Books › Musical Courier 1928-07-26: Vol 97 Iss 4, 1928 › scan 17
Scan 17
Musical Courier 1928-07-26: Vol 97 Iss 4, 1928
69 lines. Read by computer on 29 September 2026, twice; the two readings disagreed in places. Printed page 18. See the scan on archive.org.
1MUSICAL COURIER
2Weekly Review of the World's Music
3Published every Thursday by the
4MUSICAL COURIER COMPANY, INC.
5ERVIN F. EILERT………………………………………President one of two readings
6ERVIN F. EILERT …………………………………………..President one of two readings
7WILLIAM GEPPERT………………………………………Vice President one of two readings
8WILLIAM GEPPERT ………………………………………Vice President one of two readings
9ALVIN L. SCHMOEGGER……………………………….Sec. and Treas. one of two readings
10ALVIN L. SCHMOEGER …………………………………….Sec. and Treas. one of two readings
11Steinway Building, 113 West 57th Street, New York
12Telephone to all Departments: Circle 4500, 4501, 4502, 4503, 4504, 4505, 4506.
13Cable address: Musicerler, New York
14Member of Merchants' Association of New York, National Publishers' Association, Rotary Club of New York, The Fifth Avenue Association of New York, Music Industries Chamber of Commerce, Advertising Club of New York, Honorary Member American Optimists.
15ALVIN L. SCHMOEGGER……………………………….General Manager one of two readings
16LEONARD LIEBLING………………………………………Editor-in-Chief one of two readings
17WILLIAM GEPPERT………………………………………Associate Editors one of two readings
18CLARENCE LEE (Paris) one of two readings
19RENE DEVRIES one of two readings
20CESAR SAERCHINGER (London) one of two readings
21THOMAS J. RIKER………………………………………Managing Editor one of two readings
22J. ALBERT RIKER………………………………………General Representative one of two readings
23ALVIN L. SCHMOEGER …………………………………….General Manager one of two readings
24LEONARD LIEBLING ………………………………………Editor-in-Chief one of two readings
25WILLIAM GEPPERT ………………………………………Associate Editors one of two readings
26CLARENCE LEE (Paris) …………………………………. one of two readings
27RENE DEVRIES …………………………………………….Managing Editor one of two readings
28THOMAS J. RIKER …………………………………………General Representative one of two readings
29CHICAGO AND MIDDLE WEST HEADQUARTERS—JEANNETTE COX, 820 to 826 Orchestra Building, 229 South Michigan Ave., Chicago. Telephone, Harrison 6118.
30LONDON AND GENERAL EUROPEAN HEADQUARTERS—CESAR SAERCHINGER (in charge), 134 Wigmore Street, W. I. Telephone, Mayfair 6453. LONDON BUSINESS OFFICE—175 Piccadilly, W. I. Telephone, Gerrard 5267. one of two readings
31LONDON AND GENERAL EUROPEAN HEADQUARTERS—CEZAR SARNBURGH (in charge), 134 Wigmore Street, W. 1. Telephone, Mayfair 6453. LONDON BUSINESS OFFICE—175 Piccadilly, W. 1. Telephone, Gerrard 5267. one of two readings
32Cable Address: Musicerler, London.
33BERLIN, GERMANY—C. COOPER TRASK, Witzlebenstr. 32, Berlin-Charlottenburg 1. Telephone, Wilhelm 9144. Cable address: Musicerler, Berlin.
34PARIS, FRANCE—NATALIE DE RODA, Avenue du Roi Albert (Taxis, elevators to 4th floor). Telephone, Central 14-85. Cable address: Musicerler, Paris. one of two readings
35PARIS, FRANCE—NATALIE DE RODA, Avenue du Roi Albert (Télé. émetteur 14-85). Telephone, Central 14-85. Cable address: Musicerler, Paris. one of two readings
36MILAN, ITALY—ARNOLO HART, 31 Via Durini.
37VIENNA, AUSTRIA—PAUL HEGEMER, Schellinggasse 12, Vienna 1. Telephone, Vienna 72-6-47. Cable address: Musicerler, Vienna.
38For the names and addresses of other offices, correspondents and representatives apply at the main office.
39SUBSCRIPTIONS—Domestic, Five Dollars; Canadian, Six Dollars. Foreign, Six Dollars and Twenty-five Cents. Single Copies, Fifteen Cents at News-Stands. Six Numbers, Twenty-five Cents. American News Company, New York, General Distributing Agents. Western News Company, Chicago, Western Distributing Agents. News Agents, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Australia, News Co. Ltd., Agents for Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, Tasmania. Agents for New Zealand, New Zealand News Co., Ltd., Wellington. European Agents, The International News Company, Ltd., Bream's Building, London, E. C. 4, England.
