New-York tribune., 1921-02-09
Mailer Falls
Short of Mark
As Synpho1list
Works Contain Passing Mo-
ments of Beauty, and as
Melodist He AppearsS Some
times To Be Ingratiating
His Harmony Is Labored
Mengelberg Brings Forth am
Old Composition at Ma
tional Symphony Concert
BY II. E. Krehbiel

This might be chapter on an effort
.5oksng TO propagsndsm for the music
# Gustav Mailer in New York: but it
shall not be. There was talk about
such an effort when Mr.. Mengelberg
was engaged to conduct the second half
symphony Orchestra, because about
that time the Dutch conductor was
giving festival devoted to Mahler's
works in Amsterdam, and he was known
TO be a devotee at the Mailer shrine
as we'll as that of Richard Strauss.
But whatever foreign visitors may
think of the subject Of what New York
ers know about orchestral music (and
most of it is comical enough) those
who come to US have brought few
revelations to these shores. Moreover,
so far as Mahler's music and Mahler's
artistic mission are concerned, we had
the man himself to instruct US for
years. If he could not create Mailer
cult there IS no great likelihood that
any of his disciples will.
Mahler's Symphony Played
1t will suffice, therefore, to record
and discuss briefly the fact that at the
concert of the National Symphony Or
chestra in Carnegie Hall yesterday
afternoon (Which will be repeated this
EVENING" Mr.. Mengelberg, in addition
to some music by Wagner which has
been played many times this season
(the prelude and finale to Christian und
Isolde" and the prelude to "Die Meister-
singerD, brought forward Mahler's
fourth symphony, which is distin-
guished from its fellows not only in
being in the key of G, but also in hav-
jng solo song as a lost movement.
Walter Damrosch gave the work it's
first hearing in New York some seven
ceen years ago, and the composer him
self conducted two performances at
Phi harmonic concerts on January II
and 90, 1911.
Ii the music had left a consuming
desire in the local public to hear it
again. it probably would have been re-
peated in one of the thousand or more
symphony concerts which have taken
place since, and the audience which
heard it yesterday would have been
iarger.
So much for the facts in the case.
There remains something to be said
about the music. We have not grown
n grace (if state of grace is condi-
tioned on admiration for this SYM
phony) since we heard it last. 1t still
seems to us incoherent, petty in theme,
bombastic in utterance and futile of
purpose. Whenever Mr. Mengelberg
fitted an instrumental effect into prom
inence yesterday he seemed to US to
disclose its hollowness afresh.
MIR. Lawrence Gilman, in his program
note, quoted an assertion by Bruno
Walter and reiterated by Mr.. Borowski
10 the effect that the composer had
declared the, symphony to be absolute
music, not programmatic, from begin
ming to end"
1t needed no voice from Munich or
Chicago to tell us that this protesta-
tiCn was made by Mr.. Mailer concern
ing all of his symphonies. He reiter-
atcd it TO the writer concerning the
first symphony, even when confronted
by n letter in which he gave the title
of the work as "Titan," and appealed to
Jean Paul's romance as providing it's
subject.
Not Beautiful as Music
No amount of protestation can make
the fourth symphony coherent or beau
tiful as absolute music Except the
slow movement which maintains a self
sufficient and uplifting loveliness until
heterogeneous and disturbing elements
are introduced into it) or explain away
the fact that the finale by enlisting
music from the first movement to give
expression to song, by that device
makes a program out of the song.
What the song was about remained a
riddle to yesterdays audience, for it
was sung in German, and was there
fore necessarily unintelligible to those
unfamiliar with the language, and with
such indistinctness of enunciation as
TO be unintelligible even to the few
Germans and German scholars in the
audience familiar with it. Miss Birgit
Engel was the singer. The poem is a
folksong taken from "Des Knaben
humorous and ingenious description
of heaven as sort of celestial Land
of Cockaigne. A few excerpts from a
translation made ten years ago will
give better idea of its contents than
any amount of comment or descrip-
tion:
To US heav'n Is yielding its pleasures.
Why heed. then, terrestrial treasures?
Earth's Jars reach never,
Contented forever,
In auietude time passes by.
Our conduct while truly seraph!c,
with mirth holds vouminous traffic
with singing and dancing,
With skipping and prancing.
While Peter above lends an eye.
Our wines, which are many.
q
And angels sweet bake all our bread.
No music to mortal men given
, Compares with that of our heaven
Cologne's maids are dancing
TO measures entrancng,
St Ursula beams with delight.
Cecilia and all OF her ciansrnen
Make excellent royal court bandsmen;
At angelic voices
our hearing rejolces
They gadness unbouuded invite.
This song, which comes at the end
of the symphony, plainly enough gives
Interpretation to some of the music
which precedes it, though it appears to
hout the serene and almost seaphic
measures of the slow movement; but it
would have served it's purpose better
had it been set as q predatory table of
contents, instead of as final index
Berlioz shows the proper use OF the
device in his Romeo ct Juliette" sym
phony. The most of the thematic ma
terial in the work is of simple, folk