The San Francisco call., 1908-09-07

m m whose best work, The BoneIu-
N ian Girl" we will hear this
- week. was born a few months
more than 100 years ago. He was
contemporary with Rossini. Auber,
Henry Bishop. George MacFarren ana
Scribe. the librettist, with whom ne
collaborated in LIE Puts d'AaIor-" He
was a noted opera singer andsappeareo
as leading barytone with tae great
Malibran He had professional sue
cesses in England, France, staly and
Russia.
1t would be an Interestingly study 10
discover what in Balfe's musie lends 1t
continued popularity. Certainly not IN
it's workmanship or in its sincerity. Ter
it is of the most fragile and evanes-
cent kind. Whatever tune came INTO
his head he used, and mere fertile
brain to grow melodies is not known
in the musical world. Considerations
or dramatic truth never occurred to
him, and he wrote at time when the
dramatic proprieties We're little oo-
served. Rossini, the great maestro un-
der whose direction Balfe studied and
sang. was one of the worst sinners In
this respect, and Balfe was never
taught what Schubert knew instinct
ively-that the consistencies of the
poem should be followed by the curve
and bend of the melody and upheld by
its harmonic structure.
But his songs live just the same.
Musicians take little account Of them
and call them saccharine and sickly
sweet No doubt they are, but they
have always proved popular with the
masses from the time they were writ
ten until now They tax no ones imag-
ination, they inspire no one with great
thrills and they never reach amazing
heights; but they amble along in
pleasant cadence; they are graceful and
suave, and they are easily remembered
and whistled. His facility IN compo-
sition was great; his talent was shallow
but smooth.
The popularity of THE Bohemian
Girl is striking proof OF the funda-
mental similarity in the races taste for
| music. for 1t is popular in every land
that knows occidental music. Written
in his thirty-fifth year, ii contains the
best of his art and was at once trans
lated into French, German. Russian and
Italian. perhaps had it been more ag
gressively Irish (Balfe was born in
Dublin)-had 1t been, in other words,
more worthy-it would not have
achieved the popularity that went out
to it. However, with so years behind
| it, The Bohemian Girl still lives, and
1 dare say will find admirers in a gem
Grafton which as yet has never heard
the work.
Felix Weingartner has had the cour-
age recently to put the scissors into the
score of Die Walkure, thereby draw
ing upon his head the wrath of the
conservative Germans who % years ago
were calling Wagner's music formless
and incoherent rawlings. But Weingatt-
ner is saying nothing. conscious that
time will justify his action In eIiminat-
| ing yards of notes from the music
drama and making it actable and con-
else.
! Time is great refractor. Plays and
operas are subject to it and wise
adapter, producer OF composer will al
ter the masterpieces of the past if by
so doing he may meet the demands of
modern ears. He will do for the COM
poser what the latter would do for
himself if he could bring his MASTER
piece forward to the very rim of the
/ present.
The wonder of the works of the
greatest composers is that time affects
them no more than it does; that no
matter how complex and bewilderingly
resourceful orchestration becomes, the
germ of their musical thought ex-
pands and fills the modern vessel.
The slightness of Handlers orchestra
and the mechanical crudeness of Bach's
pipe organ, does not prevent the COM
position, written with those limitations
circumscribing the product. from tax
| ing to the utmost capabilities of mod
ern orchestras and organs. The in
spiration which gave the written music
birth, was not matter Of time but