Gardner-Webb University Digital Commons @ Gardner-Webb University The tudeE Magazine: 1883-1957 John R. Dover Memorial Library 10-1-1921 Volume 39, Number 10 (October 1921) James Francis Cooke Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.gardner-webb.edu/etude Part of the Composition Commons, Ethnomusicology Commons, Fine Arts Commons, History Commons, Liturgy and Worship Commons, Music Education Commons, Musicology Commons, Music Pedagogy Commons, Music Performance Commons, Music Practice Commons, and the Music Theory Commons Recommended Citation Cooke, James Francis. "Volume 39, Number 10 (October 1921)." , (1921). https://digitalcommons.gardner-webb.edu/etude/684 This Book is brought to you for free and open access by the John R. Dover Memorial Library at Digital Commons @ Gardner-Webb University. It has been accepted for inclusion in The tudeE Magazine: 1883-1957 by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Gardner-Webb University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. -ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION, $2.0»- THE ETUDE OCTOBER, 1921 Single Copies 25 Cents VOL. XXXIX, No. 10 The Friends of Moszkowski long as you think success should not be scorned. Success Have you ever seen a beautiful tree standing in a verdant in music is in a large measure the ambition to realize a worthy meadow? Have you ever seen that tree a day or so later with ideal, plus the faculty of working one’s soul away to get it, the leaves burnt brown by a bolt of electricity shot from the never getting it but always having a glorious time at the job. heart of a thunder storm ? The worst kind of failure is the failure after a great suc¬ The great war (which passed by like a hurricane) shot cess. Never was the Grand Canyon so abysmal as such a drop. many te. rible bolts. One of these hit Moritz Moszkowski. The case that Mr. Finck describes of a violinist who was a First the investments of a life-time were shattered; then ill huge success, only to return after many years to. find that the health cai. ?d by worry (at the age of sixty-five) has made audiences that formerly attended his concerts were repre¬ him practically helpless; and finally he has become so seriously sented by a mere handful of people, is not an unusual one. ill that his friends have given up all hope for a permanent On the stage it is even more frequent. The writer once dragged recovery. the famous Mme .Jannuschek—greatest tragedienne of her Moszkowski, invalided, feeble, penniless! Moskowski who time and the favorite of kings—dragged her in her old age has enriched music with many of its rarest jewels! from the gutter, after she had indulged in a spree which lasted Moszkowski’s piano works have proven the most fascinat¬ several days and made her the target for street hoodlums. ing of high class contributions to the literature of the instru¬ “Oh, what a fall was there, my countrymen/” ment, of his time. He combines the facility for pianistic idiom, No one knows until death draws the arras whether one’s fwhich Chopin felt so keenly, and the romantic freedom of Schu¬ life must be judged a success or a failure. In this is the great¬ mann wjth a touch of modernism altogether delightful. est hope of human existence. You may not be a musical success You, who are reading this editorial have played Moszkow¬ to-day but if you marshal your forces, intensify your energies, ski’s works many times without doubt. Is it too much to ask raise your ideals, help your fellowman, and work without that you lay a little tribute now before his genius, to help faltering, to-morrow may usher you through the triumphal gladden his days while he is still w’ith us? arch. _'_ Why weep .pathetic tears over the world’s treatment of Huneker’s Masterpiece Mozart, Schubert, and others who brought beauty infinite and happiness to life and w'ho drank the dregs on their death beds, James Huneker, one time editor of The Etude, critic, while Moszkowski living needs a little of your plenty? Tri¬ essayist, and teacher, was so vivified by rare intellectual vital¬ butes to this great genius will gladly be forw'arded. Send ity, that he gave to his works that touch which makes for stamps, currency, checks (make them out to The Etude),— immortality. anything that your spirit of liberality and your appreciation His literary, musical, artistic, and dramatic mirrors of the beautiful art of Moszkowski suggests. It will all do good highly burnished and flashing with his unforgetable wit, did and will all be appreciated. far more than catch a fleeting reflection of the moment. Time is fleeting, soon it may