Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-12-28
EUROPEAN
MUSICAL CELEBRITIES

Skeedaria that the latter hoped out Of,
his third-story box to the stage and franz
tically embraced the juvenile violinist:
and thus on to the bottoms of many
columns and then turn over Quite often
the booster" would send over expensive
cablegrams to the New York papers, Civ
ing the details OF some new eccentriclty
of the marvellous boy fddler-who. In
reality. probably is a bovine personality
and not in the least eccentric. except, per-
hans. as to his enormous capacity for
SauSaSes and kraut.
Managerial Squabbles.
Presently. on this side OF the sea, an
other merry game is started. 1t Is sud
denly announced that two famous New
York managers who had been travelling in
Europe at the same time as the same one
who secured the contract with Koopaloop-
sky, are claiming prior rights to the lads
services. basing their claims upon verbal
contracts made with the lads parents and
peasant eldest brother a long time be-
fore the signing of the written contract,
etc.
Threats of suits are given out. The two
New York managers with the prior verbal
contracts storm Notwithstanding to the
ornate narrative of the puffologists sta
toned on this side-with bowls OF suits
for heavy damages that they are going TO
enter and carry to the United States
Supreme Court If necessary.
Oh, it is a beautiful little old game.
The New York papers are cluttered with
rumors of impending personal encounters
between the rival managers" who. all
this time. are taking their schnapps to-
gether in quiet little cafes ana 1oxuy
winking the nigh eye.
The way thus prepared. the extraor-
binary Koopaloopsky. ng-pin OF all the
violin vamperinos. arrives. half hum
bred snap-shotters fire away at him as he
stands on the pier. His impressions or
New York are in type before he has taken
a cab for his hotel.
His clothes, his hair. his hands, his
feet, his melancholy eyes. and the whole
cut of his jb stand out in the New York
papers for days upon days in nauseatingly
slushy descriptions.
Well, the boy makes his first appear
ance He plays real we'll for an immature
boy, So he does. He is about nine million
lunar leagues from being a Sarasate or a
Ysaye. But his technique is not SO bad.
considering his youthfulness. OF course.
there Is no mellowness in his tone (Which
is another word for an echo of the suffer-
ing that comes through experienced, ana
his limitations are perfectly easy to es-
tablish.
But the puffologists' claque is on hand.
and they set up a huge approving clamor.
This paid claque is composed both OF men
and women, and some of the tipped wom-
en- faint" with emotion over the wonder
.
of the hired claque, chiefly the females or
the same. waylay and hug Koopaloopsky
when he leaves the stage for his carriage;
still others make as II to take out the
horses and haul the carriage through the
streets themselves-and all like that.
He Gets a Little.
The boy careers through the land. the
boosters" before him and behind him.
busy, sleepless guard. When his tour is
at an end 1t is complaisantly announced
that he has cleaned up the piffling little
sum of 5000, 600 net, or some such incon-
sequential matter. While 1t may not be
anything approXimating that amount, still.
when this game was at its height, 1t was
always a great sum. The boy himself
usually got but small 'rake-off" from
the big earnings-but he was content. for
was he not returning to his beloved
United States the very next year, with a
manager from whom much better terms
might be wrung?
One hates TO attempt to state how often
this game was worked on New York and
the rest of the country for fear Of being
considered exaggerative.
But the sign of the Siwashes, so to
speak, is now on the old game. 1t won't
do any more. It distinctly hasn't done
this season. The game was formerly
worked with bulky, stodgy, wholly unin-
teresting alleged prima donnas; 1t has
been successfully pulled on with So
termed famous Austrian pianists." who
had never got out of the beer-hall class IN
Austria; it has been put over" with sew
eral American graduates of European
Conservatives whose talent has been most
dsmally mediocre, not to say invisible:
but, more than all, it has been worked
with perfectly ordinary and obscure vio-
linists, generally youthful ones, with hair
and eyes and things.
A whole swarm of them, instrumental
and vocal nonentities, swooped upon New
York at the beginning Of the musical sea-
son last autumn. But they faded one
after another The critics were at last
awake-and. whatever may be said OF the
quality of dramatic criticism that is ladled
out over here, it Is undeniable that the
musical criticism of New York Is OF the
very highest order. The weeding-out proc
ess has been relentless, but absolutely
necessary. few, very few. of the so
termed celebrities, visiting New York for
the first time made good; proved them
selves to be artists of merit; and these.
usually, We're individuals on whom the
least amount of puffery had been ex-
pended
This town. the most easily befooled In
North America, does wake up occasion
ally to a sense of imposition. and when it
does awaken 1t has a habit of coming to
with a rumble
CLARENCE L. CULLEN.