The Saint Paul globe., 1904-12-01

wrote great number of delightful iit-
tie cantatas.
In these he took for his subjects
the beautiful old fairy tales the origin
of which is not in prehistoric times, but
which the children have kept alive
from century to century in such
wonderful manner. For one he took
The Sleeping Beauty This story Is
one of the very oldest of world myths.
1t is the great sun and earth myth, or
springtime myth, found in almost every
language and race under the sun. 1t
typifies the sleep of the earth in win
ter and its waking under the kiss of
the sun in spring. 1t is used by Wag-
ner. when he makes Siegfried wake
Brunnhilde, Reinecke\ takes Grimm'S
version. in which the king and queen
invited the wise women to the feast
Of the baby princess. But, because
there were only twelve gold plates and
twelve gold spoons, only twelve of the
thirteen wise women were invited, and
the thirteenth broke in very angry and
cursed the little princess. And so; he
takes the story clear through to the
coming Of the prince, with the most
beautiful little songs and appropriate
music.
So In Little Snow White when the
cruel stepmother throws her out in the
forest to die, and she finds the house
of the seven dWarfs and becomes their
little housekeeper, there is delightful
housewife song for a little girl. Then,
when the dwarfs are so happy at hav-
ing such a nice little housekeeper that
they dance and sing about it, there is
some A1ost quaint and charming little
dwarf music.
Now, this is exactly the method of
Wagner when he embodied in his music
the great Morse and German myths.
And it is the. method of Strauss, to
whom we have listened SO much Of late,
who takes the great stories of literature,
like Enoch Arden and Don Quixote,'
and writes the orchestral music for
them. My point is that teaching chill
dren to listen to such music as that,
telling them the story first-which they
probably know, anyWay-then educat-
ing them to notice and understand how
the music expresses the ideas-this will
teach children really to listen to music.
They will look for the content of mu--
sic. They will learn to appreciate in
tellectual music; not merely the music
that plays tune, but that which tells
a story which expresses an idea, which
means something.
''Humperdinck took the delightful old
fairy tale of Hansel and Gretel for one
of his children's pieces. Hansel and
Gretel were two naughty children-not
very naughty; just naughty enough to
play instead of doing the work they
were told to do. Then they were afraid
they would be punished, and ran away
into the forest, and the music tells all
sorts Of delightful things about the
birds and bees and brooks in that for
est. But when it got dark it was not
SO happy, and as the two children lay
n kr c1n fV1 &11n
Fourteen Angels a little goodnight
song known to every German child that
ever lived. 1t is really delightful to see
how the composer has taken this little
old folksong and made a simple but
complete and beautiful musical conpo-
sition of it.
sNessler's Pied Piper is another de-
lightful composition for children. The
Pied Piper is very old folktale, found
in many countries, and Browning wrote
his version Of it to amuse a little boy
friend Of his, and / am SO glad he had
that little boy friend. In the eantata,
the rats, when they heard the tune of
the piper's magic flute, thought the
most delicious morseI Of food was just
ahead of them all the way, till they
pumped into the Weser. Then, after
the Wicked council had refused to pay,
the piper piped up again. and all the
children thought they were going to the
most delightful place on earth. They
came trooping after, and all got through
the door in the mountain except one
little lame fellow, who all his life
mourned because he missed the things
that magic tune made him see. You
can easily see the material in that for
a perfectly delightful children's can.
tata. Why, even SO great a composer
as Brahms wrote one children's piece,
The Rosebud his one beautiful contri-
button to the music OF childhood.