The New York herald., 1922-02-12


or small, that can survive fifteen
"Salome'' four or five times season
discerned its gradually increasing p
slowly aging joints. But after three
with gray hairs upon its brow and v
very trill that was whistled through
when the maddened girl kissed the
but just a trick Of Instrumentation
tricks.
Some who had heard the opera
themselves what was the matter w
discover in it none of the dread, no
of impending doom that made the VI
was the matter? Did we fail to
tious instrument which we were told
would make crimes without name
sound from out the midst of the vir-
gin violins and invioiate violas?
Certainly it was not because Miss
Garden did not deliver her music in
the true Strauss manner. Miss Sara
Anderson, a singer of this city, was
engaged once upon a time to sing the
role Of Herodids in Gratz. DR.. Richard
Strauss conducted the rehearsals and
objected vigorously to Miss Anderson's
singing because it was too accurate in
intonation.
Imagine" he said, ''that you are
singing precisely what the orchestra is
playing. but half tone higher
Singing Always Pungent.
And how the composer admired the
matchless Carl Burrian, who could al
ways be off the pitch. No, it was not
Miss Gardens singing, which is in the
"Salome" of the celebrated Richard
Strauss exactly what the composer de-
sircs. To be sure. it is not always
sharp; sometimes it is fiat; but it is
never anything but pungent.
No. the true cause of the failure of
"Salome" to renew the impressions of
it's early days was old age. And what
made it so easy for us all to perceive
the weakness of the score? Experi-
ence, the silent teacher. That is the
answer We have lived much since
1907. Much music has come into the
ken of New Workers. They have had
many shudders. They have watched
the serene old Chinese doctor singing
his philosophic advice to the man he
has Just siain. while the unsuspectins
policeman walks past. Then the old
doctor lights his cigar and strolls
calmly away, while the dead miscreant
slips in human sprawl to the ground.
That is gruesome. And while the
music wants the storm. and stress OF
that which accompanies the actions Of
Salonte, IL lacks little in its fitness to
the situation.
They have watched the blind old
Archibdldo treading in tottering feet,
but with the awful certainty of fate,
in the steps of the lovely Flora and her
impassioned lover. They have seen
that sightless embodiment Of doom
seize the tender little flower and crush
out her life in merciless hands. And in
all that opera they have heard music
so beautiful, so throbbing with pas
sion. that it makes the chickering's OF
the febrile "Salome" sound like the
gathering of goat hoofs before the
affairs of Pallas Athene.
They have watched the helpless
writhing of n usurpng Car in the
arms of retributive conscience. They
have beheld him haunted and crazed
by the specter fashioned out of his
own imaginings and they have seen
him die, harried into the very grave
by the unquiet shade of his victim.
We might go on citing the uncon-
sidered inf acnces which have oper-
ated to educate the public mind to a
level above that of the bawdy tragedy
of Oscar Wilde set to tumultuous,
strident and generally empty music by
the most accomplished musical per-
former Of our times, Richard Strauss.
Music in 'saIomc.'
There Is no really beautiful music in
"Salome." There is some which is
: violent in its manner of expressing the
girls fcehly frenzies, but when the
composer makes his climax with the
sweeping love measures OF the last
---rc rt Is impossible for any disin-
+. terested observer to be deceived. He
holds TIE music to the text and finds
that while the former sings # some-
thing like an operate love, the latter
invites US to consider female de-
generate in the very elimination OF
ber degeneracv Miss Garden Lost
rothing Of this episode. What she did
after ske haa finished fondling the