Germany Worships the "Almighty Pfennig" Says Damrosch

November 8, 1913 MUSICAL AMERICA 3 quietly in his study is one of the finest moments in Strauss, too. GERMANY WORSHIPS THE "ALMIGHTY "In my experience in conducting I have always found an intense interest in the preparation of the Strauss ' orchestral PFENNIG" SAYS DAMROSCH works. It is not unlike putting together t!1e parts of a great Chinese puzzle which • lIes before you, as you gaze into his mas "I Want to Hear No Longer of American Desire for the Almighty Dollar" Declares Conductor, In terly scores. But when the orchestra has Discussion of Musical Conditions Here and Abroad-An Estimate of Richard Strauss's Music been thoroughly rehearsed, when everyone !mows hjs part and the work goes well, the France Working. Along Most Promising Lines in Orchestral Music mterest IS over. When I get it before an audience I do not enjoy the music as I do other works. And you will find that after IF on entering the home of a well-known food and drink in the world to-day. And troduce this season with his orchestra. Not the 'maze of dissonances has passed, when musician some afternoon your ear were so a great many of their idealistic. traits are lasting music this, says he, but of historic.al the effects are over and Strauss becomes entranced by soft secondary harmonies, al disappearing. Take the old city of Nurem interest, especially when one thinks of the simple (and he does in several of his berg! There, where once one saw nothing obscure drum player working out his musi large works) he is generally commonplace.' tered after the approved manner of Gallic but quaint houses, where the atmosphere cal ideas in poverty and anticipating . har- On the other hand the music of Richard modernity gently played upon the piano, of 'Die Meistersinger' was virtually in the would you conclude that the musician is an air, one is now confronted with hundreds avowed Debussyite? Or would you be of factory chimneys and here and there a survival of the old days, a house or two broader and call him a satellite of modern hidden, back from view, carefully preserved France? In either case you would not be for tourists. far from right were the house you were Modern German Art "Hideous" entering the abode of Walter Damrosch, dean of American orchestral conductors. "And modern German art is actually hideous. I speak of their paintings, sculp For this is precisely what greeted' a repre ture, architecture, as well as of their music, sentative· of MUSICAL AMERICA one day last The c.olor schemes are something that it week when he was waiting in the anteroom is difficult to believe them sincere about. for the noted conductor to receive him. I can think of it in no other way than to call it a worship of the ugly. As to archi The music stops and the conductor of the tecture, I believe firmly that the finest mod Symphony Society adv~nces to meet you. ern architecture is to be found right in He is not alone, as presently he will present America to-day. For example, take the new you to a gifted young Bohemian composer, St. Thomas Church on Fifth Avenue." who has made his home in New York in Mr. Damrosch went to Munich to hear Mozart's early o!)era "The Elopement fr0111 rec.ent years. This is Victor Kolar, one of the Seraglio." "Die Entfiihrung aus dem the first violins in his orchestra. Mr. Serail" as the Germans c.all it, which he Damroscl1 has announced this musician's 11ad never heard before. "It was sung in orchestral Suite "Americana" for produc the Residenz Theater, where one hundred and fifty years ago Mozart himself had tion tl1is season and together they have been conducted. The theater is small and the reading over the big score at the piano. orchestra was accordingly reduced. There Musically Mr .. Damrosch has been called one gets the true proportions of a Mozart "Wagnerite" time and again. But he has opera, for the music is only effective to-day when the acoustical properties of an audi also, some Liszt in his makeup, not neces torium are as they are there. In lEolian sarily music.ally, strictly speaking, but let us say humanely. For quite as the great Abbe-pianist gave generously of his time and assistance to young and little known composers, to cite cases, the gifted and still unprized Hermann Goetz and the great Wagner, s6 has Conductor Damrosch given unstintingly to talented musicians in this country throughout his career. Mr. Kolar's Symphonic Poem "Hiawatha" and his "A Fairy Tale," both orchestral works, have b~en b. ought to a hearing under