Books › Musical Courier 1928-12-13: Vol 97 Iss 24, 1928 › scan 37
Scan 37
Musical Courier 1928-12-13: Vol 97 Iss 24, 1928
61 lines. Read by computer on 29 September 2026, twice; the two readings disagreed in places. Printed page 38. 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. EILBERT …………………………………………..President
6WILLIAM GEPPERT …………………………………………..Vice-President
7ALVIN L. SCHMOEGER ………………………………………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: Musicerler, New York
11Member of Merchants' Association of New York, National Publishers' Association, The Fifth Avenue Association of New York, Music Industries Chamber of Commerce, Honorary Member American Optimists.
12ALVIN L. SCHMOEGER ………………………………………General Manager
13LEONARD LIEBELING ………………………………………Editor-in-Chief
14WILLIAM GEPPERT …………………………………………..Associate Editor
15FRANK PATTERSON …………………………………………..Associate Editor
16CLARENCE LUCAS (Paris) ………………………………….Associate Editor
17RENE DEVRIES ……………………………………………..Associate Editor
18GEORGE H. W. RINGGOLD (London) ………………..Associate Editor
19ALBERT EDMUND BROWN (Hibma, N. Y.) …………Managing Editor
20THORNTON W. ALLEN ………………………………………General Representative
21J. ALBERT RIER …………………………………………….General Representative
22CHICAGO AND MIDDLE WEST HEADQUARTERS—JEANNETTE COX, 529 N. 839 Orchestra Building, 220 South Michigan Ave., Chicago, Telephone, Hartman 6182.
23LONDON AND GENERAL EUROPEAN HEADQUARTERS—Cecil Saxe, Saxe Chilinger in Charge, 121, Wigmore Street, London, Telephone, Mayfair 1652.
24LONDON BRANCH OFFICE—17, Finsbury, W. I., Telephone, Gerrard 5267.
25Cable address: Musicerler, London.
26BERLIN, GERMANY—1, Hooper Trasse, Witzlebenstr. 32, Berlin-Charlottenburg, Telephone, Wilhelm 9144. Cable address, Musicerler, Berlin. one of two readings
27BERLIN, GERMANY—H. HOOPER TRAAR, Witzlebenstr. 32, Berlin-Charlottenburg, Telephone, Wilhelm 9144. Cable address, Musicerler, Berlin. one of two readings
28VIENNA, AUSTRIA—PAUL BECHERT, Schellinggasse 12, Vienna 1. Telephone, R-22-0-47. Cable address, Musicerler, Vienna.
29For names and addresses of other offices, correspondents and representatives apply at the main office.
30SUBSCRIPTIONS—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 News Company, New York. General Distributing Agents: Western News Company, Chicago, Western Distributing Company, New England News Co., Eastern Distributing Agents. Australasian News Co., Ltd., Agents for Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, Tasmania. Agents for New Zealand, New Zealand News Co., Ltd., Wellington, Auckland, Christchurch. International News Company, Ltd., Brenn's Building, London, E. C. 4, England.
31The 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.
32Copy 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, the charge being made for the number of insertions. A special charge is made for notching, leveling, and lay-outs which call for special set-ups.
33Entered as Second Class Matter, January 8, 1883, at the Post Office at New York, N. Y., under the Act of March 3, 1879.
34NEW YORK DECEMBER 13, 1928 2540
35Some music is too old for the radicals, and other music is too new for the conservatives.
36The latest obbligato instrument is the musical saw of vaudeville and radio fame. A cello of steel, and a steal from the cello.
37According to a headline Kreisler played "In Quiet Mood for Mature Audience." Why not "In Mature Mood for Quiet Audience?"
38Punch, London, comments on the fact that German pianos have been hard hit, with the reflection: "this has occurred in our own hearing."
39Walter Pach has written a book in defense of art. There is nothing the matter with art; it is some of the artists who are wrong.
40The most upstanding men in orchestras are the double bass players and the conductors, for even the tympanists sit down occasionally.
41Musical modernists like to look upon themselves as an oppressed minority. Would not the word "oppressed" be well substituted by "obsessed"?
42It really looks as if we were going to get a new National Anthem, thanks to the huge prizes being offered for one. Will America sing it? Ask the winner.
43The Schubert Memorial, Inc., has given its first concert and presented two young performers at Carnegie Hall before a large and brilliant audience. Now, what?
44There was a criticism last week in one of the New York dailies which said that a singer made such sounds as might be made by anybody with the aid of comb and paper. Is that a proper critical attitude?
45Statistics coming via London purport to show that opera performances in Germany from 1900 to 1925 give Wagner the lead with 1,596 representations, which would average 133 per year. Then follow Verdi with 1,513, Lortzing, 767; Mozart, 762; Bizet, 369. Meyerbeer had only 53 performances, which would be about two per year. It is better to quote these English figures with caution. On the face of them, they seem to be wrong somewhere. The true facts should be made public by the German Association of Opera Houses.
46The news comes that "the old-fashioned restaurant is passing away." And with it, if fortune favors, will go Mascagni's Intermezzo, the Poet and Peasant Overture, and operatic selections arranged for piano, violin, and cornet.
47Are these lines of Persius—or are they not—inspirational material for a symphonic poem: "When another day has arrived, we will find that we have consumed our yesterday's tomorrow; another morrow will urge on our years and still be a little beyond us."
48According to the press, Earl Carroll's Vanities have attracted $600,000 to the box office during the fifteen weeks of their present run. Which induces the reflection as to whether the collective Schubert concerts and other demonstrations this year will equal that amount—or anything like it.
49Auer pleads for violins for the gifted. There might be a fund to gather in and keep in trust all the world's great string masterpieces, and to loan them out to the deserving. Some day there may be more deserving than great violins, especially if the custom continues of purchase by millionaires and museums.
