UMS Concert Program, February 28, 1921: The New York Chamber Music Society, Inc. --

Season: 1920-1921
Concert: FIFTH
Complete Series: CCCLVI
Hill Auditorium, Ann Arbor, Michigan

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F. W. KELSEY, President
A. A. STANLEY, Director
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SECOND SEASON FIFTH CONCERT
No. CCCLVI COMPLETE SERIES
THE NEW YORK CHAMBER MUSIC SOCIETY, Inc.
CAROLYN BEEBE, Founder
ARTISTS
Pierre Henrotte, Violin
Paul Lemay, Viola
Livio Mannucci, Violoncello
Emil Mix, Double Bass Carolyn Beem;, Piano Georges Grisf.z, Clarinet William Kincaid, Flute
Rene Corne, Oboe Ugo Savouni, Bassoon Joseph Fkanzl, French Horn
HILL AUDITORIUM, ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN MONDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 192r, AT EIGHT O'CLOCK
PROGRAM
Nonetto in F major. Opus 31......'. Ludreig Spofrr
For Violin, Viola, Violoncello, Double Bass, Flute, Oboe, Clarinet, Bassoon,
French Horn Allegro; Scherzo--Allegro; Adagio; Finale--Vivace.
Suite in C, Opus 6........... 'Eugene Goossens
For Piano, Flute, Violin
Impromptu--Moderato e espressivo; Serenade--Andante grazioso; Divertimento--Allegro giocoso.
Suite, "Through the Looking Glass' Opus 12.....Deems Taylor
For Piano, Violin, Viola, Violoncello, Double Bass, Flute, Clarinet, Oboe, Bassoon. French Horn. (MSS.) (Written for the New York Chamber Music Society.)
1. Dedication:
"Thy loving smile will surely hail The love gift of a fairy tale."
2. Jabberwocky:
" "Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and! gimble on the wabe: He took his vorpal sword in hand: The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame-'And has thou slain the Jabberwock, Come to my arms, my beamish boy!'"
3. Looking-Glass Insects:
The Gnat, the Bee-elephant, the Rockinghorse-fly, the Snap-dragon-fly, and the Bread-and-butter-fly.
4. The White Knight:
"This toy Don Quixote, so mild, chivalrous, ridiculous, and touching." Steimvay Piano used
The next concert in the FACULTY CONCERT SERIES (complimentary) will be given Sunday afternoon, March 13, at 3 :oo o'clock.
The next concert in the CHORAL UNION SERIES will be given by THE DETROIT SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA, OSSIP GABRILOWITSCH, CONDUCTOR, CYRENA VAN GORDON, CONTRALTO (CHICAGO OPERA COMPANY), SOLOIST, Monday evening, March 7.
The next concert in the MATINEE MUSICALE SERIES will be a SONG RECITAL (Brahms Program) by CLARA CLEMENS (Mrs. Ossip Gabrilowitsch), March 2, in Pattengill Auditorium (High School), at S:oo o'clock.
Traffic Regulation.--By order of the Police Department, on the nights of Concerts, vehicles of all kinds will be prohibited on North University Avenue between Thayer and Ingalls Streets; Taxi-cabs must park on the west side of Thnyer street, facing south between North University Avenue and Washington Street; Private autos may be parked on Ingalls and Washington Streets. Persons on foot are requested to refrain from leaving from the Taxi-cab entrance at the Thayer Street side of the Auditorium.
Lost Articles should be enquired for at the office of Shirley W. Smith, Secretary of the University, in University Hall, where articles found should be left.
ANALYSES
Nonetto in F major, Opus 31........Ludwlg Spohr
For Violin, Viola, Violoncello, Double Bass, Flute, Oboe, Clarinet, Bassoon,
French Horn
Allegro; Scherzo--Allegro; Adagio; Finale--Vivace.
Ludwig (Louis) Spohr was born April 5, 1784, at Braunschweig; died November 22. 1859, at Cassel.
