New-York tribune., 1920-08-22
English Critic Frees His Mind
About S'American Invasion''

Robin H. Legge, music critic of The
London Daily Telegraph, recently ex-
pressed himself as follows about
American artists who appeared during
the London season:
For the last two months or so it
has been my duty to write great
deal about the advent here of many
American musicians, Of an American
orchestra and of one American conduc-
tor, though this latter might seem a
little invidious in America, since, be-
sides Mr. Walter Damrosch. there have
been in London during the last few
weeks Stokowsky, Sokoloff, Stock
and, no doubt, others who, by an i'll
fate, are but names to me- ] have
heard the Damrosch orchestra and 1
have heard all the singers, etc, that
have, as | say, invaded us. (By the
way, | was told the other day that
some objection had been raised to my
use of the term "invasion" in this con-
nectlon, but | am quite sure that com
mon sense must show that the term
was used merely to mean visited"
Anyhow, it is quite void of offense in
It's meaning in my mind) But, to
return. | heard all that l could hear
OF American musicians because
wanted seriously to know. if so be
! could learn from what they achieved,
what was their aim, and if that bore
any particular relation to what we are
aiming at l do feel that learned a
good deal and | do hope that our
American cousins also learned some-
thing from us.
After all, they speak our language
and we speak theirs, and from it we
freely take, without any aclnowledp-
ment, fairly large amount of phrases
that suit our purpose to It," the
which We could not, or did not, discover
TOR ourselves. But, seriously, the mu-
sical language is different From CON
Yersatjons have had with many Amer
can musicians recently it seems that
America is not nearly so sure of it's
Ground as we are in the matter of the
Anglo-Saxon in music Curiouslv
enough, the whole of the American
singers who have appeared in Queens
Hall (of all places for a recital!) in
the last two months have shown us
nothing Of any value of American
music. Further, Mr.. Damrosch's or
chestral programs were of quite
conventional ORDER and afforded us no
new insight into American creative
composition, whatever view they may
have given us of the art of playing
music that was quite familiar to u.s.
Are there no "young American com
poscrs"? Surely here was an oppor-
tunity mislaid, if not actually lost, for,
of course, there are
To judge by the programs of fsered
to us, and the general arrangement of
the "invasion. y something was at
tempted to suit what, | imagine, was
presumed to represent "our taste" At
one concert several fascinating old
Italian and modern French songs were
quite exquisitely sung by an American
singer, who presumably thought it "in
accordance with our taste" to sing a
fearsome ballad of a most ordinary
kind by way of an encore. In all the
vocal programs that l heard the
same idea seemed to prevail that it
was the shop ballad that chad it." We
have, of course, series each winter of
ballad concerts, many of which are of
heavenly beauty compared with what
was offered at similar functions twenty
years ago. and our ballad masters, or
mongers, certainly know their bust
ness. But we do not interpolate these
things into the midst of Duparc, Pol
dowski Scarlatti and the like. Do the
Americans in America so interpolate
their own ballads into their more seri-
Gus schemes? If not, why try the ex-
pertinent over here? Then, we heard
delicious pure coloratura singer in
Miss Garrison. But why was her pro-
gram chosen to afford least oppor-
tunity for her to exhibit the great
graces of the gods? In her case had
preferred infinitely to hear the 'ire-
works" so exquisitely done rather than
all the artifice in Granados and De-
busy, and so on, which are not in her
particular line. The art of the ballad
singer is great So is the art of the
coloratura singer. But East is East
and West is West, so to speak. They
are not the same thing, and this singer