Books › Musical Courier 1928-08-09: Vol 97 Iss 6, 1928 › scan 17
Scan 17
Musical Courier 1928-08-09: Vol 97 Iss 6, 1928
80 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.
5ERNEST F. EILERT…………………………………………..President
6WILLIAM GEPPERT………………………………………Vice-President
7ALVIN L. SCHMOEGGER………………………………….Sec. and Treas.
8Steinway Building, 113 West 57th Street, New York
9Telephone to all Departments: Circle 4500, 4501, 4502, 4503, 4504, 4505, 4506.
10Cable address: Musiciere, New York one of two readings
11Cable address: Musicerler, New York one of two readings
12Member 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.
13ALVIN L. SCHMOEGGER………………………………….General Manager
14LEONARD LEJELLING…………………………………….Editor-in-Chief
15WILLIAM GEPPERT………………………………………Associate Editors
16FRANK PATTERSON
17CLARENCE LUCAS (Paris)
18RENE LUCAS (Paris)
19CESAR SAERCHINGER (London)
20THORNTON W. ALLEN…………………………………….Managing Editor
21J. ALBERT RIKER…………………………………………General Representative
22CHICAGO AND MIDDLE WEST HEADQUARTERS—JEANNETTE COX, 820
231010 Orchestra Building, 220 South Michigan Ave., Chicago. Telephone, Harbert 1118.
24LONDON AND GENERAL EUROPEAN HEADQUARTERS—CESAR SAERCHINGER (in charge), 124 Wigmore Street, W. 1, Telephone, Mayfair 12. 5267.
25LONDON BRITISH OFFICE—10 Fenchley, W. 1, Telephone, 5267.
26Cable Address: Musiciere, London. one of two readings
27Cable Address: Musicerler, London. one of two readings
28BERLIN, GERMANY—FRANZ WITZEL, 22, Berlin-Charlottenburg. Telephone, Wilhelm 9144. Cable address: Musiciere, Berlin. one of two readings
29BERLIN, GERMANY—FRANZ WITZEL, 22, Berlin-Charlottenburg. Telephone, Wilhelm 9144. Cable address: Musicerler, Berlin. one of two readings
30PARIS, FRANCE—NAZALE DE BOGORY, 47, Avenue de l'Opera. (Take elevator to 5th floor.) Telephone, Gutenberg 39-26. Cable address: Musiciere, Paris. one of two readings
31PARIS, FRANCE—NAZALE DE BOGORT, 47, Avenue de l'Opera. (Take elevator to 5th floor.) Telephone, Gutenberg 39-26. Cable address: Musicerler, Paris. one of two readings
32VIENNA, AUSTRIA—PIERRE BECHERT, Schlagasse 12, Vienna 1. Telephone, Vienna 3-8-47. Cable address: Musiciere, Vienna. one of two readings
33VIENNA, AUSTRIA—PIERRE BECHERT, Schlagasse 12, Vienna 1. Telephone, Vienna 3-8-47. Cable address: Musicerler, Vienna. one of two readings
34For the names and addresses of other offices, correspondents and representatives apply at the main office.
35SUBSCRIPTIONS—Domestic, Five Dollars; Canadian, Six Dollars. Foreign, Six Dollars and Twenty-five Cents. Single Copies, Fifteen Cents at Newsstands. Back Numbers, Twenty-five Cents. American and Foreign Agents: New York, General Advertising and Publishing Company, New York, Western News Company, Chicago, Western Distributing Agents. New England News Co., Eastern Distributing Agents. Australasian News Co., Ltd., Agents for Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, and New Zealand. New Zealand News Co., Ltd., Wellington, European Agents, The International News Company, Ltd., Bream's Building, London, E. C. 4, England. one of two readings
36SUBSCRIPTIONS—Domestic, Five Dollars; Canadian, Six Dollars. Foreign, Six Dollars and Twenty-five Cents. Single Copies, Fifteen Cents at Newsstands. Back Numbers, Twenty-five Cents. American and Foreign Agents: New York, General Advertising and Publishing Company, New York, Western News Company, Chicago, Western Distributing Agents. New England News Co., Eastern Distributing Agents. Australasian News Co., Ltd., Agent for Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, and other cities in Australia. New Zealand, New Zealand News Co., Ltd., Wellington, European Agents, The International News Company, Ltd., Bream's Building, London, E. C. 4, England. one of two readings
37The 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.
