Books › Musical Courier 1928-12-20: Vol 97 Iss 25, 1928 › scan 38
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Musical Courier 1928-12-20: Vol 97 Iss 25, 1928
81 lines. Read by computer on 30 September 2026. Printed page 39. See the scan on archive.org.
1Variations
2By the Editor-in-Chief
4At the Philharmonic concerts of last Thursday and Friday, the program consisted of Franck's D minor symphony, Lekeu's Adagio for strings, George Gershwin's new orchestral work, An American in Paris, and the Magic Fire music from Wagner's Walkuere. The conductor was Walter Damrosch.
6Mr. Damrosch is in a sense the larger sponsor of Gershwin. He introduced that young man to the symphonic stage proper when he presented the Rhapsody in Blue, with the composer at the piano, although the work had been premiered previously by Paul Whiteman, on which occasion Gershwin also played the solo part. Again it was under the Damrosch baton that Gershwin first performed his piano concerto here, that piece having been commissioned by the conductor on behalf of the New York Symphony Orchestra.
8With characteristic enterprise Damrosch secured the premiere of An American in Paris as soon as he heard that Gershwin had such an opus in preparation.
10After a rather theatrical but effective reading of the Franck symphony, and a somewhat tedious giving of the Lekeu Adagio (with some painfully out of tune passages by the cellos) the novelty of the evening was brought forth for a thronged and expectant mixed audience as representative of Broadway as it was of Belgravia.
12Deems Taylor has supplied program notes for the composition, and they constitute a rich entertainment in themselves, as the reader may judge for himself herewith:
14By its composer's own confession, An American in Paris is an attempted reconciliation between two opposing schools of musical thought—a Pax Romana, as it were, imposed upon two customarily warring camps. It is program-music in that it engages to tell an emotional narrative; to convey in terms of sound, the successive emotional reactions experienced by a Yankee tourist adrift in the City of Light. It is absolute music as well, in that its structure is determined by considerations musical rather than literary or dramatic. The piece, while not in strict sonata form, resembles an extended symphonic movement in that it announces, develops, combines, and recapitulates definite themes. Only, whereas the ordinary symphonic movement is based upon two principal themes, An American in Paris manipulates five.
16While Mr. Gershwin has been heard to hope—and probably not in vain—that his new work can be absorbed and enjoyed purely as a piece of orchestral music, he admits that An American in Paris (which, oddly enough, was largely written in Paris) follows a fairly explicit story. What follows is based upon Mr. Gershwin's own version of the succession of events, augmented by a few details supplied by the helpful commentator and—as yet—unrepudiated by the composer.
18You are to imagine, then, an American, visiting Paris, swinging down the Camps Elysées on a mild, sunny morning in May or June. Being what he is, he starts without preliminaries, and is off at full speed at once, to the tune of The First Walking Theme, a straightforward, diatonic air, designed to convey an impression of Gallic freedom and gaiety.
20Our American's ears being open, as well as his eyes, he notes with pleasure the sounds of the city. French taxicabs seem to amuse him particularly, a fact that the orchestra points out in a brief episode introducing four real Paris taxi horns (imported at great expense for the occasion). These have a special theme allotted to them (the driver, possibly?), which is announced by the strings whenever they appear in the score.
22Having safely eluded the taxis, our American apparently passes the open door of a café, where, if one is to believe the trombones, La Maxixe is still popular. Exhilarated by this reminder of the gay nineteen-hundreds, he resumes his stroll through the medium of the Second Walking Theme, which is announced by the clarinet in French with a strong American accent.
24Both themes are now discussed at some length by the instruments, until our tourist happens to pass—something. The composer thought it might be a church, while the commentator held out for the Grand Palais—where the Salon holds forth. At all events, our hero does not go in. Instead, as revealed by the English horn, he respectfully slackens his pace until he is stately past.
