a long time to convince the world that he was something a great deal more than that. Some people still do not know it. In Germany and France he has been able to sing nothing but the best music from the start, and had the great pleasure of being accepted instantly for what he is—one of the very great artists of our day. Europe knows him as a singer par excellence of Bach, Beethoven and Mozart, and appreciates the fact that there are none who excel him in that branch of the vocal art, and few— if any—who equal him. Success from a material standpoint has long been his, and it must be a tremendous satisfaction to his soul now to realize that Europe knows him for the magnificent artist that he is. jV\V5ICAL(0URIER Weekly Review f rue Worlds Music I 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. ALVIN L. 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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, June 21, 1923 No. 2254 In a way critics continually commit musical sabotage. -----<£>---— Maennerchors may come back if beers and light wines do. ——------ Why do the musicians not form a sort of tonal Fascisti and give critics the castor oil treatment ? ■—-—----- Open air grand opera at the Polo Grounds ought to be distinguished by striking hits and long runs. -----־3---- A machine for measuring the mind has been invented and now let some of us musical ones beware. ----------- If you must speculate, throw your money in the ocean and speculate whether the tide will wash it back or not. -----<•>---- Men in Paris are wearing lorgnettes at the Opera and elsewhere. Will rouge, lipsticks and earrings come next? -----®—— Music lessons, like coal, should become more expensive each winter. It is to be feared that music teachers are too tolerant of the public, which, is a noble but profitable trait. ——<8>------ No lady of the musical profession has had any jewels stolen recently. However, the Ruhr rumpus and the coming Dempsey-Gibbons fight keep the newspaper front pages crowded. -----־s>--- Those accompanists who flourish their hands about on the piano arid those piano soloists who undulate their wrists up and down when playing a melody remind one irresistibly of the persons who crook their little finger when drinking from a glass or a cup. -----— “What the world says about me doesn’t worry me,” declared Conrad, the Polish-English novelist, when he arrived here recently. Just imagine a visiting opera singer saying such a thing. By the way, Conrad credited the late J. G. Huneker with having discovered him to the American public, which that critic did in a series of essays first published in the Musical Courier. -------- Maestro Bodanzky, who controls the destinies and programs of The Friends of Music, is preparing some rare and novel treats for New Yorkers next winter. Harold Bauer will play the Emperor concerto, by a little-known composer named Beethoven; Ossip Gabrilowitsch will play a concerto in A minor, by an infant prodigy recently discovered, whose name is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; while Bronislaw