It is difficult for one to conceive of a composer of note--like Spohr--characterizing the initial motive of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony as "unsuiled for the first movement of a symphony," and disposing of the Finale by calling it "unmeaning noise." But when he speaks of the final movement of the Ninth (Choral) Symphony as "monstrous and tasteless," it is not surprising that he ends his screed with the amazing statement, "Beethoven was wanting in esthetic culture and sense of beauty." When one compares these unburde.nings of his critical soul with his unreserved approbation of Wagner, the composer-critic becomes somewhat of a problem. Of this problem there can be but one solution--the fact that Spohr was ridiculously self-conceited and inordinately jealous. Wagner, the musicdramatist, was just beginning his career at the time when Spohr's artistic activities were drawing to a close. As Spohr was not preeminently an opera-composer, they did no come in direct conflict, while Spohr, the symphonist, chafed' under the well-founded judgment of his contemporaries through which Beethoven was assigned a higher position than he.
The foregoing remarks regarding Spohr's critical acumen must not blind one to the fact that he was an important figure in his day and generation. A violinist of exceptional gifts, the founder of a school of violin-playing, and he creator of excellent--occasionally ' great--music, his high reputation is of enduring quality and richly deserved. That symmetry of form appealed to him is evident in all his compositions, for, from the formal point of view he was a classicist. In the freedom with which he treated the content of these forms through his melodic idioms and characteristic schemes of harmony he no less clearly revealed the romanticist. But while these characteristics appeared to be genuine advances and appealed with great force at first, it was not long before they degenerated into man nerisms--especially as he showed little discrimination in their application. His many experiments, like the "Earthly and Heavenly" Symphony, for two complete orchestras, the Quartet-Concerto, and his programatic Symphony, "The Consecration of Tone," seemed to reveal great originality, but, as stated by one of his biographers (Paul David), "What do we find under these new dresses and freshly-invented titles but the same dear old Spohr, incapable of putting on a new face, even for a few bars" Like the mediocre conductor (mentioned by Berlioz) who drags Allegro mclto vivace and hurries Adagio molto, till, having in each case reached moderato, he jogs along contentedly.
It may be urged that these lines form a sorry introduction to a work from which enjoyment and satisfaction are to be gained. In answer it may urged that the practical relegation of Spohr's operas and symphonies to oblivion attest the truth of whatever of criticism has been offered. It is a fair question to ask, "Has anyone in this audience heard a Spohr symphony in the last ten or fifteen years" It is also germane to predict that no one ever will. Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert--all symphonists--have not suffered such a fate.
The Nonetto on our program, by its instrumentation avoids the danger of monotony that is imminent when the strings alone are employed in a larger combination than the quartet or quintet. Mendelssohn's Octet may be cited as an exception. In the absence of a score from which to make an analysis, nothing definitive can be said of the work other than it is in the sonata-form and without doubt contains the chromatic progressions and enharmonic modulations, failing which it would pot be Spohr. In compositions of this genre Spohr's knowledge of the possibilities of strings is always in evidence, and it is safe to assume that it is replete with beautiful music, which, after all, is the main thing.
There is no authoritative information as to the date of the composition of the Nonetto, but it was first performed at the last concert of the season of 1820, by the Philharmonic Society, London.
Suite in C, Opus 6..........Eugene Goossens
For Piano, Flute, Violin
Impromptu--Moderate e espressivo: Serenade--Andante grazioso; Divertimento--Allegro giocoso.
Eugene Goossens was born May 26, 1893, at London; still living.
,_ As neither score nor information regarding this composition is1 available, the suggestions to the listener lie in the titles and expression-marks. The composer is frankly modern in his outlook, and is one of the young Englishmen (native and adopted) who, having escaped from the bondage of Handel, Mendelssohn, and their diluted imitators, are so riotous in the expression of their newly-won freedom that they "chortle in their joy." None of them are "cubists," consequently have never attempted to set "The Nude descending the Stairs" to music. As a group they are "futurists" only in their conviction that the present trend of creative activity in England will soon result in the realization of the ideals towards which the work of Henry Purcell (1658-1695) so unmistakably pointed. It can not be denied that certain members of this English Camerata appear to be obsessed by visions of the type produced! by hasheesh; revel in spiritualism, and glorify the esthetic value of the pineal gland, which one of them defined as "the seat of the emotions." In spite of such vagaries--and they are rare--through the activity of present-day composers English music can no longer come under the condemnation meted out by Dr. Willibald Nagel, who, in his "History of Music in England;," characterized it as "eminently respectable and God-fearing, but very dry." Again, these men are nullifying the statement that "English music, like its--------, is either Scotch or Irish." Since the advent of Elgar, English music is undeniably English. If the future brings any elimination of the Milesian element the Sin-Fein movement must not be held responsible. The Scotch will always contribute music of value, but in the music of the present there are no lines of distinction such as we find in the earlier folk-music: it is all English in spirit;.
