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22, 1919 AMERICA .. -- 3 ''LET SIMPLICIT-Y BE THE COMPOSER~s· CDNSTANT -OBJECTIVE, ADJURES-ITALO MONTEMEZZI The Great Composer . of "L'Amore dei Tre Re" Pays His First Visit to America -A Study of _the Man and His Ideals-Ambition and a Twenty-Dollar Piano- Or- chestration Mastered with- out Texts or Teachers-" La Nave" a "Larger Work than 'Tre Re'" H IS face calls to mind pictures of the early Berlioz. As . much as the gauntness of feature and frame, the con- and tranquil demeanor - suggest an origin other than Latin. The seamed cheeks and brow, the angularity of high cheek bones, the long and sharp-point~d nose, the tight-drawn, thin lips and strong jaw no less than the impressive stature, spare figure and looseness of limb,· cunningly counterfeit the New England farmer. A wavy shock of hair, streaked-with spreading grayness, term- inates the broad forehead. Under shag- gy eyebrows burn eyes penetrating without sharpness, eyes that seem now to contemplate remote perspectives and. 1-Ita~o Montemezzi Reai!W the Piano Score of His Opera "La Nave"; No. 2 anon, are blithely alert to the matter of (left to right,)-Herbert _y; Peyser, Mr. Mr0ntmezzi, Carlo Galeffi, Gianni Via- the moment. He is thirty-nine, they say. fora, Charles Meltzer (Photos by Illustrated News); No. 3-A Profile Study of He looks more. His life has been, in the Italian Master - - · ' the superficial sense, uneventful. Yet, his countenance, like one of Gilbert's days a maker of agricultural' imple- "You will like 'La Nave.' It is a larger idealistic personages, "wears sorrow's ments. His earnings were not consider- - work than 'L'Amore dei Tre Re', bolder interesting trace." able in the' years of Italo's boyhood but · in outline and more massive of dimen- * * * they sufficed to the support of the house- sion. The score is weightier, the bulk I met Italo Montemezzi with a sense hold. The f orebears of young Monte- and conformation ampler and of greater of hero-worship. To know the man has mezzi do noi appear to have shown con- power. To compose d'Annunzio's poem been a dear ambition of mine since that spicuous artistic enterprise or predilec- . was long a dear ambition. After sever- January morning, six years ago, when tion. He was the only musician of the al essays I began it finally in 1915-and I sat, shaken but transported, through family but no one attempted the imme- on St. Mark's day, think you, the festival the last rehearsal of "L'Amore dei Tre morial practice of thwarting his early of the patron saint of Venice, where is Re" in the darkened and empty audi- aspirations. They gave him a ninety lire the scene of its action. Three years I torium of the Metropolitan. I have never piano (less than twenty dollars in the worked on 'La Nave.' And today, Nov. ceased to love that work as an almost ante-bellum reckoning) and let him en- 3," (the day of our conversation) "is the perfect arY#toduct and to esteem it as joy himself. Eventually he found his anniversary of its first production, the the sole pur ower of musical inspiration way into the Milan Conservatory, and anniversary, too, of the capture by Italy blooming i taly since the world looked got excellent tuition from professors of Trieste and of Austria's final discom- first upon the rugged and tragic mien of comr aratively obscure. His own appli- fiture. D'Annunzio took scarcely less in- "Otello" and joyed in the glistening catio,, and grasp must have been remark- terest than I in the -presentation. And frivolities of "Falstaff". Admiration has able. He told me with ingenuous glee he let me know that, by way of fitting that he had completed a three years' increased fifty-fold with acquaintance. to convey the notion that he carries his celebration, he opened bombardment on Surely the person who had power to cre- course of counterpoint and fugue in one. Pola that very day. We in Milan had a modesty to depths of abjection. The His teacher in harmony was of the old ate the riches of this ideally propor- man has an easy consciousness of the success. Toscanini was delighted with tioned and glowingly conceived score value of his handiwork and confident school-not in a derogatory respect. He the work. I can see him even now as must be of utterly uncommon distinction. believed in the sanctity of the three fun- he read it for the first time, sweeping trust in his powers. He dominates his damental chords. And as long as his Such the logical surmise. Yet little ap- genius, he does not flaunt it. His reti- the pages of the orchestral score with peare·d to be known of