Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1917-01-01
THE SUNDAYITES HEAR
SECOND FREE CONCERT
Fay Sings With Orchestra
at Metropolitan Before En-
thusiastic Crowd

Cosmopolis came to the Metropolitan yes
tertay. You were there. We were there.
And all the almost st-four-thousand yous
and we's mot so different despite qualihca-
tions of age. sex and nationality had a
GOOD time Was not the orchestra giving
the second of its free Sunday concerts?
And are not good Sunday entertainments
rare enough to be celebrated with all the
stored-up and stimulated energy of age ana
youth combined?
There is a kind of silent teamwork. a
sort of unified npprecativeness, about the
Sunday afternoon audiences that you don't
find anywhere else in town From the nice,
funny old gentleman with the protuberant
sldewh.skers and the pronounced dislike OK
muted trumpets as cXemplifytng the dis
tresslng modernism Of music, to the nice'
funny young gentleman aged ten, with
Bostnnese bifOcals, who is thrown into an
appiaudng delirium by Don Juan they
are interested alive tremendously in touch
with everything that happens on the stage
The Oriental eyes of the college student
across the tise from you are not bit itss
swapping with attcntiveness than are the
plain, pure eyes of that intelligent New
EnElandish school teacher lady in the box
And the hreCraCker eyes of the kids are.
perhaps, the poppingest and the prettiest
symbols and signs of the whole affair. Age
finds II can well afford to scale off the years
when bully good music Is being played-on
au otherwise possibly draggy Sunday
the way OF types There were people there
from the music studios; people from the
theatres people from the north and south
Of the city They weighed and balanced
what was offered them with that nice dis
tinction that marks the genuinely high
keyed auditor, And their taste was very
good. If they coughed bit during the
singing of quite long Beethoven aria they
took to their collective breast that clipper,
trrepressibe and childishly charming sym
phony of Father Haydn, They didn't spare
their palms after Mr. Strauss's hectic hero
had breuthed his last, harmouically, and
they manifested especial cunning in picking
out the "Tosca" and "Tannhaeuser" airs,
as they were voiced, for marked approval.
They listened with respect, II not with
rapt reverence, to Miss Maude Fay the
American soprano while she was singing
"Ah, Perhdo" and with obvious joy to her
presentments of "Dich, Theure Halle" and
"Vssi d'Arte.'
II Miss Fay, who is a Californian by
BIRTH has sung here before it has not been
recently. In Munich and other foreign
countries she is well and favorably viewed
by critics and public Her current engage
ment with the New York Metropolitan
gave the orchestra an opportunity to get
her services for yesterdays concert, A
capital operate soprano she is, with plenty
Of good erratic tone and manifest skill in
producing the dramatic atmosphere without
the aid of costumes or scenery. The two
overtures played by Mr.. Stowkowskl at last
Fridays concert were repeated at the Net
ropOlitaR Like most OF the rest OF the
program, they were greatly enjoyed. The
house was fun, and, best OF ALL the often
untrue adage OF the "gOod-natured New
Year crowd" lost its falsity in the stimulus
Of Mr., StUwkowsk, his men. his selection
II numbers and the lively manner in which
theye We're played, Polyana herself would
have been put to II TO find a more sin
cerely agreeable and agreeing throng.
BID.