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Musical Courier 1927-01-06: Vol 94 Iss 1, 1927
72 lines. Read by computer on 29 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1STUTTGART'S OPERA THE BEST EQUIPPED THEATER IN EUROPE
3High Ideals and a Wonderful Stage Manager—Busoni's Doktor Faust—A Novelty at Karlsruhe
5STUTTGART.—The Stuttgart opera called us for the first performance of Busoni's posthumous Doktor Faust opera, and the weary critic, permanently stationed in one city for the better part of the year, gladly seized this opportunity for a little pleasure trip. His expectations had been pitched up high by enthusiastic reports from all sides which described the Opera House of this comparatively small city as one of the leading temples of the musical drama in Germany, indeed in all Europe.
7EUROPE'S MOST MODERN OPERA HOUSE
9Shall I say from the very outset that my expectations, so far from a disillusionment, were even surpassed? Stuttgart seems to live for its "Landestheater." It is the most modern, and one of the handsomest opera houses in Europe. There are two buildings—a small house for chamber plays and a big one for grand opera, both connected by a lower edifice sheltering the common administrative offices, the whole area beautifully situated on the score of a small crystal-clear lake populated by swans and adorned with statuary. (See page 28).
11Richard Strauss, it will be remembered, opened the Stuttgart Opera with the world premiere of Ariadne auf Naxos some fourteen years ago. The apparatus of this theater is magnificent; it is the most up-to-date theatrical machinery in all Germany. There are even private bath-rooms for the soloists of the house! What more can one wish for in the way of "comfort?" The promoters of the new "Met" to be ought to come here and learn!
13WAYS—AND MEANS
15The artistic directors of many a big European opera house, too, may observe the Stuttgart Opera with profit. Here is a big theater, playing opera each night (and excellently, too), producing from six to eight modern works each season and as many important revivals, with a brilliant company, an excellent orchestra, gorgeous scenery and a fine chorus—all thanks to an annual state subsidy of $250,000.
17The roster of singers is formidable. Not "stars," with the exception probably of Moje Forbach, the soprano, who seems to be one in the making—but each one an artist, less perhaps on the vocal than on the emotional and spiritual side of their work. Let us remember that singers like George Meader, Carl Aagaard Oestvig, Helene Wildbrunn and others of similar status have "graduated" from here, to realize the tremendous educational work being done at this theater, for the benefit of both public and singers. Where else will you find the general musical director at a piano rehearsal for the Nibelungen Ring till eight o'clock in the evening, and the stage director busy rehearsing day after day, from nine to five!
19This stage director, Otto Erhardt, is a marvel. I saw a performance of Strauss' Rosenkavalier at Stuttgart, with Strauss himself at the desk. Coming from Vienna, the stronghold of the Strauss cult, the writer is rather blase as regards productions of this opera. The Baron Ochs of Richard Mayr, the Octavian of Marie Guthiel-Schoder, linger indelibly in one's memory, and it is difficult to forget the glorious orchestra, the fine voices, the sumptuous scenery of the Vienna Opera. Stuttgart cannot rival Vienna for brilliant environment and resources—yet, in a way, the Stuttgart production was superior. The Vienna performance has more sensuous charm; at Stuttgart you feel a stronger spiritual trend, a more authoritative stage management, notably in the mass scenes of the third act.
21BUSONI'S MARIONETTE OPERA
23Erhardt did wonders, too, for Busoni's Doktor Faust. A more subtle transformation of rhythm into light and motion, of music into scenic visions, I have hardly ever seen. For Faust's conjuring of biblical scenes in the fourth act, Erhardt, progressive and unconventional artist that he is, drew upon the resources of the cinema! For the first time in operatic history, perhaps, but with ingenuity and success. Bernhard Pankok, the famous painter, caught the spirit of Busoni's fanciful work in his stage settings; they were not ultra-modern but equally far from convention—the picture of Wittenberg in the last act, with the desolate mood of a wintry night, was wonderful.
