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Musical Courier 1905-10-18: Vol 51 Iss 1334, 1905
20 lines. Read by computer on 23 September 2026. Printed page 5. See the scan on archive.org.
1UCH has been written in American publications about the advancement of the art of music in our country during recent years. In only the last few months I have read in various American newspapers and periodicals numerous articles which emphatically stated that it was no longer necessary for students of music to come abroad to complete their education, that as good musicians and instructors are to be found in the United States as in Europe; that the time is past when a Continental reputation is necessary to success in the concert field in America, and, indeed, that the time is not far distant when European artists will no longer be imported, and when the American musical supply will be equal to all demands. In fact, some writers went so far as to state that American audiences were the best paying, and hence the most musical and discriminating audiences in the world.
3To anyone of sound musical judgment, familiar with conditions on both sides of the Atlantic, this sounds for the most part like so much twaddle. True it is that the American public is the best paying public in the world, and that the American market is the best that can be found for European musical products. This very fact, however, the fact that the American people pay such exorbitant prices to hear their favorites, in itself is a proof of their lack of musical discrimination. In opera it is fashion that sets the pace, and surely the fashionable New York Metropolitan Opera House audience is not the most musical audience in the world. In the concert line, moreover, whenever the public at large is attracted, it is in order to see or hear some musical sensation. The audience is allured not by artistic merit, but by sensational advertising or by fabulous reports of the extraordinary prices paid the artists. Witness the "Parsifal" craze in America. That was a purely sensational affair. The opera was widely advertised by the press, and came to be given all over the United States. Then, as a matter of course, the craze soon died out. How can audiences such as our provincial American towns afford, audiences that have not yet learned to fully appreciate Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, understand the abstruse qualities of Wagner? It is ridiculous.
5The really intelligent musical community is not attracted by sensationalism in art, nor will such a community pay sensational prices in order to hear any artist. In Germany, for instance, no artist can be made a sensation—that is, in the country as a whole. A little common sense reflection will convince any unprejudiced person of the absurdity of ranking America musically with a country like Germany. Is a country which has been fed upon classical music for centuries, a country which has produced a Bach, a Handel, a Haydn, a Mozart, a Beethoven, a Weber, a Schubert, a Schumann, a Wagner, a Brahms, a Max Bruch, and a Richard Strauss, of no greater musical importance than a country that has not yet brought forth a single name worthy to be compared with any one of these? And we need not confine ourselves to Germany alone. America has produced no Rossini, no Donizetti, no Bellini, no Verdi, no Mascagni, no Leoncavallo, nor has it given us a Tschaikowsky, a Glazounow, a Rimsky-Korsakoff, or a Gounod, a Bizet, a Thomas, a Saint-Saëns. Then, too, if we look to reproductive art, the disparagement is equally great. We have given the world no Liszt, no Tausig, no Rubinstein, no Von Bülow, no Rosenthal, no Godowsky, no Busoni, no Paganini, no Spohr, no Vieuxtemps, no Wieniawski, no Ernst, no Joachim, no Wilhelmj, no Ysaye, no Malibran, no Sonntag, no Jenny Lind, no Jean de Reszké, no Caruso. Does it not stand to reason that nations that can beget such artists have inherent the germs of music to a greater degree than a nation which as yet has done comparatively nothing?
7"The germs are there in the American people, but the European environment is more conducive to their growth and development," some will say. There you are. The musical environment is made, not by a few musicians, but by the general love of the art, and by its popular appreciation and understanding. One or two artists cannot create a musical atmosphere in a place which at large is apathetic. The late Antonin Dvorák could not make any appreciable effect upon New York in this respect. Joseffy cannot give New York, nor can Sauret give Chicago a musical atmosphere. It is the spirit which permeates the whole nation which creates the musical atmosphere.