38Copy for Advertising in the MUSICAL COURIER should be in the hands of the Advertising Department before four o'clock on Friday preceding 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-ups. one of two readings
39Copy for Advertising in the MUSICAL COURIER should be in the hands of the Advertising Department before four o'clock on Friday, two days before 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-ups. one of two readings
40Entered as Second Class Matter, January 8, 1883, at the Post Office at New York, N. Y., under the act of March 3, 1879.
41NEW YORK AUGUST 9, 1928 No. 2522
42Still, if all the performers and composers were perfect, what would the critics do?
43All men are created free and equal except the professional organist of a country church.
44Not a line about Mary Garden in the papers this summer. She is neglecting her art dreadfully.
45These days the Metropolitan Opera House presents a truly deserted picture. Still life, as it were.
46If the Steinach theory is right, some day scientists may inject fish glands into concert performers, to make their scales perfect.
47When you reach the point where progress offends you, you might as well resign yourself to the fact that you are getting old.
48"This is the age of art in business," says a utility magazine. And it is also "the age of business in art," says the MUSICAL COURIER.
49A comic paper advises that "the best way to write a jazz hit is to take something composed by one of the masters and just decompose it."
50Koussevitzky is criticized by Tristan Klingsor in Le Monde Musical for giving in Paris Carpenter's Sky Scrapers, of which he finds that the melodic ideas are of unpardonable banality and vulgarity. The things Carpenter intended to satirize are also banal and vulgar. Criticism of so characteristic a work from a foreign source is almost sure to be unjust simply because the intention of the composer is misunderstood.
51Wagner, at last, for all the world! That is what George Blumenthal promises, as announced elsewhere in this issue. The operas are to be Movietoned so that any little theater, without orchestra or other facilities, may give full and complete performances of these immortal masterpieces. How wonderful it is! When one thinks of the artistic pleasure that has been denied to nearly everybody in America, one sighs with relief at the realization that it is now soon to be at an end. Wagner has been, for most Americans, a few excerpts to be heard now and then, but never a stage work, never as Wagner himself conceived it. Now even the smallest village may have the entire production. One can only say again, wonderful!
52A Scotchman refused to study with a vocal teacher who told him: "I shall have to charge your voice with more emotion."
53History teaches that oftentimes new musical truths are at first regarded as heresies and wind up by being cherished as traditions.
54After all, with our political system in this country it would be difficult to imagine us with a National Conservatory of Music. More likely it would be a National Controversy of Music.
55A British writer calls modern music "cosmic litter." The place for it accordingly may be presumed to be the ash can and the waste basket. Some of it, to be sure.
56In the automobile industry, when any well known maker of cars puts out a new model, the product is scanned by the motor world as eagerly and critically as the musical world regards a new work by any well known composer.
57(From Tit-Bits) Mrs. Brown: This 'ere fellow thinks 'e can sing like Caruso. Mrs. Iggins: Well, they do say as 'ow Caruso 'ad a beautiful voice, but 'ow could they know with 'im stranded on that island with nobody but Friday to 'ear him?
58This is the silly season. Several new touring opera companies are forming for next winter. They are not first class organizations, or even second class. In fact, a conservative estimate of their vocal, scenic, and other equipment would indicate them to be about sixth class.
59Wilfred D. Hambly, Assistant Curator of African Ethnology at the Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, recommends the African friction drum to jazz players. It makes heart-rending wails and groans. Whether or not Mr. Hambly is a public benefactor remains to be seen. If his suggestion is accepted by the jazz makers it will certainly result in heart-rending wails and groans.
60French composers are complaining that their new works are no longer given by the symphony orchestras because the orchestras can afford only one rehearsal per concert and are therefore reduced to the perpetual performance of the standard repertory. American orchestras have plenty of rehearsals, yet the works of American composers are hardly ever given. There appears always to be some reason and some excuse for not giving new works.
61Satisfaction must be felt, not only by students but by all lovers of the best in musical art, at the announcement made in another column of the proposed publication of a new Bach Edition with annotations by Gottfried Galston. This new edition, already under way, is being issued by the Art Publication Society, already far famed for its publications and for the useful work it has done for music in America. This will be a step in the same direction.