him. There was cence is that of mastery, joined to an pupils could say their say in these, ac- his eyes-his near-sightedness-made talk of his timidity. During the war cording to his judgment, he discounten- him fairly glue his face to the pages, acute sense of the fitness of things. anced any others. They were to be the rumors varied. He was in retirement, When I told him of my abiding enthusi- which he brusquely raised and lowered, writing a lyrical tragedy on all manner immovable groundwork on which they as if to embrace the full scope of the asm for "The Love of Three Kings" he built the structure of their compositions. of topics. Conjecture ranged all the stammeringly assured me that I was instrumentation at a glance-and emit- way from Julius Caesar to a romantic Harmonic sophistries he refused sternly ting dark growls that, with him, indi· "very amiable" but admonished me that to tolerate. French subject. Conjecture, as usual, "La Nave" was a bigger work and en- cate satisfaction. was amiss. treated me to come to Chicago for the · Instrumentation? Of whom acquired? "For myself I was pleased with the * * • - first performance. Under whose guidance had developed _reception of the work. But the greatest Montemezzi has the simplicity of * • * that f aultless calculation and combinat" emotional experience of lmyi life was greatness. As we talked of this and of ive skill that effected the woven gold, after all the premiere of 'L'Amore dei H e did not mind a roomful of impor- Tre Re.'" that in his tenth floor room at the Bilt- tunate visitors. On the contrary, he the glistening fabric of the "Three * • • more a day or two after he landed I strove to be affable. There were on hand Kings"? could not refrain from reverting men- Carlo Galeffi, the returned new baritone; "Of nobody! Under no guidance. Or, It is a perversely curious thing that tally to another occasion some eight Charles Henry Meltzer. who brought rather, under the teachings of my ob- one always links the names of Monte- years back, briefly previous to the "Girl English librettos; several Italian news- servation alone, and the intuition of my mezzi and Puccini. Not because they of the Golden West." I visited Puccini papermen, the Chicago Company's vigi- judgment. And in the theater, not the are alike, but for that they are so ex- then in his suite at the Knickerbocker. lant press r epresentative and the indis- class-room. It is true I had a text- tremely unlike. The one is very nearly A score of the new opera stood open ori pensable Viafora. I was so fortunate as book-a little pocket treatise that I everything that the other is not. When the grand piano, set on a dais near the to detach the composer from the buzz- bough't for a f ew cents and that, conse- "L'Amore" was first produced here it window. The affable and accommodating ing company and practically to monoPo- quently, gave me very little of what I gained a tremendous share of critical Tito Ricordi occupied the piano stool and lize him for the space of an hour.· We wanted. But my real lessons in orches- commendation for its avoidance of rub- the almighty Giacomo, radiating self- might have discussed artistic abstrac- tration I got at the Scala, up in the ber-stamp Pucciniisms. Almost uncon- sufficiency and inflated as a pouter pig- tions in greater variety and detail if gallery, where I climbed night after sciously I found myself vaunting the eon, was enthroned next to him. The Montemezzi had been more at ease in night, perching directly over the orches- composer of "L'Amore" to his face for function of Tito was to play and sing as French. My conversational Italian de- tra, listening and watching. That gal- girding his spirit against the artistic ob- much of the "Girl" as anyone desired to rives chiefly from Ghislanzoni, Cammer- lery was my schoolroom; I had no liquities of the modern Meyerbeer. He hear-and, naturally, everybody wanted ano, Piave and Illica, with occasional other." smiled slyly and there was much mean- to hear as much as possible. Puccini, in admixtures of Dante. But with good Aside from a symphony written as a ing in the smile, but sidestepped what- such instances, would listen with closed will and the grace of Viafora sufficient student exercise Montemezzi has com- ever may have been my implied ques- eyes and an air of superterrestrial bliss, could be accomplished. And Montemezzi posed no absolute music. More or less, tion. occasionally eking out Ricordi's voice talked without the prod of coercion, re- sooner or later he aspires to do so.

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