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56
THE MUSIC TRADE
REVIEW
INSPIRATION A NEGLIGIBLE QUANTITY IN COMPOSING
Despite the Popular Belief That Composers Must Wait for Inspiration, the Fact Remains That
Both Classical and Popular Music Is More a Matter of Perspiration Than Inspiration
Reproduced below is an article which appeared
in the "Music in the Home" page in one of the
recent Sunday issues of the Philadelphia North
American:
'Strange how the delusion persists that tunes
h^ve to be 'inspired' before they can be written.
l\o sooner does a piece of music become popular
than the public clamors for the 'story' of its com-
position. If there isn't a story available some
enterprising journalist kindly invents one. All
sorts of stories were told about the composi-
tion of 'The Rosary,' for example. Everybody
insisted that Ethelbert Nevin had 'been inspired
by some old love affair at the very least. What
actually happened was that Nevin -was taken
v/ith the words, spent an evening in his studio
writing music to them and finally when the
manuscript was hastily completed in lead pencil
sent it with a little note to his wife. Nor was
there anything unusually romantic about that,
for Nevin was in the habit of giving his new
manuscripts to his wife first of all.
"Rachmaninoff's well-known Prelude in C
sharp minor, which has been so much recorded
both for phonograph and player-piano, is an-
other piece about which much rubbish ha*, been
written. One story has it that Rachmaninoff
was inspired by a picture known as '-The Isle
of Death,' in which a boat is seen entering a bay
formed by two towering cliffs. Another story is
that he was condemned to Siberia and the three
notes which form the groundwork of the piece,
thundering out in the bass at the opening, were
composed of three words, 'I must go!' Nobody
seems to have remembered that Rachmaninoff
was a particular protege of royalty and never
was sentenced to Siberia. Nor does anybody
inconveniently inquire why a Russian should
pick on three English words for his inspiration.
This and many other stories have been told, but,
unfortunately for their inventors, Rachmaninoff
came to America and 'spilled the beans.' He
wasn't inspired by anything. He was a music
student when he wrote it and like many of his
kind rather hard up, so he wrote a few piano
pieces and sold them to the first publisher who
would pay for them. So the Prelude was a pot-
boiler—and the composer has said many times
that he heartily wishes he had never written it!
"The nearest approach to 'inspiration' is prob-
ably the method by which our popular songs
and jazz-ballads are written. Composers such
as Harry Von Tilzer, Irving Berlin or George
M. Cohan are probably much more dependent
upon accidental 'inspiration' than composers of
more elaborate music, for the simple reason that
they haven't much technical knowledge of har-
mony, counterpoint and musical form. Their
method of composition is to get some verses and
batter out some sort of a tune on the keyboard.
When this seems good enough to make a hit
they hire a trained musician to 'fix' it up for
them. Very often the 'poet' and 'composer'
Two Real Sellers
"Since I Lost You"
(I FEEL SO BLUE)
Fox Trot Song
A Sure Hit
"My A Old
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work in pairs, as Creamer and Layton are so
fond of doing. The poet in the case is equally
dependent upon accident. His custom is to keep
his ears open for any phrase current on Broad-
way, or wherever he happens to be. Arthur
Fields got the phrase, 'It's a long way to Ber-
lin, but we'll get there,' from an officer on a
recruiting wagon whom he was assisting. He
gets most of his song words just that way. Gitz-
Rice obviously drew upon his experiences in the
trenches and . back of the Canadian lines in
France for 'Dear Old Pal of Mine.' It isn't
hard to guess where Billy Murray got his in-
spiration for his inimitable rendition of "I'll See
You in C-U-B-A.' Monroe Silver, who is Billy's
manager, when he is not making 'Cohan' records
of his own, told the writer that almost all the
patter he uses in these records comes directly
oft the streets. Wherever he is—in Sixth ave-
nue, at the ball game, at Coney Island—he keeps
his ears open for any catch phrase he can turn
to account.
"One consequence of this is that our popular
songs give us a very fair idea of current history.
To look back at some of the old songs is like
turning over the files- of a newspaper. Who
could hear 'Daisy Bell' again without recalling
the bicycle craze of a quarter-century ago? How
antiquated the words of that song seem to-day—
'I can't afford a carriage,' or 'a bicycle built for
two'; what chance would that song have to-day
when we have turned from the 'carriage' to the
flivver, from the tandem bicycle to the tandem
airplane? Probably a good many sedate, mid-
dle-aged people would like to hear 'Daisy Bell'
again just for the sake of the good times they
had when it was in vogue. Revivals of past
favorites are often successful just for that rea-
son; witness the recent revival of the 'Florodora
Sextet!'
"So far from trusting to casual 'inspiration,'
the more serious composers seem to mistrust it.
Witness the case of Beethoven. • Before his hear-
ing got impossibly bad Beethoven had a great
reputation as a pianist, particularly for his sin-
gular gift in improvising melodies. In his day it
was -quite the custom to get two musicians to-
gether in a sort of competition to see which
could improvise the best. Beethoven once had
such a competition with Abt Vogler. Vogler,
however, did not come unprepared. He brought
an elaborate fugue for string quintet, expecting
to crush the young upstart with the weight of
his learning. Bjeethoven listened in sulky silence
and when the piece was finished and the applause
had died down he walked over to the piano, care-
JULY 31, 1920
lessly picking up the cello part in passing. This
he placed on the piano rack upside down and,
hammering out a few notes selected from this
topsy-turvy sheet of music, proceeded to im-
provise on the 'theme' with a virtuosity and
beauty of conception that astonished his audience
and won the praise of even Abt Vogler himself.
"Yet Beethoven didn't trust these casual im-
provisations. After his death some fifty note-
books were found in which he had jotted down
musical ideas, worked over them, written them
afresh and worked over them again and again
before using them in his compositions. Some-
times he spent years over a single composition,
coming back to it many times in the interval of
completing other works. Beethoven was com-
posing for all time and didn't trust accidental
'inspirations.' That is why his little 'Minuet in
G,' for example, though a century old, is a bet-
ter seller than 'Daisy Bell' has ever been.
"Schubert comes nearest to the popular con-
ception of the 'inspired' composer; he wrote one
of his best songs, 'Hark! Hark! the Lark!' on the
back of a bill-of-fare in a Viennese cafe where
he and his friends were making merry. But
of the thousands of songs he wrote only fifty or
sixty have kept their freshness in the century
that has passed since they were written. There
is a good deal more perspiration than inspira-
tion in the best music—the music that stands
the test of time and is as much beloved by the
trained listener as it is by the general public."
HELD FOR FALSE REPRESENTATION
Raymond L. O'Neil and his wife, Liana Rose
O'Neil, who, according to Federal officials, were
until recently selling talking machines and rec-
ords on Broadway, near Forty-second street, as
the Associated Music Publishers of New York,
were held in $3,750 bail each in the Federal
Court on June 28 on an indictment charging use
of the mails to defraud buyers. Assistant United
States Attorney Simmons says they falsely rep-
resented they were authorized agents for stand-
ard types of talking machines.
Fred Fisher, Inc., announces a new ballad,
"You're the Only Girl That Made Me Cry," as
its Summer son
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