Omaha daily bee., 1918-05-11
Empty Claims of German Greatness
Fourth Raters in Music, Art, Science and Inyenton
H.rh.r Eriedenvah BROOKLYN Eagle
Herbert Friedenwald In B


"Tbe German nation-the most capable
nation in the worlds more richly endowed
with talents, and faculties than even the
Greeks and Romans were"
So says the preface to Universal Edi-
ton" OF onAof Beethoven's sonatas that has
been recently issued in Leipsc, officially sub
sidzed. and recommended by the imperial
and royal department of public instruction
Of Austria Hungary.
This study of the sonata Op. III" the
preface declares, was written during the
first year of the world war. In the supreme
distress of this conflict, so crminally i'm
posed upon the German people, Beethoven,
with a few other great names, appeared to
US as truly tutelary and consoling spirit
as the most precious talisman OF nation
whom the enemy powers, themselves so
backward, have dared to insult by calling it
barbarian. In this world war Beethoven
has taken part in many battle. He has
ing for the German people, and those also
Beethoven will help us to win"
The preface does not remark that Rec
thoven's ancestors came from village in Bel
gium near Louvanl No. The commentator
overlooks that significant fact. And it is a
fact that must be taken into account in any
audit Of modern Germany's claim to rich
endowment of Talents and faculties"
The modern German kultur that massa-
cred the inhabitants of Louvain, burned its
famous library, and destroyed its beautiful
old buildings-that kultur still pretends to be
culture Of Beethoven, 1t is a typical Ger
man pretense.
Since Germany turned to kultur it has
produced no Beethovens 1t has had no
musicians to rank with those of other ma
tions. 1t has had no one to rival the Rus
slams, Tschaikowsky and Moussorgsky and
Rimsky-Korsakof, or the Fpnch Massenet
and Cesar Franck and Debussy, or the Ital-
ian~Mascagni and Puccini and Wolf-Ferrari.
1t has not even produced the great singers,
violinists and pianists of our century.
OF modern violinists, Isaye is Belgian,
Kreisler is an Austrian, Eman and Zimbal-
ist' and Heifetz are Russians, and Spalding
a Pole, Hoffman is an Austrian, Godowsky
is Russian, Harold Bauer is an English
man, Bloomfeld--Zeisler is an American and
Carreno a South American. Of the sing
ers, Sembrich is Pole, Schumann-H Heink
is Bohemian Gluck is Roumanian, CALI
Curci, Caruso and Scott are Italians, Mary
Garden is Scotch-American and Homer and
Farrar are Americans. The most distn-
guished of present-day celists are Casals, a
Spaniard, and Gerardy, 4 Frenchman.
The boasted musical culture of modern
Germany has trained neither composers nor
the artists to interpret composers, Bee
ing spirit OF nation that is capable only
of destroying the home OF Beethovens
There Is an art that has been added to
culture since kultur was developed. The
very idea of German practitioner of that art
is laughable. One cannot think of 4 German
interpretative dancer without 4 smile. Isa-
dora Duncan is an American. Her rivals,
Pavlowa, Lopokova and Mordkin and Min
sky are Russians, Ruth St. Denis is an
American and the fairy-like Genee is Dane.
In no period OF the worlds history has
there been German painter to rank with
the great masters--with Rembrandt, Michael
Angelo, Da Vinci, Raphael, Titan, Rubens,
Van Dyke or Velasquez. In the arts of
sculpture and architecture, those two glor-
les Of Greece and Rome, no German has
excelled. The sculpture of Berlin is the joke
of civilization. Could anyone who has seen
the monstrosities of modern German archi-
lecture think OF going to Berlin, as thous-
ands go to Paris, for his educations Could
a nation with any sense of grace and beauty
be capable of such denominations as the
sculpture OF the Sieges Aliel "When we get
to Berlin" the French officer said, well
take an awful revenge. Well leave it ex-
actly as it is"
II was Goethe who wrote of Berlin: "To
tell the truth. we all lead miserably iso-
lated existence here. We meet with but
little sympathy from the common herd
around us. Personal intercourse
and vivi voce interchange of thought is a
matter of rare occurrence Only
imagine, however, city like Paris, where
the cleverest heads of great kingdom are
grouped together in one spot. y
Where all that all that is of most value in
tbS>kingdoms of nature and art from every
part of the world is daily opened to inspec-
tion, and all this in a city where every
bridge and square is associated with some
great event OF the past, and where every
street corner has a page of history to un-
fold. And withal not the Paris of dull and
stupid age, but the Paris of the 10Th century
where for three generations such men as
Moliere, Voltaire and Diderot have brought
intt play mass of intellectual power such
as can never be met with a second time on
any single spot in the whole world"
And it was Alexander Won Humboldt
who called Berlin IAN intellectual desert, ar
Insignificant city devoid of literary culture.
Germany has never had a Shakespeare
II has had 70 one to rank with Dante OF
Milton or Moliere. Goethe has been its
greatest name. In the modern art of fictor
it has produced no world figures to rival the
masters of France and Russia and England
Where is its Balzac or its Tolstoyl Where
in drama, is its Ibsenf In all the arts bu
music the German nation has been les.
richly endowed with talents and faculties
than any other civilized people Of our day
Outside of its claim to being "the most cap
able nation in the world" it has not even in
vented its own fairy tales. Grimm's Fair,
Tales are adaptations from the Slayic. AL
that the Grimms did in many cases was t
change the logical unhappy endings Of tn,