New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1920-04-11

ion that tho melodic material Of tho
songs was less interesting than her
rhapsody, and intimating that 1t was
scarcely worthy Of an artistic treat
ment, we had heaped fagot upon the
fires which threaten to destroy the
selfexpression Of people who have
our profound sympathy and have occu-
pied our interest for many years. If
we have done that we are sorry; we did
not mean to, however.
What we have done heretofore, and
purpose to do again whenever we COL
ceive the interests Of art demand it, is
to protest against the efforts of any
and all persons to promulgate what can
be proved to be fantastic notions about
the folk music of any people. The
value Of thematic material in artistic
music is a demonstrate thing, and the
demonstration should be musical, not
literary, nor any way extraneous to the
tonal art. Many folksongs have ethno-
logical value, but not artistic. Fine
words butter no parsnips, either In mu-
sic or the kitchen. But ever since the
! songs of the North Anne rican Indians
have occupied the attention of must
clans, stimulated by folklorists and
ethnologists, there has been flood of
fine words and little presentation of
concrete material at once strikingly
characteristic and striking serviceable
in the extension of what Mr.. Farms
worth calls the resources Of musical
expression" 1t may be interesting to
know how the song of cowboy or the
chant Of an Indian made Mr.. Farms
worth and Miss Curtis feel, and how
they were POLITICALLY uplifted by stand
ing under the roof of the continent
near the stars; but their emotions I'M
der such enviable circumstances do not
enter into the aesthetic essence of the
song of cowboys or Indians so far as
the rest of the world is concerned. If
that essence is akin with beauty in anv
sense that critics may choose to give
1T, We who can not climb to the roof
OF the world or commune with the stars
which have a different altitude and in
fiuence in the Far West than in New
York ought also to be able to feel it.
Now let US contemplate few facts d.
rectly concerned with this discussion.
Miss Curtis made an arrangement of
cowboy song and to give it atmos-
phere and its performance yerisimili
tude she blended with it the shouts Of
ranchers and other characteristic ele-
ments Good. 1t was a proper enough
thing to do and proper enough song
20 sing under certain conditions and in
certain places. We thought the song 1--WE
did not say or imply the Same of the
two Indian songs) comic and of "un-
qualified musical vulgarity." Was 1t
comic? Here are the words Of tho frst
stanza,
"Oh, yes, I'm we'll and able
To work my under jaw
Down at the good old table
Way down in Arkansaw."
Was 1t vulgar? Mr.. Farnsworth
seems to conceive that we had chastity
IN mind as the antithesis OF vulgarity.
suppose We meant that the song was
OF little value, ordinary, lacking in res
tinement, boorish, offensive to good
taste or refined feelings? All these
words are synonyms Of vulgar. Is
the word justified by the text? How
about the melody? 1t is, as Miss Curtis
puts it, founded on a Snatch of an
old tune"-its original, or one of its
chambers of our memory, but we can
not drag it to light. 1t is a rollicking,
devil-may- sort of tune, sailors
chantey, we think, and just the kind of
tune that we fancy cowboy might
indulge in to blow off an excess Of
animal spirits. But to Miss Curtis 1t
seems to sway between carelessness and
the melancholy solitude of the vast
horizon" Evidently she's up on the
root OF the world with Mr.. Farnsworth,
studying kind of astronomy impossi-
York with its combining walls.
Last Saturday. despite the fact
that we felt 1t to be a degradation of
the OCCASION we thought it jolly good
song, jolly we'll set and Jolly we'll sung.
Aught we, therefore, to have forsworn
critical judgment?
Now for the Dawn Song" which. of
Miss Curtis's contributions. interested
US most. 1t is, she says in the published
title, based on Cheyenne Indian
song Her setting, she says, is not an
arrangement of an Indian melody but
rather an effort to reproduce the spirit
and the elemental atmosphere of that
half barbaric music that belongs essen
TALLY to the great nature world. Indian
song in its native state is inseparably
linked with the sounds of nature-the
sweep of winds over prairie grasses.
the rhythmic flow of waters. the muir
muir Of the forest, the hum Of insects.
the cries Of animals-all those blurring,
blending overtones of nature which
weave an unconscious background to
the voice of the red man, who feels
himself to be child Of the Sun-Father
and the Earth Mother, brother to the
animals, and a small part only Of those
forces of nature which to him are
greater far than man."
Fine words, but do they butter the
musical parsnip? Miss Curtis's ar
rangement made appeal to US by its
efficiency In evoking mood, especially
by her introduction of the faint, haunt
| ing tone Of. the blended English horn
| ana nuts; But what abAut the phrase
Tout az which Mist Cur<ia ingenionsly
le&natsuctod hey piaces oE nAaA1ei = leok