Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
TI
THEon /I n i r
V O L . X X X V I I I . No. 2 3 . pilishei
D'ALBERT ON LISZT.
Every Sat. by Eiwari Lyman Bill at 1 Madison Aye New Tort, June 4,1914,
Some Remarks Which Are of Interest in View
of the Coming of the First Named.
Blockx, Cilca and Campanini have now selected
three—"Domino azzuro," by Franko di Venezia;
"La CobrSne," by Gabriel Dupont, and "Manuel
Menendez," by Lorenzo Filiasi. None of these
composers is over thirty years old. The final de-
cision as to which opera is to get the prize is to
be made by the public thir month. Each of the
operas is to be given in association with a ballet.
Then the three operas (they are short) are to
be repeated on one evening, after which the audi-
ence casts its ballot. The best singers, including
Gemma, Bellincioni and Bel Sorel, have been en-
gaged for this contest.
SINGLE COPIES, 10 CENTS.
$2.00 PER YEAR.
THE DEEPER PLANES OF MUSIC.
A Philosophical Analysis of Sound and Its
Origin.
THE S0NZ0GN0 OPERA PRIZE.
One of the fads now prevalent in the musical
world in England is that of distributing refresh-
ments among the audience at musical afternoons.
In London it has taken a strong hold. Comment-
ing on Hayden Coffin's Intention of distributing
tea and cakes gratis at his musicales, London
Truth remarks rather maliciously: "Some people
appear to consider that in such an idea there is
something new. Our grandfathers would cer-
tainly not have thought so. In the first half 6f
the last century It was the custom to provide
light refreshment, negus, wine cup, and ices for
all attending afternoon concerts. Spohr in his
autobiography has an amusing growl as to the
cost of this reflection. But if the free-lunch idea
could only be thoroughly carried out now, after-
noon recitals might become a good deal better
attended (by the free list) than they actually
are."
Who knows what sound is, or where it ends?
An air I heard last night still "sounds in my
ear." How comes that? Is it sound? It is cer-
tainly not aerial vibration, but it is not nothing,
and it is the melody which last night came to me
as aerial vibration. Those vibrations then, as I
iieard them, assumed the mental shape which
they have to-day. But to-day, because the aerial
sound was 24 hours ago instead of a fraction of
a second, I call the same mental reproduction—a
little weaker than yesterday—a memory. But
that is only a word. Why should we not say that
there is sound mental as well as sound physical?
Further: Both last night and to-day the sound
provokes a state of feeling—something spiritual.
Can we call that a third state of the same thing,
litill music?
Is there anything deeper? It would seem not,
for beyond all states of feeling is He, the Self,
the soul, experiencer of them, victim of them till
he gains his strength and becomes select, or
among them of those which he wills to permit,
to work in and with.
Work with? How is that?
We have been carrying the line inward; let us
try it outward. It is so done by the geniuses,
the Beethovens. The soul wills, and throws out
a radiation of feeling. The personal man rejoices
in the hour of his inspiration, and in a moment
or after a while his mind begins to hear and to
shape the harmonies to express the feeling. Then
he renders them on an instrument, and aerial
vibration is set up. It reaches a hearer, and that
current which took steps outward in the com-
poser, now in the hearer takes them inward.
But we know from the famous sand experi-
ments that sound can produce all the forms we
see in nature. And there would seem good rea-
son to suspect that a whole stream of inaudible
harmonies is evolving in the germinating seed,
and that so arises the form of the tree. For if
sound makes loose dust on a drumhead take in
two dimensions all the curves, circles, parabolas,
leaf shapes and tree shapes, that we see, why not
suppose that the same force working unheard
(by us now) in the seed gathers the molecules
in earth and air to make the actual solid form
of three dimensions that we call a tree of flower?
So if man is a copy of the universe, how if there
ii? a great artist whose feeling, made sound, un-
derlies the world?
Here is a suggested experiment for some one,
put forth by a writer in the New Century Path.
Photograph the whole succession of forms pre-
sented by dust on the stretched parchment while
a complete air is played, and study them closely.
We do not know if the apparatus has been so
arranged yet as to be attachable to an instru-
ment yielding chords, a piano or violin. If so,
much better results would be reached. But our
special point is that sound is a spiritual force,
the ideal vehicle of creative will, coming down
the stairway of substance and emerging as visi-
ble form.