25To speak of Busoni's opera itself is an ungrateful task. Reverence for the consummate artist and spiritual man—sentiment, in short,—inspires a judgment which analytical criticism, alas, cannot indorse. Busoni, in his text written by himself, avoids associations with Goethe's gigantic drama and steers avowedly clear, on the other side, from the temptation of making Faust a tenor-singing lover à la Gounod. Between the philosophical problems of Goethe and the sentimentalism of Gounod, Busoni chose the alternative of utilizing the old German marionette play of Doktor Faust, with its naive and strongly popular, often bizarre humor. Under his hands, the plot takes, at the end, a turn into metaphysics: Busoni was too intellectual and keen a mind to accept the innocent methods of the old folk-play.
27His music is still less congenial to this uncomplicated drama. True to his strongly intellectual and keenly fascinating dogma of opera as a form of "absolute music," he has written a score which is a marvellous piece of spiritual workmanship—but worlds removed from the theater.
29Sentiment, even feeling, does not enter into Busoni's artistic scheme, which preaches the negation of sensualism and eroticism in opera. Consequently, his music is ascetic to the degree of pallidness, cerebral to the degree of barrenness, and achieves genuine creative invention only in the bizarre utterances of Mephistopheles, the grimly witty devil. All admiration for Busoni's formal mastery and instrumental craftsmanship cannot, unfortunately, atone for the lack of dramatic tension, stimulating contrast—and heart.
31Under Carl Leonhardt, the musical portion of the production was remarkable. Hermann Weil, our old friend from the pre-war Metropolitan, was a noble Faust, and the intricate choral passages were sung with astounding precision and volume. The Stuttgarters listened with respect to the big work which seems to meet the cumbersome mentality of a population so cultured and intellectual as to fill the spacious theater thirty-five times (!) for Hans Pfitzner's Palestrina.
33ON TO CARLSRUHE
35A different atmosphere meets one at nearby Carlsruhe. A sleepy little residential town which seems barely affected by post-war mentality. A conservatism seems to reign here which contrasts strikingly to live-wire Stuttgart. The good old grand duke, the one-time ruler of this small country, is still a revered figure, I am told, and still being respectfully greeted on his way through the streets of the quaint old place which are so arranged—in the shape of a big fan—as to afford a full view of the grand duke's ancient castle from every point of the town. The homely old Court Theater, consecrated by memories of the great Felix Mottl, still stands, a landmark of a great past, unchanged and apparently undisturbed by the evolutions of musical taste. Josef Krips, one of the innumerable young Viennese musicians who populate the German operatic stage and who are adorned with the pretentious if not lucrative title of "Generalmusikdirektor," now governs the musical destinies of the house.
37A BELATED WAGNERITE
39I could not think of a more congenial place than this for the world premiere of a new opera such as Der Jungbrunnen. It is the work of Bernhard Schuster, well-known editor of a famous German musical monthly, but less successful as a composer. The old gentleman, a product of the Wagner era, is still firmly rooted in the ideals of his youth. The book of the play has the Wagnerian redemption theme for its basic idea, with the Crusades as the historic background.
41The stage is populated by Siegfried-like knights, Gurnemanzian sages and Klingsorian forest-spirits, and the heroine, a composite of Kundry and Brunhilde, is accompanied by a theme reminiscent of Isolde's "Love-Death." Wagnerian Sprechgesang and leitmotifs dominate, and Wagnerian, too, are the melodies, though they are delivered in the orchestral manner of the younger Strauss.
43On the whole it is the sincere product of a composer with high ideals and a noble creed—but two decades behind these unidealistic times. Heinz Knöll (also a Viennese, by the way) conducted with enthusiasm and circumspection, and the composer, a lovable, untimely figure, appeared to receive the plaudits of the good people of Carlsruhe. Only a few gentle hisses were heard; there must have been some foreigners in the audience!
45PAUL BECHERT.
47ROCHESTER HOST TO M. T. N. A. CONVENTION
49Members From all Parts of the Country Attend—Splendid Musical Program and Addresses by Well Known Musicians—Cadman's The Sunset Trail a Real Treat—Election of Officers and Banquet
51ROCHESTER, N. Y.—Members of the Music Teachers' National Association from all parts of the country gathered here this week for the annual three-day convention of the organization. At the same time the Sinfonia musical fraternity, known as the Phi Mu Alpha, met for its annual meeting and dinner.