62Sorry, gentlemen of the Police Band. The reference to your esteemed organization on the editorial page of August 2 was meant for the POLICE GLEE CLUB. Of course, we know that your band and the glee club are two different and distinct organizations. In reading the press reports of the financial condition of the glee club, somebody in the office got slightly mixed and put you in the wrong light. A thousand pardons—the mistake is entirely ours!
63The letters of Richard Wagner—738 of them—now are available in English translation, published by E. P. Dutton & Co. They do not reveal anything hitherto unknown to the world about the redoubtable Richard, but they etch out sharply his salient characteristics, and make him appear more than ever a phenomenon of intellect, activity, energy, ambition, resourcefulness, versatility, aside from his unequalled creative genius. It is a fair guess that music probably never will produce another such figure.
64Linda A. Eastman, of Cleveland, President of the American Library Association, says that there is no room for books in the American home and recommends the library as an adequate substitute. Strange enough! The American home finds room for a piano, radio, phonograph, humidaire, cellarette, etc., why not for books? Because books are read once and once only and then become an unused incumbrance that one hates to sell to the junk man; because it hurts to give away for five cents a thing that cost two dollars. It isn't a matter of room but of utility.
65MUSICAL COURIER
66August 9, 1928
67RESENTED CRITICISM
68Some one, it matters not who, writes an indignant letter to a New York newspaper, it matters not which, "resenting" criticism of his favorite poet. The fact starts a train of thought—and memories—and neither the thoughts nor the memories are altogether pleasant.
69It is never pleasant to find people smaller than one has pictured them, and resented criticism is, after all, rather small. The big man or woman always accepts the human necessity of difference of opinion and of free expression.
70Yet it must be acknowledged that criticism hurts. It hurts everybody, especially . . . when it is deserved! So if criticism is resented, one may sometimes—almost always—assume that it is deserved.
71It is curious how little people want to learn about their own faults. Few, indeed, are the humans who give thanks (sincerely) for comment of an adverse character. From childhood to old age, we all of us like to believe that other people are blind to our faults.
72Yet criticism may be, and often is, useful, even to those who resent it. If it is not useful, it is because they resent it so vigorously that their anger closes the doors of their minds to understanding. There are none so blind as those who will not see!
73And if only artists would take constructive criticism to heart, they would find it a valuable addition to their study hours. Sometimes the very things the teachers have been trying to bring home to a pupil are the things the critics discover and remark upon, and the pupil then gets a sufficient shock to realize the importance of what has "gone in one ear and out of the other" in the studio. We all need an occasional hard knock to jar us awake.
74Criticism is sometimes of the sort that is called "kindly" and sometimes not—though how any criticism, if it is just, can be anything but kindly is hard to understand. Help is always kind, and criticism is always helpful—though, of course, to call a person's attention to something he can neither help nor change is mere unkindness—often brutality.
75This sort of unkindness, however, can never apply to any artist. Any attempt to embrace the artistic career in any of its various forms is a voluntary act. Therefore criticism, however harsh, of the artist's deficiencies can never be unkind. If those deficiencies are of an incurable sort, the person so afflicted should never undertake the artistic career. If he insists upon shutting his eyes to the truth, he should be told.
76Such sightless people often are told. They hear the truth first from parents, guardians, friends, relatives and teachers—but they do not believe a word of it. Then they read it in the public news print—and oftentimes they still refuse to believe it. And so we have the sad spectacle of would-be artists going on, and on, and on, through life, always hoping, always failing, always blaming their failure upon the fact that they are "not recognized."
77They point to many a genius of the past and distort facts so as to bolster up their own belief that they are in the same class. The truth is that no genius of the past was unrecognized—unless some may still be unrecognized, which is unbelievable. However, much of the past is a closed book and always must be. We cannot guess how many great unheard tenors, sopranos, pianists, violinists, et al, may lie dead with never a line to show how great they were.
78But it is easier to believe that they were not. It is easier to believe that the past was a good deal like the present; and where are the unrecognized geniuses of today? No doubt some who think the cap fits will write in to tell us about themselves—but we won't believe them unless they can bring a lot of impartial evidence to bear upon their case. And if they can do that, they are not unrecognized.
79What would-be artists—even many of them who possess real talent—too often forget is that there is more in an artistic career than mere art. There must also be character—stability. Some artists are wildly emotional (and some pretend to be), but the successful ones always see their way to success clearly and follow it persistently. The "straight and narrow" in art is just as important as in every other walk of life; and criticism is an aid to its pursuance.
The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.