9Some will argue that New York has the largest German population of any city in the world except Berlin, and that if Germany is the most musical of nations, its love for the high forms of the musical art should have been transplanted to America along with the German emigrants. The answer to this is very simple. The emigrant class of any country is, for the most part, the peasantry and laboring classes, and the German peasant does not count at all in the intellectual and artistic life of his nation. The better and more prosperous type of German does not emigrate. He stays at home. The same is also true of any European country. We have no reason to be puffed up as a nation because we draw the scum of the universe. The Russian peasant, for instance, is the most unlettered and stupid being among all civilized peoples, and yet the Russian nation is, after the German, the most musical nation on earth.
11"By their fruits ye shall know them," and the American crop is still in the bud. A country so madly commercial is not ready to bring forth really great artists, either pro- ductive or reproductive. It will require 100 years of ripening and mellowing influences to create in America that musical atmosphere which some seem to look upon as already existing there—the atmosphere that will enable our country to produce really great and lasting results in art. Meanwhile every honest musical effort put forth is helping to bring about this state of affairs. Every new conservatory, every new orchestra founded, even when run upon commercial lines, does good in awakening interest in music. Every concert that is given, every musical performance, every private music lesson helps the work along. Of course, commercialism is a great drawback to the artistic development of America, but ours will some day be a great musical people, for the reason that among all our conglomerate of nationality there is still enough yeast from the upper musical strata of Europe to leaven the whole loaf, but it will require a long time. The more musical portion of our people is of foreign extraction, on one side anyway, and the least musical portion is that which comes of old Puritan stock. Observations along this line can probably be made nowhere more accurately than here in the capital of Germany, where American musical talent congregates in great force. During my long residence in Berlin I have come in contact with hundreds, yes, thousands, of students representing every State in the Union, and I have invariably found that the talented ones are of European, or at least of mixed descent, the German and Russian and Hungarian Jews being the most gifted of all for instrumental playing.
13England is much worse off for its musical future than America. In the first place, the Anglo-Saxon race is distinctly unmusical. Rubinstein once said that no more than 2 per cent. of the English were musical, and that the English was the most unmusical nation on the earth. In Germany the term "his playing is so English" is synonymous with his playing is so "langweilich." The English have preserved this unmusical quality by keeping their race purer than the Americans. Their country offers few advantages to Continental emigrants in the way of higher wages and better living, and so the foreigners naturally do not go there. Moreover, the chauvinism of certain influential British critics is a great hindrance to the country's musical development. The absurd and indiscriminate laudation of certain English virtuosi now very much in vogue is rather a detriment than a help to the cause of British art. In the world of commerce "protection," no doubt, is often a good thing, but in art "free trade" is the parole.
15Now, as to the time being past when Americans will import European artists. There is no danger of such a line of action for the next few decades at any rate. European stars will continue to shine over America, for the simple reason that for a long time the Continental product will be superior to the American—owing to greater talent, to more encouragement, and to better opportunities. My point may be illustrated by a little conversation which I held when dining with Professor Seymour, the eminent Greek scholar, of Yale University, on my last visit to New Haven two years ago. I asked the professor who was the greatest Greek scholar in the world. He said: "Williamowitz, of Berlin by all means." As Professor Seymour himself is considered the greatest Greek scholar in America, and is a man of undoubted genius, who has devoted his whole life to the study of his subject, I marveled that anyone could be above him, and therefore asked him why Williamowitz was so much superior to the greatest American Greek scholars. He replied that it was due to many circumstances; to greater natural ability, to more encouragement and opportunity in his youth, which called forth greater ambition and effort in him, and to more general appreciation of his work. All these things combined, conditions which do not exist in America to such a degree, made Williamowitz possible.
17So it is in music. Musical genius is much more quickly recognized and supported in Europe than in America. If a MacDowell had been born in Germany he would not have been compelled to flee from the Fatherland in order to look for recognition. Chicago had Godowsky, one of the greatest piano geniuses of our times, within its walls for years; but Chicago did not understand or appreciate him, and he was forced to come abroad to gain the recognition he deserved. Beginning his European career in Berlin, he was phenomenally successful from the start, and is now known and honored all over Europe as one of the greatest.
19Then, as regards the assertion that American musical students no longer need to come abroad to complete their education. We do have at home a few really great artists who compare favorably with the best in Europe, but they are very limited in number, and are confined to the two
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