New-York tribune., 1919-05-25
HOW WAR AFFECTED MUSIC IN AMERICA

there aught Of political or moral OBJ
1qulty in "Parsifal," whose funda-
mental thought is that it is the en-
llghtenment which comes through COM
passionate pity that brings salvation?
Perhaps die Meistersinger Won Niirn-
berg" falls under the ban because it is
IN Its externals SO peculiarly German.
But 1t is comedy which admirably H.
lustrates the classical definition, "Ri-
dengo castigat mores" and has no other
purpose than. to illustrate the conflict
between the regulative and creative i'm
pulses in art-between classicism and
romanticism, rightly understood, be-
tween conservatism and radicalism.
"Lohengrin?" ?" Alas for proud and too
feminine Elsa! Alas, also for her
classic prototype Psyche! The knight
the Grail or not to have con-
sumcd so much L. apostrophizing the
balmy zephres of his wedding night.
giving his bride opportunity to grow
inquisitive; but he came in chivalric
pity to rescue damsel in distress. Is
there harm in our contemplation of
his dilatoriness and it's consequences e?
Besides, though unfortunate himself
in his adventure, he rights a great
wrong and sets the Vaccinations of
the wicked at naught.
The man Wagner, then, cannot be to
us rock of offence, nor can the ethical
aims of his artistic creations. What
remains? Only the language of his
vocal music, which has become hateful
because of the conduct of the people to
whom it is the vernacular. Because of
this hatred we were asked and Obliged
to suffer not only the loss of Wagner's
dramas, but also the songs of Schu-
bert, Schumann, Brahms, Franz and
other German lyricists-some of the
most exquisite music of composers who
wrote long before German materialism
and the lust of material conquest
created by German imperialism had
crushed out the creative spirit from
German music. Let it not be forgot
ten that the days of Germanys great
ness in literature and music were
antecedent to her political greatness
, The soil of Prussia and Prussianize d
Germany have produced little in art
which we cannot spare. The last truly
great German composer in the line of
succession to Haydn, Mozart, Bee
thoven, Schubert, Schumann, who lived
in the days Of the modern empire, was
Brahms; and he was a son of the once
free city of Hamburg. His predeces-
sors, who had successfully laid their
hands on his head in apostolic bene-
diction, were all sons of petty states
The Great Dead owed nothing to Ger
many united under the yoke of
Prussia a-neither the poets who were
destroyed by those whom they had
compelled to emancipate themselves
nor the composers who sang in bliss
full Indifference to the political condi-
tions which surrounded them Only
one among them all took an interest in
politics eethoven, who loomed up in
his own day as a democrat, willing tc
be estranged from the Rhineland ir
which he was born, chatting in the
bonds which held him in Vienna
damnlng the regime which gave him OF
its bounty that it might share his glory
and admiring the English and their
constitution with undisgused admira
tlon. "You have heads on your shoul-
ders in England" said he to one of his
English visitors. and on his deathbed d
he called for a reading of the entire
speech of Canning advocating rccog-
milton of the South American republics
But in 1917-'1S we were prohibited
from listening even to Beetho ovens
celebration of conjugal love and tidel-
ity, because "Fidelio" was composed to
German words, though it's plot was
! borrowed from the French
In the last season of the decade
which | am considering, the public of
New York heard "Martha" sung in
Italian Gas they had been accustomed
to hear it for so many years that the
fact that it is a German orera was
scarcely known to the listening gen
eration), and LISTS "St. Elizabeth
sung in English. The exigencies of
grim war, there fore, compelled a
change from the policy which had been
followed with reasonable consistency
(there being such exceptions as the
Russian Boris Godounow" and
'Prince Igor" sung in Italian and "Le
Cog dor" in French). One result
therefore, may be an approach at least
to national opera" Leaving aside the
question of language, it was sound and