MUSICAL COURIER
22
June 28, 1923
squeaking of a rusty pulley.” The medium’s message is reported in the magazine Gentilisima.
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“An undeveloped people,” says the Evening Telegram, “is one whose scenery does not consist entirely of billboards.”
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Talking of development, good news comes from Rochester, where Eastman, the Kodak King, has engaged Coates, Goossens and Shavitch to conduct the local Philharmonic Orchestra. It is only reasonable to look forward to the perfect development of the organization.
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On the other hand, Havana had its first performance of the Meistersinger prelude exactly three weeks ago.
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One reads that our Oratorio Society is to restore Elijah to its repertory, “in response to public demand.” It must have been a terrible moment of suspense when the public bloodthirstily swarmed about the offices of the organization and as one man shouted hoarsely, “We demand Elijah, we demand Elijah.” No doubt the quick decision of the directors was all that served to quiet the raging mob which was in no mood to be trifled with and obviously would not have avoided even bloodshed to accomplish its set purpose.
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The name of the conductor of the University of Minnesota Orchestra is Abe Pepinsky. Well, why not?
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The more original the composer the greater the number of his imitators.
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Through an oversight we forget to credit Martin Frank, of Chicago, for the kindly loan of the interesting Meyerbeer letter published in this column last week and also for the translation of the text. To the credit we add thanks (business of glancing at thermometer and mopping brow) warm thanks.
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Why is it that warm weather cools our fantasy ?
Nilly (at Goldman open air concert)—“Can you hear the horn passages ?”
Willy—“Yes—damn it—they ought to stop those taxis during the concert.”
Leonard Liebling.
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THOSE ROCHESTER CONDUCTORS!
One of our contemporaries ought to arrange for a little more team work among its departments. On the front page of last week’s issue it published a news story from Rochester which began: “Great satisfaction is being expressed in musical Rochester over a series of announcements from George Eastman concerning the upbuilding of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, in the wake of the appointment of Albert Coates to the post of director ;” and again, “three such important engagements within a week, Coates, Goossens and Shavitch ...” But, turning inside to read what the editor himself thought of these engagements, one wonders a little why “great satisfaction” should be expressed in Rochester, for here is what the supreme pen writes of two of them, speaking of their work during the present season of the British National Opera Company, which he personally observed: “With Eugene Goossens and Albert Coates conducting there is a fair degree of skill noticeable; but neither of these men is of first rank, and observing the results secured by Coates makes us wonder whether we did not, in New York, give him the benefit of some doubts in the matter of sheer ability. Goossens is only thirty and very clever. He probably would be the last person to claim for himself unusual qualifications as a conductor.” One hopes that Mr. Eastman won’t be discouraged when he reads the verdict of the oracle.
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SECOND RATE
New York is the biggest city in America. It has more inhabitants than any other city. It has more and larger buildings than any other city; and it has more symphony orchestras than any other city. It has also more wealth than any other city that owns a symphony orchestra, but it doesn’t seem to know what to do with this wealth when it comes to buying conductors for its orchestras. With the exception of Willem Mengelberg, who lends himself for half a season each year, New York has not had for years and has not today a symphony orchestra conductor of the first rank, whereas three or four of the smaller cities have had no difficulty in securing and keeping first class men. This is a bald, frank statement and if anyone can prove to us that we are mistaken, we should be glad to have them do so.
VARIATIONETTES
By the Editor-in-Chief
Parisian orchestra again at Queen’s Hall, as in the olden days before the war. My attention must have relaxed a moment, for when I looked again at the conductor, there stood Hans Richter in his old familiar place at the head of the London Symphony Orchestra. How regally he scanned the musicians crouching behind their desks, as if that basilisk eye of steel could kill with a look. Yet the face was fatherly and genial, and the strong hands barely did more than move a little stick an inch or two.
When Felix. Mottl began where Richter left off I could immediately see the extraordinary, though apparently logical difference. Both arms went violently up and down like steam pump handles working east and west. Shoulders rose and fell, knees bent under the turmoil and tussle up above, and the orchestra played great, long sustained, magnificent organ tones, or thundered like a tempest in the Alps. Never did the Seventh Symphony sound so imposing and tremendous. Nor did it ever seem so short. I was surprised to find it over and hear the applause of the audience all round me.
I also heard a lady’s voice with a delicately foreign accent say, “A nice sort of music critic you are! What would the people in the New York office say if they saw their London correspondent asleep at a concert like this!”
After glancing a moment at Mottl—I mean Wein-gartner—bowing right and left and everywhere in acknowledgment of the riot of hand clapping and shouts, I turned to Coba de Bergh, the Dutch pianist, and assured her my mental concentration was so great that a careless observer might believe me asleep. “Well, I must be a very careless observer,” replied the pianist, “but I made a note of the fact that Ethel Leginska, Lamond, Walter Rummel, Arthur Fagge, Nikolai Sokoloff, Adrian Boult, Sir Henry Wood, Anna Hegner and ever so many more musical people are here tonight. Your mind was too concentrated to notice them. And how did you like the conductor?”
“Which one?—er—oh, yes, yes, you mean Wem-gartner,” said I. “Weingartner! Of course I mean Weingartner! What other conductor was here ?”— asked Coba de Bergh.
