Scan 5
Musical Courier 1907-10-02: Vol 55 Iss 14, 1907
24 lines. Read by computer on 23 September 2026. Printed page 6. See the scan on archive.org.
1account for this discouraging phenomenon, for there still could be found material for the few isolated cases that represent an opening in a symphony orchestra, particularly when we remember that among 80 odd million human beings, with a half million interested in classical music and with thousands of students every season actually graduating, the few that are needed could be found—unless, indeed, our whole musical fabric is rotten, notwithstanding that among the teachers and scholars and pupils there are thousands of Europeans and thousands of Americans who, after having studied in Europe, returned and are and have been active here.
3The fact is that our American musical institutions discourage the American musician constantly, as evidenced by the large emigration of American professional musicians to Europe, where they are permanently located, following their vocation.
5We are prejudiced against our own native musicians, and we are snobs and toadies on top of this. We surround ourselves with a high wall of protection that compels us to pay a heavy toll to get European products here, and that heavy toll makes them so attractive that we insist upon importing them, and this sense has been cultivated to such an extent that it has affected our taste for all foreign articles, and it is only necessary to be foreign to be good or better. That accounts for our heavy imports, including the importation of the foreign musician. He comes in duty free, not as a musician but as a man, but the attraction is his foreign atmosphere, as it is called—a word covering a multitude of sins.
7Our American musicians and teachers in Europe could not sustain themselves in the European atmosphere if they were not the equals of the native European. That is not even debatable; it is a fact.
9We cannot support our American musician because the fashion of the times will not permit it. The imperative law of taste prevents us from giving him any credit, no matter how great an artist he may be. Vide MacDowell! If he will cater to a cheap or vulgar taste he will get considerable patronage, but if he insists upon maintaining his artistic soul and dignity he must relinquish every desire of eligibility, and simply because he is an American, the musical or artistic question never arising, for it has not even an opportunity to arise. Very naturally, if this continues we shall never have American musical artists—never.
11On investigation any one can ascertain that the management of the Boston Symphony Orchestra will give several reasons for not engaging Americans. It will say none could be found. It will say that as the director was in Europe advantage was taken of the case, and he was asked to find the players, and it will say—and this is the important reply—that it must get European players, for if it took American players the subscription would become endangered. And it probably would. It would, because we Americans in the land of the free graft and the home of the protected trusts are toadies and snobs and hypocrites. We want that foreign label. We need it in order to give us standing and position—in Europe, as we fondly think, and consequently here as a corollary. And Europe laughs at us, enjoys the remunerative joke, and takes the money, and this will continue indefinitely, for the idea itself is expanding. And it is a paradox of the wildest nature, for if we are capable of listening intelligently and even of applauding at the proper moment, and of re-engaging the most competent artists, and fostering the very highest and most elevated productions of musical art, we, at the same time, demonstrate that we are incapable of participating in it as artists. We can be no artists; that is impossible. The Boston Symphony Orchestra, Kneisel, the Loeb Institute—all these organizations prove this. We can never be artists, only Americans.
13The probability is that the Boston Symphony Orchestra had to submit to this impulse of fashion. Kneisel could not educate a second violinist for his Quartet; it probably would not have paid him. Why then study violin? What is the object anyway of any American to study music unless he calculates upon residing in Europe to practice his vocation?
15The following circular has been issued by the management of Boston Symphony Hall. It appeared last Sunday as original matter in some of the New York daily papers, although it was mailed in manifold form to all of them:
17SOLOISTS WITH ORCHESTRAS.
19Orchestras will always have a certain number of soloists in a series of concerts, not only to give variety to their programs, but to admit the performance of important works which call for a solo artist. There is, however, a general tendency today among the better established orchestras to cut down the number of soloists. There is a great and rapidly growing body of concertgoers who sympathize decidedly with the modern conductor that a soloist more often than not breaks the symmetry and destroys the balance of a symphony program, and such persons are even now in the large majority of those to whom an orchestra must look for steady support. On the other hand, by cutting down the number of soloists an orchestra is enabled to concentrate the money set aside for this purpose on a few of the greatest artists available. The Boston Symphony Orchestra has taken a lead in this matter. Last season it tried what many considered the hazardous experiment of radically reducing the number of its assistant artists, not merely in Boston, but wherever it played. The result was surprising. Not only was there no falling off in attendance when no soloist was announced, but in New York, a typical illustration, the largest receipts of the season were at two concerts where the orchestra was alone. The experiment was so successful that for the present season a schedule has been arranged whereby in Boston there will be no soloists on twelve out of the twenty-four programs. In New York and the other cities where series of concerts are given, the proportion of concerts with soloists will be a little greater, but in many of the cities where only one concert is given there will be no assisting artist. It is very significant of the trend of the times that most of the cities in the Middle West which the Boston Symphony will visit next January have had it specified in the contracts that they want only the orchestra and no soloist.
21The ideal symphony concert must be symmetrical. That depends upon the conductor, who is the program builder. If he lacks balance he will not be able to draw up a symmetrical scheme; if he has a fine sense of proportion he will establish for a season of concerts a set of programs that represent artistic reciprocity in the various works performed and performed at one time. There are few conductors, even in Europe, who are successful in doing this; it is not the easiest thing to do after all.
23The modern tendency making a "star" of the conductor enables him, however, to act with more freedom than formerly, for he can eliminate the soloist frequently, and he does so. What then, as a logical consequence, becomes of the piano concerto, the violin and cello concerto, the vocal concert aria and the song in the symphony concert? We have always insisted that the operatic aria or the oratorio number has no place on a symphony program. There are, however, great vocal works that can be sung, when properly placed, in symphony concerts, and these should be heard. Not the mad scene from "Lucia" or the "Hamlet" aria or the "Ocean du Ungeheur" or any kind of opera number, but a song or aria composed for classical concerts. Then the public also must hear the concertos. They are also exceedingly necessary for the student. In cities where the Boston Symphony Orchestra has never been heard the orchestra will require no soloist, as the above circular states, and the reason for this is obvious: the orchestra is the soloist in those cities because of the novelty. Boston will have twelve of its twenty-four concerts without soloists. Some of these will be Melba, who should not be permitted to sing an operatic aria if the Boston Symphony Orchestra proposes to stand by its ideal; Schumann-Heink, who is able to sing any-concert aria; Kreisler, the one outside violin soloist, the two others being members of the orchestra, and the following pianists: Goodson, Samaroff and Carreño and Bauer and Ganz. Paderewski will also be one of the soloists. This leaves one date open for another soloist, and I would not have the temerity to
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