be too late. We are sure our In a recent issue of the Century Monthly, the younger splendid Etude friends will (ie glad to know' that they may have iconoclast H. L, Mencken writes in an article entitled .James the opportunity of helping. Hlinekcr: “If I had to choose one Huneker book and give up all others, I’d choose Old Fogy instantly.” The Eternal Secret of Success The famous Old Fogy papers, now published in book form, first appeared in The Etude two decades ago. Huneker was There is a friend of The Etude who has long insisted that very anxious to preserve the secret of his nom de plume during one of the chief things in the game of success is to avoid doing his life time, but he did consent to have his name appear as the the wrong thing. “What you keep out of is just as important editor of the book. as what you get into.” In this issue of The Etude you will For years the authorship of Old Fogy was kept a deep find a useful and sensible article by the distinguished critic mystery. Like Irving’s Knickerbocker, Huncker’s Old Fogy Henry T. Finck, entitled “Ten Musical Failures and Why w’as a very thin veil for those who were acquainted with his they Failed.” Sometimes one can learn just as much by study¬ inimitable style. ing the musical failures of others as by studying musical Although their chief interest is to the pianist and to the successes. piano student, they have been read by thousands of music Success is such an evasive quality. Some one has. said lovers with keenest delight. Any one who desires to play that it is an attitude of mind. Certainly what constitutes musi¬ with more interest, taste and skill can read Old Fogy with cal success is largely a mental aspect. Thu man who is profit. happy in playing traps in a cheap vaudeville theatre is quite Huneker died a man of large wealth,—in friends and ad¬ H as successful in his own mind as the melancholy virtuoso who mirers. Of wordly goods he had kept little for himself, dreads every appearance. although his earnings were considerable. Reisenauer at one time was regarded as one of the most Who will explain that personal charm that brought successful virtuosos of Europe. He once told the editor that throngs to his funeral service in the midst of New York’s busi¬ he detested every concert, that he had been a slave to music, est season? Was ever before such a tribute of admiration for and that the incessant grind of concertizing bored him to genius paid to a critic? Colleagues, artists, scientists, poets, death. Notwithstanding his giant technic and his wonderful dramatics, musicians,, politicians, merchants, bankcrs^anitoi's, advantages, it is not surprising that a man with such a vision newsboys, and millionaires were all there to say\ a Irt*’ , word for should die a miserable death attended by the ogres of com¬ “Jim.” The new “Town Hall” of America’s metropolis was plete failure. crowded to *he doors. That told what Huneker meant to the The somewhat trite doctrine that Success is with you as men and women of his time. t OCTOBER 1921 Page 6S1 THE ETUDE horn were not in harmony and a tonoscope determined that Good Steel and Honest Work the oboe was playing flat; a singer who has an undersirablc Just now thousands of piano teachers report that nearly fluctuation in her voice detached it and was able to eliminate ✓every day or so they encounter a pupil who makes this pro- it; another who had a tendency to flat, corrected her error, and a group of six players observed that much greater pro¬ “I am very anxious to learn to play—but I don’t want to gress was made when practicing with the instrument. learn to play anything but Jazz." We forsee at once, one of the greatest uses for the instru¬ Gorgeous youth, tlii1 “kitten age,” when the days are ment will be to convince many choir singers we have known, filled with play, has very little in it to suggest serious study. that the time for retirement has come. It may also serve to re Yet the,boys anti girls who cannot see beyond “jazz” should tire some piano tuners and some violinists, who never manage I be seriously lectured by some worthy who realizes that any to live very long in the neighborhood of the key. musical training that is not built right is not worth anything On the other hand we have known countless singers and at all. If you must have “Jazz” for dancing why not let the players who could hit the heart of a high A as surely as a U. S. professional jazzologist supply it on the talking machine or gunner’s mate could hit a target a mile at sea, but the effect via the player piano? Why waste your precious springtime was quite as destructive.