“There have been many conductors in Queen’s Hall. They have come and gone with the passing years, writing their names on the shifting sands of Time only to be obliterated by the dull, rolling billows of oblivion’s ocean. I, who enter and depart unnoticed, have witnessed many short lived triumphs in Queen’s Hall. I have heard the shouts of the multitude, times without number, for the heroes of the hour whose names, even, are often unknown to the young enthusiasts who yell themselves hoarse over the last great artist to carve his reputation on the fleeting air of the concert hall.”
To my readers who have never seen the orchestral emperors dead and gone—gone where the lights are out and the short applause is hushed to an endless silence—I would say that Felix Weingartner is as great a conductor as any of his predecessors. They all are different, but, in the words of Victor Hugo, those who reach the top of Olympus are equals.
I envy no conductor or any other executive musical artist. I deem it better to write for readers in America east and west, in Canada and the British Isles, in Australia, the Continent of Europe, and other parts of the world where the Musical Courier goes, knowing that the reputation of every artist must eventually rest in the keeping of those who write history. Did not Horace, writing many centuries ago of Homer, say that the brave men who existed before Agamemnon are forgotten because they had no poet to record their deeds?
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Every critic is envious. If he is not envious of some musician then he is envious of some other critic.
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A man who used to tell us that he could run the Metropolitan Opera House better than Gatti-Casazza, has just gone into the laundry business on a large scale. That leaves, therefore, only 2,143 persons with the laundry gentleman’s former belief and ambition.
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Direct from the celestial regions we relay the attached communication and call upon Dr. Conan Doyle to comment. It is from the New York Evening World of June 23 :
Milan, Italy, June 22.—A spiritualistic medium reports that Enrico Caruso’s spirit has revealed that he is happier -where he is now than he was on earth, and that his voice, when compared with the heavenly melodies, “is like the
“As so many seem to be trying to aid in your summer education,” C. M. communicates, “I, too, would like to make a suggestion. Please do not fail to get and read these two books, and kindly note the subtitles, on the strength of which I selected the volumes for you: Firstly, Fred T. Hodgson’s Concretes, Cements, Mortars, Plasters and Stucco, Working Processes, Tools and Equipment, Kinds of Cement and Concrete and Uses, Moulding, Finishing, Cornices and Special Effects, Reinforced Concrete; secondly, Rolf Thelen’s Kiln Drying Handbook, Designed to Help Lumbermen to Prevent Loss due to Improper Seasoning of Wood.”
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The musical world really is advancing. Mascagni’s Intermezzo no longer is encored every time it is played.
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Passing The Mall the other evening in Central Park while Goldman and his musicians were sending sweet strains into the moonlit night of June, we observed several thousand empty motor cars drawn up by the roadside while their owners clustered about the bandstand. It made us reflect (1) on music for the poor, and (2) on the benefit of motor cars, which enable the poor to reach the Mall concerts comfortably and at a saving of five cents for carfare.
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F. W. Riesberg, attired in motor cap, coat and goggles, farewelled his associates on the Musical Courier staff last week and excited their uncontrollable envy when he said, as he stepped on the gas and his black flier dashed off at dizzy speed: “Talk about your auto-suggestion; Mrs. R. has been ‘auto’-suggesting to me for a year past, so of course we bought a Fordissimo, in which we hope to negotiate the journey to our summer home, Canasawacta Cabin, up in New York State.”
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Straw hats off to that English critic who said that some conductors conduct their audience instead of the orchestra.
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At any rate, every double bass player is an upright musician.
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At the Polo Grounds performance of Aida last week a patronizer of our national game was a deeply interested spectator, and when the priests, acting as umpires, decided against Radames, our friend was ready to hurl a ginger pop bottle at them but suddenly remembered that the occasion was grand opera and not baseball.
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Just as perspiration starts and inspiration ceases, we receive the following welcome communication from our London correspondent:
London, June 18, 1923.
Dear Mr. Liebling—I hope you will like my little prose fantasy on Weingartner. It is a little out of the same old rut, perhaps.	,
Coba de Bergh, mentioned herein, was so brilliant a prodigy that the Queen of Holland paid for her training in Paris for three years. She afterwards went to Berlin and then to Leschetizky. She now plays a little in London and teaches a great deal. She became a subscriber to our soul enlightening sheet about a month ago.
Kind regards.	Clarence Lucas.
We shall print Mr. Lucas’ contribution in large type, because it deserves it, and because it fills space. Here is his essay:
Felix Weingartner.
Weingartner waved his wand before the eyes of the London Symphony Orchestra in Queen’s Hall not long ago and a hundred men began to work like miners to unearth the gems and precious metals entombed on the silent paper of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony. Sometimes one man would bring his pearl exultantly to light; sometimes a group of workmen found a larger vein; sometimes the hundred laborers put their shoulders to a ton of quartz and heaved it to the surface. It was a royal sport to watch Conductor Weingartner, like a modern Pros-pero, cast his spell upon the wanderers in the “still vex’d Bermoothes” of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony.
And strangely natural it seemed to me that Weingartner changed unnoticeably into a smaller man who wore a thin beard and directed the orchestra with different gestures. Of course, I recognized Arthur Nikisch at once. No man but he could improvise such lyrical poems of passion upon the human heart-string's of an orchestra. Nevertheless, when the next conductor turned his head to glare at the violas, I was delighted to see the thickset, bespectacled Charles Lamoureux directing his finely polished