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46
THE
MUSIC TRADE
REVIEW
infected with the germ. I may safely predict
that the song which lends itself to delightful
stage treatment and lighting effects will ere many
months are over outrival the famous 'Hiawa-
tha.' "
Query.—What is "America's latest rage?" For
with delightful absence of mind, "Crescendo" re-
frains from mentioning it by name.
Johnny Comes Marching Home Again," "The
Jolly Musketeer," "The Gay Musician" and good-
ness only knows how many more. To a repre-
sentative of £he Philadelphia Press he recently
said that he was going to retire and write to
please himself, and he didn't care who liked
what he wrote, for he was going to do it. for his
own selfish enjoyment.
For many years Mr. Edwards has been watch-
ing
the trend of the public toward musical shows
JULIAN EDWARDS' PLANS.
and comic operas, and with the former he is
Will in Time Drop Comic Opera and Devote
completely disgusted.
Himself to Composing Grand Operas, Can-
"I believe," said he, as he crossed his feet and
tatas and Other Forms of Higher Music.
lit a cigar, "that comic operas should be artistic.
The public is becoming tired of these musical
Julian Edwards is going to stop writing comic
vaudeville shows, with all their vulgarity. Why
operas. He may not do it next week, and then
can't we have decent, neat shows that are as
again he may not do it next year, but he is
funny as they are refined? The public that went
going to stop nevertheless, and devote his tinte
to see the Gilbert & Sullivan shows years ago
entirely to composing cantatas, grand operas and
and saw the same performance dozens of times
various other forms of music of a classical na-
have been driven away from the theater and only
ture.
This is the decision arrived at by the gray-
headed little English composer, who for the past
twenty years has been writing the music for such
operas as "Love's Lottery," "Dolly Varden," "The
Belle of London Town," "Princess Chic," "When
is a significant fact that
I T although
music business gen-
erally has been "hit hard" recently,
"CENTURY EDITION"
sales have held their own, which
means that many people purchased
ten cent music because they wanted
to economize, and becoming ac-
quainted with
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iness and caused activity in our
sales department.
The era of
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that he has remained ever since composing music
for almost every conceivable use.
When asked how he wrote his operas, he smiled
and in his pleasant, chatty way said: "Well,
really—I just write them. I'm not one of those
chaps that write the music first and then have
the lyrics added. I have to have the opera and
follow the acts out so as to keep the music
within the piece. The words give me the rhythm
and the idea of the melody, and all I have to do
is to write it.
"I like to have a motif running through niy
operas from start to finish. Most people do not
notice it, but I always do, and I have lots of fun
stringing it through the piece. I have no par-
ticular time for composing, but I never work
later than 11 o'clock at night.
"It takes me about three weeks to compose
the orchestral end of an opera. 'Dolly Varden'
I completed in six weeks, and it took about the
same time for me to finish the 'Gay Musician,
although with this last opera I spent a porlion
of the time at the rehearsals helping the produc-
tion along."
"AKMS AND THE MAN" AS AN OPERA.
George Bernard Shaw believes that the comic
opera which Herr Oscar Straus, composer at "The
Waltz Dream," is writing on a libretto taken
from the Shavian "Arms and the Man," will.be
more appreciated than was the original piece.
"When 'Arms and the Man' was produced in
1904," said Mr. Shaw, "the critics said that it was
mere opera bouffe. They will now have an oppor-
JULIAN EDWARDS.
tunity of learning what a real op6ra bouffe on
the same subject is like. The libretto which
now they are coming back. This is the class of
people that I have always tried to write for. Herr Jacobsohn of Vienna has written for Herr
Gilbert ajid Sullivan were literary and artistic Oscar Straus, and which I have had the privilege
men, and no comic opera has been produced as of reading in manuscript, will please them much
better than my comedy. It is very funny, and
good as those written by them.
"In all my operas I have tried to be respec- it can be appreciated without the slightest intel-
table—to have nothing in any of them that was lectual effort. To make the matter clear, how-
not strictly proper in every sense of the word. ever, I must tell you I have refused to allow
But a change has taken place and the public is my play to be used as the book of this comic
looking now for the artistic shows. Take the opera. Every borrowed line has been struck out,
'Merry Widow,' for instance. That is a charm- and not a name has been retained. But I cannot
ing little opera and there is nothing at all vulgar with any sort of good humor object to a parody
about it. 'The Waltz Dream' is even better, al- of my play, even if it were clear that I had the
power to give effect to such an objection. The
though the story is not as good, and either of
them could be played without the music. I operetta bears the same relation to 'Arms and
believe the public wants better comic operas and the Man,' as 'The Vicar of Wideawakefield' does
to Wills's 'Olivia' or Gilbert's 'Rosencrantz and
what the public wants it usually gets."
Julian Edwards composes because he would Guildenstern' to 'Hamlet.' That is all." This
rather do that than anything else on earth. new comic opera, which is to be called "Der
Since he was a little bit of a chap he has been Tapfere Soldat," will be given its first perform-
writing music, and when he was in his early ance at the Theatre Westend Berlin early next
twenties he was conducting the Carl Rosa Opera December.
Co. and the Royal English Co., in England. When
he came to America on a visit, some twenty-two
CONSERVATORY EDITION
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