New-York tribune., 1918-11-08

iast generation, assuming that Cesar
franck Is to be taken as representa-
tive OF French and not Franco Flemish
music. The d minor symphony has
been played so often in this city within
the last few years that it's defect of
reiteration of theme and mood har been
SO forced upon attention Us to initiate
little unduly, perhaps, against the
,o1ty beauty Of the work. Its monorony
mas grown almost oppressive. But Il
Is honest music, logical, consistent with
Ine materials, purposes and capacities
OF the art, never straying outside it's
boundaries. Debussy's Iberia" is in a
vastly different case. AS music it is
chiefly concerned with an exploitation
OF devices in orchestral combinations
and an attempt to appeal to the fancy
and ear by extra musical means. It
processes not only to depict such
scenes as the streets and bypaths of
Spain and suggest the spirit Of Span.
lsh festival, but also to give an i'm
preston of the night air burdened with
odors. AVA
That there may be some association
between sounds, colors and odors is an
ancient notion, and Simultaneous ap-
peais TO optical, aural and olfactory
nerves date back at least as far as
A!puleius's sojourn in Alexandria. We
know that when the intellect first gives
an impetus to the fancy much can be
done in the way of Juggling with the
senses IN music. Fantastic rs it NAV
sound. we know that in the idvllic
sce!9e in "Siegfried" Wagner almost
makes the eyes hear and the ears see;
put he first puts the picture and q
dramatic situation before as. It is also
something more than mere fancy when
after the storm scene in Beethoven's
",Pastoral" symphony the RAM des
vaches' which introduces the final
movement, seems to make us feel a
freshened and reinvigorated atmos-
phere. And this magic is accomplished
by purely musical means, aided but
sllghtly by the verbal programme. But
can even programmatic title make the
ear smell? A Viennese critic once pro-
1essed that such dreadful thing as
stencil in the ear had been suggest
ed to him when listening for the first
,lme to Tschaikowsky's violin concerto;
but that was only literary trick
caught from German @sthetician
who bad said that some pictures had
q bad odor in the eye. Here criticism
has gone as far astray as the perform
ances which it is endeavoring to repro
bate. We see no struts, and we smell
no odors in Debussy's so-called "im-
age" All that we do is to recognize
that Spanish rhythms and melodies Of
a Spanish type have been put together
itragmentarily in manner so ingen-
lous as to fascinate a sophisticated lis
tener. Musical themes based on exotic
scales are no more redolent of sweet
perfumes than would be thames frank
ly conceived in the familiar diatonic
modes; nor can they be made odorous
by ingenious and novel combinations
of orchestral voices.
a move / in our concert rooms was
the ballet music by Dukas, which was
first heard in Paris five years ago, when
the composition had its proper adjuncts
of stage picture and pantomime. 1t
might have made different impression
last night had the listeners been per-
mitted to see and not merely imagine
the scene showing. as Mr.. Hale tells us
it did at the Chatelet Theatre, "gold
mountains, crimson valleys and trees
bearing silver fruit" and also to wit
ness the choreographic acting ("mim-
ing is the word since the Russian
dancers brought. revelations to young
reviewers) of Mademoiselle Trouhan-
owa, whose figure, we hope, is better
for the eye than her name. The story