Music Trade Review

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MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
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NUMBER,
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The musical supplement to The Review is
published on the first Saturday of each month.
is generally held that many great
I T songs
have been given to the world,
but, in spite of Schubert, who in a few of
his songs has done wonderful things, and
Schumann, who really had a finer idea of
the union and poetry of music, and Robert
Franz, who too often cut the knot by mak-
ing his vocal music so subservient to the
words that it is sometimes colorless and
uninteresting, there is still room for the
assertion that song writing is in its in-
fancy, says a writer in a London paper.
Wagner complained that in the old operas
music had been made an end instead of a
means of poetic expression: the same
thing can equally well be said of song
writing. I suppose such songs, in which
the absolute beauty of the music conditions
everything and completely smothers all
vital meaning out of trie hardly used
poems, will always be popular; but they
can never have more than a musical effect;
whereas a perfect marriage between words
and music can be an actual power in the
world for good or evil; it can rouse men
to heroism, stir hearts overclogged with
selfishness, and make a pulse beat which
never beats else.
*
to do this a special kind of poem is
B UT wanted
for songs, just as Wagner had
to simplify his poems so as to give music
its full expressive power. Here and there
you will find lyrics which might have been
written especially for music; but there is a
limit to them. The only way out of the
difficulty is that either a composer should
be his own poet, or that the poet should
set himself to understand the needs of the
composer, which he can easily do without
sacrificing his art-ship. The two would
then work together to a common end,
which in itself would be a greater end
than any to which either might attain by
himself.
There is another aspect, too, of this song-
question which requires a few words.
Even when we have the perfect song, we
still require—the perfect singer. We de-
mand brains, intuition, dramatic power,
emotion in our modern singers of modern
songs. To be able to sing a melody
smoothly, to overcome easily the most
awkward intervals, is not sufficient for our
purpose. We must have something more
than mere voice; there must be a human
soul behind it, or the result is incomplete.
The composer cannot notate changes of
voice color; he cannot, without cramping
the singer of intelligence, write down every
little shade of expression—almost as rea-
sonably might one expect a dramatist to
notate every change of expression in the
voice for the different sentiments in the
speeches set down for his actors. No; the
finest song ultimately rests for its com-
pleteness with the singer.
*
C R A N K DAMROSCH has proposed a
*• grand musical welcome for Dewey,
and suggests that his Choral Union to its full
strength greet the returning warrior with
'' See the Conquering Hero Comes." ' 'But
this does not go far enough, "says our enter-
taining friend the Criterion. '< It is not
commensurate with the measure of Dewey's
exploit. Let us rather place a group of
enormous and melodious whistles at the
furthest end of Staten Island, put a twin
set at High Bridge and then let a third set
be placed on Liberty Island. Have them
blown by steam, operated by electricity,
and played by Frank Damrosch. Then
choose some grand chorus with antiphonal
effects, and provided the day was clear and
the winds were whist, New York would be
filled with a harmony never thought of
even by the late lamented Patrick Sarsfield
Gilmore. Imagine the weird beauty of
the thing. From Staten Island to the
Borough of the Bronx, the Metropolis
would de filled with song, aud jaundiced
foreign critics would have another chance to
say that we measure merit by bigness."
This scheme is certainly novel, but why
not add church bells, trolley car gongs, a
million or two anvils, and under no circum-
stances exclude the thousand and one
factory whistles which could come in in the
chorus, or take part in the familar "encore".
In other words let it be a grand Wagnerian
pandemonium; then Dewey will at once
take the first ship back to the Philippines
and remain there for the rest of his life.
No wonder he has decided not to arrive
until October. He is waiting, no doubt,
for the frost of common sense to nip the
thousand and one schemes which the
papers are exploiting in connection with
his arrival.
'"THE opera season is still six months off,
* but developments in connection there-
with occupy considerable attention. Every
day we read of new engagements and new
plans, and if some of the things which have
been published are true there is much cause
for congratulation. The logic of the situa-
tion points strongly to the selection of
Emil Paur as conductor for the Wagnerian
performances. Unless Mr. Grau could
introduce one of the great maestri Richter
or Mottl to the New York public—and this
from recent developments seems now im-
possible—it would be an absurdity to ignore
Paur and engage Schalk, Muck or Wein-
gaertner.
The time has come when New York is
really independent of the Old World in
operatic matters. As things are now this
city is the operatic centre, and the Grau
Company is a home organization which
make an annual summer visit to London.
It can be reinforced from abroad only with
such notabilities as have a universal repu-
tation.
With Emil Paur at the conductor's desk
the matter of the orchestra itself becomes
one of acute importance. Talking along
these lines the World says: "The public
should no longer be asked to accept the
incompetent players who year after
year sit in the Opera-House pit and
offend all ears. Mr. Grau can now
afford to have a distinctive, independent
orchestra, composed of musicians who are
musicians, disciplined, and recognizing no
other authority but that of their employer,
that of their leader and that of the laws of
the land. This orchestra, with its six
months of steady work during the operatic
season, could easily be kept together for
four months more, for concert work. A
two month's vacation for rest and recuper-
ation would round off the year. The
feasibility of such a plan is beyond discus-
sion. The good results that would follow
are obvious."
'"THE question of art atmosphere, so much
* discussed by musicians as absolutely
essential to musical development, was the
subject of a talk recently by Henry B. Ful-
ler, of Chicago, who took rather a narrow
view of the situation and assumed the role of
the pessimistic prophet. According to Mr.
Fuller "our environment is hostile to art.
As Americans we have the climate against
our artistic aspirations. We have our busi-
ness* demands, forcing us to money-mak-
ing, against us. Our social ideals are
hindrances. This is the age of waste-
paper, or, somewhat differently expressed,
of widejy diffused intelligence. There is a
hand-to-mouth system of intellectual living
which makes all intellectual concentration
impossible. The motto for most of us is
'Sufficient unto the day is the newspaper
thereof. 1 Short of any ideal appreciation
of art, we are driven to 'features'—turrets
of tin, sensationalism. We are the great
'kid' nation. If we have a national dance,
it is St. Vitus's dance. Discovery and in-
vention have been shoveled in on us too
thick. We have indigestion from them.
Art ought to be disinterested, but the mod-
ern man is too self-conscious, too much of
a calculating machine. We don't swing
free enough. We talk about loving nature,
but we don't. We abuse and throttle na-
ture. All of these characteristics make up
our triumphant democracy. It is a sad
triumph, a sad democracy. There is no
art in it, nor ever will be."
Evidently Mr. Fuller must be viewing
the situation through Chicago-ground
glasses. It is true, commercialism is large-
ly in the saddle nowadays, that the sensa-
tional newspapers exercise on the masses
a larger measure of influence than they
should, and that the political arena is not
as free from bosses and charlatans as we
would wish, nevertheless when it comes to
the matter of art progress one must be suf-
fering from mental astigmatism if he can-
not notice the marvellous growth in appre-
ciation of art and music in this country es-
pecially for the past five years.
An art atmosphere such as is found in
European nations, is a matter of slow
growth in a new country like ours and the
result of centuries of evolution. The