26At this point, the American's itinerary becomes somewhat obscured. It may be that he continues on down the Champs Elysées; it may be that he has turned off—the composer retains an open mind on the subject. However, since what immediately ensues is technically known as a bridge-passage, one is reasonably justified in assuming that the Gershwin pen, guided by an unseen hand, has perpetrated a musical pun, and that when the Third Walking Theme makes its eventual appearance our American has crossed the Seine, and is somewhere on the Left Bank. Certainly it is distinctly less Gallic than its predecessors, speaking American with a French intonation, as befits that region of the city where so many Americans foregather. "Walking" may be a misnomer, for despite its vitality the theme is slightly sedentary in character, and becomes progressively more so. Indeed, the end of this section of the work is couched in terms so unmistakably, albeit pleasantly, blurred, as to suggest that the American is on the terrasse of a café, exploring the mysteries of an Anise de Loto.
28And now the orchestra introduces an unhallowed episode. Suffice it to say that a solo violin approaches our hero (in the soprano register) and addresses him in the most charming broken English; and, his response being inaudible—or at least unintelligible—repeats the remark. This one-sided conversation continues for some little time.
30Of course, one hastens to add, it is possible that a grave injustice is being done to both author and protagonist, and that the whole episode is simply a musical transition. The latter interpretation may well be true, for otherwise it is difficult to believe what ensues: our hero becomes homesick. He has the blues; and if the behavior of the orchestra be any criterion, he has them very thoroughly. He realizes suddenly, overwhelmingly, that he does not belong to this place, that he is that most wretched creature in all the world, a foreigner. The cool, blue Paris sky, the distant upward sweep of the Eiffel Tower, the bookstalls on the quay, the pattern of horse-chestnut leaves on the white, sun-flecked street—what avails all this alien beauty? He is no Baudelaire, longing to be "anywhere out of the world." The world is just what he longs for, the world that he knows best; a world less lovely—sentimental and a little vulgar perhaps—but for all that, home.
32However, nostalgia is not a fatal disease—nor, in this instance, of overlong duration. Just in the nick of time the compassionate orchestra rushes another theme to the rescue, two trumpets performing the ceremony of introduction. It is apparent that our hero must have met a compatriot; for this last theme is a noisy, cheerful, self-confident Charleston, without a drop of Gallic blood in its veins.
34For the moment, Paris is no more; and a voluble, gusty, wise-cracking orchestra proceeds to demonstrate at some length that it's always fair weather when two Americans get together, no matter where. Walking Theme number two enters soon thereafter, enthusiastically abetted by number three. Paris isn't such a bad place, after all: as a matter of fact, it's a grand place! Nice weather, nothing to do till tomorrow, nice girls—and by the way, whatever became of that lad Volstead? The blues return, but mitigated by the second Walking Theme—a happy reminiscence rather than a homesick yearning—and the orchestra, in a riotous finale, decides to make a night of it. It will be great to get home; but meanwhile, this is Paris!
36The critical analysis of the Gershwin music does not require nearly as much space as Taylor's illuminative exposition of its programmatic purpose.
38With the exception of some pages of well made contrapuntal writing and a few spiced harmonies of the modernistic variety, this new Gershwin opus is not a strictly symphonic production, for its themes are somewhat too light waisted and their development too simple. If one accepts the composition, however, as a piece of musical pleasantry, a merry intermezzo, somewhat colloquial, all will be well along the Hudson and the Seine.
40As a matter of fact, the work should be called The Average American's Idea of Paris, for that worthy, when he gets to the City of Light, looks upon it chiefly as a place of boulevards and bars. Gershwin's music is very American but not at all Parisian—not Parisian, as, for instance, the street scenes in Charpentier's Louise, are Parisian.
42After all, however, it was Gershwin's intention to compose American music, and in that he has succeeded admirably. It is American music of the moment, and of the kind that most Americans can understand, and dance to, and whistle. It has jazz, blues, a charleston, and such rhythmic and arresting orchestration as sets the feet a-moving and the fingers a-snapping. An American in Paris is in a class atmospherically with Berlioz' Roman Carnival, Svendsen's Carnival in Venice, and Chabrier's Espana. If Gershwin's measures are more hurly burly and blatant than those others, it is because New York is more hurly burly and blatant than Rome, Venice and Seville.
44There is no gainsaying the pith and peppiness with which Gershwin delineates his American walking through pictorial and perilous Paris. The bulk of the audience liked the music immensely and made the composer bow repeatedly from his seat in a box.
