The Washington herald. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1906-1939, 1907-01-28

ing completely. He Is the Turner Of tone
painters. He uses the most bizarre pal
cite and sometimes things are out Of
drawing; but he fills his canvas with
weird. distorted atmosphere, with vast
expenses Of contrasting color and figure,
and with an infinite number Of details
which only gradually shape themselves
into a concrete whole. No one can hear
half of them at a first performance.
Thousands will say that this music is
ultra Wagnerian. The truth is that
Strauss begins where Wagner left of.
Wagner is his point of departure. The
pure. unadulterated major scale he rarely
uses. He writes not merely dissonances,
but double dissouances, one on top of the
other This is not what We used 10 call
music. II is new tOn3l language. In
the concert hall ii is like the confusion Of
Babel. In the theater il suddenly trans
forms itself into the most potent and
overwhelming expression Of all anguish.
all fury. all fendish and damnable pas
siOns. all the he'll Of seething, vitiated
] souls
Whether this sort of music would with
equal power express high thoughts and
beautiful emotions We many only guess.
l
/ cUss in 'SaIome" The pers0nages whose
! feelings are TO be exposed in this drama
are hideous degeneTates. Two principal
/ characters occupy the stage HerOd and
Salome. Her0dias is subsidiary, but she,
/ TOO, is a degenerate. Jokanaan, as John
the Baptist is called, Is not a human
/ force at all, but merely an abstraction,
the presentation Of an icy moral idea.
The drama concerns itself with the
shocking emotions Of Salome and the
/ shattered, perverted. and decaying per
sonality Of Herod. It is a study in rotten
! ness. Ibsen, in his most merciiess ex-
| posture Of decadent humanity, never
created a more amazing character study
/ than this Herod
On the other hand, the orchestra sweats
and stews and quivers madly with the
abandon Of SalOmes physical passion for
| the prophet Mere words and cold type
cannot convey to the reader any realiza-
ton Of the manner in which this man
Strauss rips the covering off a soul beside
which thatof SWinburne's Faustine is as a
/ lily beside a poppy. In his musical de-
lineauon Of Herod and Salome the com
poser has made music publish the mon
strosites Of minds and bodies diseased.
and he has done il with a power little
short Of diabolical. As an expression OF
the horrible fancies Of Oscar Wilde. this
score is masterpiece. As a demonstra-
ton Of the suitability of ultra modern
composition to the purposes Of the music
drama, II is complete and convincing.
The most considerable problem pre-
Sented by this drama-and there are sew
eral-is whether the picture Of SaIome
coddlng and kissing a severed head is
not an outrage on the possibilities Of the
theater. and whether the musical investi
ture OF the scene. with its return of the
iaSciViouS love themes of the duet be-
tween SalOme and JOkan8an, IS quite sin
cere- The public alone can decide whether
the spectacle of the sensual creature
groveling and pulling over the CHASTITY
head Is one TO be tolerated. No common
tator who believes in the ennobling and
| uplifting mission of art can approve OF
| such disgusting scene.