New-York tribune., 1922-01-21
Wholesome FOolerv
Heard in a Recital
At the Town Hall
Ballet Intime Has Delicious
Content; Then Therel Is Car
penter's CrotesquePr
tion Based on 'krazy Kat
By H. E. krehbiel

After Bunthorne had rec;tod his ooh.
Hollow wild. weird, feshly thing
which was not hunting song but the
vail OF poets heart on discovering
that everything in this world is com
Ynonplace. and the rspturous maidens
have heard it clingng passionately to
one another and thinking of faint
be nonsense. "Nonscnse, yes says
Sapho, but. oh, what precious non
sense. There was good deal Of
precious and modicum of WHOLESOME
nonsense in the entertainment. called
Concert and Ballet 1ntime. given in
Town Hall yesterday afternoon. The
latter sort was found in part of the
music composed by John Alden Carpen-
ter for a grotesque ballet based on the
"Krazy Kat" newspaper cartoons,
though why the composer thought them
humorous enough to waste his talent
upon them is only little less eNpica-
Bile than the solemnity with which he
expoundcd them in mis- note on the pro-
gram. He might have written his Kat
nip Blues to illustrate his conception
of what can be accomplished with
music of the "jazz' type as he has
done in q couple Of songs which bear
pen name, We believe) and let it find
appreciation through performances at
sucn places as the Rialto and Rivoli
theaters, where there arc good orches-
tras. and let il 90 at that. The wear-
ness OF the flesh and vexation OF spirit
to which he and his associates sub
jected an audience. which had some of
the attributes of Mr.. Gilbcrt's raptur-
Gus maidens. might have been spared
the folk with normal musical stomachs
who had to wait two hours for il yes
terday and endure a monstrous deal of
precious music by Szmanwsk and Pol
dowski meanwhile.
For NEST Of the music Eve except
Mr.. Carpenters songs sung by Nine.
Povla Frijsch) we confess to be at a
loss for fitting terms Of characteriza-
tion. Nine. Poldowski's panoforte
pieces may have been Studies in the
evasion of Triad Harmonies, or Fleet
ing, Flocculent Fancics in Tonal Fluid
tiles, or Venture some Vagarics III
musical Vacuity, or Specious Spasms
of Sporadic Sonorous Spume, or Nor
bid Musings over Amorphous Melodies
or-anything you p'ease. The room
was too dark part Of the time to read
by discovering that a piece for clari-
net and planoforte was not "The Dying
Child but a dance; but when The
Dying Child was performed we dis
covered that it made but little d'%er
ence that we had got the first button
OF our musical coat into the second but
tonhole. for the clarinet gursled
pianissmo at The end, and when the
child dlew its last breath the iddies
also gurg'ed panissimo Mr.. Szyma-
nowsSi's songs. sung by Miss Alice
Miriam, were wild, weird. disembodied
things. There were = few moments
gracious to eye and ear in dance by
Mareit Leeraas. entitled "White Pea
cock" but the music for this (by the
late Charles T. Critics needed no panto-
mimic illustration to be charming, while
Serge Prokofef's transcription Of a
pianoforte piece. was made not whit
more tolerable by the prancing of
Adolph Boim, which was supposed to
turn it into a Suggestion Diabolique." ="
There was more than q suggestion Of
the kind in the music itself. Mr..
Barrere and his Little Symphony were
implicated in the singular affair, and
while Mr. Carpenter on'y saw and
heard "Krazy Kat he helped to give
the pleasure which Nine. Frjsch pro
vded by his songs.