The New York herald., 1922-12-24

and Man" At the same concert those
who remained after this reporter had
hastily emerged heard Carl Rug
gles's angels" This was the second
movement of a symphonic poem III
three parts, Men," Angels" ana
Sun Treader."
These composers are the real people.
Mr.. Ruggles,s Angels" are repre-
sented by six muted trumpets. The
treatment was no fugal. In fact these
latest representative composers scorn
the methods Of the ancients. They do
not, as Mr.. Hoaegger has demon
strated, abandon the sonata form as
useless, but they employ 1t simply as
A. musical pattern. When they begin
TO be representative they put aside
such childish things as sonatas; and
small blame to them.
Richard Strauss also brushed away
sonatas when he set out. as he himself
Informed us, ito convey musically an
idea Of the development Of the human
race from its origin through the vari-
GUS phases Of development (religious
AZ well as scientific) up to Nietzsche's
idea Of the Uebermench. the Beyond
Man of Goethe"
But all the masters Of representative
music up to this day have rested their
methods on the fundamental principles
Of musical art. They have endeavored
to preserve outline. They have not
shown any inclination toward theory
that tone painting should be some
thing merely decorative in pattern or
instrumental color. They have made
a brave effort to adapt the represen-
tative theme system Of Wagner to ab-
solute music. If they have not en-
tirely succeeded It is possibly not their
fault. 1t is perhaps the truth that
music is not geographically repre-
sentative art.
The New Tone Poets.
These new tone poets prove in the
last analysis to be nearer the fathers
of the art than Strauss and Stravinsky
are. Remember Couperin away back
in the early eighteenth century COM
posing whole catalogues OF little clave-
Gin pieces with such titles as la Dill
gente," ia Flateuse," ia Prude,"
''Manon." "Babet," "Angelique" and
moro of the Same kind. Play the
pieces. They are representative of
almost nothing. The titles could be
shaken up in a dice box and redis-
tributed without offense to our artistic
conceptions.
When Mr.. Rudhyar smites out one
ponderous chord after another without
rhythm or melodic outline and stops
apparently only when he gets tired, he
is quite within his artistic rights IL he
scribbles over the top of the first page
"Luciferian Stanza" and forthwith
sends Il to his publisher. There is no
reason why he should not have called
il "A Dobsonlan Triolet" or "a Child's
Garden OF Curses
A man has right TO christen his
dog or his horse as he pleases. Why
not also his music? Ii you or think
that the dog is rudely tried by the ap-
pellation of Cerbcrus or that the horse
does not look like n Pegasus or that
the music is less like Lucifer than like
the place he was sent to, the failure Is
in US. not In the art work.
This kind OF comment is said to be
extremely Objectionable to musicians.
It is sometimes called an attempt at
bright writing" This means in less
evasive English that the critic Is maxi
ing fun of tho musician. and there is
no musician who believes that under
any conditions can he do anything
rendering him liable to rldicule. But
the fact is that the time honored priv
ilepo OF criticism to chastise bad ar
tistic manners with smile Is rarely
used. Certainly II Is never claimed
when the writer is considering what
looks to him like honest effort.
Aro Advanced Composers Honest.
Dut--and here comes the rub--are
all these far advanced composers
honest? DO they really believe that
what they are doing is musical, that 1t
is artistic. that II is going to con-
tribute anything to the development
Of song or symphony Or are they
merely, as many Of us suspect, just
trying to mako us sit up?
DR.. Eaglefield Hull gravely records
in his biography Of Cyril Scott, the
British composer, that Il. Holland