Scan 5
Musical Courier 1927-04-07: Vol 94 Iss 14, 1927
103 lines. Read by computer on 29 September 2026, twice; the two readings disagreed in places. Printed page 6. See the scan on archive.org.
1PARIS AND VIENNA COMPARED
3Revue Versus Opera—Jean Wiener, ex-Modernist, Tries His Hand at Operetta—Modernists, Tame and Wild—Ravel on Strauss
5PARIS.—"Paris, queen of the world." A haunting, tantalizing chorus. The man in the street sings it, the gent in the parlor dances to its Spanish strains. Mistinguett created it—that eternally youthful spolit pet of a city who reigns undisputed at the Moulin Rouge. She is still marvellous, unsurpassed for zeal, enterprise and popularity. And, let us add, for courage, for she owns to her fifty-nine years with pride, she boasts of them as an old veteran would of his wounds.
7Revues are still the Alpha and Omega of this glorious city's theatrical life, so much so that comic opera itself has turned into a more or less disguised revue. Modern Parisian operetta is an offspring of the French "vaudeville," just as Viennese operetta sprang directly from opera. Now both are going back to whence they came. Operetta in Vienna is becoming more "grand," more addicted to sham psychology and highbrow problems each season, whereas in Paris it is now hardly distinguishable from Revue. For the big Finale of Act 2, where (in Vienna) the hero and the "shero" are wont to part, amid trombones, harps and celestas, with broken hearts that will never never mend, Parisian comic opera producers line up "toute la troupe" in a gay leg-parade, marching up and down amid changing colors from huge reflectors, without even a pretence at plot or reason.
9And as for a Parisian Revue itself! Merely to watch Alvin L. Schmoeger, the Musical Courier's genial general manager, at the Mistinguett show, spoke volumes as to the relative splendour and charm of Revues here and "back home." It's Mistinguett forever; or at least for a decade more.
11At the Théâtre des Champs Élysées, that monument of the great and only Oscar Hammerstein which is now dividing its time between first-class vaudeville and second-class grand opera, I saw one little piece that was not of the routine revue order. It came after a varied vaudeville show in which a very clever piano humorist poked most ingenious fun at the linguistic weaknesses of the world's musical races. He is billed, somewhat inappropriately, as Bétove, which is the French compromise for the unpronounceable name of Beethoven. But his real name, less classically tainted is Michael Maurice Lévy, and he is burdened with the responsibility for an opera called The Monastery which the Opéra Comique had the courage to produce. The professional fraternity prefers Bétove to Lévy, and his pianologues to his opera. Such is fate! one of two readings
12At the Théâtre des Champs Élysées, that monument of the great and only Oscar Hammerstein which is now dividing its time between first-class vaudeville and second-class grand opera, I saw one little piece that was not of the routine revue order. It came after a varied vaudeville show in which a very clever piano humorist poked most ingenious fun at the linguistic weaknesses of the world's musical races. He is billed, somewhat inappropriately, as Betove, which is the French compromise for the unpronounceable name of Beethoven. But his real name, less classically tainted is Michael Maurice Lévy, and he is burdened with the responsibility for an opera called The Monastery which the Opéra Comique had the courage to produce. The professional fraternity prefers Betove to Lévy, and his pianologues to his opera. Such is fate! one of two readings
14Wiener, the Dolly Sisters, and Oswald Spengler
16Jean Wiener, once a determined exponent of atonal pianism, has rescued himself from dangerous modernistic waves to the safe harbor of jazz and royalties. He is the author of the comic opera referred to above, and Jean himself, with Clément Doucet, his rotund partner in Charleston crime, perpetrated the pianistic accompaniment for the little operetta—Olive in Negro Land—which met with undeserved defeat at Hammerstein's glorious Parisian ex-temple of opera.
18It was a clever bit of parody on the Parisian negro craze, and a counterpart to a scene from the revue in which the Dolly Sisters (is it impolite to refer to them as old friends?) vainly combated public indifference to their linguistic exhibitions composed of native Hungarian, habitual English and acquired French. This particular scene was a clever bit of Oswald Spengler transplanted into revue: a negro crowd at an "at home" concert furnished by singers of the Opéra Comique. At the end the colored crowd indulged in dance—not foxtrot of course, nor Charleston nor Black Bottom—but a waltz by Johann Strauss!
