The Washington herald., 1911-12-10
MISS GARDEN and THE ROGIES

Miss Mary Garden, with the charming
frankness which is one of the chief joys
of contemporaneous existence, has in
formed the universe that opera cannot
possibly succeed in New York because
Of the pernicious activity of the New
York music critics.
Down there" says Miss Garden, mean
ing New York, they have a lot of old
fogies who were in their prime, if they
ever had a prime, when Wagner was
first sung in America. They discourage
the work of young artists and drive the
old frantic. The New York critics are
the most senseless writers in the world" &"
Armed with this piece of amiable CEN
sure 1 Journeyed up into the wilds about
10th street and discovered Henry Edward
Krehbiel, the dean and the Jupiter
Tonans of the local musical critics,
wreathed in the vapors of a fine cigar
and also engaged on on essay entitled,
How to listen to counterpoint; or Back
to Bach"
The score of "Fideho" stood open on
the piano. and a fine portrait of Da
Ponte, Mozarts librettist. adorned the
foreground He read the perennial ex-
hair. When he had done perusing Miss
Gardens testimony of injured protest he
murmured: How sharper than a SER
pents tooth IL is to have an ungrateful
Garden. Why, when Miss Garden first
came here We brooded over the beauty of
her eager endowments in the same spirit
Of restorative and reconciliatory bene-
dictIon that hovers over the tender and
impassioned loveliness Of the second act
of Tristan and Isolde"
Mr.. Krehbiel was then asked if he was
actually writing when Wagner was first
sung in America. This he refused to
affirm or deny on the ground that no
man could be called on TO incriminate
himself
W. J. Henderson, who in point of years
OF service is also a bit decanal, was
Enthusiastically laconic. Miss Garden"
he was understood to say, rs from the
north of Scotland. am from the south.
The south of Scotland is used to raids
from the NORTH
Then he buried himself in the records of
italian opera before the age OF Tubal
Cain.
Max Smith, of the Press, is growing a
pompadour and found no time TO devote
at present to controversy.
Three OF the younger critics were then
discovered in the Harvard Club. They
were ]. Pitt Sanborn, Carl Van Vechten.
and the Sieur GrenvilIe de Vernon. They
were asked If they were old fogies. They
affected Indifference to the Sights of
the Miss Tisiphone Garden. With that
lightness of humor and that quick re-
sourCefuness natural in Harvard men
Mr.. Vernon seized a copy Of the Har-
ward Crimson, and twisting it into a
trumpet. quickly improvised a simple
melisma in the diatOnic scale. With equal
promptitude MIR. Sanborn wrote down the
words:
Let the gallei Jade vince or withen are
unWrIRE.
We were in our cradles when Tristan irst was
We not old fosies. yet scarcely
yrIng-
On. Mar Garden. will You never still that
tonGIet
These affecting words were sung in
canon.
Carl Van Vechten sustained the chief
part-tO use the musical vocabulary OF
the times-wi;b superb proclamation OF
the digniied musical beauty of the com
position itself. together with a vIrtuOsity
of treatment as Indubitably persuasive as
It was instructive with insplrational fire.
Charles Henry Meltzer also deprecated
the harsh phrase old fogy.''
But what said Sylvester Rawling, the
Apollo from Saltash by the side OF Devon,
he who was nursed to the sound of lofty
music chanted by loud roaring seas?
What in Virgilian phrase did he congemIt
when he read the cruel Invective? He
simply gathered all his forces into one
terrific monosyllable.
He said Rats"
Thus did he confront the horticultural
with damnatory zoologies-Morning Tele-
RraDh