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THE
that music is the one art which appears to be
making any special headway during the present
century. In fact, one may justly go further and
assert that just as the eighteenth century was the
age of prose eloquence, the seventeenth that of
poetry and drama, the fifteenth and sixteenth of
painting, so the twentieth is to be the age of
music. In making such an assertion one must,
of course, qualify the bare statement. In the first
place, when we come to make comparisons between
the positions of the Tine arts, we can only speak
of the modern world, of that world which began
to exist after the Renaissance. For music- did
not begin to exist as the art we know to-day
until after the Renaissance. True it is, however,
that just as the sixteenth century saw the rise of
modern painting, the seventeenth saw the poetic
literature of Europe rise to its greatest heights of
sublimity in Milton and Shakespeare, and the
eighteenth witnessed the prose toaumaturgy of
Addison, Steele, Johnson, Hume and Gibbon.
So the nineteenth century was the beginning of
the musical age. Music in the nineteenth century
definitely ceased to be the handmaid of bored
dilletantism and first made good its strivings to
become a true voice, a free voice, speaking to all
humanity.
MUSIC TRADE! REVIEW
is the age of music, that music is being freed,
and when freed must be the universal language
oi poet and peasant, of millionaire and tramp,
of dreamer and materialist. The world is sick
with the excrementa of its own objectivity. It
has looked outwards too long. It begins to cry
for faith, for the inner light. Music alone of
all the arts may supply the craving.
Consider the two greatest works of Richard
Strauss, "Death and Transfiguration" and '"Thus
Spake Zarathustra." These are music that speaks
with no uncertain voice, music pointing confident-
ly towards shadowy realities that to our minds
seem at first no more than the possibility of pos-
sibilities, no more than the shadows of dreams,
but which more and more come to appear as
realities, as powers, as forces of which we as yet
know next to nothing. The science of instru-
mental coloration is as yet in its infancy, mauger
Berlioz and Wagner. The possibilities of har-
mony are being seen to rest on bases far wider
than rules can supply. Formality gradually dis-
appears. In its place come rhythm, intensely com-
plex, intensely expressive, coloration which in it-
self suggests rhythm, which in itself is expression
and form. Consider what Richard Strauss could
do, if he dared, with one tone, one tone and no
Even so, the nineteenth century did not sec more, with the manifold possibilities of one tone
transmogrified by complexities of rhythmic change,
music entirely emancipated. It still remained a
good deal of a thing apart, chained down to transfigured in a thousand hues, pulsating with
arbitrary rules of form, arbitrary laws t. f design, all the superharmonic possibilities of its innumera-
arbitrary traditions of performance. Everything ble partial tones! Imagine music that is all ex-
about music was still, externally, chained to cus- pression, all meaning, and nothing else. Imagine
tom and consecrated only by pedagogic consent. music of which the color itself becomes almost a
visible thing. These be not dreams. Let the
Music had by no means yet begun to assume that
proud position of the Art Universal which she doubter but watch the progress of music during
the present age. Music shall yet, heavenly maid,
ought to have occupied long ago. The twentieth
century, however, shows us all the other fine become the universal expression. And some of
arts more or less in a condition of decadence. us may live to see her occupy her throne.
It shows music, on the other hand, just waking
into a consciousness of its marvelous power, just
TRACKER FOR PLAYER=PIANOS.
beginning to see the possibility of making that
Details of Patent Recently Granted to Frank
power universally felt.
Wesley Bull, of Oshawa, Can.
Tolstoi remarks somewhere that an art is good
in just so far as it is intelligible. If the peasant
does not appreciate Beethoven, so much the worse
for Beethoven. There is a grain of truth in the
assertion. It is not that the peasant's present
taste is at all good, except in so far as it is a
reflection of himself and therefore true. It is not
that the present taste of our populace in the Unit-
ed States is good, except in so far as it reflects
their nature and, therefore, is true. But it is
that high art of all sorts tends to become aloof
from popular consciousness, wrapped in the mantle
of its own formulas, blind to the real life surging
around it. But Tolstoi has forgotten that this is
not necessarily ihe fault of an art. It was quite
impossible for Beethoven to transcend the artistic
consciousness of his time, though he came very
near to doing so in some of his last works. He
may have been wrong in believing that the sym-
phonic form was necessary to the proper setting
of dramatic music. He may .have been wrong;
but had he attempted other things he probably
would have failed, to open, as he actually did, the
pathway to others who should carry on the work
he had begun. It has remained to others so to
carry that work on, and the fruition of that work,
the liberation of music from its bondage of form
and tradition, is to-day just beginning to be per-
ceived.
Other arts have not the same position* to-day.
They are nearly all old, some quite worn out,
others in their dotage. There is not the least
propriety in confusing the causes which respect-
ively lie behind the solemn insanities of Cubism
and the tonal researches of Richard Strauss. Men
like the Cubists are merely making" fools of them-
selves in the endeavor to say something old in
a new way. Strauss and his compeers (are there
any?) are just beginning to see that music has
a great deal that is new to say, in an entirely new
manner, • and that what she has to say is vastly
different from what she has said in the past. They
are beginning to see that the future, not the past,
(Special to The Review.)
Washington, D. C, Feb. 18, 1913.
Patent No. 1,051,802 for a tracker for player-
pianos was last week granted to Frank Wesley
Bull, Oshawa, Ontario, Can., and relates to im-
provements in trackers for player-pianos and the
object of the invention is to devise a simple auto-
matic and efficient means for correcting the faulty
alinement of the music roll as it crosses the
tracker bar and perforations thereof so that every
note will be played correctly and continuously as
the roll passes over the bar, such faulty alinement
resulting from swollen or shrunken rolls, from
faulty roll flanges or torn or mutilated edges or
by the roll flanges extending beyond the width of
the roll.
PIANO PLAYERS WITH MUSIC ROLLS.
The
Interesting Offer Made by Eilers Music
House—Advantage Not One-sided.
An interesting offer for the purpose of increas-
ing interest in and sales of music rolls is that re-
cently made by the Eilers Music House, Portland,
Ore., to the effect that a cabinet player would be
given to every purchaser of four music rolls while
the supply of the players lasted. When it is con-
sidered that those securing the players at once
become prospects for player-pianos of late design,
the offer was not so one-sided at that.
VALVE=ACTUAT1NG MECHANISM.
Patent No. 1,051,961 for an automatic piano
mechanism has just been granted Albert Kucera,
Chicago, 111., and relates to music, and more
especially to automatic pianos; and the object of
the same is to improve and simplify the con-
struction of the valve-actuating mechanism in an
instrument of this kind.
The C. W. Wright Piano Co., Newark and Red
Bank, N. J., has opened a branch store 'in Free-
hold, N. J.
, . a
Seeburg
electrically coin-con-
trolled pianos and
o r c h e s t r i o n s were
created especially for
handling by regular
piano merchants.
High-grade
in
every p a r t i c u l a r ,
absolutely reliable,
notably artistic in
appearance.
We have a booklet
addressed especially
to piano merchants
which will interest
you, and we would
also like to write you
a letter, showing how
the Seeburg line will
fit in with your inter-
ests. We will also
send you our cata-
logue with color illus-
trations and technical
description.
J. P. Seeburg Piano Co.
Makers of
Seeburg Electric Coin-Operated Pianos
and Seeburg Orchestrions
Art Style Originators
OFFICES:
902-904 Republic Building
State and Adams Streets
FACTORY:
415-421 S. Sangamon Street
CHICAGO