The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-10-11
THE LEONCAVALLO CONCERT.
SECOND APPEARANCE OF THE
ITALIAN COMPOSER.

.p..,IaccI" Furnishes Some NUMBER for
the PrOkramme-The Pubic Declines
10 Be Enthusiastic --AnOther Lesson
for DeIuded EuPOpeaBs-SmalI Crowd.
Mr7Leoncavallo gave his second concert
last night in Carnegie Hall. The pOmp
and pride and circumstance Of the first
concert we're gone; gone the captains and
the shouting. 1t was a slender and a
dacorous audience which faced the COM
noser. Empty seats loomed like financial
reefs in the broken sea Of faces. There
vas no credivity in the house. A fatiferous
Iarty reigned in the tsnuous afr. Possibly
Mr.. Leoncavallo, who came hither in dark
ress. saw a great light. n he did not his
vision is void Of potency. The lesson was writ
large 40 that he who read 1t might run.
The programme Of last nights obsequies
comprised familiar numbers from "Pag-
lacci. " some OF the things heard on Monday
night and one or two other tidbits Of fu-
neral baked meats from the LeoAcavallo
pantry. The audience was kind, as audi
pnces in this town always are. 1t matters
little what music was played or sung last
night. 1t even matters little how it was
presented, though here might be ground
for lamentations lOuu anu lOuRs
Such a slaughter Of the innocent il sell
dom Witnessed. But this public spplauds
those who try to entertain it. II they fail,
they are not assailed with audible mani
festations OF di%sapproval. When the per-
former presents a local a~ssemblage a dis
comforting spectacle of i~nadequacy, upon
his head, even though 1t wears a crown OF
European laurel, New York launches the
awful curse Of silence and neglect.
When will Europeans lear n that what
their unfortunate oompatriots report to
them, what they read in the critical dis
U,lssions OF artistic and inartistic doings in
America and what onoe in n lustrum they
read about these United States in their
own newspapers do not constitute one vast
web of falsehood? Let us suppose, for
example, that Mr.. Leoncavallo comes here
under contract TO Amer loan managers and
that they assure him that his name alone
will suffice to attract Americans to his
p~oncerts. Let us suppose that acting
under such advice he comes with a COM
pany OF singers who would not be tolerated
in Leghorn or Pisa and an orchestra which
cannot count two in a bar. even with the
aid of a conductor. What sound excuse
has he2 Has he not heard what happened
10 Mascagni? Has he never heard what
kind Of a company sings to New Workers
throughout their regular opera season. II
not, W ny not?
Yet il is unquestionable that when Mr..
Leoncavallo has gone home a sadder and
wiser man some other deluded European
viii cross the western ocean to try to fool
the beniRhted Yankees. Mr.. L~eoncavalIo
has come here with honorable intentions,
nodoubt. He desires greatly that we should
hear the operas which Europe has heard
and passed by. But he ought to hAve
known that the method which he chose for
the Introduction wal foredoomed to failure.
The operatic concert il futile when il is at
its best and in these L~eoncavallo entertain
ments it is at its worst. Some Of the sing
ing last night was amusing, some of it was
painful. The orchestra, which forged its
way through Monday nights programme at
least tolerably, was hollow and crude in tone
and played with the military precision Of a
drove Of cattle.
figure in the concert, pathetic because Of
his dignity. He at least comported J 'mself
like an artist. Mr.. Conried may ave a
performances Of -~Pagliacci" in his honor.
That would be altogether fitting. But il IL
to he hoped that Mr.. Le~oncavalho will not
conduct it. LAST night he showed that he
was a past master at cutting the heart out
Of his own music. which has red blood in 1t
II n has nothing else.
There will be more Of these experiments
upon a patient public, We presume. The
past has taught Europe nothing. The future
will he long in convincing it that Amerioa
knows what is good and what is not in
music and hat II has it's own quiet manner
Of disposing Of unworthiness. IL Is a sad
fate that meets the touring musician who
invokes the dread silence OF the New York
public. when he falls ne falls like Lucifer,
never to rise again.