his baton with the result that during the past year the young composer ha> finished this "Americ.ana," a suite in four movements, depicting characteristics in the life of America's North, \IV est, South and East. Shortly before the much-admired con ductor arrived from Europe this Fall an item appeared in the d~i1y prints in which he was quoted as having stated that Ameri can orchestras surpass all others. On this subj ect he went on to say: "Why should Walter Damrosch, tne Em~nent Orchestral Conductor and Composer, in His New York Study not Americ.a have the best orchestras? Here we engage men for our orchestras on their merit and on merit alone. Abroad Hall you may enjoy a Mozart symphony nlonic sequences which later became fa Wagner, much of which has now become the matter of nationality enters into the and in the vast Metropolitan find a Mozart miliar to the musical world as "invented" classic, springing as it did from a noble choice of men. The importimt German opera tedious. I must praise the work of by Achille Claude Debussy. But in France impulse, holds the interest all the time. opera and symphonic organizations will not the conductor, Bruno Walter, who seems to the c.onductor believes the composers are And the public, which is the judge in th~s ,e have a French flute or oboe in their en be the legitimate successor of the late Felix working along the most promising lines. matters of a work's lasting on down to semble for purely national reasons. And Mottl. But what bad singing! He is of the opinion that a new musical posterity, a.ccepts or rejects not con vice versa. To my mind the French wood "The Munchener do not seem to care idioni must be evolved, that the music of sciously but instinctively." wind is the finest to be had in the world to much how a singer sings as long as he or the future must be something quite different To the query as to whether his opera day, and that is why I have them in my she performs with absolute dramatic sin from what we have known up to the present "Cyrano" would be heard again this Win orchestra. Why! The count was once cerity. That they demand. They can actu day. An'd he thinks the modern Frencl1- ter the composer of "Cyrano" could only taken ' in my orchestra and I found that we ally listen to a tenor sing for an hour a men are doing things that will bring it reply that he had been informed that the had thirteen nationalities represented among quarter tone below pitch and at the con about. work had been placed in the Metropoli clusion of the performance tell you that tan's regular repertoire. While the inquiry the players. Such a thing would be im Found "Ariadne" Dull in regard to his written another possible in Germany!" he was splendid. I heard a 'Tristan' per h~.ving formance there, too, with our own Olive "Ariadne auf Naxos," Richard Strauss's . opera brought the characteristic. answer, "I Found Romance in Italy Fremstad as Isolde. (Later I learned that latest essay in the realm of music-drama, have done some work." A. W. K. it was the performance which brought forth Mr. Damrosch ·found frankly dull. "He The trip abroad during. the Summer just makes mincemeat of Moliere," declared the past was the first real vac.ation Mr. Dam unfavorable comment from a Munich paper 0.11 the great Wagnerian soprano's persona conductor, "the entire incidental music being A PARIS OPERA WAR? rosch has had in fifteen years. Eight weeks of a kind wholly unsuited to the comedy. of it were spent in southern Italy, visiting tlOn.) The tenor was indescribably bad, sang off key all through the second act. There are the' familiar Strauss ian harmo Messager and Gailhard Contemplate Op Naples, Pompeii .. driving to Salerno, Sor My memory went back to the wonderful nies, the same style of music which we have rento and numerous other places there come to know as his. He has taken no posing National Institution abouts. "Truly Italy seems to be the only performances with Nordica, the two De Reszkes in the days of Grau when I ' con advantage of the opportunities offered him. PARIS, Nov. 4,-Because Premier Louis country where at this late day there is any The music should of course have been' in 'romance' left. The wonderful Italian gar ducted and I ~sked myself whether it was Barthou failed to reappoint Andre Mes necessary for me to sit it out just because the manner of such old-time French com sager musical director and make Pedr:o den above Amalfi impressed me again, that posers as Lully and Rameau.

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