20Opera and Perfume
22Amid this Parisian revue epidemic grand opera is the step-child of public opinion. The Grand Opéra and the Opéra Comique, to be sure, are crowded every night (I wonder where they get so many people who are mad to hear Faust, Thais, Tosca and Louise three times a week, and curious still to watch dear old Monsieur Franz, that veteran of our youth, do Siegfried in a shabby presentation, with poor scenery, and detached from the rest of the Ring). But don't let the sold-out houses deceive you into believing that opera is near to the Parisian's heart. If it were, public and press would stand up in revolt against a Thais who sings habitually off key and a Nicas who does not sing at all.
24No one cares what happens at the two national temples of music, and Mr. Rouché's perfumes are apparently strong enough to give his managerial feats the fragrance of real opera. The production of Rosenkavalier (in the absence of Strauss, whose temperamental remark of balmy pre-war days, referring to the blessings of the Prussian bayonets, is not forgotten here) seems to have been the supreme effort of years. Marie Gutheil-Schoder, the inimitable Viennese Octavian of yore, was the stage director; she had a hard time frustrating the plans of the management to surround young Count Rofrano with a body-guard composed of handsome young ladies! The directorate felt that it was appropriate, in this epoch of Revue, to create a new type of "figurante"—the Rosenkavalier girls, so to say. Too bad the fine idea did not materialize!
26The Modernists
28"Modernistic" musical Paris gathers around the flag of Henry Prunières and his Revue Musicale, the equivalent of Vienna's International Society for Contemporary Music concerts, I should say—but what a different picture. At home; a bunch of intellectuals, many of them of the type which wears "long black hair and similar nails," assembled in a small, modest hall, for an almost fanatical cult of extreme radicalism. Here a big, gorgeous, brilliantly lit hall, a mundane, fashionably dressed crowd of the decidedly blase sort. One could not imagine them up in arms, hissing, whistling or demonstratively applauding as they do in Vienna.
30Alois Haba, that indefatigable Czech alchemist of the quarter-tone, and his cacophonous exhibitions were received with polite applause, at best with mild smiles. In Vienna they would have hissed—or applauded—and most likely the pros and cons would have been fought out by means of conclusive physical arguments. Is it merely good breeding that makes them so well-behaved in Paris, or is it just indifference?
32For myself, I prefer less politeness when it comes to assaulting (or defending) art principles and musical traditions.
34Between Haba's uproarious productions, a young lady, splendidly dressed, mounted the platform to perpetrate some jolly South American folksongs (or what passed for them) to the accompaniment of a guitar. The supposed battlefield of musical radicalism was thus turned into a cozy drawing room. It was quite a nice house party—comedy relief, one might call it—but let the I. S. C. M. in Vienna try to serve such mild entertainments to their clients, who come with a grim determination to partake of spiced atonal dishes! It would be the end of the Society—and perhaps of the hall in question.
36After Hindemith, Mozárh
38Yes, the modernists are more "optimistic" in Paris, more philosophically inclined and more gently disposed. Hindemith's Serenades, so far from disturbing their peace, were enthusiastically received by the clients of the Revue Musicale concerts, when Ruzena Herlinger sang them with the finish and taste habitual with this untiring fighter for musical modernism. The audience clearly enjoyed the art of the singer and the pleasing, singable melodies; the eccentricities of form and harmony which Hindemith's whimsical genius so profusely scattered over his Serenades were visibly Hecuba to them. Enthusiasm knew no bounds when Mme. Herlinger threw herself heart and soul into the mellifluous melodies of a Mozart cantata. Indeed "Mozárh" is quite the fashion at Paree, notwithstanding the doubtful services rendered to his memory by Messrs. Sacha Guitry and Reynaldo Hahn.
40If the public openly confesses to its predilection for "optimistic" music here (and elsewhere)—the difference between Paris and Vienna is that the French modernists, unlike their Viennese brethren, gladly stoop to public taste. For a few weeks each season Mme. Bériza, whom America knows not only from her short "Met" career but also as ex-Mme. Muratore, (the present one, by the way—that radiant Lina Cavallieri, enjoys new prosperity in her sweet beauty shop on the Avenue Victor Emanuel III), turns the cozy Theatre Fémina into a charming little chamber opera house under the name of Theatre Bériza. Here I rediscovered our old Metropolitan friend, Edmond Warnery, who has slipped from the tight and becoming attire of Pelléas into an extremely original costume provided by Ladislas Medgyes (incidentally, an excellent designer) and who now wades through the—far from Debussyan or esoteric—music of a one-act comic opera named Angélique.