46There are those who say that An American in Paris does not belong at a Philharmonic concert. It belongs there as much as Rieti's Noah's Ark or Kodaly's Hary Janos, two pieces of avowedly tomfooling composition. If Gershwin treats his material differently, it is because he is expressing modern America and not Italy, or Hungary. If modern America is superficial, that only makes Gershwin a more veracious composer.
48Henderson writes in the Sun about the Gershwin novelty: "Even the wise men relish a little nonsense now and then." Downes, in the Times; Isaacson, in the Telegraph, and Liebling, in The American, praise An American in Paris. Gilman, in the Tribune, is tolerantly but somewhat serio-comically noncommittal. But the critics of the evening papers, Stokes, Sanborn, Weil, and Thompson, with one accord see red, and are scathingly severe.
50Montague Glass, writer of inimitable Semitic tales about Potash and Perlmutter, is also a prodigy of musical inclination and memory, even if not of piano technic. In his own utilitarian, effective fashion he plays by ear on the piano practically every well known song, opera, symphony, and chamber music composition. Last week at a party given by Albertina Rasch and Dimitri Tionkin, Glass was at the piano for Vivian Hart, the soprano, and without the printed page accompanied arias from a dozen different operas, without making any slips of text or memory. It may be that many professional musicians of high renown could not duplicate that achievement.
52"It is the nature of man," remarked Pliny the Elder, "to be greedy for novelty." The old boy would have changed his mind after listening to most of the orchestral novelties produced so far this winter in New York.
54The Evening Sun says that the current popular song, I Can't Give You Anything But Love, is a Scotch Christmas carol.
56Why the expression, "As fit as a fiddle?" Nothing runs down more easily or quickly than a fiddle.
58Hardly is the story of Atterberg's symphonic "joke" reported to have been grossly exaggerated, when now a Swedish artist comes along, paints a picture in jest and wins the serious praise of critics. Merry wags, those Swedes.
60It is hard to say why, but somehow the news that science has produced sweet lemons, seems to remind one afresh that the leading modernistic composers have taken to writing melodious music.
62At the Vocal Teachers' Guild reception to Elisabeth Rethberg last week, a prominent pedagogue said to this member of the MUSICAL COURIER staff: "I wish I had taken the advice of your paper and stayed out of Wall Street. Hereafter I shall be interested in nothing that goes up and down, except the scales of my pupils."
64Of course America is a musical nation. Hasn't almost every home in our land a radio, phonograph, or mechanical piano, and sometimes two or all three of those tonal mediums?
66Newspaper agencies complain of a scarcity of good news pictures. Are there no more views of well known musical persons sitting at the wheel of their motor cars, or fishing, playing tennis, golfing, swimming, ski-ing, standing at the ship's rail, climbing the Alps?
68"The Philadelphia Orchestra evidently is trying to make attendance at concerts a penance," writes "Philly Penn" from that city; "for the management promulgates this notice for the home concerts at the Academy of Music:
70The doors of the auditorium will be closed at the beginning of the concerts and will not be opened for admission to late-comers until the regular intermission, after which the doors will again be closed until the end of the concert.
72If the scheme is tried here the concert goers at Carnegie Hall will not be so badly off, for in the immediate vicinity of that auditorium are a moving picture theater, a Russian restaurant, six delicatessen shops, two phonograph parlors, and forty-three speakeasies.
74The London Daily Express sponsored a piano playing contest in which there were 20,000 contestants. The pieces performed were by British composers, and the prizes consisted of pianos, British made, valued at £7,000—British money.
76Apropos, J. P. F.—from whom there has been long silence as a contributor to this department—asks us a poser: "There is a London String Quartet. Supposing there were an Edinburgh String Quartet. Would it try to get by with only three players?"
78Giuseppe De Luca, extraordinary baritone and prime operatic comedian, feels deeply his role of the frog-man in La Campana Sommersa. "In fact," he says, "I have become so much a part of the character that I am moved to tragic tears whenever I pick up a bill of fare and see that it offers frog's legs." And to hear De Luca tell the tale unsmilingly, is practically to believe it.
80Cesar Franck was so poor when his friend Ysaye got married that in lieu of a wedding present he dedicated his piano-violin sonata to the violinist and sent it to him with his best wishes. It was a case of "I Can't Give You Anything But a Sonata, Ysaye." LEONARD LIEBLING.
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