40The MUSICAL COURIER is for sale at the principal newsstands and music stores in the United States and in the leading music houses, hotels and kiosques in Europe.
41Copy for Advertising in the MUSICAL COURIER should be in the hands of the Advertising Department before four o'clock on the Friday previous to the date of publication. The advertising rates of the MUSICAL COURIER are computed on a flat rate basis, no charge being made for setting up advertisements. An extra charge is made for mortising, notching, leveling, and lay-outs which call for special set-up.
42Entered as Second Class Matter, January 8, 1883, at the Post Office at New York, N. Y., under the act of March 3, 1879.
43NEW YORK JULY 26, 1928 No. 2520
44Both the wheat crop and the crop of new music teachers are plentiful this year.
45"There's no place to go but Europe" says a grouch. How about Ravinia, Hollywood, etc.?
46Hoover or Smith? Hoover likes jazz and Smith is fond of popular sentimental ballads. The musical vote, therefore, is in a tragic predicament.
47"Is There an Operatic Future?" asks an ex-chance. Yes, so long as governments, municipalities, potentates, and private guarantors pay the deficits.
48How often, oh colleague, have you had to explain to a lay inquisitioner that your particular instrument is the only one you play? And don't you feel insignificant and guilty whenever that foolish question, No. 10,000,000, is put to you?
49German manufacturers of automobiles are uniting to meet American competition. Foreign makers of music united long ago to meet the invasion of jazz players. After a while some of us who are afflicted with an inferiority complex will awaken to the fact that America is quite a country after all!
50Algernon Ashton, the English composer and musical writer, after playing Benjamin Godard's cello sonata, wrote the French composer an enthusiastic letter of congratulation. Godard replied by sending Ashton an autographed photograph of himself. Ashton thereupon sent Godard his picture and a copy of his own piano quartet, op. 34. For some reason Ashton never heard from Godard again.
51The same Algernon Ashton that had the little adventure with Benjamin Godard, commented on a question asked by a reader of the Westminster Gazette, to the effect "why should the State not treat the honest man at least as well as it treats the burglar, when the latter, sentenced to five years' penal servitude, gets from the State free board and lodging for that period, and all this time the honest citizen has to pay his own rent and the bills of the butcher, baker and grocer." Wrote Mr. Ashton: "It is news to me to hear that a burglar is well treated when he gets five years' penal servitude. I for one would certainly prefer to pay my own rent and the bills of my butcher, baker and grocer during that period than go into penal servitude." Evidently Mr. Ashton had never been on a tour of inspection through our own Sing Sing or any other of our delightful American prisons.
52A critic remarks that the only piece of American music that has found its way to the regular orchestra repertory is Deems Taylor's Looking Glass Suite. Quite true, and who could have guessed that such an honor would be conferred upon a piece of humor for children!
53The most frequent comment that one hears of modern music is that it is wandering, diffusive and excursive. Summer, then, should surely be the season for modern music, for most of the world wanders during the summer season, and it is certainly the season of excursiveness. Many who wander to Europe this summer will have opportunities of hearing modern music galore. But will they? One has a vague and only half formed suspicion that a good many of them will go where music of the accepted sort is to be heard.
54Sweden has certainly come to the fore with its choral singing! A magazine which no one in the MUSICAL COURIER office can read (we frankly acknowledge our deficiencies) has just arrived and appears to be the official organ of the Associated Mixed Choruses of Sweden. This is evidence of a vitality that is striking enough, and one that might well be emulated elsewhere. The paper is of small size, illustrated, and contains about twenty pages. It appears to be printed monthly or bi-monthly, as its No. 3 is for April and May of this year.
55A Blue, though no Rhapsody in Blue, is the latest publication of the magazine, New Music, a magazine without reading matter, containing only music. In this issue is a sonata for violin and piano by Carlos Chavez. It is assumed to be a Blue because the cover is such a wonderful, startling, gloomy blue, with red streaks across it, blood issuing from a treble clef sign (or sun rays, perhaps—one guess is as good as another). The music is harmonically wonderful. Such chords as G, C sharp, D, E, G sharp, A; or F sharp, G, A sharp, B are indeed, lovely. Truly, they breathe the purity of the blue sky!