50According to a sensational statement in the New York American, Moritz Stoehr and his wife have decided to live apart because invention calls the professor and music his lady. Was it not Stoehr who a few years ago invented a transposing and music writing attachment for the piano? Memory seems to say so.
51The advent and triumphal success of Furtwängler as guest conductor of the Vienna Staatsoper has brought the directoral crisis of the house to an acute state. The general director of the State Theaters, Franz Schneiderhan, is negotiating with Furtwängler to succeed Director Schalk, and Furtwängler is said to be willing. Schalk has left Vienna for an improvised concert tour, but prior to his departure is said to have turned for help to the state president, Dr. Hainisch, and the premier, Dr. Seipel. Schalk's contract as director runs till 1930, but forces are at work to remove him earlier in favor of Furtwängler. The matter is the talk of the town.
52Berlin has now definitely joined the ranks of ardent woosers for foreign favor. With characteristic German thoroughness the Powers-That-Be have planned a festival which even in this land of gigantic undertakings must appear startling. Four opera companies, half a dozen or so orchestras, a similar number of theaters and two or three palaces, to say nothing of conductors, singers, actors and choruses, all with international reputations, are being pressed into service for a two months' festival during June and July of next summer. And while music is the chief attraction it is by no means the only one; contests and displays of various kinds of sport will be organized to keep happy those members of the family who do not enjoy prolonged communion with the muses.
53Schubert's uncompleted and much-discussed E major symphony, found long after his death and orchestrated almost entirely by John Francis Barnett, English musician, had its New York premiere last week when the Cleveland Orchestra, under Nikolai Sokoloff, gave it a reverential and beautifully finished reading. In fact, if it had not been for the color, charm, and delicate tonal shadings that marked the performance, the posthumous Schubert pages would have made but a sorry showing so far as vital importance was concerned. Although the symphony dates from 1821, one year before the immortal Unfinished came from the pen of the master, nevertheless the earlier opus is weak in theme, and undistinguished in formal design, conditions not helped by the conventional orchestration of Barnett, who did not exactly rank as a leading composer in his own day. What happened to Schubert in this E major work is not unique, for the case of Beethoven showed that he wrote an inconsequential second symphony before he composed his great Eroica, produced a somewhat spineless fourth symphony preceding the titanic Fifth, and prefaced with a not too vital eighth symphony, the soul searching and heart stirring Ninth. At any rate, it was historically interesting to hear the exhumed and artificially vitalized work by Schubert and Mr. Sokoloff is to be praised for bringing it before the New York musical clientele.
54December 13, 1928
55TRY AGAIN!
56According to the New York critics, the concert that was given last week by the newly founded Schubert Memorial was not altogether successful. The Schubert Memorial, as has already been announced in these columns, was organized by eminent musicians to give young American artists such an introduction to American audiences as would be enjoyed by almost any European artist coming here. The press seems to have been unanimous in the belief that the idea was an excellent one and to have hoped for its success, but was also unanimous in the opinion that the two young artists chosen for the first trial of the plan were not of the calibre which the founders of the Schubert Memorial evidently had in mind.
57The idea is not to give promising young artists a debut; the idea is to pick out world-beaters and to launch them in their magnificent careers. The difficulty arises in finding the world-beater. They do not grow on every bush and it is at best an extraordinarily difficult thing for any individual or group of individuals to pick them out from the other beautiful blossoms, all of which look as much alike as violets in a hotbed. There is undoubtedly a certain something that is possessed by the artist who is designed to be eminently successful with the public which is extremely hard to define in terms of art. It is obvious enough when one comes in contact with it, but judges are usually no more able to pick out the possessor of it from a numerous group than are the judges in composition prize competitions able to pick out the really valuable works.
58And yet—it can be done, and the Schubert Memorial will be wise if it continues in its effort without discouragement until it succeeds in doing it. It is just as much a fact today as it was last week that young American artists who have these great gifts may very likely face an insurmountable difficulty in placing them properly before the public. The Schubert Memorial must proceed if art in America is ever to get properly on its feet. A single failure is nothing and should be counted as nothing. Even if there are a dozen such failures they still would count for nothing, provided that only one real genius were given his career. The Schubert Memorial faces exactly the same task that the whole world has always faced, and especially those who promote musical enterprises. The publisher is in the same position. He must examine manuscripts and select certain of them for publication, rejecting others. Publishers have never proved themselves omnipotent, and they publish thousands of things that are almost worthless to one that is genuinely valuable. Even the works of the great masters are only occasionally of supreme importance, and in nearly every case the majority of the works of the masters are not master works at all but just the opposite.
59The Schubert Memorial will wish to discover the most probable method of picking a genius. Undoubtedly the most probable method will be to do just what the public does, accept mass opinion. Since those who are to be favored by the Schubert Memorial are all of them supposed to have made public appearances, it is quite clear that collective opinion may be gathered, and it is also perfectly certain that the boy or girl who definitely possesses genius will be instantly recognized by those who first hear them. If they are not so recognized it is improbable that they possess the divine spark.
60We may be told that the biographies of successful artists do not confirm this conclusion, but those who are familiar with biographies know that often they are misleading. To mention a composer rather than an artist by way of example, the general impression has gone forth that Wagner was for a long time unsuccessful and unrecognized. That is absolutely opposed to the facts of the case, for when his first work was given in Dresden it made a tremendous hit, and he was the hero of the day; and had it not been for his own foolishness he might have maintained that position throughout his lifetime. If the Schubert Memorial will exercise such care in selection that no mistake is possible, it may not be able to bring out many young artists, but when it does, the press will have no choice but to praise.
The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.