Books › Musical Courier 1926-09-30: Vol 93 Iss 14, 1926 › scan 22
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Musical Courier 1926-09-30: Vol 93 Iss 14, 1926
112 lines. Read by computer on 29 September 2026. Printed page 23. See the scan on archive.org.
1September 30, 1926
3VARIATIONS
4By the Editor-in-Chief
6An extensive literature has entwined itself about the subject of piano playing. The books range in content from pamphlets telling how to strike the keys to volumes dealing with the aesthetics of interpretation. Between the two come whole libraries of biography, annotations on master works, treatises on how to acquire technic and special pleas for individual composers, schools, systems, or other hobbies of the writers. The trouble with most of the formal books about music is that they are formal; the ideas of the authors are on dress parade, and we never really are taken into their confidence—that is, in those cases where such confidence might be worth while. Rubinstein, of the former masters, came nearest in his Aphorisms to telling what really was in his mind on most musical subjects, but even he sacrificed homely truth occasionally for the sake of turning a clever epigram. Liszt never willingly revealed any of the secrets of his art; he loved to pose a bit, like the polished necromancer he was, and hoodwink you even while he showed you his rolled up sleeves and did the tricks before your very eyes. Lienau, of the Schlesinger publishing firm, used to tell how Liszt, for the delectation of other pianists, was wont to publish in his operatic fantasias tremendously difficult cadenzas which he simplified whenever he played them in public. In the case of the Don Juan fantasia, I have heard Lienau corroborated by pianists who were in a position to compare the printed composition with the version which Liszt performed at his concerts. The practice reminds one of Rosenthal's wicked jest to the effect that every virtuoso has three fingerings—the one he practises, the one he uses in public, and the one he tells his rivals he uses.
8Piano scores of Boheme and Mme. Butterfly cost twice as much as scores of Tannhäuser and Lohengrin. Are the Puccini operas twice as good as those by Wagner?
10Carl Lanzer, "the American Paganini," or, as his son, Carl Lanzer, Jr., calls him for short, "the great American Pag," refreshes his challenge to the violinists of the world to meet him in virtuoso combat. Kreisler, Spalding, Szigeti, Heifetz, Elman, Zimbalist, Flesch and the other trembling masters are showing an inclination to lose by default.
12Let those who do not believe that Elsa and Aida play poker, ask Marie Rappold.
14Somehow, Mahler reminds us of wet fireworks; and Bruckner, of an extinct volcano.
16American musicians know why their lot is not easy in this country when they read the whole page article in the New York Times (September 19) captioned: "Henry Ford Expounds Mass Production—Calls it the Focussing of the Principles of Power, Economy, Continuity, and Speed—Tells Why Accurate Machines Produce the Highest Standard of Quality—Says System Develops the Worker."
18And also, there is Gabriele D'Annunzio, writing in the New York American (September 19):
19To the kingdom of Gabriele D'Annunzio, the ruler of the clouds above the Alps, to the north and to the south, to the east and to the west, those who come to pay homage are welcome. Therefore, I greet you and salute you with heartfelt joy.
20But you are not welcome to my domain when you come with an offer of gold, dazzling gold—jingling the vile gold your American employers have authorized you to offer me in payment for the product of the soul of a poet.
21I say, never.
22Never will my writings be defiled by American gold.
23I shall never permit my writings to be printed in America, the land of the wealthy; America who had added to her wealth a hundred-fold by the blood and the tears of the Continent; America, the land of materialism, who only entered the war after she had wrung from Europe every ounce of gold that she could.
24America will crumble, for she worships the god of materialism; but that god she has garbed in false idealism.
25If I could interpret my feeling of hatred for America in terms of fire and flame, it would rise high above even the burning crater of the Vesuvius.
27Sir Henry Wood, too, takes a whack at us, in a recent London interview, given after his return there from Los Angeles, where he earned warm plaudits and cold pelf not long ago:
28"America is so surfeited with the same music year after year that only a new stunt or a new conductor can thrill it. America has made music a sort of competitive sport instead of an art. In brief, Americans are pure sensationalists. . . .
29"My experience has been that all American conductors go in for Brahms' First Symphony and Tchaikowsky's Fifth. New York is surfeited with that kind of thing. You either stick to the old favorites in New York or you go in for stunts to break the monotony—Brahms stunts, Schumann stunts, Tchaikowsky stunts.
30"You must keep classical and popular music separate. You can't have a Bach concerto and a piece of fireworks in the same program. It would be as profitable as a clown in a church service. You can do that in a music hall, but not in a concert hall.
31"You must have variety, but your variety must contribute to the same mood. If you spend half your evening building up a given mood, a single piece of clowning in your program will irretrievably destroy it. Your audience will be lost to you for the rest of the evening."
33Sir Henry Wood excepts Walter Damrosch from the ranks of the "prima donna conductors." The Damrosch programs, says Sir Henry, are models of good taste, and of serious, artistic direction.
35That young Hindu Messiah—we've forgotten his name and have no time to look it up—called America materialistic and utilitarian, the moment he set foot on our shores a few weeks ago. "America needs to be more spiritual," he announced, with that inspired perspicacity so characteristic of young Hindu Messiahs.
37It is consoling, however, to think that Europe never will get angry enough at us, to stop sending its plays, books, pictures, antiques, music, and musical performers to America.
39Well, at any rate, the King of Spain and the Prince of Wales like us.
41And William Hohenzollern, Trotzky, Kipling, and Clemenceau, do not.
