Music Trade Review

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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
cient name of "roof garden " was good
enough for the managers who conduct
vaudeville shows among the chimney pots.
The familiar name has outlived its useful-
ness, though, for the managers are strain-
ing their ingenuity to devise outlandish
titles for their resorts.
The Casino roof, which will begin its
season under the management of "Ted"
Marks on June 6, will present an entertain-
ment known as Ted Marks's Summer Soi-
rees. All verbal festoons aside, it will
doubtless be the usual bill of varieties with
the traditional interludes of liquid refresh-
ments. The New York Theatre roof, with
which Oscar Hammerstein once hoped to
outwit Jupiter Pluvius by encasing it under
a glass dome, will be known henceforth as
the Aerial Cherry Blossom Grove. It will
h6 opened in two weeks and a big ballet
will be its special feature. Not to be out-
done by his competitors, Oscar Hammer-
stein will nickname his Victoria eyry the
Venetian Terrace and Aerial Circus. Re-
viewing the experience of previous seasons
all these managers would do better to sup-
ply fewer frills of nomenclature and a
better quality of shows and beer.
I T is curious to note the attitude of the
*'• modern composer toward his own
works, as compared with the way in which
the really great masters of former times
were wont to look upon their creations.
The composers of to-day, with one or two
exceptions, are not in any sense truly
g$eat, nor are their achievements in the
wjorld of music of exceptional value. But,
in^spite of that fact, it is just these little
men who make a-great noise and who try to
coyer a too evident mediocrity by a bom-
bastic self-assertiveness which, just as
surely as it becomes a marked charac-
teristic of their personality, wilt also
cast its baleful influence over what they
write. This state of affairs is all the more
noticeable when the higher forms of com-
position are tampered with, and is especi-
ally marked when the making of an opera
is attempted. You hear all about it from
the moment of its inception—if not sooner,
and all the news circulated in regard to it
is accompanied by profuse predictions as to
the wonderful success the work is bound to
attain. The singular part about it is
that all the fuss comes beforehand. What-
ever small degree of success it may have,
if.: it has any at all, is generally out
o£ all proportion to the extravagant things
prophesied, and the composer's glory is
short-lived. In the course of some re-
marks along these lines the Sun says: Can
one imagine Mozart allowing the whole
world to know the progress of his "Don
Giovanni," for instance, and permit 1 ing it
to be exploited as a great work before its
cdmpletion? And is it supposable that Carl
Mtaria von Weber talked about his opera,
"Der Freischuetz," as a popular success
before it had ever been produced? We
know that such, an attitude toward their
own works would, for these men, have
been impossible, for they took their art,
their genius, and themselves, too seriously.
Instead of making their works a means of
self-exploitation, they gave to it the best
part of themselves, knowing that only by
making themselves subservient to that
which their genius demanded of them
would they be able to create anything of
great and lasting value.
Not so the modern composer of little
talent and vast greed, who wants to get as
much notoriety and free advertising as
possible, and very wisely works this
scheme for all it is worth—before his works
are produced, so that even if they do prove
flat failures he has at least got something
out of them. When this same scheme is
employed by an artist who has achieved
notoriety on the concert stage, but who
has no talent for composing, it becomes a
AUGUST WILLIAM HOFFMAN.
transparent advertising dodge which the
credulity of the people in regard to matters
of art renders effective.
C D U A R D STRAUSS is to make an ex-
*—' tensive concert tour when he comes
here with his Vienna orchestra next fall.
Mr. Rudolph Aronson has arranged for
concerts in all the large cities from ocean
to ocean, with trips through Canada and
into Mexico. After the Strauss tour Mr.
Aronson will introduce to America Louis
Ganne, who is famous in Paris both as the
orchestral conductor at the Opera Ball and
as composer. It was Ganne who wrote
the "Father of Victory" march, which
Paulus introduced. He has also written
ballets and operettas.
A RECENT acquisition to the gifted
**• musicians and teachers of the Me-
tropolis is August Wm. Hoffman, whose
portrait appears on this page. Mr. Hoff-
man is not only distinguished as a pianist
and accompanist, but is the author of more
than a hundred compositions all of which
are characterized by a melodic talent that
is graceful and spontaneous. He is a
pupil of the Royal Conservatory of Stutt-
gart where he also taught for a year and
a half, and of Wilhelm Kalliwoda. He
has played with flattering success in many
European cities. Like so many eminent
U
Europeans he journeyed in due time to the
United States when he was immediately
engaged as instructor of piano, harmony
and composition at the Beethoveu Con-
servatory of St. Louis, meeting with
marked success. He found in time that the
greatest field for his talents was New York,
where he has now taken up his permanent
residence. His specialty is instruction in
piano, harmony, composition, history, etc.
He will also be heard in concert and re-
citals.
T H E summer sessions of instruction in
* metropolitan colleges and conserva-
tories seem to grow in popular favor every
year. Most of our leading institutions
have inaugurated summer schools so as to
bring their unrivalled tuition within the
reach of students whose duties engross
them a larger part of the year. While
special advantages are afforded in this
way, yet it is wise for teachers who live
such an active life during the regular sea-
son, to avoid giving their overstrained
nerves a rest during the summer—always
oppressive to people so notoriously nerv-
ous as musicians. The summer should
be a season for recreation. By laying in a
store of good health, giving the mind a
rest and allowing the physical man to as-
sert himself, better results could undoubt-
edly be achieved when the season for regular
work comes around. The old "saw" about
" all work and no play makes Jack a dull
boy " is just as applicable to the musician
as to the worker in other lines of activity.
C R A N Z KALTENBORN will resume
*
his summer-night concerts at St. Nich-
olas Garden on Saturday evening, June
2. There will be an orchestra of fifty,
with distinguished soloists. Tuesday even-
ings will be devoted to symphony; Thurs-
day evenings to Wagner. A feature will
be made of Strauss waltzes.
Q PEAKING of the undeveloped state of
*^ musical composition in America, Hor-
atio W. Parker, head of the musical depart-
ment of Yale University, says no art has
yielded so few products for the honor of this
country as music. He thinks the musician
is hampered by too many of the good things
of this life, and that poverty in youthful
artists is the most efficient aid toward stim-
ulating the creative energy. It is certain
that the luxurious atmosphere of this coun-
try is conducive to the money-making spir-
it more than to the artistic. Music, among
Americans, is not usually regarded serious-
ly. The women have taken it up exten-
sively, but their interest in it is still too
new and superficial to make an impression
on the general condition. How many men
are really interested in music? So few
that they hardly count. It is not for lack
of natural taste for music that this indiffer-
ence exists, for every human being seems
to feel naturally attracted toward it. To
the untutored, musically uncultivated mind,
the higher forms of music are not sympa-
thetic because they are unintelligible, but
every person has some sort of a singing
voice and has at some time in his life tried
to sing, indicating a natural fondness for
melody. But when a natural taste is not
fostered it is inevitably and entirely crowd-
ed out by the many other interests that
make up life.