53The election of officers resulted in the re-naming of all of last year's officers, as follows: President, Harold L. Butler, of Syracuse University; vice-president, William Benbow, of Buffalo; secretary, D. M. Swarthout, of the University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kans.; treasurer, Waldo S. Pratt, of Hartford, Conn.; assistant treasurer, O. W. Demler, of Pittsburgh; editor, Carl W. Gehrke of Oberlin Conservatory. Mr. Demler, Mrs. Crosby Adams (of Montreat, N. C.) and William Arms Fisher (of Boston) were elected members of the executive committee for one year, and Harold L. Butler was named a counsellor.
55In connection with the convention, the Rochester Little Symphony, with Dr. Howard Hanson, director of the Eastman School of Music, as conductor, gave one of the Eastman School's American Composer's Concerts before the gathering in Kilbourn Hall. The program included: Ukrainian Suite, by Quincy Porter, which was played at the first American Composers' concert in the Eastman Theater and which has been heard since; a soliloquy for flute and strings, by Bernard Rogers, with Leonardo de Lorenzo, of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, as soloist; Saturday's Child, by Emerson Whithorne, based on poems by Countee Cullen, the Negro poet; Medieval Poem, by Leo Sowerby, for orchestra and organ, with the composer at the organ; Nocturne, from Frederick Jacobi's first symphony; prelude from Music for the Theater, by Aaron Copland; three songs for soprano and orchestra by Otto Luening, with Ethel Codd, soprano, as soloist; a burlesque for piano and orchestra by Mark Wessel, with the composer at the piano.
57The convention opened on Tuesday morning and included addresses on a wide variety of topics by musicians and speakers of world note. Among these were Herbert Witherspoon, Frank Damrosch, Oscar Saenger, Karleton Hackett, William S. Brady, Alexander Russell, Mrs. Edgar Stillman Kelley, Alberto Jonas, C. M. Tremaine, Adolph Weidig, Earl D. Moore, James Francis Cooke, Peter Dykema, Felix Borowski, Eugene Goossens (conductor of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra), Dr. Howard Hanson, and Dr. Rush Rhees (president of the University of Rochester), and others.
59A theme which was repeatedly emphasized during the convention was the importance of general education for musicians, in addition to musical knowledge. In this connection Dr. Rhees said: "Musical education must be an education in musical intelligence, and not merely in musical facility. Even if it takes more time, it is worth while to train intelligent men and women, while we are training intelligent musicians out of men and women. What is more momentous in the performance of a virtuoso than technical mastery is intellectual mastery? Those interested in the development of music in America can assert
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63FIVE OF WORLD'S GREATEST QUARTETS UNITE IN NOVEL PROGRAM PLAYING ANCIENT INSTRUMENTS
65Unique Concert Presented in Philadelphia Through Courtesy of Rodman Wanamaker—Thaddeus Rich, New Director of Music at Wanamaker Stores, Conducts—A Rare Treat.
67An occasion of special interest took the social and musical world of Philadelphia and a goodly number of visitors from outside cities to the great John Wanamaker store in Philadelphia during after hours on Wednesday, December 29. Thaddeus Rich, a leading figure in Philadelphia music for the last twenty-five years as a violin soloist, teacher, and concertmaster of the Philadelphia Orchestra, has given up all his other work to take the position of director of music at Wanamaker's and the evening began with a reception and dinner in his honor, given by Rodman Wanamaker. Guests were carried up in the elevators to the restaurant floor, where Mr. Wanamaker, Mr. Rich and Mrs. Rich and their daughter, received at the entrance to the large art galleries, an orchestra playing while the guests were assembling. They then passed into the large tea-room, where a delicious dinner was served for well over a thousand persons. The only speech, a short one, was made by Rodman Wanamaker at the end of the dinner, when a beautiful silk flag, brought in by a uniformed bodyguard of store employees, was presented to Mr. Rich in fitting terms.
69After dinner the company descended to the great court where a truly unique concert was presented under the direction of Mr. Rich. It was a concert by a string Capella, founded in honor of the great master makers of the world. No less than five leading quartets had been secured to form the string body of the ensemble, the Flonzaley Quartet, the Pro Arte Quartet, the Lenox Quartet, the New York String Quartet, and the Vertchamp Quartet, and four double basses from the Philadelphia Symphony
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