43Will Mussolini please oblige with an official statement?
45"Most music lovers, the world over, prefer opera to symphony," says the New York Graphic. Those lovers who do, have no honorable intentions toward the tonal art.
47The first movement of the new musical season is on; the second movement will begin November 1, when the Metropolitan opens; the scherzo, or third movement, is the joyous dance of the critics over the dying concerts and operas in late spring; the finale is for wind instruments, the farewell tootings of the steamship whistles as they bear off the musical artists for their summer in Europe.
49When the musical ethnologists who are trying to determine whether jazz is African or Southern-American, have settled their debate, they might tell us, if they have any breath left, why most of the composers who write jazz are Jewish?
51In opera, the path of glory frequently leads but to the teaching career.
53Mr. Insull, executive head of the Chicago Opera, is a politician; Fortune Gallo was in politics before he acquired the San Carlo Opera; Otto Kahn at one time contemplated a diplomatic career. Perhaps those facts point a moral.
55"Is it just my imagination?" asks R. B., "or did the scheme of inflated currency bring about the idea of inflated music?"
57Andrew Carnegie used to sing in a choir, but he stopped just in time, as his bank account showed later.
59And then there is John D. Rockefeller. He now is estimated officially to possess a billion dollars, but might have been worth much more if he had spent less time at playing the cello, his pet indoor diversion.
61Apropos, we know an irreverent chap who alludes to Schubert's best known song, as "The Oil King."
63There are threats that a certain New York teacher-pianist intends to lecture this season on The Evolution of the Sonata Form, and to follow his talk with a performance of six sonatas by C. P. E. Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Weber, and Brahms. The worst now is known.
65And also, the real reason has been discovered for Russia's anxiety to resume trade relations with the rest of the world. The Soviet land must find new foreign markets for Rachmaninoff's C sharp minor prelude.
67We thought that only politicians claim everything, but here's the London correspondent of the New York Morning Telegraph cabling to his paper (September 16): "The people are apathetic to short performances, but will listen for hours to The Messiah, Elijah, and other compositions of Sir Edward Elgar."
69We intend to write a book called The Musical Career, or The First Million Is the Hardest.
71A pianist gave a recital in Berlin and devoted his program mainly to compositions by Thalberg and Gottschalk. "Why not play modern works," wailed one of the critics, "works by Bach and Beethoven, for instance?"
73No, Agatha, the name "Leipsc Kunstwart" means something else. "Leipsc Art Wart" would not be a correct translation. Try again.
75The tennis writer of The New Yorker (September 18) is playing offside when he speaks of William J. Tilden's swift delivery as "Wagnerian service aces."
77"I suppose," writes "Sporticus," rather illegibly, "that just because the musical season is beginning, those harmonious nags, Bodanzky, Rigoletto, and Music Shop won races recently at various tracks."
79The Sesquicentennial celebration will be held shortly, commemorating the first recorded robbery of the jewels of a prima donna. The Sesquicentennial of the first dog stolen from a prima donna, occurs (no pun intended) in 1929.
81Bach is supposed to have written some humorous music. Anyone who expects to laugh at it, will discover that the joke is on him.
83Not long ago we published in this column a catalogue of shopworn critical phrases. They have moved Ariel, the scintillating columnist of Singing (September) to add to our list what he calls "a few other moth-eaten bromides of musical journalism," as follows:
85"Large and enthusiastic audience."
86"In response to the insistent applause the artist responded with an encore."
87"Scored a triumph."
88"Artist-pupils."
89"Pianistes" and "violinistes."
90"A busy season is ahead of Mme. Blank."
91"Won praise." "Won laurels." "Wins plaudits."
92"Will accept a limited number of pupils."
93"Artistry."
94"The ill-fated Lucia" or Aida, Mimi, et al.
95"The program was in two parts."
96"Mr. Blank was a capable accompanist."
97"The interviewer found the artist loath to speak about herself."
98"Proved a master of his instrument."
99"A well-chosen program."
100"Now, my hearties, altogether—one, two, THREE—overboard!"
102We found this original nugget in Ariel's column: "You'll never make the Metropolitan," said the teacher to the pupil who had outraged his ears.
103"Well," retorted the student, "I'd rather they ask why I don't sing there than why I do."
105Ernest Newman loosed his wrath recently upon jazz, through the medium of an especially virulent article in an English daily newspaper. We have made careful investigation since then and are in a position to state authoritatively that jazz survived Mr. Newman's attack practically unscathed.
107We asked Fortune Gallo whether he was disappointed at the failure of Mascagni to appear with the San Carlo Opera. Mr. Gallo smiled complacently and answered: "After counting my recent receipts for the Century Theater performances, I may truthfully say that the disappointment was all Mascagni's."
109A grand opera guarantor and his money are soon parted.
111Woodlawn Cemetery, in upper New York, may become a rival of Pere la Chaise, in Paris. It appears that Woodlawn has set aside a section of plots as a burial ground for American geniuses. It has not been announced, however, who is to select the subjects for the mortuary distinction. We suggest, as a typical beginning, Babe Ruth, Jack Dempsey, Mmes. Ederle and Corson, William J. Tilden, Bobby Jones, Earl Sande, Will Rogers, Al Jolson, Douglas Fairbanks, Gloria Swanson, Lucy Stone, the original Bobbed Hair Bandit, Weber and Fields, and Acker, Merrall, and Condit. LEONARD LIEBLING.
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