42"Chamber Jazz"
44Jacques Ibert is its composer, and it is a clever venture into a sort of operatic "chamber jazz"—a nicely assorted medley of all that promises amusement and success from grand opera parody to Charleston and to tempered Stravinskyism. The little piece is written and done with so much wit, grace and taste that one cannot but enjoy it, and congratulate its author upon his cleverness.
46As for myself, I could not but ponder with some melancholy on our young modernists at home—the Bergs, Webers, Welless and Pisks—who would rather "let their hands remember not their power" than compose anything so sure of easy laurels and produce it in the name of "modern music." Idealism seldom pays, but initiated Parisians tell me that the Theatre Bériza also yields to its authors more light glory than heavy revenue.
48If Vienna complains of cliques and counteracting groups in its musical life, there appears to be no such danger in Paris. The so-called musical set seems to show no schism here. It is always the same crowd that you meet wherever anything "modern" is going on in the musical line. You find the same folks at the Concerts Straram, which undertake the heroic task of supplying Paris with a few examples of real modernism to relieve the atmosphere of sweet conservatism cultivated by the Lamoureux and Colonne; you meet the same clan again at Bériza's dress rehearsal, and again in the aristocratic "salon" of Mme. Dubost, so profusely decorated with wonderful paintings by the great Marie Laurencin—a stronghold of modernism of all branches, and the refuge of all musical birds of passage.
50Ravel on Strauss: The Maître Speaks
52The Revue Musicale concerts rally much the same clientele, and of course, tout Paris (seasoned with a strong Russian and American tinge and a large flock of expatriated Austrians) came to a reception given at the house of Henry Prunières. There was Arthur Honegger—still the genial, rugged Swiss rather than the perfumed Parisian; and there was Maurice Ravel, the tacitly recognized "maître" of the young French generation—the counterpart, I should say, of Arnold Schönberg in Vienna, but minus the latter's forbidding air of self-seclusion.
54To hear Ravel berate dear old Doctor Strauss for his cacophony, gruesomeness and "horreur" is positively comical. Why, to our Viennese ears Elektra sounds about as cacophonous by now as the Sonata Pathétique; our ears, made suspicious by Rosenkavalier and Ariadne, even perceive the strain of all-too-melodious triviality in Salome! How different is the conception of "radicalism" at Vienna and Paris! It is a question of relative mentality; and of musical tradition.
56Paul Bechert.
58NEW SPANISH OPERA HAS SECOND PERFORMANCE
60Horowitz and Heifetz Make Deep Impression—Likewise the Fisk Singers
62BARCELONA.—The end of the opera season at the Lyceo Theater was as brilliant as its opening, the last opera being La Espigadora (The Gleaner) by Zacundo de La Viña, who, as Musical Courier readers will remember, won the competition offered by the management of the theater for which twenty-one Spanish operas were submitted. The fact that the La Espigadora has been again performed speaks highly for its intrinsic merit, for Spanish prophets, like others, are without honor in their own country.
64Among the numerous concert performers of all nationalities who have lately passed through Barcelona we feel bound to mention two names which will not be readily forgotten by music lovers in our city. The first is that of Vladimir Horowitz, a young Russian pianist who has reached the highest limits of technical perfection and artistic feeling. In a widely varied program of immense difficulty, comprising works by Beethoven and Liszt in addition to several by modern composers, he proved that the piano possessed no secrets and offered no difficulties for him, and that he united with this marvelous mastery over the instrument a musical temperament of a high order.
66The other name is Heifetz, that of a real virtuoso of the violin, and in whose playing one does not know whether to admire most the richness of tone, the variety of shade or the flexibility of bowing. The only thing for which one can blame him is his occasional lack of feeling.
68A vocal quintet which has made a profound impression is that of the Fisk Jubilee Singers. These artists, who have made a triumphal progress through Europe, visited Barcelona not long ago for the first time, and roused the audience to enthusiastic approval.
