The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1910-05-08

dalen? 49,
Just as long as it took him to learn
that he could not make a great compost
ton out of a steady flow of sweetness
He must have warning of elements
there must be some melodic principle
striving for victory, and at the end emerg-
/ ing from temporary tonal chaos into a
paean of triumph.
The temptation of ST. Anthony was
better material for the composer than the
meditation of st. Augustine. and the las'
of Christ in the wilderness was less al
Turing than the legend Of Herodias and
John the Baptist
In other words, the modern musician
has found his finest inspirations in that
struggle Of good with evil in the human
soul which has inspired the works or the
/ great modern dramatists.
The only question that remains to be
solved is how far can the musician go!
The studies of such dramatists as lbsen
and Maeterlinck are the real key to
the music of such a composer as Strauss.
/ Strauss has been foolishly abused by
| critics of the type of the late EDWARD
| Hansliek, whose condemnation of any
piece of modern music could almost be
| taken as a certificate of its excellence.
He has been admired with equal foolish
ness by others who are wilfully blind TO
serious defects
/ Once Strauss was asked what were the
tendencies of modern music. and
whether his own music was leading him.
and his answer was. ASK the writer's
on music not the writer's ofNmusc'
Strauss instrument of expression is the
orchestra, and that most splendid and
powerful of all musical instruments is
| today in its infancy.
! The masters OF vocal polyphony took IL
centuries TO ella borate their science. and
after only 100 years use the technics of
the orchestra cannot be fully understood
| List endeavored to tell stories in music
by erasing the dividing line between
movements and writing his work all in
| one piece.
He retained the two contrasting themes
of the old symphonists and he asked his
hearers to fit a meaning to each of them
| Seeing that the resources of orchestral
color lent mighty aid to telling his story
Liszt began to draw away from the con-
ventions of the symphonists and to seek
for new and striking instrumental COM
binations and List was the debtor of two
men much more remarkable than HIM
self, viz: Wagner and Berlioz.
From Wagner he got the idea of themes
with definite meanings, and from Berlioz
he learned to let the orchestra give color
to his stories. Richard Strauss, standing
upon the vantage ground made for him
by Behlioz. List and Wagner has utilized
all the best elements of their works.
The early writer's used violins always
in two parts
Strauss divides them into as many as Is.
Flutes, oboes. clarinets were used b. the
classic masters in pairs.
Wagner used them by three, Strauss
used three or four of each He makes the
orchestra sing in many parts. and he
keeps the voices weaving and interweav
ing in marvelously learned counter
point
Furthermore he habitualy introduces
solo voices among the mass of tone. His
passages are formidably difficult He
makes no concession to the difficulties of
the ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS each man to be
a virtuoso. He treats the instruments
as Wagner did human voices. simply as a
means of expression. The players must
master the difficulties.s4 H.4
Here need be no discussion of the stu
pendous achievements of Strauss orches-
ttration, nor the astounding hideousness
of his harmonic plan
Strauss thinks In a harmony of his
own, the clash of joining discords is as
honey on the palate of his ear.
The tonic triad is not a stranger to him,
but its devilish consonsnce of the major
third is to his mind az it was to the pious
fancies OF the medieval fathers, the spirit
of tonal evil, the seductive embodiment of
sensual sweetness.
Listen TO his eternal feminine, Always
she sings in the wickedly purring major
mode.
1t is the harmony in which the sharpest
of all dissonances that of two tones only
a semitone apart, is prevalent.
In the presence OF this style of har-
nony the chord of the diminished seventh
becomes as gentle as the tonic tread
for music is filled with what James
Huneker once wittily called "the diseased
chords of the twenty-sixth."
How far can this master magician, this
royal juggler with revolutions and sus-
pensions, this acrobat of the flying chord
go with his endeavor to make music say
for him what the entire decadent liter
AZURE of modern Europe has striven to
put down in plain words?
The Royal opera house in Dresden first
special Strauss week was put on at the
to have the same conductor and some
OF the same artists bring out Elektra--
his next-to-the-latest work
In order to increase the Importance
attending the production of this work a
special Straus week was put on at the
Royale opera house. After the first per-
Torrance of Elektra there were produc-
tons of Salome. Fuersnot Guntram and
the Domestic symphony
Elektra is wisely modelled on the
tragedy of Sophocles. 1t deals with the
vengeance of Elektra, daughter OF Aga
memnon on her mother Clytemnestra-
because Clytemnestra permitted the mur-
der of her husband in order to, marry her
paramour, Aegesthus.
The play lasts two hours. The curtain
does not go down. Elektra is welded to
hate and lives but to avenge her farther's
murder.
Elektra was brought out this spring in
New York by Mr.. Hammerstein and is
sung In French.
Madame Schumann- Henike was to sing
Clytemnestra the first night in Dresden
but withdrew from the cast after the
first act on the ground that she had
become voiceless from the strain Of the
long rehearsals conducted by Strauss
himself. She casually remarked that the
thing has one long series of shrieks and
groans and bowls.
To quote from the New York Times
Strauss has again made his score TEEN
with fantastic exaggeration. He hid in
music the twinkling of Clytemnestra's
amulets: the slippery pool of blood Is
spoken Of and the orchestra gives a pic
ture of the stroke of the one that laid
Agamemnon low. has theme of its own.
Chrysosthemes. Elektra's sister. declares
she longs to warm a child in her bosom
on stormy night and the storm RACES
for moment in the orchestra.
A herd of beasts Is drawn across the
palace yard and then footsteps drag
through the music.
Strauss allows no detail to escape him,
In Salome something ominous. disastrous.
terrible was continually happening or
about to happen and the feeling of the