New-York tribune., 1921-11-13

- is@" Ss1Ssu XeW weeks age,
Didn't somebody once say that Paris
was worth mass' Well, the Detroi,
conductorship wss surely worth natu-
ralization--aftcr the war broke out
and it's termination became obvious. So
was the Philadelphia conductorship.
The Tribune and it's Attitude
Toward German Music
All this is inconsequential, except 80
far As it invites to an expression OF
The Tribune's attitude on the subiec,
OF German music. This can be done
a. effectively by quoting from ar
article printed on June 8, 1918, ane
republished in book since then. /,
seems to lack nothing in the matter
of exp!icitnesss
THE public mind seema to be sadl,
muddled as to the attitude which GU,
concert and operatic institutions ough
to adopt toward German music an
German musicians. There has been lit
tie effort, If any, to differsntiate be
tween an art and it's practitioners; be
tween an expression of the beautiful
which, because of its nature is guilt
less or incapable Of political sentiment
now abhorred by nearly ali the nation
| of the earth, the masters who create,
it with neither knowledge nor premoni
tlon that the people to whom they be
longed would revert to moral sRvager
after their death, and the practitioner
who are living under that savagery an
upholding it. Yet to make such q dis
tinction ought to be instructive in ever
! intelligent child. To Danish Wagner
dramas from the stage can as litt
serve the cause for which the wealti
life and honor of our nation ar
pledged as TO bedaub the statues
/! Goethe and Schiller, as was done i
Chicago and Baltimore. Are not sue
acts foolish and futile follies? W
set up statue of Heine in New Yor
largely as protest against the atti
sude OF the German Emperor who wi
not tolerate a memorial of that un
compromising democrat in Berlin. VIII
should we seek to dishonor the symbol
of our former veneration for the geniu
of Goethe, who refused to hate Franc
and it's literature even while German
was seeking to throw of the Napo
comic yoke? And of Scail!er, VIII
aymned freedom in what ia now Gale
the ode to JOY which Beethoven, {
hater of German political institutions.
and lover of the British constitution.
helped to make immortal?
Why should Wagner's dramas have
been bansshed from the Metropolitan
repertory. Because Of the political BE-
liefs of the composer? Assuredly not
| for he was revolutionary against tn
monarchical state while living, ant
after death left no preachments whicl
can bring comfort and justification to
! the would-bc destroyers of the political
ideals for which Americans are fighting
and dying. The man Wagner
! then, cannot be to US the rock of of
fense, nor can the ethical aims Of his
creations. What remains? Only the
+, language of his vocal music, which has
become hateful to US because of the
nation that uses it as a yernacular
Because OF this hatred we have suf-
fered the loss of not only Wagner's
dramas but the music of the songs OF
Schubert, Schumann, Franz, Brahms
and other masters cf German lyricism--
the music Of composers who wrote be-
fore the materiaiism created by Ger
man Imperialism had crushed the cre-
| ative spirit out of German music. Let
it not be forgotten that the days Of
! Germany's greatness in literature and
music were antecedent to her political
greatness. The soil of Pruss; anism
has produced nothing in art. The last
truly great composer who lived down
into the days of the empire in the line
OF succession to Haydn, Mozart, Bee
thoven, Schubert and Schumann was
Brahms, and he WAS the son of the
once free city of Hamburg, as his pred
ecessors were sons of the people OF
their petty states. The great dead
owed nothing to Germany united under
the yoke of Prussia--neither the poets
who were destroyed by the monarchs
whom they had compelled to emanci-
pate themselves, nor the composers who
sang in blissful carelessness of the
political conditions which surrounded
them. Beethoven only loomed up in hi,
time as democrat willing to remain
estranged from his native Rhineland
chafng under the bonds which held
him in Vienna damning the regime
which gave him of its bounty and ad.
| niring the English and their constitu.
ton. "You have heads on your shout,
ders in England" said he to an English
visitor, and on his deathbed he called
for a reading Of the entire speech OF
Canning advocating the recognition o.
the independence Of the South Ameri.
can republics. But we must not listen
even to Beethoven's celebration Of con.
jugal love and fidelity because "Fidelio'
has German words.
German Operas and German
Singers at the Metropolitan
"Patting aside the question: of Ian
guage, however, it was sound and sen.
sibie, as well rs proper and practical
to put taboo upon enemy aliens ir
g.. - r.