70The greater number of our musical societies have devoted themselves to commemorating the first centenary of the death of Beethoven. Arrangements have now been made to give the nine symphonies, the Missa Solemnis, the violin and piano sonatas, the quartets, etc. It has also been proposed to place a bust of Beethoven in one of the public squares of Barcelona.
72T. O. C.
74BUDAPEST HAS ANGLO-FRENCH INVASION
76Beethoven Celebration Well Under Way
78BUDAPEST.—There has been a mild Anglo-French invasion of Budapest. Sir Thomas Beecham conducted an excellent performance of Tristan and Isolde and that highly intelligent pianist, William Murdoch, gave an extraordinarily plastic and well thought out Mozart concert, for which he was heartily acclaimed.
80A deep impression was likewise made by Marcel Journet, who appeared here for the first time as Hans Sachs in the Meistersinger. His great art was still further revealed in the—to him—more congenial operas of Faust and Thais. Another French artist, who enjoyed equal success in her genre, was the young pianist Jean Marie Daré. For an artist of her youth she possesses almost unexampled pianistic accomplishments—colossal technique and fine esthetic feeling.
82A number of Beethoven Centenary concerts have already taken place. In four evenings the Rosé Quartet played all the big Beethoven quartets; Bronislaw Huberman, in a recital with orchestral accompaniment, gave a most poetic interpretation of the violin concerto, the triple concerto with Gregory Piatigorsky (cellist) and Siegfried Schulz (pianist), as well as the two Romances; and Felix Weingartner, with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted an all-Beethoven program including the Hammerklavier sonata in Weingartner's orchestral transcription. A. T.
84ROME HEARS RECITAL BY A PIANIST WITHOUT HANDS
86Vittorio Gui One of Rome's Favorite Conductors—Frieda Kwast-Hodapp Makes Deep Impression—Arthur Shattuck's Success—Pleasing Compositions by American Academy Students.
88ROME.—A natural phenomenon has appeared in the person of Gino Palmisano, a pianist with neither forearms nor hands. Below each elbow he has only a bone ending in one long finger—hardly the equipment for a pianist. But, as a child, he heard his sister taking piano lessons and determined to learn to play, too. Although officially studying law he practiced by himself for years until he accomplished the unbelievable results demonstrated at his recital in the Teatro Eliseo here. His program comprised works by Cilea, Coppola, Frontini, De Rubertis, Paderewski, Chopin and Liszt, all of which were played with clearness and a certain brilliancy. The huge audience that had gathered was profoundly moved and applauded with a touching enthusiasm.
90Three orchestral concerts have been given here by Vittorio Gui, one of Rome's favorite conductors, who came, fresh from his success at the Teatro Argentina, for this purpose. All three concerts were crowded with enthusiastic audiences, chairs having to be brought in for the third concert in spite of horrible weather. Gui has now returned to his regular post in Turin where Molinari substituted for him during his absence, and won new laurels.
92Popular French Pianist
94An orchestral concert under young Mario Rossi was good, particularly in the lighter works, such as the overture to Donne Curiose, played with sprightliness and finesse. The popular French pianist, Paul Loyomnet, was the soloist of the occasion, playing a Beethoven Concerto and Weber's Konzertstück. In spite of his success, and he had to add many encores, there was a general feeling that he was not at his best in Beethoven. This feeling was borne out at his two Beethoven recitals, which followed.
96The German pianist, Frieda Kwast-Hodapp, has made a deep impression here with her extraordinary power and magnificent interpretations. Maria Mafioletti, another of the many pianists, was cordially received. Arthur Shattuck, in an unusual program, won an immediate success by reason of his splendid technique and deep sentiment.
98AMERICAN ACADEMY PRODUCES FINE PIANISTS
100A large audience gathered in the beautiful hall of the International Art Association not long ago to hear the compositions of three of the students at the American Academy in Rome. A piano quartet by Mr. Helfer proved to be full of meaning, well harmonized and beautifully melodic.
102Mr. Sanders' piano quintet showed a distinct mark of originality and contained moments of great harmonic interest. Three charming little pieces of nostalgic character, written for two pianos by R. Damrosch, were very warmly received, as, indeed, were all the works performed. The last two composers named are pianists as well, and played their own works brilliantly. It is astonishing what good pianists these students are. The strings were also very good, especially in ensemble. D. P.
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