Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1916-03-03

must be remembered that the music eives
meaning to the text, not otherwise
The first part is a tremendous chant
| OF yearning, desolate. at first, but rising
| through serenity and confidence TO as
surance. The first theme of the svrn.
| phony, the golden thread of the whole
| work which shimmers and illuminates
| Is in the Invocation. Immediately IL IA
made worldly, is taken from Heaven and
reduced and related to earth. So that
II Is not light for every thought" that
| is asked, but light for every sense and
the love in every heart is recognizable
and human thing, That is why the first
part OF the symphony almost renders the
second unlntelligible The Gloria AT its
| end Is more firm. more exalted. than the
mystic chorus which is its later counter
part.
Maher's was soul harassed bv hui
manity. The tyranny of things, the
brutishness of people, oppressed and in
suited him. Image his yearning and
desire in whatever form, the truth is
that he found them in the creation of
music The light and love he seeks are
implicit In his score and II Is only when
he philosophers in music that he Is
made blind again. The hymn TO the Holy
Spirit was answered, even in those free
sounding blasts of the trumpets His
heart like Pascars, had its reasons which
the reason could not understand In
another time. were he more religious or
more humanist, the "Veni Creator" would
have stood alone, fulfilled and solitary
and grand.
Not without the book are these words
written. The motto and meaning of NAH
lars life are in the words from the Note.
book of Florestan and Eusebius. "IntellI-
gence errs but not SENSE" Surely the
senses did not err in the first part. Surely
intelligence wandered far in the second
GOETHE AND MAILER.
What one has against the musical set
ting of the scene from Faust Is that II
reproduces so many of the faults of that
work. The music at least should have
been written by one of that cherished race
which alone knows how to make multi
tudes meaningfu which can cast ray
of spiritual light through promiscuity and
incoherence. The mystic speculation of
Faust is swathed in strange garments,
and the music which Mailer has given IL
is no more clear. no more significant.
Hence the sentimentnlity which must pass
for feeling, hence the gesture which MUS
pass fer act. What do all the involutions
of conrrapuntal ingenuity intend IL not the
confession that the one clear, clean word
cannot be found. For 1t is not found
There comes at the end. with beauty or
feeling, a refinement of delicate percep-
tion, the soft sweet music of the mystic
hymn. 1t Is soft and sweet but 1t neither
explains nor suggests 1t casts no light on
mystery, no glamour on reality. Certainly
1t Is not the appointed end and reward roI
all the pages of laCkadaiscal music ana
mummery which have gone before. II Is
not a climax, because the climax and the
apotheoss of desire has long been stated.
Mailer came of race which. in the
progress of the centuries, is not mystical,
but idealistc Almost as the Greek it
accepts reality; almost as the Gaul it
transfigures reality So Mailer could un-
derstand the monk who, under the veil Of
mysticism, yearned for a beauty which
was real. He could have understood the
Faust who sought beauty not in Helen's
eyes. But he Gpuld not understand the
poet who, under the ,semblance of life.
sought beauty he could not sense and
yearned. not for Helen. but for the eter-
nal feminine, to draw him upward -
whittier?
He gave himself up to the Goethe who
was not always great. He forgot that
Goethe himself had said: ut is only
within limitations that the master can
show himself" There were no limitations
in the second Faust, and there are none
in the music which Mailer composed. 1t
is beautiful now and again. But the in
spiration of the first part is lacking. The
themes reveal what the first concealed,
a lack of splightly inventiveness. The or
chestration is a miracle, but it is miracle
of the mind. And Mailer himself was
a miracle of the spirit who should not
have been so traduced. G. v. s.