Among the 237 operas sent to Milan in compe-
tition for the Sonzogno prize of $10,000, the
judges, Massenet, Humperdinck, Hamerik, Galli,
Mr. Arthur Mees has resigned the directorship
of the Mendelssohn Club of this city.
Richard Strauss recently saifl of the American
public, "It Is unique in Its appreciation of art."
What did he mean to convey?
Now that Eugene D'Albert is to visit this coun-
try next season, an extract from a recent article
of his in the "Neue Rundschau" is worth quoting
because he pays tribute not alone to Liszt's
standing as the greatest of all pianists and one
of the greatest composers and teachers, but to
his wonderful ability to express the emotions,
the language of the soul, in his interpretations.
Mark what D'Albert says:
"The acquisition of technical facility is an easy
matter for anyone that has industry and pati-
ence, but the magnetic fluid that establishes the
contact between the artist and his public can
only proceed from the soul of the born artist, and
cannot be acquired. The teacher can awaken
this divine spark, and fan it to brightest flame if
he has the fine gift of the born teacher. Un-
doubtedly very few possess it, and none in the
same measure as Franz Liszt, the great artist of
the soul. Therefore both teacher and taught
should turn more and more to this mighty
teacher as a model—the teacher by seeking to
influence the soul-life of the pupil and guide him
into the right paths, not by crushing it with an
excess of dry, unnecessary pedagogics that clip
the wings of his genius; the pupil by taking as
his model the unselfishness of Liszt's life and his
ideal conception of art. Let him keep himself
free from all pettiness, narrowness of mind and
prosaic living. Let him not limit his knowledge
to the piano. Let him mature himself, gather
experience, take an interest in everything, in the
fine arts and in literature."
ENGLISH OPERA NOT POPULAR.
London, Like New York, Doesn't Take Kindly
to Opera in the Vernacular.
London apparently is not unlike New York
when it comse to English opera. The brave at-
tempt of the Moody-Manners Co. to popularize
English opera in England's capital has come to
naught.
Charles Manners, the managing director of the
company, took the Drury Lane Theatre for ten
weeks at a rental of £400 a week. He was pre-
pared to lose £300 weekly in the experiment.
The first week, however, resulted in a loss of
£700. After the final curtain the following night
Mr. Manners announced the amount of the even-
ing's loss, and said that in view of this he would
abandon the struggle and would produce operas
by Verdi and Wagner during the remainder of
the season.
An interesting point in the matter is the fact
that London alone rejects English opera. In
the provinces money is turned away nightly from
productions of the "Bohemian Girl," "Maritana,"
"The Lily of Kilarney" and such operas, while
Wagnerian productions scarcely pay expenses in
the same towns. London suburban theatres are
also crowded when English operas are given.
PADEREWSKI'S PLANS.
Sails for the Antipodes—Will Visit India.
Will be Heard Here Season 1905-06.
Ignace Paderewski sailed from Marseilles on
liis visit to the antipodes on May 27, and early
in July will give the first of thirty-six Austra-
ian concerts in Melbourne. After the tour
through Australia and New Zealand he will go
to India, stopping on the way at Ceylon for one
or two recitals. Thereafter there will follow re-
citals in Calcutta, Bombay, Madras and other
East Indian cities, Cairo and Constantinople
being taken in on the way back to Europe. Ar-
rangements made before the Russo-Japanese war
tor six concerts in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Yoko-
hama and Tokio and three in Singapore have
been canceled. According to Mr. Paderewski's
present plans, America will hear him again in the
season 1905-'06. Before sailing he played twice
at the Lower Rhenish Festival, in Cologne.
MME. KIRKBY LTJNN TO RETURN.
Mme. Kirkby Lunn, the English Contralto,
whose successful singing here with the Metro-
politan Opera Company two years ago, and also
with the New York Oratorio, Boston Symphony
and Philharmonic orchestras Is pleasantly re-
membered, is one of the principal vocalists an-
nounced by Henry Wolfsohn for next winter.
She will arrive in this country in November and
her debut will most likely be made in a song
recital.
REFRESHMENTS AT MUSICALES.
Y'.HK