56All this bother about amateurism in the tennis world causes one to wonder what an amateur musician is. Are there any? Not if they are good enough to enter the professional class—at least, that is the impression one has. It seems that the amateur musician always finds some way to earn a little pin money. If he does not, sooner or later he is likely to abandon his music. Why this should be so is one of the mysteries. It was once explained in the following manner: The musician does not eternally enjoy making music solely for his own delectation. After a time, be he amateur or professional, he wants to be heard. If he cannot get anybody to listen to his performance, he takes to composition, gets his works published and exposes them for sale—which, of course, turns him into a professional. Music seems to be a form of self-expression and self is not expressed unless its terms are communicated to others. It is like letter writing; few people will take the trouble to write letters that will never be read. The only real amateurism in music is when two or more musicians come together for chamber music. There ought to be more of it. Why isn't there?
57The Ottawa Journal comments editorially upon the fact that Lord Willingdon, Governor General of Canada, has awarded prizes for the encouragement of music, drama, painting and sculpture. The Ottawa Journal remarks that this is a fine and useful gesture, and one denoting an ardent interest in the higher development of the country. The Journal further calls attention to the fact that years ago James Russell Lowell warned Americans that the true greatness of a people must be weighed in scales more delicate than the balance of trade. And, finally, the Journal says: "If we can afford to offer prizes for agricultural and other achievements of a material character, no reason would seem to prevent something along the same lines to promote the supreme values." Comment seems to be unnecessary, but it appears at present almost as if the United States were offering too many prizes for musical composition and interpretation. True, our government does not give these prizes, but the source is, after all, unimportant, and it is probable that music here is better supported by philanthropy than it ever would be by officialdom. One wonders sometimes if the healthiest growth would not after all be a growth without prizes.
58HOLLYWOOD BOWL
59California's climate has been so much talked about that it has become almost a joke. The tales that are told of it sound—to people who have never been there—like fish stories of the fishiest sort. Yet those tales are, for the most part, true, and California's climate is a fact.
60It is a fact, too, that climate has much to do with art. Before Bowl days one might have doubted such a statement. One might have scoffed at the idea that musical performances should depend for their magnitude and excellence upon the climate of the locality of their projection. Yet it is absolutely true that what is being done in the Hollywood Bowl could not have been done had the climate of California not been what it is.
61Great orchestras, great auditoriums, great conductors, cost money. Money must be had from some source to support any undertaking which involves these huge outlays. Money might have been had for the purpose from philanthropic music lovers—but, except in limited quantities, such gifts have proved to be unnecessary in Hollywood, for the simple reason that the seating capacity of the Bowl is sufficient to create an income large enough to defray all expenses.
62But such a seating capacity could not be had under a single roof, and where it rains there must be a roof. In Hollywood in summer it never rains—hence the possibility of the Hollywood Bowl Concerts.
63That is the financial, material, end of the matter. But there is another end, equally important. That is, the sheer beauty of California's night. Those who have never seen it can form no clear conception of it. There is something in it that draws one forth from the home, something in it that makes one long for art. The impression is so strong that even the least poetic feels a desire for expression, and failing that power will seek musical expression at the Bowl. There, under the stars, shining from such a sky as one never sees in our East, in security from any weather disturbance, sure that this night and the next day and night through the entire summer will be alike in their perfection, a peace pervades one that is found rarely or never anywhere except in Southern California.
64There was a picture of the Bowl at night in a recent issue of the Musical Courier, but that picture, beautiful as it was, gave no idea of the appealing mental and spiritual atmosphere of Southern California. It is an atmosphere which creates a demand for self-expression. It creates dreams, as peace always creates dreams, and the day may come when Southern California will give the world some of its best art.
65Already the people there are reacting, in a manner quite unexpected, to the sort of programs that are being offered in the Bowl. Every night throughout the summer thousands of people come—often at great inconvenience to themselves—to hear programs of purely classic music given by a conductor of classic training.
66Hollywood Bowl represents something beyond merely a series of very good symphony concerts. It represents a tendency as well as a utility. It is making history, not merely by getting great audiences to hear music directed by a chain of great conductors, but by bringing into the lives of thousands something that would otherwise be absent from those lives.
67And somewhere, sometime, that seed will surely take root and bring to being a great artist. It will take root, too, and bring forth a population of serious music lovers which will create audiences ready to attend music offered in places of less charm than Hollywood Bowl.
68And America, in its great need of such artists and such audiences, must view with satisfaction what is being done in Hollywood. The town that gave us the pictures and the scandals is also giving us something we did not have before—not merely concerts, but concerts with a mission.
The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.