Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-03-27
THE MUSIC WORLD.
UAlbert and Bernhardt as Mast 0rs of
the Supreme Art of Suggesting
WITHOUT USING WORDS.
Action of the National League as to the
Contract Labor Law.
BUDGET OF GENERAL NEwsY NOTES

The worlds greatest pianist and the
worlds greatest actress burst upon Pitts
burg's horizon simultaneously last Monday
night.
In this instance the platform and the stage
were more than usually upon level, viewed
from the audience. Bernhardt's foreign
tongue robbed the drama of the defniteness
which attaches only to the spoken-and un-
derstood-word. She had to meet D. Albert
upon the same plane, where art suggests
emotions, instead OF directly communicat-
ing thoughts.
The circumstance suggests an interesting
train OF thought as. to the substantial iden-
tity of the arts at bottom, whatever external
form they assume for the nonce.
Such a comparison reveals anew the
superiority of music's direct appeal to the
keep track Of what Bernhardt Was talking
about, none had to worry over what
D'Albert was playing about
For music, thank goodness does not have
to be 'about" ANYTHING. It fulfls its high
est mission when it simply flows into each
listeners heart and luickens into new,
thrilling life the fancies and feelings it nnds
And in Eugen D. Albert's hands this mis-
sion OF music was accomplished.
-
Mixing Up Art and Labor
Mr. Owen Miller, Of st. Louis, the retiring
President of the National League Of Musi.
cians is reported as addressing these words
to the recent convention of the league:
81 insist that the decision Of the Treasury
Department in admitting musicians under
contract as artists was discrimination; that
we are wage-workers, and entitled to the
nf fbn oil Lob In l,,.t
until we officially declare ourselves as such
we cannot hope to make any progress in the
betterment OF our condition or the elevation
of our art"
The status Of the wage-worker is an hon
orable one, undoubtedly. The status OF o
member of one of the learned or artistic
professions is certainly not less honorable.
distinction between the two lies in the very
nature OF things. 1t is absurd on the face
OF It to say that the professional musicians
must officially place themselves upon the
status of wage-workers in order to better
their conditlon-much less in order to ele-
vate the art.
This vital distinction lies at the root Of
the whole matter. Let US hope that Presi-
dent Ruhe and his supporters will oppose
Mr.. Miller's ideas as Successfully as they
did his candidacy for another term.
-
Echoes From Paderewskfs Tones.
A friend kindly sends this note of some of
the latest appearances Of the pianistic
comet whose yellow nimbus has been such
a striking feature of the season everywhere
but in Pittsburg:
Paderewskis series of historical recitals,
given at Sherry's, practically terminated
his American engagements. His audiences
were almost exclusively OF the beau-monde,
and a deep contrast they made, in. bright
array, to the strange poetic figure seated in
semi-darkness at the piano.
The two programmes, including Beeth-
oven and Chopin, were specially interesting.
In the larger works of the latter composer
he excels De Pachmann, and, without doubt,
plays Beethoven more acceptably than Won
Bu1ow, at least as that authority has been
heard of late years. -
In spite of the anxiety of the American
public about the unshorn locks OF the great
Russian, there can be little doubt that his
individuality would disappear II they had
be dissolved. Z. n.