Centuries ago England taught music to the Continent. Alcuin (735-801) was an Englishman, and Marcellus, one of the founders of the St. Gallen School (10th Cenutry), was a red-headed Irishman. Even Nagel admits that the first example of a real canon (Rote-"round") was "Sumer is a-cumen in," which, according to Conssemaker, was written in 1226-1236, by John of Fornsele, "a monk of the Abbey of Reading, in Berkshire." John Dunstable (1400-1453 ( was the first important contrapuntist, and to his initiative the developments of the "Century of the Netherlanders" (1450-1550) must be attributed. In the light of the preceding review, when one declares that present indications point to a renascence of the influence exerted so many centuries ago the significance of such a prophecy must be apparent.
Suite, "Through the Looking Glass' Opus 12.....Deems Taylor
For Piano, Violin, Viola. Violoncello, Double Bass, Flute, Clarinet, Oboe, Bassoon, French Horn. (MSS.) (Written for the New York Chamber Music Society.)
1. Dedication:
"Thy loving smile will surely hail The love gift of a fairy tale."
2. Jabberwocky:
" 'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and' gimble on the wabe: 'He took his vorpal sword in hand:
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame--
'And has thou slain the Jabberwock,
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!'"
3. Looking-Glass Insects:
The Gnat, the Bee-elephant, the Rockinghorse-fly, the Snap-dragon-fly, and the Bread-and-butter-fly.
4. The White Knight:
"This toy Don Quixote, so mild, chivalrous, ridiculous, and touching."
Deems Taylor was born December 22, 1885, at New York; still living.
It is refreshing to see an American composition on an American program, especially a work written in a serious form, even though the implications of the content cf its various divisions are in a different vein. As in England, so in our own countrv the younger men are displaying great activity along lines which predicate significant achievements. Some of them, in the past, have been hampered by the conviction that genius must of necessity
"follow the flag," from which the inference was drawn that, provided they were sufficiently imbued-with the "spirit of our democratic institutions," they could creat an American school of composition. In carrying out this attempt to make democracy safe for the world (of music) they deliberately ignored the suggestions of the little folk-music we have in our country, forgetting that every national school in existence was evolved from the music of the folk. They also overlooked the statement of "Wagner that "nothing outside of itself can call Art to arise," possibly relying more on another dictum of the Bayreuth master, viz., "The day of unconscious productivity has passed and a work to satisfy our modern world must be based on reason and reflection." In spite of this pronouncement, which, like most generalizations, has wrought more or less mischief, the fact remains that the end these enthusiasts had in view can only be reached through the creative activity of men who write because they must. So long as it is good music it matters not whether these products follow German or French models, for, whenever the New World sounds a novel, insistent, and distinctively national note, the Old World will recognize it and the hoped-for school will have arisen. This aim, however, will never be reached through conscious effort directed by anything outside of music itself. In the last analysis, all deliberately utilized expressions of nationality are superficial rather than integral.
The Suite on our program is an offering by a composer who has already given many "hostages to Fortune" which have won for him the respect of all those who are interested in the development of creative art in our country. The analysis of this Suite is found within the covers of the volume in which "Lewis Carroll" relates the wonderful .experiences of our young and enquiring friend, Alice
Anticipating the query regarding available literature bearing on the problem of intelligent listening, the following list of suggestive works is submitted. All of these are in the General Library of the University:
"How to Listen to Music," H. E. Krehbiel.
"Musical Appreciation," C. G. Hamilton.
Daniel Gregory Mason's works are all of them extremely helpful.
The same may be said of the many contributions of James Huneker, whose recent death (February 2) is a real loss to criticism.
"A Biographical Dictionary," 2d Edition, Baker, contains condensed information regarding composers and their works.
"Grove's Dictionary" (2d Edition) gives more extended information along the same lines as the preceding volume, besides discussions of the various composition-forms.
"Great Pianists," James Francis Cooke, covers a special field.
"Portraits of Composers," Paul Rosenfeld, is an interesting book, but his conclusions are not always justified.
Those who would like more detailed information will find a list of helpful works, other than those given above, at the Attendant's desk, General Reading Room of the University Library.
THE ANN ARBOR PRESS